The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation (12 page)

In that moment, the source of the noise no
longer mattered.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the seizure
reached its zenith then plunged immediately to an anticlimactic
end. My body fell limp, and the hot air that had been trapped in my
lungs expelled in a violent rush. I wheezed loudly as I sucked in a
fresh breath, at once gasping and then choking on the coolness.

Light flared in a kaleidoscope of colors and
then slowly began fading back to muted normalcy. A tangle of voices
competed for attention as my short-circuited neurons reset and
began processing sensory input once again. Heavily contrasted
shapes were moving around me, and I struggled to focus in on
them.

“Rowan?” Ben’s voice bled in behind the
rapidly declining rush in my ears. “Rowan? You okay?”

Felicity’s concerned tone mixed in with his.
“What happened? Ben? Rowan?”

“Is he okay?” Cally was asking from somewhere
above me.

A male voice I recognized as R.J. weaved its
way between the others. “What’s going on?”

“Oh no…” Shari’s voice began a different
sentence.

“…
is he okay?” Her twin sister Jennifer
finished it.

I was surprised that I was able to understand
any of the words, much less make any sense of them, considering
that they were all speaking at once. However, I was at least able
to pick out those few fragments. I blinked hard and willed my eyes
to adjust to the dim light of the hallway. It still seemed darker
than it had before the seizure had overtaken me, but as clarity
returned, I found myself staring at the reason.

Everyone but Nancy was huddled in a tight
circle above my prone body, blocking out what little illumination
there was within the corridor. I felt a quick wave of
claustrophobia but managed to suppress it as I focused on their
faces.

“Rowan, are you okay? What just happened?”
came Ben’s voice once again, firing the words in a rapid
staccato.

“I’vff fallen and I canth geth up?” I croaked
the first thing that popped into my head. My tongue was filled with
a series of sharp pains, and I took notice of the fact that when I
spoke my pronunciation was thick and blunted.

“Jeez, Row,” my friend admonished as he
screwed up his face. “This ain’t the time to be crackin’ jokes.
What’s goin’ on here?”

“Aye,” Felicity added. “Ben’s right.”

“Thorry,” I told them as I pushed myself up
on one elbow and used my other hand to massage my jaw where it had
impacted the floor.

I opened my mouth and touched my fingertips
to the end of my tongue. When I pulled my hand away, it was wet
with saliva-diluted blood.

“You’re bleeding,” Cally gasped.

“I think I bith my tongue,” I said.

“Yeah, no kiddin’,” Ben spoke again as he
offered me his hand. “That still doesn’t explain what just
happened.”

“I donth know,” I answered as I gripped his
forearm. “Buth I think I know whath an epilepthic seizure feelth
like now, and ith not pleathant.”

Everyone in the group shuffled back as I
stood. I didn’t have to exert myself much as Ben did most of the
work, levering me upward with a steady pull. Felicity stepped
forward the moment I was upright and touched her hand carefully to
my face, moving it from side to side as she inspected it. I wasn’t
sure, but I thought I heard a frantic voice calling out in the
distance. I listened hard, but my ears were met only by the ambient
noise of the house.

“Was it some kinda
Twilight Zone
thing?” my friend
asked.

“I donth know. Maybe. Probably.”

“Well shit, white man, what DO you know?”

“I know my fathe hurths.”

“I’m not surprised,” he returned. “You tried
to dent the floor with it a minute ago.”

“Aye, into the bathroom with you then,”
Felicity ordered with a slight nudge then directed her attention to
the others as she assumed command. “Shari, do me a favor and grab
some salt and a glass from the kitchen, please. Cally, you go check
on Nancy. The commotion may have disturbed her, and she shouldn’t
be alone if she’s awake. The rest of you go on back to the dining
room, and I’ll see to Rowan.”

“I’m fthine,” I objected.

“Aye, so you say, but I’ll be the judge of
that, Rowan Linden Gant,” she returned.

“So, was it one of those visions or
something?” Ben threw out the question.

“In a minute, Ben,” Felicity instructed him
as she made a shooing motion with her hand. “Let him at least rinse
his mouth out with some salt water, then. Go ahead with everyone
else, and we’ll be along shortly.”

The group split apart, and Cally headed up
the stairs. Shari hurried several steps ahead of the rest of us on
her way to the kitchen at the back of the house. As Felicity took
my arm and started guiding me along, I heard the faint voice again.
This time, I could actually make out the words, and unless I was
mistaken, the disembodied vocalization was calling Ben’s name.

“Didth you hear that?” I asked as I halted
and cocked my head sideways.

Felicity continued for a half step past my
sudden stop, then looked at me. “Aye, hear what?”

Again, tinny words floated into the air,
“Helllloooo! Benjamin! Talk to me!…”

I slowly turned back to my friend who was
bringing up the rear. Without a doubt, the sound was coming from
his direction.

A look of embarrassed realization washed
across his features as he stared back at me then down at his hand
and muttered, “Dammit.”

I followed his gaze then gave him the answer
to his earlier question. “Thtell her I think ith’ll be fine.”

As Felicity and I continued down the hall, he
had his cell phone pressed against his ear and was both apologizing
to Helen and explaining what had just transpired.

* * * * *

I spit a mouthful of salt water into the
washbasin for the fifth time. The first go around it had been
bright red, but this time it had only a slight pinkish tinge. I
wiped my mouth with the back of my hand then poured the rest of the
solution down the drain and twisted on the faucet. After rinsing
out the basin and washing my hands, I took a seat on the closed lid
of the toilet.

Felicity offered me a hand towel, and I took
it. She reached up and pulled the free strands of her hair away
from her eyes as she stood over me and inspected my face once
again. With extreme care, she tenderly pressed the tips of her
fingers around my cheekbone until she hit a spot where I winced
noticeably.

“Aye, nothing broken, but you’re going to
have a bruise,” she announced as she cocked her head to one side.
“Tongue.”

“What?” I asked.

“Show me your tongue, then,” she
directed.

I opened my mouth and did as she told me; I
knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere to argue. She leaned a bit closer
and squinted for a moment then nodded. I closed my mouth and peered
back at her.

“So, what’s the verdict, ‘Doc O’Brien’?”

“You chewed on it pretty good, that you did,”
she answered. “Still bleeding a bit, but not too bad.”

“Yeah. I figured as much.”

“Your speech has cleared up.”

“That’s a plus.”

“Aye, it is. So what did happen out
there?”

“Like I told Ben.” I shook my head as I
spoke, “I don’t know. It just hit me out of nowhere.”

She took a step back and crossed her arms,
regarding me silently for a long moment before speaking again. “So,
are you thinking it might have been Randy trying to communicate
with you?”

“Don’t know. Maybe,” I answered. “There was
that whole thing back at the M.E.’s office.”

“Aye, I wondered about that.”

“You and me both.”

“What really bothers me is that you still
seem to be well-grounded, then. You shouldn’t be affected this
way.”

“You won’t get any argument from me there.
This is kind of weird too. Usually I ‘see’ something or get sucked
into an empathic experience; even if it is usually pretty
obscure.”

“So?”

“So there’s been none of that this time. Just
a nondescript scream and now this seizure thing.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do you think it’s
something else then?”

I shrugged. “Believe me, I’m just as confused
by this as you.”

“Aye, but remember, you did start out with
one of those headaches this morning.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I did.”

“Did you have any nightmares to go with
it?”

“Never really got to sleep.” I shook my head.
“So there was never much of a chance for one.”

“How is that, by the way?”

“What, the headache?”

“Aye.”

“No better I’m afraid. Actually, a bit worse
I think.”

She stepped forward and swung open the right
side of a tri-fold mirror over the sink. After a quick glance, she
closed it and moved on to the center. A moment later, she was
twisting the cap from a plastic bottle and shaking some of the
contents into her hand. She tilted the container back and let the
pills rattle back into it, deftly retaining three rust-colored
tablets in her palm. She shoved the heavy dose of ibuprofen into my
hand then filled a glass halfway with water and held it out to
me.

“Go ahead, then, take them.”

“You know this won’t do anything for this
kind of headache,” I said in a puzzled tone.

“Aye, that I do.” She closed her eyes as she
nodded. “But they aren’t for that. They’re for your face. It will
be hurting soon enough, and you don’t need that on top of the
headache.”

“Oh, yeah, okay.”

I popped the trio of pain pills into my mouth
and took the glass of water from her. Unfortunately, the medicine
was only midway down my throat when, for the fourth time this
morning, a bloodcurdling scream pierced my skull.

The ibuprofen tablets lodged sideways in my
throat as I involuntarily jerked at the sound. I sputtered and
gagged for a moment, then thumped my chest hard with my free hand,
forcing the lump of pills to continue along their way. With a quick
gasp, I wheezed in a lungful of air. My eyes were watering, and I
coughed to expel the water that had ventured down the wrong
pipe.

I looked up, fully expecting Felicity to be
gazing back at me and wondering why I was suddenly choking.
Instead, I found that she was wearing just as startled an
expression as I’m sure was plastered to my features. On top of
that, she was looking toward the open door. Before either of us
could utter a word, a second cry echoed through the house sounding
vaguely like the word “no.” As it faded, it became an anguished
sob, supported on all sides by sympathetic words uttered softly by
a second voice.

“Aye, that would be Nancy, I’m afraid.”
Felicity turned to me and spoke in a hurried voice as she rested a
hand on my shoulder, “Are you okay, then?”

The earlier stampede was already being
repeated as everyone came back up the hallway, passing by the
bathroom on the way.

“I’m good,” I choked out as I coughed once
again. I was still sitting on the toilet lid and leaning against
the washbasin. I motioned at the door with one hand. “Go. I’ll be
along in a minute.”

I didn’t have to tell her twice. In fact, she
was already moving in the direction of the doorway as I answered
her. I watched her go and then pushed myself upward. My muscles
were already feeling the leading edge of soreness from the
convulsive attack they’d endured. I rinsed out the glass and set it
to the side before taking a handful of the cold water running from
the tap and gingerly splashing my face. I lingered for a moment at
my eyes, letting the coolness soak in as I rubbed. They felt tired
and gritty, and that was only one of the many unpleasant sensations
coursing through me.

I dried my face with the hand towel and stood
for a moment, my expressionless countenance staring back at me from
the vanity mirror. My cheek was already swelling noticeably, and my
eyes were bloodshot. I desperately needed a shave, and my goatee
could have stood a trim as well. It seemed as though every time I
looked into a mirror lately I would see just that many more grey
hairs.

“Hell gettin' old, ain’t it?” Ben’s quiet
voice came from behind me as he voiced the observation.

I glanced over my shoulder at him then back
to the mirror. “Do you need to get in here?”

“Nah,” he replied. “Just checkin’ on
you.”

“Old,” I muttered with a sigh as I gazed back
at my less than flattering reflection. “I’d be inclined to agree
with you, but the problem is, according to my driver’s license I’m
only forty.”

“It’s not the years, Kemosabe…”

I finished the cliché bromide for him. “…It’s
the mileage. Yeah, I know.”

“Cheer up. You got a few left in ya’, white
man,” he said.

“I don’t know, Ben. I’m feeling like a bad
re-tread right now.”

“So, like maybe you need to do that groundin’
thing you and Felicity are always talkin’ about,” he offered.
“Ya’know, so the creepin’ ooga-boogas can’t fuck with ya’ so
much.”

“That’s the other problem,” I said. “I’m
already doing that.”

“For real? You ain’t just sayin’ that to get
me off your ass?”

I guess I’d lied to him about my condition
too many times for him to take my word for it right off the
bat.

“Yeah, for real. You can ask Felicity if you
want.”

He pondered my answer for a moment before
speaking. “So, that’s not a good thing then, huh?”

“No.” I shook my head. “No, it’s not.”

“So, whaddaya gonna do about it?”

I tucked the hand towel across the bar on the
wall then turned to face him and leaned back against the vanity. “I
don’t know,” I told him as I shrugged. “I haven’t figured that out
yet.”

“Can’t you cook up a potion or wear
some garlic around your neck or
somethin’
?”