10
Adam
“Magic is life,” Sue had told him in her thick Oklahoma drawl. “Spirit is life. So all living things have magic. That’s why the immortals have more magic than any of us.”
She’d told Adam this so many times that it became background noise, an easily forgotten part of his landscape.
Magic was life. Spirit was life. So what did that make a place where all spirit was absent?
Adam was shaking off the cold creeping up his spine when Bobby appeared.
“How did it go?” he asked, leaning in, like they were part of a conspiracy.
Adam shook his head. He didn’t have an answer. The more he learned about the situation, the more he felt the gaps in his knowledge. He’d slid into a canyon, couldn’t see the bottom, and wasn’t certain there weren’t rattlesnakes waiting below.
Around him, beneath him, things connected. One thing led to ten thousand things. Adam could sense something coming, the action he most wanted to avoid. To help Annie, he’d have to appeal to a higher power. There would be a price. There always was, usually in servitude. If he was not careful, he’d end up some spirit’s errand boy or worse—their slave.
Adam chewed his lip, unhappy with what he knew was inevitable.
It had been a lesson Perak had drilled into Adam over and over, telling him stories of singers or actors forever lost to the Other Side, all their family and friends long dead while they performed forever, singing the same songs, playing the same roles, never allowed to change or age.
“Ready for some lunch?” Bobby asked.
Adam gave his brother a questioning look.
“I’m buying,” Bobby said, looking hopeful, the preening doctor again.
“Sure,” Adam said, unable to deny the rumbling in his stomach.
He’d been trying to shake off his memories, his anger at Bobby for locking him up and then ignoring him, never looking for him, never asking if he was okay. It had been years, but the way Bobby looked at him, so disappointed, brought it all to the surface, like a clump of dead leaves atop a lake. The sharp edges of his memories kept him away from the mushy, rotting center, the part where he might miss Bobby and where he’d been hurt that Bobby hadn’t come for him. Adam doubted they’d ever be able to talk about it.
If Bobby could sense the spirit, then perhaps he also sensed the hospital’s void, the dead zone. It might even make him happy, afraid of magic as he was. Hell, it might even explain why he loved working here so much. He might find it peaceful, like how polluted lakes had clearer water. If so, then Bobby was more sensitive than Adam had suspected. He might even border on practitioner, and that might put him in danger.
“What?” his brother asked.
“Just thinking,” Adam muttered. It was too easy to slip into that, too, hiding his thoughts from his family lest they judge, lest they take steps.
He didn’t say anything else as he followed Bobby to the cafeteria. Adam expected it to be calm, quiet, like the rest of the hospital, but it surprised him with its liveliness. Sure, there were gloomy and impatient people, but tables of nurses chatted together. The coffee bar whizzed and hissed. Children dashed back and forth to a frozen yogurt machine. It felt like a buffet restaurant after church on a Sunday. The people’s feelings rubbed against Adam’s defenses without much friction.
“How many people work here?” Adam asked Bobby as they lined up with trays to choose food.
“A few thousand,” Bobby said, pulling his badge out on its string to pay for the meal. “There’s security, waste disposal, volunteers. That’s not even getting into the medical staff.”
Adam nodded, not really listening. He considered the list of names on his phone. He needed more information. The spirit was a heart, maybe—an organ, at least. It had connected itself to Annie, to other people. There had to be a reason. A ghost might possess someone as a means of trying to finish what it hadn’t settled in life. But such a massive thing couldn’t do so with a human body. And he couldn’t puzzle out why it would connect to several of them.
“You could work in a hospital like this someday,” Bobby said, choosing a seat.
Adam took his own chair across from his brother.
“That’s not what I’m here for, remember?” Adam asked, pausing his fork before it reached his mouth.
“I know,” Bobby said, looking like a kicked puppy. “I’m just saying that you seem invested in helping people. And working in a hospital is a great way to do that.”
Adam silenced his retort with a scoop of his fork and a quick bite. He didn’t want to fight. He swallowed and fought down a sigh. Being around Bobby made him feel like a kid again, dumb and weak. It took him back to all the things he’d hated about being a teenager and about Bobby.
“You seem to like the food at least,” Bobby said.
“What’s not to like?” Adam said, his mouth half full. Between his mother’s cooking and this lunch, he felt fuller than he had in months.
“But you wouldn’t work here,” Bobby said.
“I don’t like hospitals,” Adam said. Giving up eating, he leaned back in his chair. “That’s you. Why is it so important to you that I be like you?”
Every meal was going to be like this, a trap, a minefield. He’d have to go hungry.
Bobby gripped his fork. “I just want you to be happy, Adam, to be—”
“Normal. I know,” Adam said, trying to keep calm. “But I’m not normal, Bobby. And I don’t want to be. Stop trying to fix me.”
Bobby scowled, but he finished eating without further argument. His appetite lost, Adam threw the rest of his food away.
“I’ve got rounds,” Bobby said when they’d returned to his floor.
They both darted for the elevator door, ready to be free of each other’s proximity. Adam bumped into Bobby as they exited.
Adam sat in the same chair Bobby had parked him in before.
“I’ll just catch up on Highlights for Children,” he said, waving to the magazines as Bobby walked away.
Adam waited a few moments before he opened his palm and examined the ID badge he’d swiped. Bobby was easy to distract when he was angry. That at least hadn’t changed. Adam slipped out into the hall and turned his accent up a notch.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Where is HR?” he asked the nurse at the desk. Tall, over six feet, she had a pretty, oval face and straight, silvery-blond hair. “My brother said I should ask them about jobs.”
She smiled and pointed at the elevator. “Fourth floor.”