Embrace (9 page)

Two men in blue EMT uniforms walked in, one holding a black leather bag. The taller of the two knelt down in front of Kaylee and shined a light in her eyes.

“Pupils are normal.” He proceeded to take her blood pressure, which was elevated. Her temperature was normal. He stood back up. “She’s not showing the common symptoms of someone who’s under the influence. We’ll take her to the hospital. I’m sure they’ll want to do blood work.”

I could have told them what the blood work was going to show. Nothing. Something else was wrong; why didn’t they see that?

“I’ll get the stretcher,” the second paramedic said.

“I can walk.” Kaylee stood.

Josh and I followed her lead, our fingers laced through hers. She trembled. Josh switched which hand he used to hold hers and wrapped his arm around her waist for support.

The paramedics exchanged looks. After a moment, the first nodded.

Kaylee pulled Josh and me closer. “Don’t leave me.”

“Never,” Josh whispered to Kaylee. Louder, he said, “We’re coming.”

I half expected someone to tell us we couldn’t go, but no one did.

The taller paramedic led the way out of school. His partner followed. When we reached the ambulance, the first paramedic turned to us. “You’ll have to follow us in your car.”

Kaylee squeezed my hand even harder. I yelped. Josh placed his hand under her chin and tilted her face up to his. “We will be right behind you. I promise.”

She nodded and let the paramedic help her into the ambulance.

At the hospital, a pert nurse stopped us just outside of Kaylee’s examining room and asked, “You are?”

“Her brother and sister,” I replied quickly, hoping if she thought we were related to Kaylee she wouldn’t make us stay in the waiting room. It worked.

Kaylee’s parents arrived shortly after us.

The whole afternoon was surreal. Kaylee kept a tight grip on either Josh’s or my hand at all times. Her eyes never stopped roaming the room. They ran test after test, but wouldn’t tell us anything. It was unnerving, so Josh and I resorted to eavesdropping on her parents’ conversation.

“The MRI didn’t show any abnormalities,” we heard her father saying to her mother, “and the initial blood work came back negative. Her doctor is wondering if she’s having some type of post trauma from her near-death experience with the semi.”

There was a pause, and then her mother blew her nose and asked the question that was on the tip of my tongue. “Can that happen?”

“I don’t know,” her father replied. “The chief of medicine still believes it’s some type of drug.”

Josh and I kept the promise we’d made to Kaylee at school: we didn’t leave her alone. We sat in stiff hospital chairs as she rested, eyes closed. For a few minutes, she actually appeared to be getting better. Then her eyes popped open, and fear overtook her face.

“Get them off me!” Kaylee pushed the cover away from her. “Help me!”

Josh and I brushed and patted and swatted at the unseen. We wanted to help her, but there seemed to be no way how. The doctor came in with two burly orderlies. The orderlies held Kaylee down while the doctor slammed a needle into her butt. Kaylee went limp.

Now
she was on drugs.

After that, the doctor insisted Josh and I go home. The sedative would make Kaylee sleep. He felt that if it were something she had taken, it would be out of her system by morning. He assured us they’d take good care of her. With no other choice, Josh drove me home.

It took me forever to fall asleep. Around two, I was jarred awake by Kaylee’s screams, only to realize it was a dream. It seemed so real. After that, I slept lightly, too afraid of what my imagination had in store for me.

I woke Friday morning in need of aspirin and a shower, which I had respectively.

Josh picked me up a little after eight. We had no intention of going to school.

“Isaac said to tell you he’d meet up with you later,” Josh said. “He’s going to talk to Kaylee’s second and third period teachers.”

I nodded. “I don’t get it, Josh. She was fine in English yesterday. What could have happened in just a few hours?”

“I’m not sure.” Josh ran a hand through his wet mop of black hair. “But Kaylee didn’t do this to herself.”

“You think someone did this to her on purpose? Like drugged her or something?”

“I’m going with
something
,” Josh mumbled in a low growl.

Between the lack of sleep and trying to make sense of the previous day, my head hurt so badly it was buzzing like a swarm of angry bees. Kaylee had to be better. She just had to be.

“I’ll bet she’s fine this morning,” I said with forced confidence. “Let’s stop at the coffee house on the way to the hospital. A mocha always cheers her up.”

We walked down the sterile halls of the hospital, armed with three large coffees and a bag of muffins. Josh and I had managed to convince ourselves everything would be back to normal. Kaylee would be sitting up in bed, smiling at us.

We couldn’t have been more wrong. My latte nearly slipped from my grip when I saw the black straps around Kaylee’s wrists.

A nurse, who had been adjusting the drip on the IV, whispered, “She had a slight setback.”

“Setback?” I choked out. “What type of setback gets a person strapped to her bed?”

Josh set his and Kaylee’s coffee on the small tray near the window. “What happened?”

“She woke around two, screaming. When we came into her room, she was standing on the bed, hitting the wall and bed frame with her pillow.” The nurse patted Kaylee’s hand. “The straps are just a precaution. We don’t want her to injure herself.”

So much for normal.

I fixed the collar on Kaylee’s pink pajamas and untangled a few strands of her hair that were caught in the clasp of the onyx necklace. Josh pushed a couple of chairs closer to the bed before he leaned over and kissed her forehead. She opened her eyes and squeezed our hands.

“Hey.” I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. “How are you doing?”

Kaylee gave a sad sort of smile. She squeezed our hands again and closed her eyes. The beep of the heart monitor was steady. Josh and I, unsure if she was resting or asleep, talked about anything we could think of, hoping it would bring back our Kaylee. I drank my latte, praying the caffeine would chase away the pounding in the back of my head. Josh and I picked at the muffins, more for something to do than because we were hungry.

Her parents came into the room, carrying Styrofoam cups of coffee from the hospital cafeteria. Her mother’s brunette hair lay flat against her head; dark shadows lined her eyes. Her father’s salt and pepper hair stuck out like a shaggy dog’s. Their clothes were wrinkled. They had clearly spent the night at the hospital.

We took turns staying with Kaylee. I preferred when she slept, and I hated myself for that, but when Kaylee was awake, her eyes roamed the room, eventually locking onto some unseen force, and her heart would begin to race.

The doctors still didn’t know what was wrong with her. She wasn’t sick. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did. I could feel that much.

Chapter 7

Searching

I
T
W
AS
L
ATE
A
FTERNOON
when Josh dropped me off at my house. I called Isaac, but he didn’t answer his phone. My dad tried to get me to join him and Chase for dinner, but I couldn’t eat. I was too worried about Kaylee.

Saturday turned out to be a repeat of Friday.

By Sunday morning, I wanted answers. I needed to do something to help Kaylee. So I decided to research her symptoms myself. I turned on the computer in the corner of our family room before going into the kitchen to grab a cola from the fridge.

“Don’t spill that on the keyboard,” Dad said.

“I won’t.”

I twisted off the top and took a long swig while I walked back to the family room. I sat in our old swivel desk chair, pulled my knees to my chest, and waited for the computer to finish booting up. It was at times like these I wished we had a newer computer with a high-speed connection.

I really didn’t know where to begin, so I started to type in the illnesses I’d overheard while at the hospital. Each one resulted in thousands of possible links. I quickly found which sites offered the most concise explanation of the diseases along with symptoms and common treatments; I couldn’t help wondering how doctors kept it all straight. A couple hours must have gone by, and I was no closer to helping Kaylee than the doctors were.

“Try panic attacks,” Dad said from behind me.

Panic disorder
came up.

My dad read over my shoulder. “The symptoms match.”

“But the causes don’t,” I said, deflated. “Besides, her parents would know if her family had a history of panic disorder, and Kaylee is the least stressed person on the planet.”

“Keep searching.” He patted my shoulder. “You’ll find something. I have to get your brother dressed.”

I just kept clicking on different links. One led me to
mental illness
, and I started to check the history of these diseases. There was data going back to the sixteen hundreds.

All of the articles mentioned witchcraft. One of them included a picture of two girls, maybe twelve or fourteen, dressed in nightgowns like those worn in the seventeenth century. One of the girls crouched in a corner pulling at her hair. The other stood on a bed, apparently trying to climb the wall. Their eyes were haunted. Either one of them could have been Kaylee.

The caption below the picture read:

A properly cast curse will leave its victim defenseless and often a danger to herself. Medicine is frequently given to sedate the victim.

I followed a link to another site. If I believed what I read, a curse was cast of the dark, drawing from the powers of evil, costing the spell-giver a piece of their soul.

I clicked on link after link. Passages seemed to leap from the screen:

There are two types of witches: the ones who call upon outside forces to give them power and the natural witch whose powers lie dormant within them until they are awakened.

And,

Natural witches are rarely evil and have the ability to recognize one another through simple touch.

I kept reading, thinking that this just couldn’t be real. Magic was a trick of the eye. A skill that used illusion to give the appearance that the impossible was possible. As I read on, though, my skepticism wavered. The sites I found had me thinking there was much more to magic than pulling a rabbit out of a hat. I’d heard that people only use a fraction of their brain. What if someone could tap into that unused portion and harness power from within themselves, and then use that power to do their bidding? Hadn’t I woken determined to do whatever I could to help Kaylee? Maybe that meant believing in the obscure.

Besides, Kaylee had gone from happy and confident to miserable and schizophrenic in minutes. Her symptoms certainly fit the actions of a person who has been cursed.

I drank in the pictures and the words with a hunger that grew into vengeance. Believing more and more that I’d found what ailed Kaylee, I wondered how this could have happened and who would wish something so evil on her.

Several sites warned about witches who brought destruction and bad fortune wherever they went, claiming these witches would draw to them the people they hurt. Another site felt a witch who used her powers carelessly would be easy for other witches to recognize. Power would leak from their very pores and bleed into every word they spoke, tainting the air with magic that could be tasted and felt.

The more I read, the more I believed people really could have powers. Something about the idea resonated through me. It felt exactly right.

Eventually, it was as if the words screamed at me:
souls condemned
,
elements
,
the power of three times three
,
talismans
,
hexes
,
circle
,
sigil
…

The last site had my heart pumping:

Test the powers within you with a simple spell.

I slid the mouse up and to the left. The cursor followed—highlighting the picture of a printer—and I clicked on it. Our inkjet woke from sleep mode and churned out the article I’d been reading. I printed a few of the others before shutting it down.

If witchcraft was real and someone did curse Kaylee, they were going to pay. One way or another I would see to that.

The steady grumble of my dad’s old lawn mower could be heard coming from the front yard. Good for me, because I needed a few things from the kitchen, and there was no way he’d let me take seasonings, stemware, and cutlery upstairs without asking me what I was doing. I already knew how crazy I’d look.

With the stack of newly printed papers clenched in my hand, I raced to the kitchen. Chase was pulling a full gallon of milk out of the fridge, clutching the flimsy plastic container with both hands.

“Let me get that.” I managed to hook a finger under the handle before he dropped it.

Chase’s cups were in the same cabinet as the stemware. The spell called for a chalice, but we were fresh out. I set one of my mom’s delicate wine glasses on the counter and grabbed a Lightning McQueen mug for Chase.

“Is Kaylee better yet?” he asked.

“I hope so.” I wasn’t about to tell my six-year-old brother the doctors didn’t even know what was wrong with her.

“I made her a card.” He pointed to the table. It looked like an art store had exploded in that corner of the kitchen. There were as many pieces of brightly colored construction paper stuck to the top of the table as were glued to the white paper he used for the base of his card. Crayons were everywhere. His plastic zigzag scissors were on the floor under his chair.

“She’s going to love it,” I said.

“I bet she ate at that hotdog stand near the pet store. Remember how sick I got from their food?”

“I do.” Chase had thrown up half the night after eating a cheese dog and fries there.

I handed him the cup of milk, put the gallon back in the fridge, then rummaged around in the silverware drawer for a knife. I decided the long bread knife was overkill, yet a butter knife didn’t seem to have any mystical power to it. I needed something that resembled a small dagger. The carving knife drying in the dish rack near the sink caught my eye.

I’d just wrapped my fingers around the black handle when Chase asked, “What are you doing?”

What was I doing? Preparing an altar to perform magic? Like it was real. Like people went around blinking or pointing a finger or waving a wand and
poof
, whatever they were thinking at that very moment came true. If life were that easy, there’d be no need to work for anything.

Lack of sleep finally caught up with me. I slid the knife into the drawer. While I had spent hours surfing the Internet looking for a magical cure, Kaylee was alone, laid up in the hospital. Nice friend I was.

“I gotta go,” I said to Chase before racing to the front door.

Chase trailed behind me. “Are you going to see Kaylee? Can I come?”

“Not this time.”

He frowned. Instead of arguing, though, he held out his hand. “Can you give her this?”

“Yeah.” I took the colorful card from him, snatched my dad’s keys off the small table near the stairs, and dashed outside.

Hoping Dad didn’t need to go anywhere that day, I waved my arms over my head to get his attention. He cut the engine on the lawn mower and walked over to me.

“Can I borrow your truck?” I asked.

He looked past me at his pick-up truck. It was one of those extended cab deals with a shiny silver lockbox that held his tools and a hard cover over the bed to hide the ladders and poles and other bulky supplies Dad used on a regular basis. The thing was a monster and his entire business on wheels. And I wasn’t the greatest at parking it.

“Just be careful and park away from other cars.”

“I will.”

Kaylee had to be suffering from a type of panic disorder. It was the only explanation for her sudden outbursts. She wasn’t getting better because she was scared, and who wouldn’t be scared not knowing what was happening to them? The article Dad and I had found said that a person who suffers from panic disorders often worries about when the next attack will occur. Kaylee was probably consumed with fear, wondering when her symptoms would flare up again. The pressure to remain calm and in control would cause anyone to lose it. If Kaylee understood what was happening to her, she would be able to relax. She’d get better.

I laughed out loud at how simple it was. How the doctors were missing the obvious. If they’d just stop sedating her and take the time to address the problem, Kaylee would be home thinking about homework and the festival and, of course, the guys.

I turned up the radio and sang along. The sun peeked out from behind puffy white clouds, promising a bright and cheery day. I should have grabbed a deck of cards before I left the house. Kaylee had to be sick of being cooped up in a sterile room with nothing to do.

I pulled into a parking space at the back of the visitors’ lot, well clear of any other vehicles to keep Dad happy, and once inside the hospital, I made a quick stop at the gift shop. Minutes later I was riding the cramped elevator to the seventh floor, the latest copy of
Cosmopolitan
tucked under my arm and Raisinets and Jelly Bellies tucked in my purse. I wished I’d thought to grab a pint of Chunky Monkey ice cream—Kaylee’s favorite.

The doors slid open, revealing a tiny waiting area. Four navy blue vinyl chairs sat across from public restrooms. The corridor to my left led to patients suffering from different neurological disorders, which I knew from a conversation I’d overheard the other day on my way up. Kaylee was straight through the waiting area, down a similar corridor. I’d walked this route so many times in the past few days, I could have found her room with my eyes closed. I hoped this day would be the last time.

A nurse in a light pink lab coat smiled as I walked by her. When I turned the corner, I saw a guy with short dark hair leaving Kaylee’s room, which was at the far end of the hall. He went in the opposite direction. I squinted, trying to get a better look at him.

“Isaac!” I half yelled.

The guy didn’t even flinch. He was tall, wearing faded jeans and a dark sweatshirt. I couldn’t see his face, but the back of his head really looked like Isaac’s.

I picked up my pace and called his name again. A nurse poked her head out of one of the rooms, her nose scrunched up in a disapproving manner.

“Sorry,” I mumbled as I rushed past her.

The guy was in the elevator when I reached the end of the corridor, his shoulder the only visible part of him.

“Wait! Hold the—”

A piercing scream echoed from behind me, bouncing off the bright white walls and stopping me in my tracks. “Kaylee.”

Her name had barely made it out of my mouth as I watched the elevator door close. If that
had
been Isaac, he would have rushed back out. No way could he not have heard the frantic cry for help. I bolted back the way I came, reaching Kaylee’s room at the same time as a slew of hospital workers, including a burly male security guard.

Kaylee bucked in her bed, back arched, trying to get as much of her body off the mattress as the straps around her wrist would allow.

“Get her doctor!” a nurse yelled over her shoulder. She stood next to Kaylee’s bed, looking afraid to touch her. Mrs. Bishop was on the other side of the bed, face as white as a ghost and eyes red from the tears that just wouldn’t come anymore. The security guard went to take a step forward, but I jumped in front of him, pushing the nurse aside on my way to Kaylee.

“These straps are just scaring her more!” I screamed.

What was wrong with them? Since when do the people who are supposed to heal the sick resort to tying patients to beds? The whole situation infuriated me.