The patients weren’t. I didn’t know what’d happened when I’d drove the metal through the thing’s chest, but it had let go of the patients it’d been possessing and they’d all dropped like puppets without strings. I couldn’t help wondering if the thing possessing them had been keeping them alive for a long time, or if it had only just snuck in to kick up a fuss today.
Annie put it outta my mind, though, by finally taking a deep shaky breath and speaking with more composure than I expected: “What. The hell. Was that?”
First off I laughed an’ put my mouth on her hair. “Never heard you swear before, sweetheart.”
“I’ve never had enough reason to,” she said all primly, an’ sat up with her hand still over my heart an’ her poor cheek red an’ bloody from the scratches. “Gary, what was that thing? And…why weren’t you surprised?”
“I was surprised, doll. I was plenty surprised.”
“You came in here with a weapon, took one look at the room, and handled it. You didn’t seem surprised.”
“That’s just training, darlin’. Assessing the situation. Army taught me that.” I was only telling her half the truth, though, and she knew it as well as I did. “Let’s wait til we get home, all right, sweetheart? Some strange things happened in Korea. I guess I didn’t wanna talk about ‘em, but maybe now I better.”
She gave me a good looking-over, then nodded. “All right. Gary, I have to see if anyone is alive, if there’s anything I can do—” She got up, though I was shaking my head.
“There ain’t, darlin’.”
She said, “I know,” with quiet dignity. “But I have to try.”
I was never gonna stop loving this woman. I got to my feet, too, and together we righted beds, checked bodies, an’ at least lifted ‘em onto the beds so they were peaceful insteada thrown all over the room. Nobody was left alive except me and her. She closed their eyes as we put ‘em to bed. When we’d straightened up the mess an’ got ourselves to the door, she stopped and looked around. Not just at the ward of dead folks, but down the hall, like she was searching for something. “Where is everyone, Gary? Why hasn’t anyone come?”
I thought about how me and Danny hadn’t said one word to each other about the starlight demon, an’ shook my head. “I dunno, darlin’, but I don’t think people come running when somethin’ like this happens. I think maybe they look real hard the other way, and in the morning they tell the papers it was some kinda mysterious tragedy. We gotta get your cheek looked at before we go home.”
“Something like this. What is this, Gary? What happened?”
“That scratch first, sweetheart, an’ then home, an’ then we talk. I don’t like us hanging around here tonight. I want you home safe, all right?”
“My shift doesn’t end for another two hou—”
“Annie.”
She looked down, eyelashes tangling, and then she sighed. “All right. All right, Gary.” She let me put her arm around her shoulders, an’ I walked her outta there. We got her cheek fixed up, and on the way home I started talking. I told her about Dandy Andy an’ Reckless Rick and about Danny’s warnings, and about the starlight demon we’d killed, and how I’d gotten the same kinda creepy feeling at the hospital as that night. I took a deep breath an’ told her about the sometimes-voice at the back of my head, the one that thought things weren’t quite right, and I finally ran outta things to say and got quiet and waited.
And Annie listened through the whole thing, all the way home and to the sitting room couch, where she clasped her hands together and looked at ‘em while I talked. After a while she looked up, not at me, but at the wall, and a long time after I was done, she said, “Do you think my father was crazy, Gary?”
I shut my mouth on the first answer, which was to say, “Of course not, darlin’,” without thinking about it. But she was really asking, and after all I’d just said, she deserved for me to think about it a bit. Besides, as soon as I started thinking, I saw what she was really asking. There was her Pop, who’d spent a lotta years locked up for seeing visions of magic things, things that somehow revolved around Annie, and now here was her husband talking about the same kinda crazy stuff, and expecting her to believe it. Hoping she’d believe it, anyway.
“I don’t know, doll. I guess I woulda said yes, before. But I don’t think I am, and I guess his stories weren’t any crazier than mine. I guess I gotta give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Then why me?” she asked quietly. “Is that coincidence? Can it be? That I’d marry a man who has the same kind of…visions…my father did?”
I tried a smile. “They say we marry people like our folks, sweetheart.” Annie gave me a look that said she knew I was tryin’ ta be funny, but my timing was lousy. I sighed and sat down to study my hands. “Let’s say he ain’t crazy. Let’s say he was seeing the same kinda things I’m seeing now. He said when he met that I was gonna take care of you now.”
“No.” Annie’s voice was real clear and I looked up, surprised. “No, Gary, he said you’ll take care of “her” now.”
I opened my hands. “Who else could he’a been talking about, doll?”
“The girl in the painting.”
“Joanne.” The name came outta the back of my head an’ shocked us both into sitting up straighter. Annie’s spine was rigid as a pipe. “Who is she, Gary? Is she our…our daughter?”
“I donno. I donno!” I put my hands on my skull, wishing I could shake some answers loose. “I donno where that came from, doll. I’ve never seen the girl. How could she be somebody I’m s’posed ta look after?”
“How could she be someone whose name you know?”
“She ain’t.” A growl came up inside me and cut loose. “She ain’t, Annie. You’re the one I’m supposed to take care of, til death do us part. And I’m going to. Maybe—maybe your pop passed that on to me somehow. Maybe he was carrying some kinda weight, somethin’ he was never supposed to, and when we met that first time he handed it on. He started getting better after that, right? So maybe he was just…shouldering a burden for a while.”
Annie looked at me a long minute, weighing whether to let the question of the girl go, and finally did. “What burden, then? And still, why me? I’m not particularly special.”
“Hah!” I coughed after that laugh, tryin’ ta make it less sharp, but Annie smiled anyway. “You’re supposed to think I’m special, Gary. I’m your wife. But in the greater scheme of things?” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine I’m all that important. Why should…magic…happen around me?”
“I guess if magic’s real, darlin’, why shouldn’t it? But maybe it ain’t about how big or important you are in the world. Maybe it’s just being important enough to somebody that you’re drawing it to you. Or maybe there’s some kinda bigger picture we ain’t seeing, or…hell, I donno, sweetheart. Maybe you’re just magic. I sure think so.”