"Come see your aunt," my grandfather said.
His hands went around Pamela, and she squirmed, her hate liquefying into fear, making her protest and her father whisper, "Please, Pamela. For Mommy."
He lifted her up, and I saw the figure in the bed, and I recoiled, a scream exploding in the corner of Pamela's mind that was still mine, a scream that mirrored her own, the one screeching through her head as we both saw the figure.
It was the old woman from the hospital. So thin she seemed a skeleton wearing skin and a nightgown. Her eyes were covered with a thick bandage, but I knew what I'd see if that bandage was removed. Empty sockets.
Hair fanned out over the bed. Gray hair streaked with dark, and when I saw it, I saw another woman here, in the hospital. A woman rising from the murky water of a deep tub. A woman straitjacketed in a chair. A woman with bloodied bandages over her eyes and a mouth with no tongue . . .
The nurse squeezed Isolde's bird-thin arm and the old woman's chin jerked, as if she was waking.
"Daere is here to see you," the nurse said. "With John and little Pamela."
Isolde's mouth opened, and she made a sound. A garbled sound, like speech but not, and from where Pamela hung, in her father's arms, I could see into her mouth, the stump of her tongue--
Pamela shrieked, her scream joining the one echoing through my head. She fought, and I seemed to fight with her, clawing and scratching, then hitting the floor and scrambling up and running as fast as Pamela's small legs would take us, that scream still resounding in her head, all but drowning out the cries of her parents behind her.
Pamela turned down one corridor after another, zigging and zagging as the footfalls behind her grew distant, her parents missing her turns. Finally, she threw open a closet and flew in, slamming the door behind her and huddling in the dark, knees drawn up, gasping for breath as she shook uncontrollably.
Footsteps passed but kept going. Then the door creaked open and the nurse stood there, her body shimmering with light, features morphing. Pamela shrunk into the shadows, but the nurse only smiled and bent to the girl's level.
"Scary, isn't it?" she said in her soft voice. "Your poor auntie. She's had a hard life, Pamela, but it will be over soon. She'll be at peace, and, I hope, happy."
"Liar." Pamela spat the word, small body quaking with rage.
The woman backed up. "What--?"
"I know what you are. I see it. Behind your face. The glow."
A pause, and the nurse gave a slow, sad smile. "Ah. So you see me, do you?"
Pamela nodded, and in a blink the nurse disappeared. In her place was something my brain couldn't quite latch on to, the form ethereal, more glow than substance. I could make out a face, beautiful with sharp features and golden hair.
"Is that better, then?" the fae nurse said. "No disguises?"
She smiled, but the rage still whipped through Pamela.
"It's your fault," Pamela whispered. "What happened to her. She was tainted."
"Tainted?" The nurse tilted her head. "That's a big word for a little girl. Who told you that?"
"No one. I know. I just know."
"I see." The nurse crouched lower. "Then I won't deny it, bychan. The fault was ours. In her blood. I wouldn't call it a taint, but sometimes, when you're different, your mind can't quite manage it. Have you ever tried to hold a raw egg?"
Pamela squeezed herself tight, as if trying to block the words.
"It's like that," the nurse continued. "You can see us. You have memories. You know things you shouldn't. And as little as you are, your mind is strong. It can hold those ideas tight, like a hard-boiled egg. But for some, like your poor auntie, it's like trying to hold a raw egg. It slips and slides and oozes, and they try harder and harder to hold on, until they just can't. Do you understand, bychan?"
"I understand that it's your fault."
The nurse sighed. "It was not me, specifically, and we did try to help--"
"Liar!"
Pamela flew at the nurse. She hit her and I kept going, tumbling out, falling into darkness again, and then . . .
I bolted upright, the vision gone.