Books of the Dead (20 page)

Nurse Richardson seemed to have comprehended that something was not right about the situation. “You don’t have to say anything that you don’t want, but I hope that it is nothing serious. You can tell me if you want.”

Merly wanted to tell someone, what had happened was too much for her to keep to herself, but she was not sure if she could trust Nurse Richardson with the truth, because it was still unreal to imagine it herself.

“You don’t have to, just rest for a while and call me if you need me. I will just be outside.” Nurse Richardson stroked her hair gently then tucked her in with the cover and moved towards the door to get out of the room.

“Nurse Richardson, please wait. Don’t go.” Merly stopped her.

“What is it?”

“Don’t tell anyone anything, please!” Merly pleaded in a grieving tone.

“But you didn’t tell me anything, Merly.”

“Just tell them, it was fatigue and I lost consciousness due to that. I don’t want to say anything.”

“But eventually they will want to know and you will have to offer an explanation. For now, I will say what you want.” Nurse Richardson left the room without saying anything more.

Merly turned to her side and sobbed. She hated to be pitied and she pitied herself for being so weak, and that made her hate herself even more. Nurse Richardson’s last words, “But eventually they will want to know and you will have to offer an explanation. For now, I will say what you want.” For the first time in her life, she wanted to run away. For a fleeting second, she had the urge to go away to the comforts of her home where she will be looked after and cared for. It’s where she will be safe and have nothing to worry about. That thought made her well up and she cried even harder. Merly didn’t remember how long she cried, but she must have drifted off to sleep. She opened her eyes and batted her eyelids as the light in the room was too bright and Merly took time to adjust to it. When she woke up, it was past 6:00 p.m. and Merly felt hungry.

“Nurse Richardson! Nurse Richardson!” Merly called, but no one came in, so she pressed the switch beside her bed, which alerted the nurse outside. Nurse Richardson came in a hurry obviously thinking there might be an emergency, but seemed relieved to see that everything looked normal. Merly said she called her to inform her that she was feeling a lot better.

“You were sleeping like a baby, so I didn’t wake you up. If you want, we can let you go. Dr. Peters can check you for one last time and you will be good to go,” Nurse Richardson informed.

While removing the covers and cleaning Merly up, she wanted to know if she slept well, to which Merly replied that she felt much better felt rested. “Wait and I will call Dr. Peters for you.”

Doctor Peters was the college doctor and resided on the campus. He was kind and friendly and knew most of the students who visited him. Merly was already up and ready to go. She tried to act normal, so that the doctor would let her go with a minimal check up and not probe too much into it.

Nurse Richardson came back with a different doctor, “Merly, this is Dr. Cameron. She is new here and she will be checking on you, so lie down,” she ordered.

Merly didn’t, because she was expecting Dr. Peters and wanted to get over with the process, but with the new doctor, the possibility looked minimal.

“What happened to Dr. Peters? I thought he was here when I came here first.” Merly wanted to know and in the process forgot to greet the new Doctor.

Nurse Richardson looked as if she was not prepared to answer the question; she briefly mentioned, “Dr. Peters said that he had to leave, so Dr. Cameron took over. She will be checking on you.”

Merly looked at her intently and greeted the new doctor, “Hello, Dr. Cameron, nice to meet you, but I haven’t seen you around. Are you new?”

“Hello Merly, I heard you were unconscious. Are you feeling better now?”

Dr. Cameron was warm and her words were comforting, but they didn’t sooth Merly’s discomfort. Dr. Cameron seemed to overlook it and went on checking her. First, she checked her pulse rate then her eyes. Merly shifted a little showing her impatience, but the doctor was unfazed. Merly wondered if it was on purpose.

“How long will this take?” Merly wanted to know,

Nurse Richardson answered instead of the doctor. “You seem to be in a hurry. Be patient. This will take a little time. We don’t want you falling sick again, we are answerable, too, you know.”

Merly thought that Nurse Richardson’s behavior was cold and stiff, but as she was in a hurry to get out, Merly decided it was best for her to keep quiet.

“Now, you are fine, and you can leave.” Dr. Cameron gave Merly a clean bill of health. Then she wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “Here, take this. I have prescribed a vitamin for you along with a nerve soother. Take them before you sleep, and tomorrow you will be ready to go.”

Merly thanked both Nurse Richardson and the new doctor meekly and left he room. She saw no one waiting for an answer, and she decided to head back and ask Nurse Richardson if she had followed what Merly had ask her to. However, she was already out and half way to the medicine store, so she continued her way to get the medicines before going back to her dorm room.

Merly handed the pharmacist her prescription and he started looking for them from a shelf behind him. While going through the bottles of different colors, he asked indifferently, “You fainted today?”

Merly stared at him without taking the medicines from his hand, then asked him, “How did you know? Who told you about this?”

“I don’t remember who told me, because there are many who were discussing this. I must have overheard. I don’t think anyone told me,” he said, but Merly was unsure.

“What were they talking about? Did you hear my name?” Merly’s curiosity and anxiety sky rocketed.

“You know how people talk, some saw you in the library talking to yourself and then they heard you scream and faint. So you were moved to see the doctor. These medicines are nerve soothers, but you need to relax first.”

Merly heard the same advice countless times that day, but how could she relax until she knew or sort out the recent occurrences in her life.

“They hear me speaking to myself, but that is not possible. My friend, Jeremy, was there, and then I was speaking to this girl with green eyes and…” Merly stopped all of a sudden. She began to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

There was no reaction from the pharmacist, but assuring her saying, “We all talk to ourselves at times. There is no need to be ashamed about that.” He arranged the medicine strip for her, and he noted down the dose and handed it to her. “Take them as instructed and everything will be fine.”

“But I didn’t…” Merly tried to offer an explanation one more time, but the pharmacist was persistent and urged her to go back to her dorm. “Did you believe what they said?” Merly wanted to know.

“You are stressed out and it can happen, now don’t think about it too much. All you need is a good night’s sleep.” He gave Merly an assuring smile, and she didn’t dispute him. His words conveyed that he believed what he heard, and she couldn’t do a thing about it.

“I’ll go then, thank you for the advice,” she felt uneasy, scared and rattled. She was sure that there was a woman she was talking to in the library. It was not stress or anxiety. Her brain was working fine when she spoke to the green-eyed woman, so why was she being told otherwise? It only meant one thing, there was not one but two supernatural beings she felt. Merly froze at the thought, and she shuddered even more when a cold wind touched her bare face. She ran as fast as her legs could take her, back to the safety of her dorm room.

On her way to the dorm, Merly decided to stop by Natalie’s room. So she skipped her room and knocked on Natalie’s door instead. Merly was not expecting Natalie to open the door; she expected it to be her room mate, Francesca. “Natalie, are you up?” Merly said while standing in the doorway.

Natalie showed no interest. “I am doing fine. Do you need something?” she asked back.

“I just dropped by to check if you are doing all right, and I guess you are.” Merly was hoping that Natalie would ask her in, so she lingered at the doorway, but she wasn’t asked inside. “I will go then,” Merly started to leave.

Natalie stopped her by calling her back. “Is that all you wanted to say and nothing else?” She waited for her to give an answer.

Merly looked back with sad eyes, because she had to explain her situation again, and in that process relive the horrid memories which she wanted to forget and bury in her subconscious. “I do, I came here to apologize for being so rude last night, and I hope we can go back to being friends.”

“Are you always like this?” Natalie asked and there was a faint smile in her lips, and before Merly answered anything, Natalie invited her in. “Come on in. Francesca is meeting her friends and they will be doing group study tonight, so you can tell me what happened. There is no one here.”

“Didn’t you hear anything? I thought everyone knew by now. The pharmacist knows,” Merly said casually.

“I heard that you fainted in the library and they heard you shriek loudly. They found no one, Francesca told me, but I want to know what happened directly from the horse’s mouth, but only if you are fine with it.” Natalie’s voice was calm and soothing, and it assured Merly that she was in no hurry and could take her time.

“This is so out of character; what made you change?” Merly said, and after the long day, there was a glimmer of glee in her eyes.

“What is?” Natalie questioned jokingly.

Merly relaxed herself down on the couch, and said, “Only a few days ago, you were scrambling through any information that you could lay your hands on. You even wanted to track Nora to Elmhurst, and now you are asking me to relax knowing that I shrieked and fainted in the library, and some even said that they saw me talking to myself, that there was no one present when the incident happened. It is so unlike you, that is all. Where is your curious little self hiding, Natalie, or is there something else in your mind that you are not telling me?”

“You are very suspicious, aren’t you? Yes, I heard everything, but I know when to pick up things and when to let them go, so for now there is nothing in my mind. I am here to listen to whatever you have to say, so go ahead if you want to,” Natalie announced.

“I was looking for you all day, but I couldn’t get hold of you, so I went to look for you in your class. I tried calling you before that, but you didn’t answer. Your classmate showered me with questions, pestering me about what we were up to, so I ran away from there and I only stopped when Jeremy asked me to. He said he wanted to inform me of something about Nora,” Merly said flatly.

“You were looking for me? Why? You could have come here instead,” Natalie wanted to know.

“Well, someone overheard our conversation while we were talking on the phone and I thought that you…” Merly paused and rephrased her question, “…and I thought you might know who it was, or if you have seen anyone, because no sooner did I enter the class, my friends and classmates wanted to know about the conversation I had with Mrs. Clarence, and what I could have done. You were the only one there and I wanted to know if you saw anyone lurking around or someone who could have overheard our conversation.”

“Merly, let’s be fair, you wanted to know if I was the one who spilled the beans, there is no point denying it, and I don’t blame you, but it wasn’t me. I was locked up the entire day in my room. I didn’t speak with Francesca yesterday night and I was upset over what happened so I went straight to bed. By the time I woke up, she was gone and I didn’t feel very well, so I decided to take a break. So if you are looking for someone who told about your conversation with Mrs. Clarence, then it is not me,” Natalie said in one breath. “But what about Zoë or Kelly, did they ask you, too?” Natalie added.

“I … I didn’t see them in class today, neither did I hear anything from them for the past few days. It is a little surprising to me as well. But what could have possibly gotten into them to behave in such a manner?” Merly expressed her doubts.

“Do you think Zoë and Kelly were the one’s who eavesdropped? But I didn’t see them anywhere last night; moreover, Jeremy probably knew who it was and I went with him to the library, but as he was about to tell me, his phone rang and he said that he had to leave.”

“So you didn’t get to know anything. This is not taking us anywhere.” Natalie sounded disappointed.

“But then he told me something which I otherwise wouldn’t believe. Mr. Summer’s keeper, Stuart, you know him right? He saw Nora leaving for Elmhurst and she even asked him where to get off when she got there, but what surprised me the most was that Nora was secretly meeting him, and wanted to know about Mr. Summers. Nora never told me anything about it. I was practically upset due to her indifferent behavior over the last few days, and I wonder why she never told me.”

“And then what happened?” Natalie obviously overlooked what Merly told her and wanted to know directly what triggered Merly to faint.

Merly took in a deep breath and informed her of what had happened back in the library, how she met a woman who went on nagging about if she believed in ghosts, and when she started to walk away how the old librarian appeared before her. Natalie listened attentively and didn’t interrupt at all.

“So what do you think? I fainted and I was given an IV, I even told Nurse Richardson not to inform anyone about how I initially reacted after I regained my consciousness. Why do you think the students said that I was speaking to myself?”

“Maybe you were or maybe you weren’t. What if someone was there? I knew about the library ghost and I can vouch that the rumors are true, but I never heard of anyone seeing the person that you apparently saw. What was she like? Did she try to scare you or intimidate you?” Natalie went on as asking like she was a detective.

“No, and that is the weird part. It is true that I was freaked out by her cold stare and how she calmly asked me all those questions, but unlike the librarian, she didn’t try to reach for me or scare me. I was already upset, so I asked her to leave when all of sudden she asked me if I believed in ghosts. I refused to answer for obvious reasons and then she said I better believe, because I am about to see one. That scared me and her eyes, they were haunting. I have never seen any eyes that looked so green, so deep...” Merly closed her eyes.