The Fall of Never(96)

Josh closed his eyes, rubbed color back into his face. It occurred to Carlos that Josh had most likely rehearsed what he was about to say, that he’d struggled to understand it at some point himself. Perhaps the words he was about to hear were really coming directly from Nellie Worthridge.

“About your wife,” Josh said. “Nellie said to tell you that she’ll be fine. It’s shock, that’s all. Remember when Nellie first touched you? The things you saw, the things you remembered? Well, it was like that with your wife, only amplified, like, a zillion times over, you get it? You asked her to search for information on your unborn son, Doc, and that’s apparently not an easy task, even for someone like Nellie, with Nellie’s powers. She said she had to dive deep and overturn a lot of mental stones, peek inside a lot of mental closets. Real detective shit, right? Your wife is just in shock from what she saw, from what Nellie showed her when she opened those closets, in order to feel out the essence of your son.”

Carlos shook his head. “I felt…it was like the room was electrically charged. I could feel some current running up through my arms, through my body. I could taste it. It curdled my stomach.” His voice jumped up a notch. “You know this too! I saw you. You felt it. I saw you against the wall. You could hardly move, just like me.”

“Normal,” Josh said, his voice impossibly calm. “That’s normal.”

“How can you even say that? How is that possible?”

“It happened when she did it with you,” Josh said. “That’s why I left the room. The more power she uses, the stronger those around her can feel it. It comes off her in waves. When she dips into the heads of those women she plays cards with, it’s like using a double-A battery. With you, it was like charging up to a car battery. And with your wife, it was like being hooked up to some sort of nuclear generator or something. Einstein wasn’t no slouch; it’s all relative.”

“So my wife…?”

“She’ll be fine. Nellie said she’s still charged up, that’s all. Residual current from that nuclear generator, right? You were probably pretty damn shaken for a while after she hopped inside your head. I know I was.”

“She did you, too?” For some reason, the notion seemed absurd.

“Point is,” Josh went on, “your wife will be fine.”

“And my son?” It was the reason he’d gotten Marie involved in the first place, and he’d almost forgotten about it. How could he ever forget something like that?

Josh took his gaze to the table. “She couldn’t tell,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

Josh rolled his shoulders. His knee was bouncing beneath the table, causing the tabletop to rock. “She couldn’t find anything. It doesn’t always work and she couldn’t find anything out about your son, couldn’t feel him. She tried.”

“Tried. Goddamn…” He brought his hands up to his face, rubbed his tired eyelids. He could feel his hands trembling against the skin of his face. He wondered what he looked like to Josh, and what the boy thought of him. “So this all happened for nothing…”

“She tried,” Josh reiterated. “I’m sorry.”

Carlos sighed. He felt an insane laugh threaten his throat. “Well,” he said. “Okay then. Well-well-well-well-well. And you wanted to meet me, put my mind at ease about my wife? How very noble. Your mother must spin circles.”

“Actually, I wanted to see you because I need your help.”

The doctor grabbed his book, slid it across the table, and dumped it into his lap. He was ready to leave.

“I have a good friend who’s in a lot of trouble,” Josh said quickly. “Her name is Kelly. She went upstate to her family home about a month ago and I haven’t heard from her since. Which isn’t bad in and of itself…but Nellie’s been having these dreams, getting these bad feelings. Sometimes she fades out in the middle of the day, just closes her eyes and she’s gone, and I know she’s searching for Kelly with her mind, that she can feel something’s wrong with her…”

“What’s wrong?”

Josh frowned and brought his eyes down, almost ashamed to meet Carlos’s own. “I don’t know. I mean, I can’t tell…and Nellie isn’t sure…but it’s something. We both feel it, and Nellie much stronger than me.”

“I don’t understand. What do you need from me?”

“You saw what happened to Nellie after the trance with your wife. She almost died. In fact, she’d be dead right now if you hadn’t saved her. It weakened her, took all her strength. She’s been getting weaker each time she goes into one of these fugues. I’m just afraid that if she goes too deep after Kelly that she won’t wake up again, that she’ll die. And I think Kelly’s in some kind of danger.”

The tiny bell over the top of the shop door rang; upon hearing this, Josh jumped in his seat and slid around to stare in the direction of the sound, suddenly nervous. A man pushed in through the door, bundled in winter clothes, and waddled up to the counter to order some pastries.

He’s just a scared kid, Carlos thought, that’s all. Nothing magical or supernatural or even special here. Just a scared kid sitting here talking about ghosts with an even more scared kid. We’re in the same club, you and I, Josh. Hell of a membership fee, isn’t it?