Queen of the Dead

crazy sometimes, I needed that — I needed her — in my life.

Several people in scrubs came running toward us. The priest had done his job.

“What happened?”

“What did you see?”

“What is she being treated for?”

They were all calling questions to me in calm but urgent voices that unnerved me. “I just found her this way,” I said in answer to all of them. The truth, but lame. I was pretty sure they didn’t believe me, especially when they saw the gag down around her neck.

They shoved me away from her and lowered her to the floor.

Two of them started CPR, while a third ran for a phone farther down the hall.

In what seemed like seconds, the entire hall was filled with medical personnel, a crash cart…and Mrs. Turner.

She took one look at Lily on the floor and launched herself at me. “What did you do? What did you do to my baby?” Each word came with a punch.

I tried to avoid most of them, but some landed, each one with the fury born of a mother protecting her child.

“You stay away! Stay away from her!” Mrs. Turnershoved at me, and I let her.

They loaded Lily up on a gurney and raced away. Mrs. Turner followed them at a run.

And I…I could do nothing but watch and wait.

18 Will

Three days later, and still, they wouldn’t let me see her. I knew the Turners had taken her home from the hospital yesterday afternoon, thanks to a brief and guarded update from Father Hayes, the hospital chaplain. I’d called and begged him for information.

She was continuing to recover was all he’d say, which told me absolutely nothing of what I needed to know. Was Alona still there? If she was, was she okay? Could she communicate? Or was she now trapped inside the girl she’d tried to save?

I’d tried to call their house twice yesterday. The first time, Mrs. Turner had simply hung up on me. The second time, she’d threatened to call the police. She still held me responsible for what had happened to Lily in the hospital. I couldn’t exactly blame her. The story I’d given — that I’d been looking for a vending machine and happened to stumble across Lily, unconscious in her chair — was weak at best. But since telling the truth was out of the question, I was sort of stuck with the lies I’d told on the fly that day.

Those same lies, though, were now keeping me from Alona—if she was still here.

The not-knowing was killing me.

“You’re pacing again,” my mother said, looking up at me with exasperation from where she was mixing batter in a bowl on the kitchen counter.

“Sorry,” I said, but I didn’t stop. Eight steps to the back door, eight steps to the doorway to the hall, back and forth. It was kind of soothing, in an annoying, repetitive kind of way.

“Will, you need to give them a little bit of time to adjust. Dealing with a sick child is very stressful,” she said. “I’m sure Mrs. Turner doesn’t really blame you for anything.” She expertly scraped the bowl into the brownie pan without so much as a single drop of batter hitting the counter. She was making a batch of brownies this afternoon to drop off at the Turners’ house tomorrow, assuming they even let her reach the front door. I wasn’t sure if Mrs. Turner’s anger with me would spill over to my mom or not. I hoped not.

Unfortunately, I’d had to give my mom the same weak-ass story as everyone else. Because explaining about the Order was kind of tied up in explaining about my dad, and I didn’t think it was my place to do so. Knowing he’d kept even more stuff from her than she’d originally thought would only make her feel worse. And telling her about Alona potentially inhabiting Lily’s body was definitely out of the question.

I raked my hands through my hair. “But if I could just talk to her, then I’d know for sure that she’s okay.” She, of course, meant Lily to my mom and Alona to me.

What troubled me most was that Alona had made no attempt to contact me. Which meant what? I had no idea, but I could think of endless bad news scenarios. Like maybe she’d vanished after all, or maybe Lily had slipped back into a coma and buried Alona down under all those of layers of unconsciousness. Maybe Alona was angry with me for all the things I’d said to her earlier that day, when we were alone in Lily’s hospital room. Or maybe she thought I was angry with her, as I had been in those last few minutes before I realized she was trying to save Lily, not just herself.

God, thinking of all the possible ways this could be messed up made my stomach hurt.

“Just relax. Let things cool off for a bit. Concentrate on your other friends and work, and eventually things will calm down.” She bent down, opened the oven door, and slid the pan of brownies in.

Eventually? Like I could just, what, forget about the fact that I had no idea whether this girl I cared so much about still existed or not?

“Oh, that reminds me. Sam thought one of your tires looked a little low, so I gave him your keys in case he needed to put on the spare,” she said, closing the oven and setting the timer.

I nodded, my mind still focused on Alona and Lily.

“He says you have three full garbage bags in the trunk,” she continued. “Why on earth are you driving around with garbage in your trunk?”

Garbage? It took a second for the memory to drop into place. The bags I’d swiped from the foot of Alona’s driveway before everything had gotten so complicated. Bags that would hopefully contain one or more treasured items from her life.

I stopped pacing. If Alona was still present inside Lily, and if I could find something meaningful in those bags of trash, that would be a better present than any brownies, no matter how good my mom’s recipe was. It might even convince her, if need be, to take a stand against Mrs. Turner and insist on seeing me. Of course, that was assuming I could get close enough to Alona/Lily to show her what I’d found.

No. I shook my head. I’d worry about that part after I’d figured out if I’d grabbed anything worth saving.

I stalked to the back door, my steps now filled with purpose.

“Where are you going?” my mom asked.

“To clean up a mess,” I said.

19 Alona

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Mrs. Turner asked, as we stood at the top of the stairs.

I nodded.

She took my one hand and locked it around the wooden stair railing and then wrapped my other hand inside her own.

“Just take it slowly,” she cautioned. “If you get too tired, we can stop.”

But I knew I wouldn’t stop. I’d slept on the couch last night in their living room and it had been miserable for multiple reasons.

First, the Turners might have love, but they didn’t have money. Or at least not enough for a new couch that didn’t sag toward the back, threatening to swallow me up. Second, no privacy. I didn’t mind Mrs. Turner getting up to check on me in the night. However, waking up to find Tyler two inches from my face, where he was apparently making sure I was still breathing, was another experience all together. Third, the voices.

The doctors had mentioned all kinds of possible side effects, most of them still from the original car accident