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I snorted. “I didn’t want to die roasted to death in a bathroom, all things considered. ”
“They should have been faster,” Charles said, his thin lips forming a frown. “It shouldn’t have been that close. ”
“Maybe the emergency room was busy tonight?” Gina suggested.
“It shouldn’t have even happened,” Meaty said. “They should have caught and contained him down here to begin with. ”
“No, they should have—” Charles began, in a vehement tone. I waved my hand in among all of them to cut off further debate.
“So—what happens now? I’m not worried about the baby, but Shawn, and the charge nurse—what about them?” Had the Shadows touched them like I’d been touched? They didn’t seem changed when I’d left—but how could any change in reality manage to be so complete?
“The Shadows took care of it,” Meaty said, with a half shrug.
That wasn’t really an answer and I thought Meaty knew it. “Like they took care of me?” I looked down at my badge. What would I have done if Shawn’s grandfather’s crazy-ass ghost hadn’t been around? I’d have died, that’s what. And it wouldn’t have mattered, and no one would have cared. The adrenaline I’d been running on ebbed and I leaned back exhaustedly against the bathroom door. Meaty clapped my shoulder with one mighty hand.
“You’re tired. Get some rest. Charge nurse orders. ”
Gina nodded. “We’ll see you when you come back on. ”
“All right. ” I gulped and nodded and opened the bathroom door. I closed it behind me and stood in front of the mirror as I heard them leave the hall, still chatting among themselves. Then I heard one polite knock.
“I’m in here!” I said and went for the lock. Stupid day shift—
“I’m not coming in. ” I heard Charles’s voice from the outside. “I just wanted to tell you they were wrong. ”
I looked at myself in the mirror—my hair was sticking out of my ponytail at improbable angles and I had sallow circles beneath both my eyes. I looked like I’d seen my own ghost, because maybe I had. Somewhere inside of me, a small part of myself had been deflated. And like a helium balloon that’d lost too much air, I couldn’t kick it aloft again.
“They’re wrong, Edie. Whatever the Shadows showed you or told you—they’re not even human besides. They’re liars. They lie. Okay?”
I nodded at myself in the mirror.
“Okay?” Charles asked again from outside.
“Yeah. Of course,” I said. And then I ran the water loudly, so he couldn’t question me anymore.
* * *
I sat in my parking lot after driving home, knowing that I’d been cursed with a day wind—the activities of the previous evening had wound me past exhaustion and back into wakefulness again. So I decided to pre-spend my next paycheck by going to the pawn shop and retrieving my dining room set.
I went to the place nearest my house, doubting that Jake’d bother to go much farther. I was drawn to a small chest of “fine” jewelry, before noticing a large rack of guns. Between the weapons and the smell, I decided it wasn’t the kind of place you wanted to sneak up on anyone in. “Hello?”
A man lumbered out. He’d been making a deposit on his scotch belly, judging by his breath. “What’re you selling?” he asked.
“I’m looking for a dining room set. A guy brought it by last week. He said I could still buy it back?”
The proprietor stared up at the ceiling for a moment, ignoring me. I followed his gaze, expecting to see a security camera, but found a diligent spider instead. “Fucking exterminator—”
“My table? And four chairs? Wood, metal, and glass?” I gestured to indicate the space they might have taken up, were they still in my possession. “Carved legs?”
“Yeah—sorry. They were nice. Sold fast,” he answered, squinting at the spider like his eyes could shoot lasers.
“But—they were mine!”
“Sorry. ”
“But—they—” I stuttered.
“Talk to the police, file a report. I’ll tell them what he looked like. ” The man shrugged, making his wife beater dance over his heavily furred chest.
I inhaled to protest and then sighed in defeat. Fucking Jake was what I wanted to say, but “Damn” came out instead. I looked around—nothing else here came near what I’d had before, either in quality or size. I’d purchased that set back in the real nursing days, before the minuscule paychecks of Y4 began. I turned to leave, and then—my eyes spotted something familiar on the lower shelf of a grimy glass case. A CD player. Almost exactly like Shawn’s. “How much is that?”
He bent with a grunt to unlock the case and fish out the plastic clamshell. “Five dollars. ”
I glared at him. “You sold my dining room set. ”
“Two fifty. ”
“Does it even work?”
