On Fire (14 page)
“I thought you had him locked up,” I said.
“We took the chains off several days ago,” the nurse told me.
Everyone smiled except me.
Frank and Marsh and I went out the back door of the building. The green space turned out to be brown, although you could see it had been green before the grass gave up in the drought. There were a lot of trees. We crunched over their dead leaves when we walked.
People strolled by, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs or small groups. A family with two little kids was having a picnic over by a chain-link fence. Two old men played chess, holding the board between them on their knees. Nobody seemed to be suffering.
We walked all around and didn't find Dan. We were just going to the cafeteria to check if he might be there when I saw the guy with the rainbow suspenders sitting on the grass by an old brick building.
I considered walking over and asking him what condition the sky was in that day, but he was talking to someone and I didn't think I should interrupt.
The suspenders guy seemed to remember me, though. He stood up, took a few steps in our direction and then stopped. Frank and Marsh came and stood beside me. “That him, Matti?” Frank asked.
“Not the guy with the suspenders,” I said.
“Weren't you talking to him when we were here before?” Marsh asked.
“Just about the weather.”
The suspenders guy started walking toward us again. That's when the person he was with stood up and came in our direction as well.
It was like adjusting binoculars when you're out looking for birds. Focus. Refocus. Gradually that second person became Dan. Not the one I saw in 3B.
The one I knew. Or thought I knew.
He'd changed again. He stood much straighter now. His hair was a colour somewhere between green and black. But he was wearing the Blackstone Village Volunteer Fire Department shirt I'd given him.
Frank walked right up and held out his hand. “Dan Iverly?” He said it like he had stepped out of a western movie where he was the sheriff and was making an arrest, but Dan looked more confused than scared.
“What?” he said.
“You're Dan Iverly?” Frank said it slower the second time.
“He is,” the suspenders guy said. He held his hand out to Frank and Frank shook it, but he kept looking at Dan.
“There's no record of a missing person matching your description anywhere in the system,” Frank told Dan.
“Oh?” Dan said. “Sorry.”
Frank eyeballed him.
“Well,” he said, “an inconvenient detail.” He shook hands with Dan after that, but I could see he was still on red alert. “I'm Frank Iverly, which seems to make me your uncle.”
Marsh had moved to stand on Frank's right. Frank introduced him. “This is Marsh, who took care of you when you were in Blackstone Village living in my office, as I'm told. I'm the mayor up there by the way. And the voluntary fire chief, Justice of the Peace and just about anything else I need to be.”
He forgot to mention dogcatcher.
“You remember Marsh, of course,” Frank said.
Dan looked like he'd been under two feet of water and needed to come up for air. Still, he managed to nod his head.
I tried to stay behind Frank but he tugged my arm and got me out in front of him. “And this,” he said, “as I'm sure you'll remember, is your cousin Matti.”
No reaction from Dan. It was like the cartoon about what dogs hear when we talk to them. “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Matti.” Like that.
I took the chain with the ring on it from around my neck and put it in his hand. After that he gave me a watery smile.
We went to the cafeteria for a drink, which gave everybody something to do with their hands and an excuse for not saying much. Dan apologized for squinting. He said he was having trouble with his eyes because of the medication and he couldn't see us very well. After that he kept his head down and didn't talk.
One thing happened that made me hopeful. As we were leaving, Dan said, “Matti?” He held the ring up. I noticed his hands were trembling almost like mine do sometimes.
“Thank you,” he said.
I know it wasn't much, but I had the feeling he would have said more if Frank hadn't been watching him like a hawk.
We said goodbye to Dan. Then as Frank and I were going to the parking lot, the suspenders guy, who I'd decided must be called Howard, caught up with us and asked for a ride into the town of Metal Springs. He said he lived there.
“You're not a patient here?” Frank asked him. He'd want to know that of course. It wouldn't do for the mayor of Blackstone Village to assist anyone in breaking out of a mental hospital.
Howard shook his head. “I'm a volunteer.”
We had to wait a bit for Marsh. He went back because he said he'd left something in the cafeteria. I had a bad feeling I knew what it was.
Metal Springs, the town, was even smaller than Blackstone Village, and not doing as well, even considering our fire. There was just a rundown gas station and convenience store â nowhere near as nice as the Gas and Grocery had been, and â some boarded-up houses that were probably okay a hundred years ago.
“Where do you live?” Frank asked Howard.
“You can just let Howard off anywhere here,” Howard said.
We stopped at the gas station and he got out. “Thank you,” he said. Then he very seriously directed us out to the road like we were in heavy traffic instead of the only vehicle in sight.
“You think he's squatting in one of those old buildings?”
Marsh asked Frank when we were driving again.
“What do you mean, squatting?” I said.
“Living,” Marsh said.
“Illegally,” Frank added. “But relax, Matti. I'm not going to investigate. I have other fish to fry.”
I
FELT MORE AND MORE SURE
that Dan had wanted to tell me something when we were there, but I'd practically been forbidden to go out to the hospital alone. After about a week of not knowing, I couldn't stand it anymore.
I told Mrs. Stoa I needed a break from the schoolwork she was torturing me with, and in the afternoon I rode the Number One down to the main terminal. I found out there how to transfer to a bus that ran directly out to the hospital.
While I was waiting for it, I saw Howard coming out of a shop across the street carrying a big bouquet of flowers. He crossed toward me when I called out to him.
His hair was combed down flat on his head except for a clump in the back that wouldn't cooperate, and he was wearing a striped necktie. “You're all dressed up,” I said. “Where are you going?”
“To visit the family,” he said.
Now that he was closer I noticed he was carrying three separate bouquets. Each one was wrapped in its own cellophane package. “Does your family live in town,” I asked.
“Rolling Acres,” Howard said. He fiddled with a teddy bear attached to one of the bouquets.
If I had lived in Kingman I would have known what Rolling Acres was and I would have left it at that. I didn't live in Kingman, though. And I've already mentioned that I go straight ahead better than I back up. “Where's that?” I asked.
“Out south of town.” Howard's bus pulled up then. “It's good you found Dan,” he told me as he was boarding. “Family's the best thing. You can never have enough.”
I watched as his bus pulled away. “Rolling Acres Cemetery,” the sign across the back of the bus read.
I gave myself a little pinch on the arm.
Dan was sitting in front of the Registration Building when I got to the hospital, almost like he was expecting me. Right away I plunged in with questions again. How did he meet Bee Laverdiere was the first one.
He said he didn't know. He gave that answer to all my questions, except for a couple of times when he said, “I don't remember.”
I did one thing right, though. I gave him the fudge I'd brought with me. He put a piece in his mouth and a strange look came across his face.
“Millionaire Fudge,” he said, like it was the name of a beautiful poem. He closed his eyes and chewed. Then he opened them and said, “This I remember. You gave me some before.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And you have a sister.” He stopped chewing. “Are you the beautiful girl who fed me?”
“Yes,” I said. “I am.” I didn't even feel embarrassed.
I was the one who was flying when I left the hospital. Dan was starting to remember things! Maybe he had true things and dream things mixed up, but I could overlook that.
He remembered me!
I had to hold on to the bus stop sign to keep from floating away.
I
T WAS SEVEN IN THE EVENING
and the you-know-what was hitting the fan when I got back to the palace. Buses don't run from the hospital to Kingman as often as I'd thought.
Mrs. Stoa had managed to get hold of Frank on his pager and tell him I was missing. He roared up just after I got there and took the front steps two at a time. I thought for a minute he was going to hug me when he saw I was home. Then he got control of himself.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
“Calm down, Frank,” I said. “I just went out to see Dan and I had transportation complications.”
“You went out there alone?” He actually had a squeak in his voice.
“On the bus,” I said. “And I wasn't alone. There were quite a few people from the hospital on it when I came back. Big nurses, I mean. Not just patients.”
“You . . . ” Frank shook his head. “I want you to promise me you won't do that again.”
“I can't,” I said. “I have to go back. Dan's remembering things now. He remembers me.”
Frank frowned and looked down at his feet, which was strange behaviour for him. Then he said, “My contact got a positive on him, Matti.” That put an end to the joyfulness of the day.
“What're you talking about?” I said. Frank didn't answer.
“Marsh took Dan's glass from the cafeteria, didn't he? You got his fingerprints. You just couldn't resist.”
Frank fluttered his eyelashes like he had grit in his eyes. “He's in the system,” he said.
“Who cares?” I snapped. “What'd he do, anyway? Steal food because he was starving?”
“He hasn't broken any laws I know of,” Frank said. “That's not why he's in the system.”
âWell, why then?”
Frank measured out his words very carefully. “Because twelve years ago, when he was eight, his parents had him fingerprinted as part of a Missing Child Program.”
“He was kidnapped, you mean?”
“No. They had it done to make it easier to find him if he was. Or if he got lost.”
“And did he?”
“The only other thing I know is, he and his family were involved in a car accident a year later. Everyone was killed except for him.”
I sat down on the steps and stared at Frank. I wasn't sure if I felt better or worse, knowing Dan was an orphan.
“Do you want to know his name?” he asked.
The answer to that was easy. “Not until he does. As far as I'm concerned he's my cousin Dan Iverly until he tells me he doesn't want to be.”
T
HE ROOM IS FULL OF GHOSTS
and demons. It's smoky, but I can see well enough to tell that. They open and close their mouths like fish pulled out of water. 0nly one of them can speak. “Who are you?” it says. “Tell us your name.” This is followed by two sharp blasts on a trumpet.
A raven beats its wings at the window as a warning but I'm already vigilant. “I don't have a name,” I say. I repeat the words over and over until they let me go.
I'
M IN A DIFFERENT ROOM NOW
. It sounds and smells like lemons. “Time to get moving,” a voice says. It's a man's voice. Not unkind. Definitely not a ghost's.
There's a body with the voice. And a head with an aura around it. I feel as light as a sheet of paper. I'm afraid I may blow away.
“I think I'll stay in bed,” I say.
“I think you won't.” The body that belongs to the voice makes me sit up and slide my legs over the edge of the bed. It picks me up, folds me like a letter and pockets me. We walk around.
I'
M SITTING IN A CHAIR IN
the lemon room. A person who says he's my nurse is shaving me. He tips my head back and presses the razor blade against my throat. I'm so weak I let him.
This nurse tells me it isn't ghosts I've seen. Or demons. They're hallucinations. I'm in a hospital and what I have seen are doctors. They're the ones with the questions.
There's no smoke in the air here, either. The reason I can't see very well is because of a pill they're giving me. The name of it begins with H. He hands me one now. Pronounces it for me.
I have to swallow the H pill. If I don't, the doctors will shoot it into my veins. “It's not forever,” the nurse says. “You'll get your eyes back again.” I wonder what else the doctors have of mine. My hand is shaking when I reach it out.
I
T'S JUST THE ONE DOCTOR
I talk to now. He always sneezes when I come into the room. “So,” he says. “Do you know your name today?” He starts out like this every time. I tell him I'm not sure I have one.
“You're not sure?” he says. “Last time you were sure you didn't have one. Why's that?” He's holding something in his hand â a pencil or pen. It begs to write.
“If I'm human, I have a name. But am I human?”