Page 38 of Whispers From The Dark

And then my mother falls backward, tumbling down the stairs.

14

ASMODEUS

Petra’s mother is named Donna. I hadn’t wondered, but I watch as the day shift nurse replaces the night nurse’s name on the dry erase board across the room, and it answers the question I had never cared to ask.

When Petra had arrived in the middle of the night, heading straight to the hospital the minute the police allowed her to leave, hospital staff had let her in despite visitation hours being long over. She’d wondered if it was my doing, but the ICU nurses had been keen to let the distraught daughter of a brain-dead woman sit at her bedside, no matter the time.

Brain dead. At least, that’s what Donna’s chart says. I overheard someone at the nurse’s station mention that the head of neuro would be in soon, and she’ll repeat the tests just to be sure.

But no CT or EEG or physical acuity tests hold a candle to my own abilities. If Petra’s mother is dead, I’ll know the moment I try to inhabit her flesh. The thought repulses me, to find myself in the body of a person who has brought such harm upon the woman who dozes fitfully in an uncomfortable chair in the corner. But I have seen this play out enough with modern humans. I’ve made many deals at hospital deathbeds, and I know the fragile state Petra is in. I know what she’ll be asked to decide and the doubt and fear she will feel when such a decision is foisted upon her.

So, I know what I must do to ensure total certainty for Petra.

Without waking the slumbering girl from a much-needed rest, I slip out of her body as the nurse leaves the room. Petra readjusts, frowning in her sleep, but she doesn’t wake. On one hand, I’m glad because she desperately needs the rest. On the other, I wonder if she sensed me leaving her and felt distraught by it. It makes me feel needed. Loved.

But there is no room for love now, I remind myself. She will never forgive this.

Her mind has been running nonstop, circling over the events that led up to Donna’s fall, focusing on the split second her fingers had released her mother’s wrist and the woman tumbled backward down the stairs.

The crumpled body on the landing.

The blood on the ground.

The pure, unyielding silence.

I could take it all from her mind and save her the pain, but I won’t unless she asks. I’ve already taken one choice from her without permission, the consequences of which will ripple throughout her life. By taking control of her body one final time, I’d betrayed her in the worst way..

But I had to.

There was no avoiding this outcome.

Even I find myself ruminating on what occurred, second-guessing my exact actions. Slipping into the unconscious body, no matter how viscerally disgusting I find it to be, serves a purpose for me as well.

If she’s still alive, I’ll know for certain. Did I push the bitch or did I merely let her go? I know what the doorbell camera showed because I made it so, but I don’t know if that aligns with reality. I’d done what needed to be done to ensure Petra’s innocence.

To protect her freedom.

But there is no confirmation or denial when I slip into the haggard bitch’s mind. There is simply nothing. A dark, empty quiet. I try anyway, knowing if I can conjure up even the slightest memory, Petra would want to know. Petra had already wondered about her mother’s last thoughts, hoping that maybe in her final moments, she’d choose to be a mother and think about her children.

But I can’t give Petra an answer either way because there is only a vast, echoing silence. She is gone. I suspect I pushed her, knowing that letting go and hoping she’d fall on unsteady legs wasn’t a guarantee. But I’ll never know for certain. I’d acted with haste, worried that my inaction could cause a life-altering chain of events for Petra, and I couldn’t risk that.

Two doctors walk into the room, lowering their voices when they see a sleeping Petra. One is an older woman, maybe in her fifties, wearing dark blue scrubs and a hospital gift shop sweatshirt over them. She wears her steel-grey hair in a neat bun, and she pulls glasses down from atop her head before scrolling through Donna’s digital file on the computer.

“Go ahead, Keller,” she whispers, gesturing toward the vacant husk that had once held Petra’s mother. I slink from Donna’s body, a shadowy trick of the light if either doctor notices. The young one, a resident I assume, crosses over to Donna and begins a physical assessment that will support the report from the previous day. It only takes a few moments before she turns, shaking her head. The resident murmurs to the older woman, who takes notes, mouth flat in disappointment. I imagine it’s a difficult job, seeing death daily.

I slip back into Petra, knowing the conversation that needs to be had will be a difficult one for her.

“Wake up, angel. They need to speak with you.”

Petra stirs, stretching her legs out before opening her eyes. Her vision is blurry, and it takes her a moment to find the waiting doctors in the room.

I could make her less exhausted with barely a thought, but I choose not to. The haze created by her lack of sleep could be a gift. But she’s so damn tired.

“Are you the daughter?” the resident asks. She’s young and thin, with a long dark braid hanging down her light purple scrubs. She looks like she should be in a different ward of the hospital.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Petra says, voice small. She goes tense, searching for me within her mind, but I know she only wants the knowledge of my presence and nothing more. I gently caress her psyche, and she exhales, relaxing her shoulders.