The Phantom Limb (14 page)

Isaac sighed. “I'll try. But it's not easy after all that's happened—to her
and
to me.”

“Just get control of yourself. We have to be precise about our plan. I went to the hospital today and saw it for myself. They hardly let anybody into the intensive care unit. The nurses there seem afraid. We have to be very careful.”

“Yes, we do,” Isaac said. “I don't know who we can trust. There's one nurse named Vicky.
Maybe
we can trust her. But she's afraid too. I think she's sort of a victim. If we could convince her about what's really going on, she might be on our side.”

“We don't have a choice,” Grandpa said. “We have to get her on our side. No doctor or police officer will believe us about that mirror box. And the person is very clever and covers their tracks well. We have to be around as much as possible.”

“I'll go there early again tomorrow morning,” Isaac said. “You can go again during the day. We can hang out there for the whole weekend. We've got to collect as much evidence as we can.”

After dinner, Isaac went up to his room and got back on his computer. He felt relieved that there was now an outline of a plan and that Grandpa was well enough to help. He went to Google and typed in “Magic Mirrors.”

There were a lot of results, from ancient times to modern, from facts to folktales. He stayed up late reading as much of it as he could.

The earliest information about magic mirrors was reported by Saint Augustine. An area of Greece called Thessaly, a region surrounded by high mountains,
was famous in ancient times for the large number of witches living there. The magic in the mirrors belonging to these witches put the witches into a trance. While in this exalted state, they wrote puzzling predictions in an obscure language on the mirrors. The predictions would come to pass—providing they were written in human blood.

Roman generals also had magic mirrors. They used them to look at the results of battles. With the information from the mirrors, they could better plan their battle strategies to conquer their enemies.

In the eleventh century, the bishop of Verona was burned at the stake after a magic mirror was found under his pillow. Written in reverse on the mirror was the word “Fiore,” which proved collaboration with the devil, because Satan often appeared in the shape of a flower. A powerful family in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Medicis had mirrors that they used to find the location of their enemies, so that they could poison them.

Isaac found pictures of fun-house mirrors that warp and distort the viewer. There were mirror mazes, which can look six times as big as they really are because of the reflections. That made them much more confusing than any other kind of maze.

Everyone knows the story of Snow White, in which the vain evil queen has a magic mirror that tells her who the most beautiful in the land is—the mirror is the reason the queen tries to kill Snow White. Isaac learned—he didn't know this until now—that dance studios always have at least one mirrored wall. Dancers watch themselves in the mirror and check that their arms and legs, their heads and shoulders, are in the correct position.

But the mirrors didn't act on their own—they needed a living person to make them work—the same way Joey needed Isaac. The witches of ancient Thessaly used magic mirrors to put themselves into a trance; today, mediums and clairvoyants use the mirrors, Isaac read, to put themselves into a different kind of trance, in which they can communicate with the dead.

Isaac logged off the computer, yawning. Communicating with the dead through a mirror—that's exactly what he had been doing.

 

SAAC DIDN'T SLEEP WELL THAT NIGHT. Thoughts of what serial killers did to their victims kept running over and over again through his mind.

Of course, being in the hospital, this killer was limited. She—if it was a she—couldn't blatantly
torture
Vera with knives and whips. No, she had to be cunning and subtle. Her form of torture was psychological as well as physical. She could order procedures like endoscopies, which Isaac knew from his own experience were very painful. And who knew what other procedures she was capable of inflicting on people? As with most psychopaths, it was the thrill she got from her victims' suffering
that gave her pleasure—because she must be in so much pain herself. And if she actually did kill her patient, she couldn't chop him or her up the way other psychopaths did. Which meant that she had to get her kicks in while Vera was still alive.

Was it a good idea for him and Grandpa to spend as much time at the hospital as possible? Isaac was nervous about provoking Dr. Ciano. But it was the only way to collect more evidence. It was clear that he wasn't welcome at the hospital. He had been forced to undergo that endoscopy and then the MRI without sedation or painkillers of any kind, even though he wasn't a patient. If someone was willing to do that, how far would that person go?

Isaac didn't fall asleep until four
A.M.
At five thirty, he could hardly bear to get up, but things started early at the hospital. At least it was Saturday and he didn't have to go to school. The weather was getting cooler now, but Grandpa had been thoughtful enough to crank up the heat, so that taking a shower was not frigidly uncomfortable, and it sure helped wake him up. So did the brisk bike ride to the hospital.

Vicky was at the computer when he got to the intensive care unit. She looked exhausted.

“Were you on the night shift?” he asked her.

She nodded unhappily. “And I've got to work the day shift too, without a break. Candi's orders.” She dropped her voice. “Candi gives the twins the weekends off. That means more work for the rest of us.”

“How's my mother?”

“Actually, she's pretty good … mainly because the doctor has been busy for the last couple of days and hasn't been in to see her much—so she hasn't been medicated.” Vicky looked around nervously. “I'd better shut up. I shouldn't be telling you this. Go see your mom.”

She knew she shouldn't be telling him these things, but she was. That was a hopeful sign. Maybe she was on their side, after all; she also knew that Vera was in trouble. She was tired, which caused her to let her guard down. Isaac made a mental note to remember that.

Isaac peered into Vera's room and saw that his mother was sitting up in bed and eating a little. The bandage on her arm looked smaller now. It was amazing how much she'd improved in such a short time.

She looked up and saw him. “Hi, Ize. Yes, I'm awake, and I feel like eating. The pain in my arm is almost gone. It's great.” She dropped her spoon onto
the plate. “But they sure know how to ruin oatmeal in this hospital. Just get me out of here, please.”

“We won't leave you alone, I promise,” Isaac said. Then he sighed. “If only we could get some other doctor to come in, now that they're not drugging you all the time. I bet another doctor would let you out of here. Otherwise, we'll have to escape on our own. I'll be back later today, and Grandpa will be in. He made a steak dinner last night.”

Vera shook her head. “Amazing.”

Isaac left Vera's room and walked back to the nurses' station.

“When does the doctor come to this floor?” he asked Vicky.

Vicky shrugged. “Hard to say. Usually late in the morning. But don't expect to see her on weekends. She won't be back until Monday.”

“Are there any other doctors in the hospital today? Can you page whoever's on call? I think maybe my mother can be discharged.” He lowered his voice. “We have to get her away from here, and a good doctor can get her out.”

Vicky looked worried. “That's not going to be easy, but let me think about it. Since your mother's a little better, why don't you go on home?”

Vera did seem a little better, so Isaac followed Vicky's suggestion and headed home.

On Sunday, Isaac and Grandpa took turns sitting with Vera. Both agreed that she was looking healthier and acting more alert.

Isaac had been planning to catch up on his homework over the weekend, but he found he still couldn't concentrate. He got out the mirror box Sunday evening and stuck his hands in. Immediately, he felt sleepy.

This time the woman in the mirror was an adult. Her face was clearer now. She was mixing pills again and, as always, muttering to herself in front of the mirror—maybe to distract herself from her own reflection, which she clearly hated.

“It feels good to get back to being productive,” she said, smiling almost pleasantly. She was wearing thick turquoise rubber gloves as she worked. Whatever liquid she was working with seemed to be caustic—she didn't dare touch it herself. Was
that
what she had been putting on Vera's arm? Isaac knew he had to get to the hospital before school in the morning.

But he didn't get to sleep until very late and slept through his alarm. Even so, he knew he had to check on Vera and try to catch the attention of another doctor. He was going to have to skip school again. He was doing so poorly in all of his classes now that failure seemed inevitable. But what was more important? He knew what he had to do.

He ate breakfast in five minutes, ran out and jumped on his bike, and was on his way.

 

FINALLY GOT TO GO HOME LAST NIGHT,” Vicky said to Isaac when he arrived at the hospital. “Man, did I sleep. Came in this morning feeling much better. How are you?”

Isaac was glad she was talking to him like a friend. He hoped he could count on her to help. “Has the doctor come in yet?” he asked her.

“Not yet. How come you're not at school?”

“I'm skipping. Is Candi in?”

“She's with your mother.” She nodded at the room. “And the door's closed.”

Isaac ran down the hall, then very quietly opened the door and walked inside.

Candi was bending over Vera, who appeared to be unconscious. That's when Issac saw them: the heavy turquoise gloves that he had seen the woman in the mirror wearing. Candi had removed Vera's bandage and was about to apply something to the bruise with wet cotton gauze that she held in a pair of forceps.