Light the Shadows (A Grimm Novel) (2 page)

The door that loomed ahead was unlike the one she passed through before. This one was painted entirely white like all the others along the hallway. There was no knob or pretty carvings, and no sense of well-being. She didn’t care. She had to get out of there before they found a way to keep her in this freaky limbo. This had to be some kind of joke, a sick joke that had gone on far too long.

With a mighty shove, she burst through to the other side.

As soon as she crossed that threshold, her life
—what would become her second life—was changed forever.

Chapter Two

“Nancy, she’s waking up,” an unfamiliar male voice whispered urgently.

Someone jostled the bed when they sat next to her. Gentle fingertips smoothed the hair off her forehead then placed a kiss there. A woman’s voice was watery and full of emotion as she spoke. “Oh Micah, I thought I lost you.”

She opened her eyes, expecting to find—well, she wasn’t sure what she had expected. Certainly not the two sad-eyed strangers huddled at her bedside. The breath she took hitched in her chest, and the words that tore her throat like shards of glass were barely audible. “Who are you?”

The woman, Nancy, drew back as if she’d been slapped. Fresh tears swam in her eyes
, and she covered her mouth with a trembling hand. The man wrapped an arm around Nancy’s shoulders in an attempt to console her.

The guy couldn’t look her in the eyes. He fought a fresh wave of tears when he spoke. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. This is my fault. I should have been there on time.”

Just then, a doctor with salt and pepper hair strolled in with her chart in his hand. Her heart leapt into her chest because she vaguely remembered him from before, when she’d died. Or had that been a dream? She struggled to sit up and allowed the strangers to help. They seemed so relieved to do something useful.

After Doctor Egan introduced himself to her, he informed the man and woman that he planned to run more tests. The way he spoke to them made it seem like they were responsible for her, like they were her parents. That couldn’t be right though. Her parents
had given her up for adoption when she was three. She’d been passed from one foster home to another until she was finally adopted on her seventh birthday. Only, she couldn’t remember a single thing about her adoptive parents.

“I want to talk to Anna.” Her voice belonged to a stranger, more feminine and breathy than she remembered. Hands trembling, she reached up to remove the oxygen tubing from her nose.

Confusion pulled Nancy’s sculpted brows downward. “Who’s Anna, honey?”

“She tried to take me through a doorway. To the other side?” She slanted her eyes toward the doctor then pressed her lips together. Had that sounded as crazy to him as it had to her?

Doctor Egan removed a penlight from his pocket and shone it in each eye. “Miss Munroe, you died a week ago. You’ve been on life support due to coma.”

She stared up at him, mouth slightly agape as she tried to make sense of his words. “No.”

“Life support was discontinued less than an hour ago.” Finally he put the miniature torture device away. “It was the only thing that was keeping your body alive, or so we thought.”

Her head whipped around to glare at Roger and Nancy. “You pulled the plug on me?”

Fat tears rolled down Nancy's cheeks. Roger placed a hand on her sheet-covered leg and gave it a gentle pat. “I’m sorry. We thought you were gone. It seemed like the most humane thing to do.”

Dr. Egan continued as if they weren’t having a mini meltdown in front of him. “It’s conceivable that while you were in the coma, you were in a dream-like state or…”

"It wasn't a dream." A chill traced cold fingers down her spine. “What happened to me?”

Nancy gripped the hand closest to her and gently squeezed her fingers. “You don’t remember? Roger was supposed to meet you at the house you were showing, but he was running late.” Her mouth turned down when she cast a glance at him. Did Nancy blame him for whatever happened?

Then it dawned on her. If Nancy was calling him Roger, he was probably a step-dad and not biological. Interesting.

Roger’s eyes were red and watery. He still couldn’t meet her gaze. “You must have slipped on the tile by the pool. You hit your head and fell into the water. You
—you drowned, Micah.”

“My name isn’t Micah. It’s…”
Oh shit, she couldn’t remember her real name!
“And I didn’t drown.”

Nancy covered her mouth as a new wave of sobs shook her.

Roger put his arm around her again then asked, “Will she regain her memory, Doctor?”

She didn’t wait around for an answer. Instead, she threw the sheet off her legs and pulled the wires and tubes from her body. The IV needle made her wince as it yanked out, but the pain only served to remind her that she was truly alive.

A single word stood out on the paperwork clipped to the folder Doctor Egan held. Donor. Had they only kept the body alive so they could harvest the organs when they were ready? She swung her legs off the bed.

Doctor Egan made a move to grab her arm. "Please wait for a nurse to help you, Miss Munroe."

Ignoring him, she jerked her arm away then stood on quivering legs. Everyone gasped when she took the first step toward the restroom. Her legs were leaden and heavy as they moved forward. When she didn’t immediately fall on her face, she took another step, then one more until she was securely locked inside the restroom. The doctor and pseudo-family’s voices filled the room behind her. Dr. Egan said something about the possibility of brain damage, but she ignored the rest of his words.

Trembling like a frightened child, she gaped at the unfamiliar face looking back at her in the mirror. No, this couldn’t be right. One eye was the familiar color of warm molasses while the other was a brilliant blue. How freakish! She held a hand over each in turn and was relieved to learn she had vision in both.

Trembling fingers ran through long strands of mousy brown hair that hung around her face and fell past her shoulders. Where was her short blonde coif? And how could she remember bottle blonde hair and brown eyes, but be unable to recall her
real
name?

The shower curtain fluttered behind her
, and she bit off a scream when Anna stepped out from behind the ghastly green plastic. She’d pulled her hair into a low ponytail, but otherwise looked the same as before.

Hand on her hip, she said, “You shouldn’t have gone through that doorway. You had no way of knowing who or what was on the other side. Weren’t you scared?”

“Of course I was.” She glared at the teenager’s reflection.
There is not a ghost in this bathroom
. “What am I gonna do?”

Anna’s freckled face scrunched with irritation. “It's a little too late to worry about that, don’t you think?”

Pressing cool fingertips to her temples, she tried to calm herself. “This is crazy. I wasn’t supposed to die.”

“No, you weren’t supposed to come back,” Anna corrected. “No one ever comes back. No one ever wants to. Don’t you even wonder what your paradise was?”

“No, not really.”

“Good because you screwed that all to hell. And I’ll be lucky if no one finds out. I could get into a lot of trouble.” Anna’s features softened slightly
, and she gestured toward the reflection in the mirror. “On the bright side, you’re getting a chance to start over. You get to skip the diapers and begin here.”

She scowled at the girl. This body in the sickly green hospital gown was not hers. She had hijacked it without asking. “What about my real body? Why can’t I just go back to it? I might have liked that body.”

Anna looked at her reflection and smoothed a few wayward wisps of hair atop her head. “Your old body is gone, probably in the ground by now. Or cremated. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, so make it count.”

"But…"

“You are Micah Munroe now.” Anna’s cotton candy pink fingertip pointed at the plastic identification bracelet around her wrist. “Embrace
this
life.”

A trickle of fear permeated her senses
, and a fine sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead just above a rather large green and yellow contusion.

What if she couldn’t pull it off? What if Roger and Nancy found out she was an imposter? They’d think their daughter had gone nuts while in the coma. She might be forced to go to therapy or worse, be institutionalized.

Her lip curled ever so slightly as she made a gesture at her reflection. “I don’t know anything about her.”

“Use the amnesia thing to your advantage. It’s not like they can prove otherwise.” The tiniest smirk lifted the corner of
Anna’s mouth. “Because if the Reapers get the faintest hint that you’ve stolen that body, they’ll come looking for you.”

“Yeah, but…” Another argument was on the tip of her tongue, but when she turned to confront Anna, she was gone.

Had the teenager in the candy striped dress really been there? Maybe she had some weird psychosis due to the head trauma and had imagined her. She could be having a conversation with an imaginary person.
Great.

*
***

The hospital treated Micah to several more days of tests, x-rays, bad food
, and all around boredom before they would release her. Doctor Egan was stumped on how she was unresponsive one moment then alive and well the next. He called it a miracle. Micah wasn’t so sure.

Anna hadn’t come back since the day Micah awoke, but the fake family was there at nearly every waking moment. Roger, her new step-father, came bright and early this morning with a bag of clothing. All of which looked like it should belong to Nancy instead of the body she’d stolen.

“These are my clothes?” She smoothed a hand down the gaudy floral print skirt. The pattern was an appalling swirl of red roses and splatters of fuchsia and lime green. What’s worse, it was nearly ankle length.

“It was in your closet.” He watched the attendant help Micah into the awaiting wheelchair.

“Talk about a wardrobe malfunction,” she murmured. "I hope we aren't stopped by the fashion police."

The ride home was awkward. Micah didn’t know what to talk about. Roger was a stranger, after all. Her hands lay curled in her lap as she watched downtown Palm Springs rush past. “You said I was showing a house the night I died. Am I a real estate agent?”

“That’s the spirit.” Anna’s chipper voice sounded near Micah’s ear. The teenager sat forward to rest her chin on the seat and grinned.

Micah swallowed the scream that worked its way up her throat. Her heartbeat was all out of sync
, and she'd broken out in a cold sweat.
Damn ghost, sneaking up on her like that!

Roger smiled. He didn’t seem to notice Anna in the backseat
, and Micah wasn’t going to mention her.

“Yes. You have a real estate license.” His laugh was a bit uncomfortable. “You really don’t remember any of this?”

“Sorry, no.”

They rode in increasingly awkward silence until they reached the outskirts of town. Finally, Micah twisted in the seat to stare at him. “Why were you meeting me at a house I was showing that night? I gather it was important?”

“You’re doing great,” Anna whispered in her ear. Her breath chilled Micah's skin like a cool breeze.

Micah opened her mouth to retort, but forced it closed again. To argue with an invisible person wasn’t a good idea.

Roger sighed. “I thought it was at the time. Let’s just put it on the backburner for now, okay?”

He parked on a cul-de-sac in front of a small Spanish style house tucked amongst palm trees. Nancy stood on the front porch waving.

Micah stared up at the house, disbelief and awe on her face. “This is my house? I own it?”

Anna giggled then trotted up the stone walkway. She paused on the covered patio and made bunny ears behind Nancy’s head.

Roger nodded. “Your mom and I helped you get this place right after college.”

“Holy shit, that’s awesome!” She ran her fingers over the gate as they passed. She stopped to admire the stucco walls and the arch of each window. The roof was made of rustic tiles
, and she loved the terra cotta color.

Nancy watched her a moment then said, “Come inside and we’ll get you settled in.”

The interior of the house far exceeded her expectations. This dowdy woman who obviously couldn’t pick out clothes was a freaking genius when it came to being the Martha Stewart type. The colors and fabrics were a delicious mix of red, gold, and chocolaty browns. Furniture, some of which looked vintage, complemented the interior beautifully. “I can’t believe this is mine. Wow. Just … wow.”

She continued to roam the house, shocked expletives falling from her lips while they waited in the kitchen for her to finish the tour. Finally, she found herself on the back patio and fell in love all over again.

The covered patio shaded natural stone tiles. Pretty potted impatiens decorated the side of the house, and Micah suspected Nancy had planted them that morning. There was a wrought iron patio set that consisted of a table and chairs with plush cushions, all of which looked fairly new.