Shattered Castles 1 : Castles on the Sand (24 page)

Kailie still hasn't answered my text, so I mull over what to do next. Maybe she went to Kirsten's without me, I reason, so I head out in that direction.

Again, I take my time and search the sidewalks with my gaze for any sign of my friend. When I reach Kirsten's house, I can tell, just from the way people move around inside, that Kailie isn't there. I'd expect the two sisters to sit down and talk, but the shadows inside move around, as if doing evening chores.

I backtrack to my house, the library, then back to the Inn before returning to search around my neighborhood some more. I don't know why I'm searching like this, but everything looks wrong, even though I can't put my finger on why. It's as if I've been taken from my world into a world that is almost identical, but not quite. The houses seem to have more cracks than I remember, and the sky less light at this hour. I pull out my phone and call John.

“Something happened to Kailie,” I say.

“What is it?”

“I don't know. But I know something's wrong. Or maybe I'm just paranoid. I guess I'm just paranoid.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Well, I haven't seen her since school, but she kind of got thrown in detention for hitting me and was really mad at me so... maybe that's why I haven't seen her.”

“That what you really think?”

“No. I think something's wrong, but I can't figure out why. I can’t shake the feeling.”

“Trust your gut. Have you looked everywhere?”

“Pretty much.”

“Talked to people?”

“I guess I could start doing that right now.”

“Okay. Anything I can do?”

“No. I'll call you.”

We hang up and I head back to Kirsten's where, again, the figures move from room to room and there's no sense of a visitor. Still, this time I go knock on the front door, my knuckles making a hollow sound against the flimsy wood.

A very exhausted looking Kirsten opens, and at the sight of me, she looks past, then back at me, puzzled. Her brown hair is piled on top of her head in a loose bun and she's wearing sweats and a t-shirt for some band I've never heard of. “Hi,” she says.

“I'm looking for Kailie. Has she been by?”

“Um... I haven't seen or even talked to Kailie in ten months.” Her searching gaze seems to ask, “Should I be worried?” Her voice is leaden with exhaustion, and I can't help but notice that she looks closer to thirty than her actual age of nineteen. Her belly is starting to swell with another pregnancy and I can hear a toddler chattering away in the other room.

It's a question I feel I should ask her. “She wanted to come see you today. I was supposed to come with her.”

“Well, I can tell you what happened. Mom and Dad stopped her, either by bribing or punishing her-”

“You think they'd punish her more?”

“More than what?” She shrugs.

“Okay, well thanks. Sorry to bother you.”

“It's fine. Bye.”

Who else, I wonder, can I talk to? Other than her parents. I don't want to talk to them. I wander back to my house, fully aware that I'm stalling. I stop at the curb and stare at my home with its pots and windchime and bleached out siding. Then I see it. Tucked under my window is a little piece of paper.

Or, as I discover when run over and tug it loose, a little envelope. I open it and out of it spills a necklace with a single, black pearl. I gave it to her for her sweet sixteenth birthday.

I jam it into my pocket, turn, and head for the Inn at a dead run, tearing down the street towards Jacksons and bolting across Wilkstone, heedless of traffic. The Inn's lights are all on, glowing faintly in the falling dusk, but the lights of the house are off. I ignore the stitch in my side as I circle around to the house door, collapse against it, and knock. No answer.

I run to the rain barrel and am on the roof in record time, but her room is dark and there's no response when I knock on the window. The wind whips across the asphalt shingles and tugs at my shirt and jeans. Maybe I've got this all wrong. Maybe Alex's claim that giving things away is a symptom of suicide is wrong.

A little voice inside my head says he's right. After all, who would know more about weird mental issues? I wish I had his phone number, but never thought to ask for it.

I pound on the window, then press my palms to it and shove upwards. It won't budge. I call Kailie's phone and hear it ring, inside the room. No one answers.

I call my mother.

“What is it?” she answers, voice seething with rage.

“Mom. I can't find Kailie and I am really, really worried about her.”

“Where are you?”

“Um... on the roof of the Beales' house.”

“What are you doing there?”

“Like I said, I'm trying to find Kailie and I think she might have hurt herself.”

“Well what are you going to do? Break into their house? Call the police? Be serious.”

“I am serious, Mom. I'm afraid she might have attempted suicide.”

“Do not do any property damage based on a hunch. The last thing I need is for you to break a window. The Beales will throw me out of the gallery altogether. Just leave the situation be.”

I hang up and resist the urge to throw my phone as far as possible. Instead I press my face against the glass and look into the darkness in Kailie's room. I can see the far wall, some of the floor, and a very dark splotch on the rug. That is definitely not right.

The window doesn't break when I hit it with my hand, and I realize that's a good thing because I'd just cut myself. I turn around and ram it with the heel of my boot. The first time I hear a crunch, but the glass doesn't give all the way. A star shaped nexus of cracks appears. I ram again and this time it does give, sending shards of glass into the room beyond.

There is a sickening smell that I can't quite place.

I climb in, careful not to cut my hands on the jagged glass, only, when I put my boot down inside, it slides out from under me and I have to grab the nearest thing at hand. I thank whatever deity is listening for the shells affixed to the wall. They hold my weight and don't slice my hands. I look down and see that I'm standing in a pool of blood.

My throat constricts with shock, turning my scream into a squeak. Kailie is lying, curled up in the corner, her clothes soaked through. Her back is to me, her hair matted and caked, her cheek paler than mine.

I
vault over Kailie's unconscious form, slip, and fall. My hand lands on a kitchen knife and I see in the dimness that she's slit her wrists. Blood covers her hands. I fumble my phone out of my pocket and try to dial 911. I manage on the third try.

“Emergency?” says the operator.

“My friend might have killed herself. She slit her wrists.”

But Kailie inhales sharply.

“She's alive!” I say.

“Where are you?”

I give the address. “It's the Pelican Bluffs Inn. The house attached to it.”

“And what condition is the patient in?”

“She slit her wrists. There's blood everywhere.”

“Are the wounds still open?”

“I don't know.”

“Is the blood pulsing out or just oozing out.”

“I don't see pulsing.”

“Did the patient submerse their wrists in hot water?”

“Huh? No.”

“All right, that's good. Apply direct pressure to the wounds. Try to bandage them with something. Help should be there any minute.” In the distance, I hear a siren start up. “Stay on the line,” the operator tells me.

I cast about for something to tie the wounds with and grab my gloves out of my pockets. It's tricky but I manage to tie one around each wrist. Much to my horror, blood soaks through them at once. I retrieve my phone from my pocket and press it to my ear. “She's still bleeding.”

“But she didn't put her wrists in water?”

“No. Why?”

“That's how you keep the blood from clotting. It's good that she didn't. Do you know where the pressure point is on the upper arm?”

“No.”

“Just under the bicep, in the inside of the arm, is an artery, press the artery against the bone and that'll slow down bloodflow.”

I try to make sense of this, but I don't really understand.

The sirens get closer and I hear the door that connects the house to the Inn open. Heavy footsteps clomp down the hall towards us and Mr. Beale pokes his head in. For a few seconds, that feel like hours, he takes in the scene, then looks at me. Anger wars with bewilderment in his expression.

“She's still bleeding,” I say.

“Is everything all right?” the operator asks.

“No, not really.”

“Can you send someone outside to guide the paramedics in?” she says.

“Yeah, I'll go downstairs.”

This means getting past Mr. Beale, though, who doesn't move when I get up and cross the room. He just stares at me.

“Get out of my way.” I go almost nose to nose with him.

His eyes narrow, but he does step back.

“Greg?” Kailie's mom calls out. “What's going on?”

I don't wait to see that confrontation. I run down the stairs and wait at the front door as Officer Li's car careens into the parking lot, an ambulance right behind it. Uniformed paramedics unload a stretcher and I motion to them to go up the stairs. Mrs. Beale's bloodcurdling scream guides them the rest of the way.

Officer Li strides in after them and I follow him back upstairs, where I find one paramedic fending off Mrs. Beale and the other two loading Kailie onto the stretcher. The lights are all on now and I can't help but stare at the pool of blood with skid marks where I slipped. It's as if the paramedics don't even notice it, or how impossibly pale my friend is. Her head lolls to one side as they strap her down.

“Why is there no furniture in this room?” demands Officer Li.

“You mind your own business,” says Mr. Beale.

The officer turns to me.

“
Don't
you-” Mr. Beale snarls as he lunges for me, but before I can react, he is down. Officer Li holds him by only his fingers, but twists them in a way that prevents him from getting up.

Surreal does not even begin to describe this experience.

“You're with me,” says the cop as the handcuffs come out. “Madison, you need to find Sonya when you get to the hospital. Can you do that?” He looks up so that he can see me nod.

“She's the social worker,” supplies one of the paramedics, which doesn't enlighten me much.

They carry Kailie out onto the landing and she doesn't look alive to me. Meanwhile, I look like I just came out of a slaughterhouse with my jeans soaked with blood from the knee down.

Officer Li hauls Mr. Beale to his feet and marches him down the stairs. I feel like a spectator, a gawking tourist who's just getting in the way.

The paramedics seem like they were summoned out of some crime drama television show. I follow them down stairs which are stained with bloody footprints. My footprints, I realize, and now the paramedics' too. My vision becomes like that jerky handheld footage that some of these shows have and I feel myself starting to gray out. The fresh air outside barely registers, though I'm dimly aware of the wind running icy fingers through my hair.

Someone takes my arm and marches me to the ambulance. I get put in the front seat and told to buckle my seatbelt, and then we're off on an insanely fast drive, with sirens whooping and lights casting a strobe effect on everything we pass.

My cellphone rings. “Hello?” I answer it.

“Madison?”

“Carson?”

“Hey, yeah. My dad says he can see an ambulance at the Pelican Bluffs Inn.”

“It's left already. We're on our way to the emergency room.”

“What happened?”

“Kailie tried to kill herself.” My voice sounds distant as I say this, as if I'm overhearing someone else have this conversation.

“We'll meet you there. Hey, guys!” The line cuts out.

I shut my eyes. I don't care how fast we go around corners. I let myself get thrown against the ambulance door time and time again, and I remember what it felt like to smash Kailie's window. My clothes reek of blood and I can't shake the image of my friend lying on the floor, pale and unmoving.

How much time did I waste, wandering around town? Why didn't I knock on Kirsten's door the first time? How long did Kailie lie there, bleeding like that? What if I hadn't had that exact conversation about suicide with Alex last Saturday? I remember what my brother said about miracles. I wonder if he'd consider that a miracle? I'd have preferred one that would have stopped Kailie from taking a knife to herself. If there really is an all powerful God, that would've been just as easy for him.

The landscape outside is just a blur. I have the vague sense that the ocean is on my left, so we are headed north. I wonder what time it is and if my mother's come in yet, and if she'll care that I'm not around. No, I think. She never does.

Will my mother guess that I'm careening my way to the hospital in clothing soaked with blood? Maybe Mr. Montrose will tell her.

My stomach feels like I've just poured a gallon of icewater into it. I wonder if Mom will blame me for having a Mormon go talk to her. It's not rational, but Mom's reaction to my going out with Carson wasn't rational.