Chapter Twenty Two

The Secret was on the Last Page

Salinger

The first book I pulled out of Pearl's bag was very cute. It had a gray fabric cover. Veda made a new cover to hide the ugly one beneath. She had obviously had high hopes for this story. I wondered what had gone wrong. Looking at the spine, it had been opened many times. Was that because Antony had read it so many times, he had given it a worn look?

I began reading.

I was her doctor in an empty hospital. She was the only patient, all tucked up in bed, with her black hair hanging in ringlets around her. Her lips were white, and there were faint circles under her eyes.

I picked up a clipboard at the end of her bed that said she was dying and all the reasons why. It also said there was no treatment for her illness. The only instruction was to keep her comfortable until she died.

I realized immediately that the goal of the book was for me to keep her alive, even though she claimed she was in pain and wanted to die. I had to make the time meaningful for her, help her to love life, and eventually, say the words, ‘I don’t want to die.’

It wasn’t easy. She resisted my every attempt.

I was worried when the first night came. I had to remind myself that I didn't need to worry about how much time was passing in the outside world. Hardly any time would have passed and I could give all my attention to the imaginary Veda who was dying.

I wheeled another hospital bed close to hers and told her I would stay with her all night so she wouldn't be scared. I had to take her to the bathroom. She cried on the way because putting pressure on her legs hurt. She cried while she peed too, and eventually, I had to go into the bathroom to hold her hand. Her gown covered her well enough that her modesty was not violated, but what girl wants to be held while she uses the toilet? It was like she already knew what it would be like to so hurt that all social niceties fell away.

When she got up from the toilet, the urine was red. I should have expected it after all her crying, but I didn't. She was able to wipe herself but no more, and I had to carry her back to the bed princess-style.

After I got her settled, she wanted to tell me stories. She told me about all her dreams for her life that would never happen. The most peculiar thing about her stories is that they held a common theme. They were all things she wanted to do with her mother.

They were all ordinary things. She wanted to knit one end of a scarf, while her mother knit the other end. They were going to watch a black and white movie and make this big scarf (they would have to watch a lot of movies) and when it was finished, she would wear it even after it was worn out. Then she wanted to do it again, but the second time, knit one for her mother. She wanted to take her mother to visit the White Cliffs of Dover and hang their legs off the side and stare off into the distance and imagine what France must be like. The one after that surprised me. She wanted to go to White Horse and see the northern lights and observe the stars without the light pollution of Edmonton. I could do that for her.

I told her so on the spot. I have a house there. I told her, but she just looked at me like I didn't understand. She didn't want to go with me. She wanted to go with her mother, and she never could.

That was when everything made sense to me. There was a scarf that was knit on one side by Veda and the other side by her mother. It was real and it had magic. That was the scarf that was holding the doors to Cold as Stone shut. Which meant that the woman I had seen by the doors was Zellica.

She was dead.

She had always been dead.

It all added up. That was why ownership of the house came to Veda on her eighteenth birthday. That was the soonest it could be done. That was why her mother was always chasing her father. He was dead too and the relationship Veda had with her mother was one that had only been possible because Veda was a witch and a child. Veda had been bringing her mother's spirit home. And often. That was what I saw, Zellica's spirit and a scarf that was made half in our world and half in the world of the dead.

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Veda couldn't keep bringing her mother’s ghost back. Children were better at that kind of magic than anyone. It was because they were so recently from the unseen world themselves. That had to be why Veda had been losing her ability to do it as she approached her eighteenth birthday. The letter meant that her mother wanted her to stop bringing her into this world. It was dangerous for Veda. If she did it too many times, she would die.

Zellica had visited me to teach me what I needed to do to keep Veda in this world. I needed to be mindful of her differences, but I also needed to love her, and love her fiercely.

“I love you,” I suddenly said to the sick Veda who was dripping blood from her nose.

She looked at me with huge eyes. “You're a doctor. Of course, you don't want me to die. Of course, you feel sorry for me, but it's just one night of your career. You'll be here in this room with another girl on a different night and you'll feel the same way for her that you feel now for me. I'm not special.”

“No, you are special,” I said, taking her one hand in mine and wiping her nose with the sleeve of my lab coat.

“Stop it. I'll call the nurse,” Veda threatened.

“There is no nurse. There is no one in this whole hospital, except you and me. Why do you think we are here, alone together?”

She suddenly looked very afraid, “Because I'm contagious?”

I stared at her. “You’re not sick.”

“Of course, I'm sick,” she whimpered. “I hurt everywhere. I'm bleeding from everywhere.”

Then I noticed she was bleeding from her ear. “Let me look.” I got out my instrument and looked in her ear. I couldn't tell where the blood was coming from, no matter how many times I wiped it clean.

So far in the story, Veda had taken her symptoms in stride no matter what happened, but her reaction to the blood dripping from her ears was different. She seemed to panic, catching the blood that fell on the backs of her hands and inadvertently spreading it everywhere.

I had to think. Was I wrong about the purpose of the story? What was I supposed to do? Could I convince her that she wasn't sick when she bled so freely? She started coughing and sprayed tiny spots of blood across the white blankets.

“Do you want to die?” I suddenly asked her.

She leaned back into her pillows comfortably. “Oh, yes. I'm just a little scared. That's why you're here, to ease my passing.”

I put my hands in the pockets of my lab coat. I felt a syringe in the left-hand pocket. That was it. Once I got tired of seeing her in pain, I could give her the needle and the story would be over.

Except I couldn't.

“I'll see if I can find something to help,” I lied, as I excused myself from the room.

Veda was a better writer than me at every turn. In this book, the world was detailed and complex. I took myself to a custodial closet that had a tiny shower in the corner. There, I crushed the syringe with the heel of my doctor-like loafer.

Back in the room with Veda, I put my hand in my pocket, and the syringe was back. It didn't matter how many times I disposed of it, it would always be back in my pocket because I couldn't finish the spell book without it.

Veda took no notice and continued weeping blood into a white towel that was slowly turning pink.

I couldn't watch her. I went back into the hallway to think.

Veda was planning to die. Was that the whole reason she had goals for her cousins? Because she wasn't going to be here to see them? I had been hastening her project because I hoped to free her to live her own life, but she didn’t want to live her own life, did she?

I promptly had a panic attack. I felt like an invisible door had opened in front of me and I had been thrust into hell. The hall looked the same. Nothing looked different.

I was in hell.

When I helped Veda and her cousins I was actually helping her put her life in order so she could die? That had to be why it was so important to her to make sure they had good life patterns. But if she never got them on course, then maybe she wouldn't feel like she could leave them. Her link to the spirit world wouldn't last forever. It had been fading for years, and if everyone could stall her for a few more, then the link would be gone... Maybe there was another way to break it. I thought again about the scarf holding the door closed. Maybe there was a way to sever the link that didn't involve waiting for it to dissolve. Maybe the scarf held the door to the spirit world open.

I grasped my courage. Zellica had given me the scarf. I thought she had given it to me to protect me from Antony, but perhaps she had used it that way only because it had been convenient. She gave it to me so I could destroy it and save the life of her child.

I had to get back to Cold as Stone and get it off the door. Except, I couldn't go. I couldn't give Veda that needle. That was how Antony had gotten out of the book when he read it. He had given her the injection.

When I last saw him, he was on his way to visit Veda.

Hell was only the beginning.