Dance with Darkness - Ghost Dance

Chapter 20

It was only a matter of time before the news stations caught on to the discovery of the “stolen girl.”  If I looked out of the hospital room window, I could see the raised antennae of the news trucks and the camera lights for the reporters.  I didn’t turn on the TV.

Rachel was still unresponsive.  A coma, the doctors had said.  They were unsure if she would ever wake up.  Only the mindless beeps from the heart monitor gave any indication that she was alive, and my chest ached as I reassessed just how skinny she had become.  Lying in a hospital bed and being fed through tubes wouldn’t help her regain her strength.

I sat back down beside her, her hand fitting into mine as perfectly as a matching puzzle piece.  Our parents were still on their way, and I lowered my head to rest against the mattress, resigned to waiting.  The clock on the wall ticked by the seconds, minutes, hours.  I don’t know how much time had passed, but I was finally roused by a light knock on the door.

“Lynnette?”  Hesitantly, Kaden poked his head in through the doorway.  “Is it okay if I come in?”

I sat up groggily, blinking the sleep from my eyes.  “Uh…yeah.”

“Cool.  I brought some coffee.”

“Thanks.”  I took the Styrofoam cup he offered and sipped at the warm beverage.  We lapsed into silence, the only other sound in the room coming from the beeping machines.

“She was probably running away from her kidnapper and fell,” Kaden finally said.  “Trolls like collecting things, so it might have just been that an ogre took her for its collection—ogres are the demon form of trolls, by the way.  They end up losing all their hair and it’s kinda grody.”

I mulled over this information for a while before responding.  “Do they have claws?”

Kaden took another sip of coffee from his own cup.  “Well, yeah, but usually they leave thicker marks than the ones in your sister’s apartment.  So it was probably a young ogre, then.  More human-sized hands to fit the marks.  Somehow, she must have escaped, but then she got knocked out and just hasn’t woken up yet.”

I looked at my sister, lying so still on the bed before me.  “The doctors say sometimes comas are brought on by hypothermia or malnutrition, and that since she’s gotten so thin and it’s nearly winter, her body just couldn’t handle any more stress.  They don’t know when she’ll wake up, or even if…”

My throat felt swollen—a sure sign I was about to cry—and I stopped for a moment to regain my composure.

Kaden looked up.  “What’ll you do?”

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” I answered bitterly.  “I’ll just have to hope for the best.  Meanwhile, I’ll go back to work, pretend things are fine, apologize to my new boss for ditching her yesterday, and just hope that Rachel will get better.  It’s the only thing I can do.”

“There is one other option.”

I stared at him, barely able to believe my ears.  He avoided my gaze, instead walking over to fiddle with the blinds.

“What is it?” I asked.  “And how come no one else has mentioned it?”

“Well, there’s lots of drawbacks and potential for blackmail…and you might never be able to stop once it’s started.  It’s generally ill-advised.”  Kaden hesitated.

“Tell me!” I urged.  “If there’s some secret potion or spell or something to heal Rachel, I want to know about it!”

“It’s not easily given,” Kaden began slowly.  “And it will cost a high price.”