Possession (3 page)

Ghosts. Andrew thinks ghosts roam around the
insane asylum at night. First a murder plot, and now irritated spirits. I
wondered what other kind of delusions I would hear from my fellow patients.

And then I reminded myself,
You wouldn’t be in this place if
you
were in your right mind.

When I didn’t say anything, Andrew went back to
shuffling his milk carton around his tray. “You’ll see, just wait. Tonight
after midnight, if you’re one of the mage-born folks, you won’t be able to stop
hearing them. Not these ghosts. Even those with the smallest amount of magic
seem to sense when these spirits are around.”

* * *

Andrew drifted away, and I finished my meal. After a time,
my nurse came back and wheeled me out of the cafeteria. We headed down a
different hallway and went into a room at the far end.

This room was different from the last one I’d been
in.
No padding
on the walls. The room was
bigger and fit two beds, and next to each bed was a small table with a lamp.
There was a chest of drawers in the corner and a window covered with metal
bars.

The nurse helped
me out of the chair and onto the bed. “I know it’s still early, but the doctor
insisted you get some rest,” she said. “The night shift will check in on you
later and give you your nighttime medications, if you take any.” I looked
closer at the nurse. She was maybe in her late forties—a mousy, matronly
woman. She had a kind expression on her face.

“What’s your name?”

“Hillary Harrington.”

Harrington.
That’s a name I remember the doctor calling out in my dream, when I was
floating above the room.

I decided to test my theory and asked, “Were you
there when they gave me the electroshock treatment?”

“I was.” She patted my arm. “You seem to be doing
so much better now.”

It wasn’t a dream. I thought I’d imagined the
whole thing—the room, the people in blue—but she was one of those
people. I remembered her name. She was here, she was real, and she’d been there
during the procedure. The floating, the feeling of being tugged down, of
falling… Did it all really happen? I’d heard stories of people who had died and
left their bodies. Maybe that happened to me.

“Did I die during the procedure?”

She pulled out a fresh gown from one of the
drawers and laid it across the bed next to me. “What? No, no, of course you
didn’t. You were perfectly fine before the doctor put you under. You know, it’s
not like the old days when patients undergoing shock treatment had convulsions
so severe they sometimes broke bones. Now they give you muscle relaxants and
something to paralyze your movement. It’s much safer.”

“Your body doesn’t move at all?”

She started helping me out of the gown and into
the new one.

“You’re completely still—well, except for
your left foot. They need a way to see if the shock is going through your
system, so they don’t numb your foot.”

I remembered the dream with the frozen body below
me, but with one foot twitching wildly. “Nothing out of the ordinary happened during
the procedure?” I asked as she lowered the gown over my head.

“What an odd question. No, nothing happened—the
procedure went well. And look how good you’re doing.” She fussed a bit with the
gown and then helped me under the covers. When she finished, she pointed to a
door in the corner. “The bathroom’s right through there. It’s just a sink and a
toilet.” She pushed the wheelchair against the wall. “Now try to get some
sleep. Have a good night.”

“Thank you,” I said to her as she turned off the
overhead lights and closed the door.

I leaned over and turned on the lamp on the
bedside table. I had no idea what time it was, but it couldn’t be late. It was
dark outside, but we had just eaten dinner. I looked around. There was no TV,
no books or magazines in the room to occupy my mind. I wondered if I asked
someone for such things if I would get them. They couldn’t expect people to sit
around and stare out the window or at the walls. But then I thought back to my
dinner companion. His nervous habits, the way he kept staring off into the
distance…maybe my fellow patients had a lot going on inside their heads, enough
to keep them occupied. The old woman, for instance, had come up with her own
personal murder mystery.

But with a lack of anything else to do, I also stared
at the walls, going over everything that had happened. I tried to think back,
tried to remember something that happened before I woke up in the padded room,
but my mind was still a blank.

How did I
get here? Where is my family?

As the questions crossed my mind, a sharp pain
radiated out from the middle of my forehead. Minutes passed and the pain slowly
eased up—it wasn’t as severe as before, but it was still there, throbbing
across my temples every time I tried to remember. After a while, exhausted, I
nodded off to sleep.

* * *

My eyes opened. There was something in the room; I was not
alone. I raised my head and realized someone was standing at the foot of my
bed. It took my sleep-fogged brain a moment to comprehend that what I was
looking at—the dark shape standing only a few feet away—was not a
living creature.
Moonlight shone through the
window and I realized I could see
through
the shape’s blackness. I could make out the wall and door on the other side of…whatever
it was.

A sound of surprise left my lips, and as it did,
the shape moved. I felt the weight of something sit down on my bed. My mind was
screaming at me to move, to run, but I found I was frozen in place. I was
afraid, but something else was holding me immobile.

The weight shifted on the bed, and the shadow
moved again. The thing on the bed was leaning toward me…

Then it was on me.

Is this
real? Am I dreaming?

I could feel its weight crawl over my legs. I
could feel it wiggle against my stomach and then slide over my chest. And
that’s when the pressure began at my neck.

I suddenly couldn’t breathe. This was no dream.
This was happening. Something was choking me.

I tried to open my mouth to scream, but no sound
came out. I tried to take in a deep breath, but before I could, the pressure
around my throat increased. The world around me started to narrow in, and as it
did, a burst of images raced across my mind.

It was cold. I was lying on a grave, and a young
man was straddling my body, his hands wrapped around my throat. I could feel
his fingers digging into my skin. I was dying. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to
pull his hands away, and when that didn’t work, I reached out to scratch his
face, but he pulled back, out of my reach, keeping his grip firm around my neck.
He was killing me. His eyes blazed into mine—they were dark eyes, full of…what?
I expected to see hatred and anger, but instead they were full of fear.

He was afraid for me. He didn’t want to hurt me.

Luke
.
The name rang through my head as I began to fall and tumble into darkness.

The vision changed. Now I was alone, in a great
expanse of black. A cloud surrounded me. It grew and a large, dark abyss opened
up before me like a great chasm. From within its depths came voices and sounds.
Unnatural laughter and then something more primal. A growling.

A pair of red eyes appeared within the inky blackness.
They started to move closer. There was a louder noise this time, like an animal
chewing and gnashing its teeth. I heard a scream, and then another. A voice
floated across my mind.

Not yet.
What I want from you, you can’t give. Not yet. But soon.

And then there was a shout, and lights blazed
overhead. The pressure eased up as quickly as it had started, and I sucked in one
breath and then another.
I can breathe
.
I bolted upright in bed and tried to calm my pounding heart. What had just
happened?

My eyes focused, and I swallowed a scream. The old
woman I’d met in the common room was standing in the doorway. Her white hair swung
wildly back and forth as she shouted at me. “Didn’t you put any salt across the
thresholds?”

I shook my head. I’d thought the guy at dinner was
just being crazy when he told me about the ghosts and the salt.

She came over and peered down at me. “Sea salt
works best, but you can’t get it in this place.”

My hands went to my throat. The skin felt tender
and bruised.

She pulled my hands away and inspected me. “Choking
ghosts are the worst.”

“Choking ghosts?” My voice came out in harsh rasp.

“You’ll live.” She straightened up and looked
around the room. “They’re always full of so much anger.” Something jingled at
her side. A large metal key chain with half a dozen keys hung out of the pocket
of her blue robe. She noticed me looking. “Oh, those.” She tucked the keys back
into the pocket. “I've got master keys to the place.” She giggled. “But the
doctors and nurses don’t know. This place is a ghost town at night.” She
laughed louder. “The night staff barely makes rounds. They spend all their time
sleeping at the front desk. I’ve never been much of a sleeper, especially
during the witching hour—too much activity going on. I like to roam
around, keep myself busy.” She walked over to the window and looked out. “The
witching hour lasts from midnight to three o’clock in the morning. It’s the
busiest time of night for the spirits. I think it’s because it’s easier for
them to get noticed when it’s quieter out. When the world is in a cocoon of
sleep. When they can draw power from the dreams of the living.”

I studied her, standing, framed by the moonlight
shining through my window. “You said that ghost was a choking ghost. Could it
have killed me?”

“Could’ve. It’s happened before.” When I didn’t
say anything, she continued. “I’d never seen a choking ghost before I came to
this place. It’s best if you protect yourself.”

She reached into her other pocket and pulled out a
blue velvet bag tied at the top with a black leather cord. She walked over next
to me and spilled the contents of the bag onto the bed.

They looked like little stones with symbols on
them. My hand reached out to touch one, but something made me hesitate.

“It’s okay, you can touch them. They’re runes.
Runes aren’t like tarot cards. Now, try to touch someone’s deck of tarot and
they’ll have a fit. The cards hold people’s vibrations, a bit of their power.”
She picked up a rune and bounced it up and down in her palm. “But these don’t
hold any power unless you make a charm with them. Mostly you use them to focus
your abilities, like with crystals and medallions.”

She held the stone up to me. “See each symbol?
Each character is one from the runic alphabet. I’ve shown them to you before,
but you don’t remember. Wonder if you’ll ever get your memory back.” She put
the stone back in the pile. “They’re old Norse. Odin used them. Have you heard
the poem?” She started to sing,

She looked down at me. “You never heard it? Well,
if you did, you probably couldn’t remember right now. They say runes have the
power to bring that which is dead back to life. Most use them as a divining
tool. To tell fortunes, to see your future.”

She gathered the pieces together, poured them back
into the bag, shook it a couple times, then turned it over, and dropped the
stones back onto the bed. “You draw lots. To tell fortunes.” She started
flipping a few of them over. “But you can also use them to make charms. See
this one.” She held one up. Drawn in the middle of it was a line and branching
off at the top were two smaller lines, one on the left and one on the right. It
looked like a stick figure with its arms stretched out. “This one is for
protection.
Algiz
, the rune of protection. Until you
get some salt tomorrow, I’d better make you something.” She reached over and
grabbed the covers and pulled them down. Before I could react, she grabbed the
hem of my hospital gown and turned it up a few inches.

She reached up to the back of her collar and
pulled out a sewing needle. “Don’t worry, old Mildred will make it right. They
don’t allow sharp objects in here.” She laughed. “But what they don’t know
won’t hurt them. The place is a lot like a prison. You know how you watch those
movies and the prisoners are always bartering or bribing with the guards to get
stuff? Last week, one of the night nurses wanted me to do a love spell for her.
A guy she fell hard for wasn’t noticing her. Two love birds kissing in a tree.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G,”
she sang out. “I got two
handfuls of chocolate bars for doing that bit of magic. I’d share, but they’re
all gone.”

She reached out, grabbed my finger, and before I
could pull it back, she pricked it with the needle. Speechless, I watched as
she squeezed my finger hard until a drop of blood came to the surface. She
lifted the blood with the needle, and using the needle like a pen, started to
draw the symbol for protection onto the inside of my white gown. She mumbled
some words—too low for me to make out—then dropped my gown and took
a step back.

Mildred looked very pleased with herself. “The
choking ghosts never
used
to bother
you. But I guess you’re different now, with your memory sucked away.
When I’ve got more time I can make you a charm to
wear around your neck and put under your pillow at night if you need it. But
this will do for now. There.” Her voice lowered conspiratorially. “We’d better
be going soon if you want to see him. I thought you would want to see him now that
you’re back. He’s been asking for you every night. He’s a persistent one, he
is. I promised I would bring you as soon as I could.”