Eleanor (27 page)

She looks down at her shadow.
 

“We’re losing our grip, I think,” she says, quietly. “The beasts. Now this. Strangers in our home.”

Her shadow says nothing, but she can feel it quake.

She turns her eyes back to the clouds, but the flare of light is gone.
 

She knows what it was.
 

Who
it was.
 

“This is my home,” she whispers. “You cannot have it.”

The sky rumbles in response, and the rain begins to fall harder.

What am I doing wrong?
 

The darkness swells around Mea like a storm, heavy and thick and pushing into every available space. She can feel her own shape respond to it, and change, but she feels a surge of irritability. This bewilders her—for so long she has been one with the darkness, but these newborn emotions she feels seem to have perforated that union. She feels the darkness as a second entity, and she is the first.
 

Or perhaps it is the other way around. She is beginning to feel like an intruder.
 

You are impatient
, the darkness suggests.
The seal was not bonded.

Mea had leaped at the opportunity to take Eleanor out of her father’s apartment. When the girl had gone back into the bathroom, Mea had quickly pushed the membrane into place, but this time something different happened. Eleanor didn’t fall into the dream realm, as before. This time the membrane seemed to act as a slingshot, Eleanor its bullet. It snapped and twanged musically, and fired Eleanor through the doorway and into the bathroom wall. She collided with the wall so hard that even Mea cringed to see it, and she knew instantly that this was much worse than the time before.
 

Eleanor lies in a heap now on the floor. The tiles on the bathroom wall have shattered and fallen down upon her. The wall is crushed inward—there is a huge hole in the drywall, and Mea can see exposed studs and wires beyond it. The bathroom light flickers. A single violent crack runs end to end through the mirror.
 

Mea watches as Eleanor’s father rushes to the doorway, stopping short when he sees his daughter crumpled in a pile of plaster dust and broken tile. Her red hair is splayed wide. Chunks of chalky drywall dangle from the wall, holding on in brown paper strips. The toilet tank is fractured, and water leaks onto the floor.
 

Eleanor stirs, and blinks up at her father, and both Paul and Mea are horrified to see that one of Eleanor’s eyes is shot through with blood. Then both of her eyes roll back and she collapses roughly against the jagged debris, and Paul shouts, though Mea cannot hear his voice, and he falls to his knees and gathers Eleanor to him, and lifts her up.

Why is this so hard?
Mea inquires.
It seems so simple.

You wish to bring a human into the rift
, the darkness says.
Nothing is ever simple. It has never been done.

Mea didn’t know this.
 

But it is possible?
she asks.
You told me that it could be done.

I told you that I
think
it can be done. The girl is special, as you are special.

Mea turns back to the scene, and watches as an ambulance comes, and Eleanor is loaded into the back, and the paramedics prevent Paul from climbing in with her, and a police officer arrives and talks to Paul.
 

I will bring her
, Mea says.
She needs me.

Be careful with her
, the darkness advises.
You have weakened her.

Mea settles down against the membrane like a child might press against a window to watch the snow fall, or flames dancing in a fireplace. The red-haired girl’s next days unfold quickly, and Mea waits for them to pass rather than leaping forward through time.
 

She is anxious to try once more.
 

But first Eleanor must heal.

Eleanor wakes up in a hospital bed again.
 

This is the third time she can remember this happening to her. Twice this year alone.
 

The first time was seven years ago.
 

She doesn’t want to think about that.

She blinks up at the ceiling, at a grid of fluorescent lights and acoustic tiles. There is something
off
about her vision. She closes her eyes, blinks rapidly, but it doesn’t change. She closes her left eye. The ceiling is sharp and clear. She closes her right, and the view through her left eye is clouded, indistinct. The world appears to be underwater.
 

She tries to lean forward, but something holds her back. She looks down, but can’t see much beyond her chin from this angle. Her hands are free, however, and she lifts first one, then the other. There is a bandage around each of her arms. A slim IV tube is lodged in the pit of her right elbow.

Oh, no
, she thinks.
 

She sags against her pillow, and turns her head. There is a window covered with a dull gray curtain. There is a lamp. There’s a reproduction of a Monet on the wall, behind smudged glass. To her left—it is hard to crane her neck, but she cannot tell why—there is glass, a window that looks inward instead of outward, and through it she can see a nurses’ station, and just to the right of it is her father, in conversation with a doctor in a white jacket—and a police officer in uniform. She can hear their muted voices, the muffled crackle of chatter from the radio on the cop’s shoulder. A pair of shiny handcuffs hang on his belt.
 

Her father glances toward her then, and his face changes when he sees that she is awake. He starts in her direction, and Eleanor smiles at him. Then the doctor and the police officer take her father by the wrists and arms, and Eleanor’s smile fades. Something isn’t quite right. Her father looks surprised, and she can hear his voice grow loud, and then there is a tiny beep from a machine beside her bed, and Eleanor feels the world fog over.

“Eleanor?”

“Eleanor.”

“Eleanor.”

“Here she comes. There she is.”

Eleanor rises from sleep. Today is going to be a good day, she thinks. She remembers arguing with her father last night, but the reasons for the fight seem silly to her now. Maybe she’ll find him and apologize. Maybe they can have breakfast at Dot’s, down by the sea wall. They can watch the sea lions hunting in the harbor.

But when she opens her eyes, she is not in her bed in her father’s apartment, and the person beside her bed is not her father.

“Eleanor.”

Eleanor turns her head to look at the stranger.
 

“Careful,” the voice says. Eleanor’s vision is blurred, but resolves a little. She sees a dark-haired woman in a doctor’s coat. “You don’t want to dislodge anything.”

Dislodge?

Eleanor opens her mouth, but it is dry. The doctor seems to have anticipated this, and holds a cup with a straw to Eleanor’s mouth. She finds the straw with her lips, takes a small sip of water, then exhales slowly.

“You’re feeling a little discombobulated,” the woman says.

Eleanor nods. “Yes,” she says.
 

“My name is Doctor Clifford,” she says. “You’re in the hospital right now. You’ve been here for a few hours. Do you know why?”

Eleanor closes her eyes to think.
 

“You were injured at home,” Dr. Clifford says. “Do you remember that?”

Eleanor remembers the bathroom door. “At my dad’s apartment,” she says. “Not home.”

The doctor nods, and puts her hand on Eleanor’s. “Do you remember what happened at your dad’s apartment?”

Eleanor furrows her brow and concentrates. She remembers a bowl of ice cream. She remembers shouting at her father. And—she feels an echo of a memory that is unfamiliar. Blackness. Warmth. The image that springs to mind is of a tide pool, but she has never seen one in real life.
 

“Esmerelda,” Eleanor says.
 

Doctor Clifford looks sideways, and Eleanor realizes then that there is a police officer standing at the foot of the bed. She looks back and forth between the two strangers, then settles on the doctor.

“Am I in trouble?” she asks.
 

“No, dear,” the doctor says. “Who is Esmerelda? Do you have a sister? Was she hurt, too?”

Eleanor feels confused, and the contents of her head seem to tumble around like clothes in a dryer. “My sister is dead,” Eleanor says.
 

The doctor looks alarmed by this.

Eleanor says, “She died a long time ago. I don’t know why I just said her name.”

“How’d she die?” the officer asks.

“She—it was an accident,” Eleanor says. “Where’s my dad?”

“What kind of accident?” the officer presses, and the doctor shoots him an annoyed look.

The doctor takes Eleanor’s hand. “Your father is talking to some people right now. Do you mind talking to me for a little while?”

“What people?”

“People who are looking out for you, Eleanor,” the doctor says. “Let’s talk about what happened this morning.”

Eleanor narrows her eyes at the doctor. “Where is my dad?”

The doctor sighs, and looks at the officer, who says, “Your father is in temporary custody.”

Eleanor tries to sit up, but the doctor quickly puts a hand on her shoulder. It’s unnecessary—when she moved, Eleanor felt an invisible hand grip her around the middle and squeeze. She winces and grunts, and the doctor says, “Easy,” and helps her lie back down.

“No, no, no,” Dr. Clifford says. “You need to lie still, sweetheart. You're in rough shape, and you need to rest right now.”

“I want my dad,” Eleanor says.
 

“Let’s talk for a minute, first,” the doctor says. “Just a couple of minutes. Do you think that’s something you can do for me?”

“I want my dad,” Eleanor says again, then raises her voice. “
I want my dad now!”

Doctor Clifford makes a steeple of her hands and presses her fingertips to her closed eyes. Then she turns to the officer and nods at the door. Eleanor watches the officer step out, the heavy things on his belt jangling. The doctor turns back to Eleanor.