Experiment in Terror 05.5 Old Blood (15 page)

That never happened, despite all of our best intentions. We were close; I had the ticket bought for me and had some things packed in my small suitcase. I calmed down in the last few days leading up to my flight, enough that I could feel the overwhelming sense of relief at getting help. Maybe with the right medication, the right people, I would be able to keep the ghosts solely in my nightmares. I was going to miss visiting my dear Declan though and hoped he wouldn’t forget about me.

As such, I couldn’t leave the country for good without saying goodbye to him and perhaps imparting some of the wisdom I had gleaned from Jakob and it was Régine’s I was heading to on the day I fell apart.

I was going to catch the subway and was just about to head down the dirty stairs when I saw a familiar blonde head coming out of a ritzy restaurant.

It was no one other than Ludie and time stood still. I dropped the newspaper I was holding and let it fall absently to my feet. I stared at him enthralled, enraged.

He was finally showing some age, looking refined but tired. His smile was charming and aimed at a young redhead on his arm, but the sparkle was gone in his faded baby blues and his hair was greying and thin.

I can’t tell you what happened exactly, but I lost it right there on the street. I approached him with boiling breath, asking why he hadn’t shown any interest in our daughter.

He recognized me. I know he did from the fear and surprise that flashed briefly across his face. But, ever the actor, he covered it up and flat-out ignored me. He acted like he’d never seen me before and told me I didn’t know what I was talking about. I ended up spitting in his face, attacking the innocent redhead much like I did to the understudy back in the theatre days.

I needed to be restrained. I was violent, hollering nonsense. Out of my sorry mind and out of control.

I broke apart from the crowd that had gathered around us and in my blind despair I ran down the subway stairs. I fought my way past the greasy turnstiles like a panicked bird and in an unrelenting urge to leave my sad life behind, I ran for the nearest tracks, to the train that was just about to hit me head on.

I don’t know who saved me from throwing myself in front of that train and ending my life, but I know someone did for the next thing I remembered was waking up in a psychiatric hospital, the very place I would spend my last years before I died.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I think if there was a hell on earth, it would be inside a state-run psychiatric ward. It is a hopeless place filled with people who are either empty shells of what they used to be or monsters of another making.

I never knew what I was. I felt like a shell of the woman I was and I felt like a monster too. All I did know was I was left alone and afraid and never saw my family again, not in the ten years I was locked up there.

To be fair, I was shown pictures of my family. Karl wrote to me often, which was nice when I was in the right frame of mind to read and not tear the paper up. He wished he was well enough to come visit since he was having hip problems still, but I figured it was all a lie and that he had moved on with his life and found other people to love. And Ingrid. My daughter, who once swore – with Daniel – that they’d never lock me up, my daughter who went and did the opposite. She lied for she was the one who put me away. She also wrote to me, first to show me her wedding photos, then her pregnancy photos, and then photos of her and Daniel smiling above a beautiful dark-haired child they named Perry.

I am ashamed to admit that I tore up those first photos too. I was wildly jealous that Ingrid got to have the husband she wanted, a child she loved, and I ended up here, with nothing. I hated Perry at first for no other reason than that.

Then, on my days when my delusions calmed down and I had enough strength to push through the medication (which, Declan, as you know, did help a bit), I realized that Perry needed me. Everything that Jakob said about my grandchildren being cursed with my gift ran through my ears. What if Perry were to grow up as I did, and with Ingrid of all people as her mother?

I felt utterly helpless and spent most of my time feeling sorry for myself. I should have listened to Jakob when he had warned me, I was just too selfish to listen. Then I realized Jakob might have the answers. Jakob might be able to help. Perhaps he could do for Perry what he did for me.

I tried to access the Thin Veil, to make the portal appear in thin air, but nothing worked. I was probably just some crazy old lady waving her hands about like some wizard. I almost gave up hope until I skipped on taking my medication for a few days. I had been a calm and pleasant patient most of the time, so the nurses weren’t as watchful over me as they were over others.

It was then, on one rainy night with water and wind battering the tiny window of my room, that the air around me moved and glistened and I stepped inside.

That familiar pressure pressed down on my head and made my eyeballs feel as if they were about to burst. It lasted longer than last time but soon enough the pain subsided and I was in a grey zone, the parallel world. Here, Jakob was in the room with me, sitting on the uncomfortable stool in the corner.

“
Pippa,” he said with a jovial nod.

Tears sprung to my eyes.

“
Jakob,” I cried out. I got to my feet and found them to be sturdy and willing. Here in the Thin Veil I was more able, stronger and I used this change to embrace the young guide in my arms and sobbed all over him.

When my tears finally subsided, I begged Jakob to go after Perry and to help her.

“
She might have someone at some point,” he said. “There is no need for it to be you.”

“
But can I help her? Can I use this place to reach her?”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, weighing his options in his mind. But I could see the truth in his eyes and he knew it.

After a minute he said, “You can use this place for many things, but it doesn’t mean that you should. The most you can do, the most you should do, is just watch over her like I have watched over you.”

“
I’ll never get a chance to meet my granddaughter.”

“
That might be for the best.”

I nodded at that, a sinking feeling in my heart.

“
I should have listened to you,” I admitted softly.

“
Yes. But what is done is done. I can only guide you, I can’t make your choices for you. You made the decisions which you thought were best at the time, and I don’t blame you for doing so. And you shouldn’t blame yourself, either. Perry and Ada-”

“
Ada?” My head snapped up.

He gave me a wry smile. “Yes, I had said grand
children
. Perry and Ada will have to make their own choices in life too and it’ll be up to them to handle the cards they have been dealt. There’s not much you can do or say to change that.”

I mulled it over. There seemed to be a loophole somewhere in what he was saying. I could do anything I wanted in the Thin Veil, including watching over people. What more could I do. Could I actually use it like a mode of transportation?

Jakob watched me carefully and I was afraid he was reading my thoughts. If he had though, he gave me no indication of it.

“
Would you like to see her, Pippa?”

I nodded eagerly.

He put his hands together. “Very well, just do as you once did before. But instead of creating a portal, create a window and concentrate on that image of Perry you have in your mind.”

“
But the picture I saw is a few years old now.”

“
It doesn’t matter.”

I did as he said and concentrated hard on a window, willing myself to see a young toddler, one with giant stone blue eyes and long black hair, on the other side of it. I kept this rate of thought and power going until I felt more pressure inside my skull and before I gave into the pain and blinked, the air parted like the Red Sea and a glassy window was in place. On the other side of it, the real side of real life, was Perry. Now she was at least six years old, a little round thing but still so very beautiful. She had a type of beauty that was unique from her mother’s and Ludie’s and I cherished that I could look at her without feeling guilt or shame.

Perry was sitting in her room, surrounded by toys and reading a picture book filled with dragons. She chewed at her fingernails, more out of an anxious, excited gesture than one of worry. She was so young and so innocent and I knew it would be hard for me to stay away.

“
Can I always come in here and do this?” I whispered even though I knew Perry couldn’t hear me…she couldn’t, could she?

The girl in the image shivered a little but that was it.

Jakob said, “You can…but…”

“
But what?” I was afraid to take my eyes off of her.

“
Time outside the Veil doesn’t stand still. You are not in your room at the hospital right now. If a nurse were to come in, you would see them but they would not see you. You must never give people reason to suspect the veil exists. Even though most wouldn’t believe it, it would be dangerous if the knowledge got into the wrong hands. It’s dangerous for you too. Not only would you cause attention to yourself but every time you visit, you will bring a different…disability back with you.”

I managed to look at him, only for a second, only to see how serious his pale grey face was.

“
I’m not following…seeing ghosts? How can it get any worse for me?” I asked bitterly. “You’ve seen where I am. What I’ve become!”

“
Things can always get worse,” he said. “I just know that a normal human body is not meant to continuously visit this world. One time might be enough to increase telekinesis or telepathy. It might be enough to create more energy within yourself, or attract others from the Veil. Or it might start to ravage your body and your mind, leaving you a little bit weaker. Maybe a lot weaker.”

I forgot about watching Perry for a moment. “You’re saying when I go back to my world, I may be in rougher shape than I already am?”

“
It is possible. Pippa, I can only warn you.”

“
Yes. And you have and I thank you.”

My attention went back to Perry who was now scribbling into a coloring book, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration.

“
I will be leaving you now,” he said.

“
Where are you going?”

“
I’ll be around. I have other people to help, you know.”

He started walking to the door.

“
Wait,” I called out after him. He stopped and looked at me from over his shoulder. “I met a boy…”

“
Declan,” he said. He saw the wonder on my face. “As I said, I have been watching you.”

“
What is to become of him?”

He shrugged. “I do not know.”

“
But is he going to have a guide too, someone to look after him?”

“
Not everyone gets someone like me. Your power has never been latent. Perry and Declan’s is and will most likely remain that way.”

“
Most likely?”

“
People make their own choices,” he replied rather ominously. “Declan is closed off to our world. Perry is just a young girl. Neither possess the power that you have, therefore neither of them would warrant it.”

“
But how do you know that? What if their gifts develop and they end up just like me?”

“
Just try and worry about yourself, Pippa,” he said. He smiled, waved then opened the door to the hallway and stepped out.

I was alone in the Veil version of my room, grey and stale-smelling. But I wasn’t alone was I? No, I could see young Perry through the window in a lavender haze. I could see her. But was that all? Could I make her see me?

We all make poor choices from time to time and I believe they shape who we are. The Lord knows I have made so many in my long life. Standing in that hazy, dull room, in a world parallel to the one I was born in, I made a decision that I would regret ever since. It was a selfish decision that I masked as selfless one. I wanted to reach out to Perry to warn her of the difficulties to come, to let her know that I would be there for her, no matter what. And that was the truth. But the larger part, the selfish part, was that I didn’t want to be alone anymore and I wanted her to know who her grandmother was, to love me like I loved her mother.

So, I concentrated, made the window into a door, reached into Perry’s room and pulled her into the Otherside.