"Enough." Ian yelled the word so loudly that everyone gasped. "Her name is irrelevant. When she wakes?if she wakes?she will tell us her given name. Until then, I shall call her Selena. You may each do as you wish."
"No!" Dotty hissed. "You must never use real names. It's too dangerous. Call her the seabird."
Johann rolled his eyes. "Someone has got to convince oatmeal-head here that the War Between the States is over. However, I do believe that we must choose one name. Otherwise she'll be confused."
"Who will?" Maeve asked, stroking the badger.
Ian forced himself to take a deep breath. He needed that scotch now more than ever. His mother's dementia was hard enough to handle without the whole damned circus. "I believe he's speaking of our patient, Mother."
"Oh."
"We must follow Dr. Carrick's lead," Andrew pleaded, looking at his housemates.
"All right then," Johann conceded. "Selena it is."
"Then we are agreed," Ian said, thoroughly disgusted by the entire affair.
"On what?" Maeve asked, frowning.
"The patient, Mother. We shall call her Selena."
Maeve's frown deepened. "Oh. I thought you'd decided that hours ago."
"Her fever's gone."
Ian heard Edith's words through a fog of exhaustion. It took a moment to register. Fever ... gone. He snapped up so quickly, the chair wobbled beneath
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him. Suddenly he was wide-awake. He ran a hand through his dirty hair and surged to his feet. "Are you certain?"
"Aye, Doctor. I am." She handed him the long, narrow thermometer designed by Hicks.
He took the prismatic strip of glass and looked down at it.
His knees almost buckled in relief. He realized in that instant the magnitude of his obsession with her. As desperately as he wanted her to live, he hadn't thought it would happen. Not really. Not with his view of the Almighty.
He reached out for the back of the chair and clutched it for support. "Jesus, it is almost normal."
"You said if her fever went away, the poor wee thing might have a chance."
He gave Edith a grin. "It's a start, anyway, Edith. Hurry up now, let's get this ice off of her and close the windows. Get her a warm flannel nightdress and drawers, and new sheets and blankets."
"Aye, Doctor," Edith answered with a smile, and bustled from the room, leaving him?for once?alone with his patient.
Ian pulled his chair back to Selena's bedside and sank onto the familiar straw seat, leaning toward her. He felt an overwhelming surge of emotion for the woman who lay motionless before him.
"You did it." His voice broke. "You did it." He took one of her hands in his, reveling in the warm, dry, healthy temperature of her skin. "That's it, Selena. You're doing my work for me."
She lay there as always, limp and unresponsive, the slack opening of her mouth invaded by tubing. The rough, rattling determination of her breathing was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard. It was the fight for life, and she hadn't once given up.
"I never tried as hard as you're trying right now," he whispered, surprised by his own confession and the
37
truth of it. All his life, he'd taken the easy road and run away from anything that frightened or confused him. Normally he didn't think about his cowardice or his failures, but now, sitting here all alone with his goddess, he couldn't avoid thinking about them, his lost and broken dreams. He remembered a dozen moments, memories he'd thought had seeped away.
Times Maeve had taken him in her arms and read him stories and stroked his hair and kissed his brow; times she'd stared at him, unable to remember his name; times she'd screeched at him in front of his boyhood friends, railing at him about some imagined slight. And then there were the dark days, after his father's death, when she'd strolled through the manse like a lost spirit, moaning, crying, unrecognizing of everything and everyone. For almost two years, she hadn't spoken a word to anyone except those damned stuffed animals she kept in her room. He remembered so many nights, standing at her open door, his slim, adolescent body pressed into the shadows, watching her talk to those animals. They both needed consolation in those days, but she'd never come to him, never even looked him in the eyes.
So many failures. So many lost chances .. .
He leaned back, sighing heavily. "Christ, Selena, why can't I forget? What's wrong with me?"
He looked down at his silent patient, realizing he'd just said more to her than he'd ever said to another person.
It was a little frightening. In the endless hours he'd sat at Selena's bedside, he'd somehow given her a personality, a past and a future. Even worse, even more warped, he'd begun to fall in love with the fiction he'd created. A woman who didn't really exist.
God help him.
She was floating. The wind around her was warm finally. It buffeted her on soothing currents, rocked
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her as gently as a ... thing, small, green, stuck on a branch....
She frowned, trying to come up with the word, but the effort was paralyzingly difficult. The thought drifted away from her, left her with no more than a niggling sense that something was wrong. And then even that was gone.
"Howare youtoday ... goddess?" A low, rumbling bass noise from somewhere in the darkness.
She tried to open her eyes. She felt them begin to open, slowly, like the reluctant movement of a door that had been rusted shut for ages.
She saw something ... circle ... out of focus. No, not a circle ... round. Round, yes. Face. A face fringed by pale golden light. A halo. Angel.
"Wellhellothere." It was the same voice, soft and caressing and intimate. She realized now that she recognized it, that she'd heard it before today. It was the voice that had always been with her in the great, cold darkness, the voice beckoning for her to fightselena. She didn't know what it meant, what he wanted of her, but it was comforting somehow. "Areyoucold?"
Gibberish. Her head started to ache. The raw fire in her throat came back. "... knowwho ... youare?"
She could feel his expectation, his need, and she wanted to do what he wanted, but she didn't understand. Frustration welled up inside her.
She knew he was talking to her. She should be able to speak back to him, but she couldn't remember any of the words, or how to form them, or what to say.
She started to utter a low, growling sound of irritation, but the noise aborted itself, cut off by the harsh, unrelenting fire in her throat. "Wouldyoulikesome ... water?" Water. The word surprised her. She understood it.
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Yes, water. She had need of it in her throat. How did she tell him so?
The angel leaned closer. He pulled the thing from her throat. The pain was exquisite. She trembled, whimpered.
Then the thing was gone, and the pain in her throat
lessened.
"Hereyougo." Something warm and strong curled around her neck, brought her slowly upward. At the movement, her head started pounding. Hammering pain. She made a small, moaning sound and almost passed back into the darkness.
"Shhhh .. . s'okay . . ."
The angel's face swam before her eyes, wavery and out of focus still. Something cool and smooth touched her mouth. Water beaded on her lips. She could smell it, remember it. Her mouth watered, she became dizzy with the need to taste it, but she couldn't remember what to do.
A hot ache pulsed behind her eyes, left a film of stinging moisture.
"Don'tcry. . . . s'okay . .. here." He pressed the cool surface?glass!?between her lips. His touch was soft and sure and calmed her immediately. The strange moisture in her eyes dried. The clear vessel tilted, sent a tepid flood of water into her mouth.
She sputtered, coughed, then accidentally . ..
Swallowed. That was it. That's what she'd been supposed to do. She drank greedily, feeling the warm, slick water slide down her throat. Finally, exhausted, she sank back into the softness and closed her eyes.
The familiar darkness curled around her, an
d for a second, she was afraid. Afraid she would never awaken again, never see her angel's face again, never hear his gentle voice. Her heart beat faster.
He talked to her. The low, soothing strains of his voice wrapped around her, comforted her immediately. Very slowly, she opened her eyes again.
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This time she saw him in complete focus, and he was
so handsome that for a second she couldn't breathe. His
hair looked like a gold coin glinting in the sunlight, and
his eyes, they were the color of ... shoe? leaf? She
didn't know, couldn't remember the word to describe
his eyes, but she knew it didn't matter. She was looking
at an angel, fallen from the heavens. Or God Himself.
Yes, she thought sleepily. She'd been saved by God
Himself.
It was her last, pleasant thought as she slipped back into the darkness.
She had opened her eyes.
Even now, hours later, Ian clung to that glorious heartbeat of time, living and reliving it, shaping and reshaping it in his mind until it was bigger, better. She hadn't said anything, but that meant nothing. Less than nothing.
She had opened her eyes. It was a miracle. Grinning, he raced down the overgrown granite path from the house and surged into the dark night Overhead, the moon was a brilliant opalescent ball, wreathed in a glowing halo of light.
It was silent except for the methodic crunching of his heels on the timeworn stone. The sea was a distant thrum of waves on rock. He pushed his hands deeper in his pockets and laughed aloud. Christ, he felt good.
Over and over, he saw the image of Selena when she'd finally wakened. Finally, he'd seen the dark, mysterious brown of her eyes.
Just thinking about it sent exhilaration, blistering and liquid, coursing through his blood. He realized in that instant that he hadn't believed she'd wake up, not really. He thought she'd lie there in that too narrow bed and simply fade away.
For years, he'd pictured the Almighty as a cruel joke-ster, sitting on His gilded throne, playing with humans
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as if they were meaningless pieces on a great chessboard. That image, he could understand, could hate with equanimity; it allowed him to sit in the dark and nurse his animosity, allowed him to hide his curse from himself and an uncaring world.
But no more. God had finally answered one of Ian's prayers.
He turned in to his mother's sanctuary, the small garden she tended so zealously. Elegant wrought-iron fencing closed him in, created a small envelope in the darkness that was subtler, soothing. Every flower his mother planted was white, designed to catch the light of the moon. A great arching gazebo, grayed by time, stood in the center of the garden, its posts swaddled in thick brown wisteria vines. Inside the gazebo sat a forlorn granite bench, its lion's-claw feet set amidst a blanket of silvery new narcissus blossoms.
He closed the gate behind him and went to the bench, taking a seat on the cold, hard stone. Closing his eyes, he let the moonlight wash his face. Usually he stayed away from the yard when the moon was full; it somehow increased his psychic powers. Sometimes, on nights like tonight, he could "read" people's thoughts from far away, could know things about them by simply bringing their faces to his mind. But tonight he didn't care. He felt too good, too hopeful, to be afraid of anything?including his curse.
I can heal her, save her.
Touch her.
Mesmerizing possibilities drifted through his mind, images beckoned and challenged him. A dream took shape, bursting full force in his mind. She would be his greatest challenge yet. He would set the medical world on its ear with his brilliance. When he was finished with her, she'd be as healthy as she'd ever been, and doctors would come from miles around to see her, touch her, study her. And they would know that Ian Carrick was still the best physician in the world.
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He closed his eyes and imagined his glory in full, vibrant color. He saw the amphitheater at Harvard full of his colleagues, sitting forward on their seats, watching with greedy eyes as he led Selena onstage. His miraculous creation, smiling, walking, talking, after a vicious brain injury. He could almost hear the thunderous applause, almost see the standing ovation.
Soon, he thought. Wake up tomorrow and we can begin-----
Ah, he'd give his soul to see her wake up again, smiling and full of life. To hear the sound of her voice and the content of her thoughts.
He looked up at the sky and laughed heartily. Is that what You want? My soul?
"Fine," he said softly, "take it." Useless, unnecessary thing anyway.
What did he need with a soul, when the world lay open to him again, glittering, forgiving, accepting?
His for the asking.
Chapter Four
She felt herself floating toward the light. It beckoned and drew her forward. Very slowly, she opened her eyes. The light hurt. She blinked hard and tried to see the world around her, but everything was gray and dismal and hazy. Blurry and out of focus. Nothing familiar.
"Ohmygod ... get doctorcarrick."
People swarmed around her, their voices a great cacophony of frightening sound. She shrank into the comforting familiarity of the bed, clutching the lacy hem of the quilt.
The blurry strangers moved closer, so close that she could hear the muffled pattern of their breathing. Heels clicked on the floor, a knee banged the bed frame. They stared down at her, making noises, their mouths opening and closing, their fingers pointing down at her. Meaningless noise. Gibberish. She closed her eyes and tried to find the darkness again, but this time it was deep, deep inside her. And the light felt so good on her skin.
"Isshe stillawake?"
"He'shere." There was a burst of sound, a shuffling movement of the small crowd.
She writhed fitfully, afraid and hurting. Everywhere, pain. Her throat was on fire, and her head pounded. She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing they would be quiet, wishing they would leave her alone, wishing?
"Wellhellothere Selena. You'reback." 43
44
45
L
A great, soothing sense of calm moved through her at the sound of that voice. The tension in her taut body eased, her fingers unfurled slowly, shaking from the effort it had taken to keep them clenched. God. The angel who'd saved her.
She opened her eyes slowly. This time she could almost focus. The people were staring at her with worried looks on their faces, but they were farther back now, giving her room to breathe. Strangers, she thought. Strangers . . .
God was in the center of them all. He moved toward her, his breathlessly handsome face cast in an easy, reassuring smile. Very gently, he sat beside her on the bed. She felt the mattress dip heavily beneath his weight, heard the planks beneath it groan quietly.
"You gaveus quite ascare."
She didn't understand the sounds he was making, but the tone of his voice, so soft and caring and familiar, made her shiver in response. She felt an overwhelming surge of emotion for this golden man, this god who'd talked her through the darkness and touched her with such kindness. That hot, stinging moisture came back to her eyes.
"Don'tcry Selena. Don'tcry." His finger brushed the wetness away.
The words were lovely, as lyrical as a melody. She wanted to lean forward, to press her hands against his chest and feel the warmth of his skin, the rhythm of his heart. Behind him, the strangers moved in closer.
God turned to them. "Do you mind?"
In the single heartbeat that he turned away from her, she felt colder, lonelier. The sense of fear returned, became a low pounding in her blood.
Don't leave me. The words blossomed in her mind, full-blown and understood. She tried desperately to say them, to plead with him to crawl beneath the bedclothes with her and never turn away again, but somewhere be-
tween her brain and her mouth, the words mangled, became a croaking mush of hoarse sound.
He turned back to her, smile
d, and became even more exquisite. "It'sokay. Youneedn't speak."
Speak. Something about the sounds, speak, seemed familiar. It was a word. The sudden perception stunned her. A word, she thought, trying to fit the pieces together and failing miserably. A word that had some meaning.
She frowned. It was important that she remember, but she couldn't.
He brushed the hair from her eyes, and it felt so good. She didn't want to think about words that meant nothing. She closed her eyes to savor his touch, and realized only after he'd withdrawn it that something was wrong. Her hair felt ... matted. For the first time, she wondered how she looked. Was she worthy of this god's attention? Did she look like a fallen angel herself, sheathed in the pale ivory of the bed linens, her hair splayed out along her arms?
She couldn't imagine what she looked like, couldn't draw a single image of herself, not eye color or skin color or anything. But it didn't matter. She saw herself reflected in God's blue, blue eyes and knew that she pleased him.
"You didit doctorcarrick. You saved her."
Saved. It was another word she almost understood. The meaning taunted her, teased her consciousness with strange, unconnected images?a bank building, a cookie jar, a cross with a half-naked man nailed to it. Saved. Saved.
Understanding came like dawn, slow and creeping and with a shivering warmth. This god had saved her life. Kept her alive. But how? And from what? How did he know her?
She tried to ask a question, but her throat caught fire again and pain spilled down into her stomach.
"Justaminute." He eased the long, clear thing from
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her throat, and when it was gone, she breathed a sigh of relief. The pain abated.
She forced herself to try again. "Where . . ." She
frowned, her train of thought lost. What had she been
going to say? Where ... She tried to remember what
the word meant. It had come naturally to her, as if she
had once understood and used it easily. Now it was
gone, drifting away like an image from a dream, unre-
membered upon waking. All that remained was a vague,
illusory memory.
"Maine." God answered her forgotten question with another meaningless word. Once again, his deep, melodious voice washed through her, soothing even the pain in her throat. "You're at Lethe House on the coastof Maine. I've been caringfor you."
She had no idea what he'd said, but she could tell that he was waiting for her to respond. Images tumbled through her mind. Each new thought, each new image for which she had no word, added to a growing sense of unease. Tension tightened the muscles along her neck and shoulders. She wanted this god to stay beside her, talking to her in that wonderful voice, brushing the hair from her face. Without him, she would slip back into the darkness?she knew it somehow, knew he was the light through which she'd come back?and she couldn't face the nothingness again.
Words teased her, fuzzy and meaningless. She tried to latch on to one, to find some way to communicate, but nothing pushed through the quagmire of her mind. She swallowed, blinking slowly up at God, making certain he didn't look away.