Waking Rose: A Fairy Tale Retold (30 page)

Now she paused, and started again, even more slowly. “I gathered that she knew about the article he was writing, and that it was on the hospital. I could tell from the way she talked that she worked there. Now, it wasn’t anything in her manner. She was quite nice. But I could tell from Dan’s reactions that what she was saying was sinister. He just sort of went stiff. Rose began crying again, so it was difficult for me to hear as well,” she added apologetically.

“But I heard her say, ‘You realize how unwise it would be to alienate the medical establishment in this area?’ And then the woman looked at the baby, and I didn’t like the way she looked at her. Her mouth was sort of tight. She said, ‘You expect to see her grow up, don’t you?’

“And Dan sort of bristled and said with a smile, ‘What are you saying, ma’am?’

“And she said, ‘Your first child had a heart murmur, didn’t she? And your mother has Alzheimer’s. We know your whole family’s medical history.’

“And then she said, ‘Are you having your children immunized?’ And he said, ‘That’s none of your business.’ And she said, ‘You know that infants occasionally die from routine immunizations, for no apparent reason?’

“And Dan said, ‘What’s your point?’ And she said, ‘I’m only observing that someone with your responsibilities should be very careful about the kind of medical care that his family members get. If your story is published, I can’t assure you that you’ll continue to get optimum care.’

“And Dan said, ‘You’re threatening me, aren’t you?’ And the woman looked at Rose again and said, ‘You just applied for a birth certificate for her at the hospital, didn’t you? They’ll remember her name. This hospital has been around a long time. Hospitals outlive most of their patients—and most people.’ And Dan said, ‘I think you’ve said enough. Get out of here. Now.’ And she went.”

 There was an audible sigh of relief from the sisters as Sister Maria finished her story. They all turned to Fish, who was silent, trying to take this all in.

“So are you trying to say that Rose is in danger because she’s at Robert Graves Memorial Hospital?” he asked cautiously.

“Yes. But we also think that it could well be that they are the ones who put her in the hospital in the first place.”

“So you’re saying her fall wasn’t an accident?”

“Yes.”

 Fish stared at them. “But I was there at the barn with the police. There’s no evidence of any foul play.” 

“But Rose is in the hospital now, isn’t she?” Sister Maria asked.

“Well, yes, of course,” Fish said. “And as far as I can tell, they’re giving her optimum medical care. And Jean’s a nurse. She’s been reading all of Rose’s charts and following all the medications they’ve been giving her. She would notice if they were neglecting her. But seriously, are you trying to say that because Rose was an infant here some twenty years ago, that a bunch of doctors with a grudge against her dad would remember her name and deliberately maltreat her?”

“It’s possible,” Sister Maria said.

Fish tried not to sound sarcastic. “Well, yes, it’s possible, but is it probable?”

“We have laid out some important information for you. You and the police can investigate from here,” Sister Carmen said.

“I see,” Fish said with a deep breath. “It’s an interesting theory, sisters, and I’m sure I’ll keep it in mind. But until there’s some further evidence, I’m not sure that your story proves anything except that someone at the hospital was mad at Rose’s father and made some empty threats.”

“But they weren’t empty,” Sister Maria said. “They killed Dan’s mother.”

“Excuse me?”

She nodded. “After the christening, Dan tried hard to get the story published. Then he and Jean and the girls went off to a wedding in another state, and while they were gone, his mother fell down and broke her ankle. One of the relatives watching her took her to the hospital, of course. And forty-eight hours later, she was dead.”

Fish blinked. “She died of a broken ankle?”

Sister Therese said, “They said she had probably picked up an infection in the hospital in her weakened state and died.”

Fish shivered, despite himself. “But did anyone make the connection between the threats and her death?”

“Dan did. He told us as much, and asked for us to pray. Then he put everything into pushing that story into print, but in the end, his editor refused point blank. When no other paper would take it, he got a job in New Jersey as quickly as he could and moved his family. A few years later, he called and told us that he had been getting his information from a nurse who worked at the hospital. She had just been killed in a car accident, and he asked us to pray for her soul and for her family. That was fifteen years ago. We pray for her still.”

Fish was becoming bothered that he had never heard mention of any of this before. If Rose had been aware of her dad being involved in such an exciting episode, she would have told him about it long ago. That and the curious aura of credulity of the three old sisters made him wary.

“Well, this is quite a remarkable story,” Fish said at last, trying to come up with some feasible response. “Certainly very disturbing, but it’s all circumstantial evidence. There’s no clear sign that—”

“Oh, but there is!” Sister Maria said, her eyes bright. “The devil manifested his plan for Rose Brier at her christening—through his chosen instrument.”

“And now his plan has begun,” said Sister Carmen. “And you must stop it, Fish.”

“I see,” said Fish, not seeing at all, wondering how soon he could leave the room. Father Raymond had warned him that some Catholics were weird, but he had never before encountered any on this scale.

 “Search for the woman who came to the christening. She’s behind this. We’re positive.”

Fish suppressed a groan. “Well, just who is this woman, and do you have any evidence that she’s ever set eyes on Rose since she was a baby?” he asked skeptically.

“She must have worked at the hospital, and she’s probably still there. One of the doctors there. You will investigate this, won’t you?” Sister Maria said eagerly.

“I’ll check into it, certainly,” Fish said. There was certainly no harm in doing that. “But I’m not sure that it will do Rose much good, and that’s what her mother and family are struggling with most at this point.” He rose, and gave Sister Maria a slight bow. “Thank you for taking the trouble to contact me.”

“You must not doubt, Fish,” said Sister Carmen suddenly to him. “Rose can be woken up. You must wake her. It is God’s will.”

That was not helpful to hear. Not at all.  “Thank you for your trouble,” he said again, and left.

Hers

Something had happened. When Rose roused herself from her mental slumber, she found that she could no longer hear. Frantically, she searched around for the beginnings of how to hear, but the passageways were blocked to her, as though walls had come down in the middle of the night, closing her off. She regained a hold on her mouth, and attempted to feel, at least with the tip of her tongue, but there was a curious fuzzy feeling there, as though her tongue had turned to cotton.

Perhaps she needed water? She had imagined that they were giving her water, in the hospital. A chilling thought came over her. How long had she been asleep? Had they decided to give up feeding and hydrating her? She knew that people in comas had been allowed to starve to death before, and now the prospect was alarmingly close.

Don’t imagine thirst
, she told herself fiercely,
or it will become unbearable.
Imagining that one was starving to death, or dying of thirst, would become a real torture in this mental prison.

But of course, once the thought had occurred to her, it was difficult to push it out of her mind. She battled it for some time, but in the end, she relinquished hold of her tongue and mouth and resolutely shut herself off in order to regain her sense of proportion.

Whatever proportion it was possible to have
, she thought ironically,
when you’re shut off from your own body.

Once again she felt at the walls that had blocked off her hearing, and tried to find a crack back through to the physical world. The thought of her mother, Blanche, Bear, and Fish standing around her, talking to her, without being able to hear them, was unbearable. She fought to keep herself from breaking down into anguish.

Eventually, she drifted into random thoughts once more, and realized she was getting weary. She let herself fall into the world of dreams where her prison seemed to dissolve.

In her dream, she was sitting in a rose garden, wearing a long blue dress with gold patterns worked all through it, vines and flowers and birds. And she leaned her hand languidly on the arms of the wooden chair, rubbing her fingers on a rose petal that had fallen into her open palm. She could smell its crushed scent, mingled with the spring air, the damp earth, and the roses blooming in the gentle breeze. She could feel sunlight on her hands and knees, and the kiss of the wind on her face as she leaned back in a wooden throne that was set beneath a rose tree. The song of birds echoed in the skies above. Above her she could see the branches swaying, heavy with blooms. She thought to herself,
he’s coming. I know he’s coming.
And felt a skip in her heart.

Perhaps she should rouse herself and make a garland of fresh roses to wear. But these roses had thorns, and perhaps that would be a crown that would be too difficult to wear.
Should I or shouldn’t I?
She wondered. But there was no need to move, or decide, until he came.

As she sat there, still, but fully aware and alive, she saw something moving in the grass near her throne. A long, thin, brown line, easing its way towards her. For some reason, she thought she should be disturbed by this, but she wasn’t.

Her eyes began to close. Soon she would be sleeping. But wasn’t she asleep, already? And wasn’t she asleep, even beyond this sleep
? I’m dreaming about dreaming about dreaming,
she thought to herself.
Weird.
Too many layers, too many labyrinths. She roused herself, tried to wake up. After all, wasn’t this what it was all about, waking up?

But something was twisting around her hand. She felt its faintly rough, dry surface tickle around her wrist and up her bare forearms. She tried to raise her hand to throw it off, but she was pinned to the arm of the chair. A small head with shiny black eyes like pinheads passed through her vision, and she saw it dart from her arm to her stomach and she flinched. But it was too late. She was already caught to the chair by her stomach, then her chest, and then, with another flicker of the snake, her shoulders, and as much as she wrestled, she couldn’t move. One arm was still free, and she tried to pull off the brown coils, but they wouldn’t budge. Then something leapt over her shoulder and began pulling down on her upper arm. Her shoulder was pressed to the side of the throne, then her elbow, and then, after a frantic struggle, her wrist, her palms, her fingers were fastened relentlessly down.

It was over. There was nothing she could do now but lie still and watch and feel as the brown sinuous lines ran over her knees, her legs, down to her feet. When even her toes were captive, there was a pause. Then she felt the undulating cords start to creep up her body, towards her chest, her shoulders... a brown thick rope tightened around her neck, and her vision clouded. Something was snaking its way up to her ear, and paused by her neck as she strained and winced. There was a sharp, momentary pain, and then clouds of forgetfulness began to seep through her veins. She was no longer able to struggle. She could no longer feel the bonds, although she knew they were there.

A fog was passing over her. The sky darkened, and the cries of the birds, the pressing wood of the throne, the smell of the roses, the taste of her own tears died slowly within her.

H
IS

“Jean, does Rose have three godmothers?” Fish asked Jean abruptly the next morning after church.

“Actually, yes, she does,” Jean said, blowing her nose, a bit startled. “I introduced you to one of them the other night, Sister Maria. She has two other nuns she lives with—well, she used to live with them, if Sister Carmen is still alive. My husband Daniel was quite fond of them when he went to school here, and he asked the priest if they could all be her godmothers, and he gave them permission. I think it’s Sister Maria who’s the official godmother—you’re only allowed one—but we asked the other two to be honorary godmothers. Dan’s college friend Philip was the godfather. I think he’s living somewhere in Nebraska now.”  She looked at him curiously. That particular expression of hers reminded him very much of Rose. “Why do you ask?”

“I just met them all last night, and they told me—well, quite frankly, they told me a rather strange story.”

“That sounds like the nuns I remember,” Jean said with a wry smile. “They’re good people, but they’re a little—out of touch. Daniel thought they were very holy, but when I knew them as a student, they sometimes seemed a bit too weird for me.”

“I can well understand,” Fish said as they got in the car. “Do you mind if I tell you the story? I’m wondering how much of it is grounded in reality.”

As they drove to get some breakfast at a local restaurant, Fish related the tale he had been told. He could tell from Jean’s stunned and mystified expression that she had never heard this story before.

“I don’t know what to make of all this,” she said slowly. “It’s just beyond bizarre.”

“Did your husband ever tell you about the woman at the christening party?”

“No, not at all. I certainly didn’t see her. It’s too strange. If someone had come to our baby’s christening and made threats like that, I think Dan would have told me.”

“Well, maybe he didn’t want to unnecessarily distress you. The sisters also said that Dan thought that his mother’s death soon afterwards was connected to the threat. Did he mention anything along those lines to you?”

Again, she shook her head, almost angrily. “No. Of course he was devastated by his mother’s death—we all were. It was very sudden. Maybe, if those threats were actually made, when he was grieving, he might have seen a connection that wasn’t there. I don’t doubt that Sister Maria would have seen it as part of some kind of conspiracy against him. She’s always been a little crazy that way. But it doesn’t mean it happened.”