“And they led to this girl?”
“Yes,” the coachman said. “She was curled up in the roots of a tree, asleep. And in her fist was a human heart.”
17
MY EYES FLEW OPEN. THE VIVID COLORS OF MY nightmare were washed away by whiteness.
I was in bed, staring at a ceiling. But I wasn’t in my bed; I wasn’t at home. My skin was damp with sweat and my heart was racing. I reached for the dream, tried to catch it before it drifted away.
“How are you feeling?”
The last traces of it dissolved with the voice. I let out a slow breath and leaned up on stiff, creaky elbows to see who it belonged to. A man with a brown ponytail edged into my field of vision. I recognized him, but didn’t remember his name.
“Who are you?” I asked cautiously.
The man smiled. “I’m Patrick, and you fainted. How are you feeling?” he asked again.
I closed my eyes. I’m feeling sick of feeling sick. “Fine,” I said.
Dr. Kells appeared behind Patrick then. “You scared us, Mara. Do you have hypoglycemia?”
My thoughts were still slow but my heart was still racing. “What?”
“Hypoglycemia,” she repeated.
“I don’t think so.” I swung my legs over the side of the hard little bed. I shook my head but that only intensified the ache. “No.”
“Okay. The blood work will let us know for sure.”
“Blood work?”
She glanced at my arm. A piece of cotton was taped to the crook of my elbow; someone had taken off my hoodie and draped it over the foot of the cot. I pressed my hand against the sensitive skin there and tried not to look freaked out.
“It was an emergency. We were concerned about you,” Dr. Kells felt the need to explain. Which meant I apparently did look freaked out. “We called your mother—she sent your father here to pick you up early. I’m sure it’s nothing, but better safe than sorry.”
I stewed in silence until he arrived. He smiled widely when he saw me, but I could tell he was worried. He hunched down.
“How’re you feeling?”
Upset that they drew blood. Angry that I fainted. Scared it will happen again, because it happened before.
It happened before a flashback at the art exhibit Noah brought me to, and after a midnight hunt for my brother. It happened after I drank chicken blood in a Santeria shop that no longer seemed to exist. And each time I fainted, the borders of reality blurred, leaving me confused. Disoriented. Unsure of what was real. It made it hard to trust myself, and that was hard to bear.
But of course I couldn’t tell my father any of this, and he was waiting for an answer. So I just said, “They drew blood,” and left it at that.
“They were scared for you,” he said. “And it turns out your blood sugar was low. Want to go for ice cream on the way home?”
He looked so hopeful, so I nodded for his benefit.
He cracked a smile. “Fantastic,” he said, and helped me up off the cot. I swiped my hoodie and we moved toward the exit; I looked for Jamie on the way out but he was nowhere to be found.
My father leaned over a hutch by the front door and pulled out a thick-handled umbrella from a bin. “Cats and dogs out there,” he said, nodding through the glass. Sheets of rain battered the pavement and my dad struggled with the umbrella as he opened the door. I hugged my arms across my chest, staring out at the parking lot from our haven beneath the overhang. I wondered what time it was; the only other car in the lot besides my father’s was an old white pickup truck. The rest of the spaces were empty.
My dad made an apologetic face. “I think we’re going to have to make a run for it.”
“You sure you can run?”
He patted the spot beneath his rib cage. “Fit as a fiddle. Are you sure you can run?”
I nodded.
“Otherwise you can have the umbrella.”
“I’m good,” I said, staring into the rain.
“Okay. On the count of three. One,” he started, bending his front knee. “Two . . . Three!”
We dashed out into the deluge. My father tried to hold the umbrella over my head but it was pointless. By the time we threw open our respective car doors, we were soaked.
My dad shook his head, scattering droplets of rain onto the dashboard. He grinned, and it was infectious. Maybe ice cream was a good idea after all.
He started the car and began to pull out of the parking lot. Reflexively, I checked my refection in the side mirror.
My hair was plastered to my face, and I was pale. But I looked okay. Maybe a little thin. A little tired. But normal.
Then my reflection winked. Even though I hadn’t.
I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes. I was seeing things because I was stressed. Afraid. It wasn’t real. I was fine.
I tried to make myself believe it. But when I opened my eyes, a light flashed in the mirror, blinding me.
Just headlights. Just headlights from the car behind us. I twisted in my seat to see, but the rain was so heavy that I couldn’t make out anything but the lights.
My father pulled out of the lot and onto the road, and the headlights followed us. Now I could see that they belonged to a truck. A white pickup truck.
The same one from the strip mall parking lot.
I shivered and huddled into my hoodie, then reached out and turned on the heat.
“Cold?”
I nodded.
“That New England blood is thinning out fast,” my father said with a smile.
I offered a weak one of my own in return.
“You okay, kid?”
No. I glanced into the fogged glass of the side mirror. The headlights still hovered behind us. I twisted around to see better through the rear window, but I couldn’t see who was driving.
The truck followed us onto the highway.
I felt sick. I wiped my clammy forehead with my forearm and squeezed my eyes shut. I had to ask. “Is that the same truck from the parking lot?” I tried not to sound paranoid, but I needed to know if he saw it too.
“Hmm?”
“Behind us.”
My father’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. “What parking lot?”
“At Horizons,” I said slowly, through clenched teeth. “The one we left ten minutes ago.”
“Dunno.” His eyes flicked back to the road. He obviously hadn’t noticed, and didn’t think it was a particularly big deal.