healthy body that she was going to survive. She was one of the kids who come in, stay, then leave, never to return. She must be special to have been accepted into what was clearly the clique of children who…weren’t going to have an easy go of it.
“Are you a black witch?” the girl who had lagged behind asked. Her brown eyes were huge in her medicine- ravaged face. There was no fear in her, not because she was ignorant, but because she knew she was dying, and she knew I wasn’t going to be the cause of her death. My heart went out to her. She was seeing around corners, but not yet ready to go. One more thing possibly to see and do.
Ivy shifted uncomfortably at her question. “Rachel is my friend,” she said simply. “Would I be a friend to a black witch?”
“You might,” Daryl said haughtily, and someone stepped on his foot to make him yelp. “But her aura is black!” the king protested. “And she has a demon mark. See?”
Everyone drew back with fear except the tall girl in the red pajamas. She simply stood before me and looked at my wrist, and unlike most times when someone pointed it out and I tried to hide it, I turned my hand up for all of them to see.
“I got it when a demon tried to kill me,” I said, knowing most of them had to gain a lifetime of wisdom in just a few years and had no time for pretend, yet pretend was all they had. “I had to accept a very bad thing to survive.”
Small heads bobbed and eyes grew wide, but the king lifted his chin and took a stance that was utterly charming-a round, chubby Jenks with his hands on his hips. “That’s evil,” he said, certain of his belief. “You should never do anything evil. If you do, you are evil and go to hell. My mom says so.”
I felt ill when the smallest girl, with the IV, shrank back farther yet, tugging at her friend to leave with her.
“I’m sorry,” Ivy whispered as she stood up and took the handles of the wheelchair. “I didn’t think they would come over. They don’t understand.”
But the thing was, they did understand. They had the wisdom of the world in their eyes. They understood too well, and seeing their fear, I felt my heart gray.
Ivy made shooing motions with her hand, and they broke their circle. All except the skinny girl in the bright red pajamas. Seeing my misery, she reached out with her small, smooth, child hands and delicately took my wrist with her pinkie extended. Turning my hand palm up, she used a finger to slowly trace the circle and line. “Ivy’s friend isn’t evil for doing something to survive what hurt her,” she said, her voice soft but certain. “You take poison to kill the bad cells in you, Daryl, just like me. It hurts you, makes you tired, makes you sick, but if you didn’t you would die. Ivy’s friend took a demon mark to save her life. It’s the same thing.”
Ivy’s motion to push the chair stopped. The kids went silent, each thinking, assessing what they had been told with the harsh reality of what they lived with. Daryl’s sure look faltered, and he pushed forward, not wanting to look like a coward, or worse, cruel. He peered over the arm of the wheelchair at my scar, then up to my face. His small round face broke into a smile of acceptance. I was one of them, and he knew it. My jaw unclenched, and I smiled back.
“I’m sorry,” Daryl said, then scrambled up to sit in my lap. “You’re okay.”
My breath came fast, in surprise, but my hands naturally folded around him to keep him in place so he wouldn’t fall. Daryl gave a hop and settled in, snuggling his head under my chin and tracing the demon scar as if to memorize its lines. He smelled like soap, and under that, of a green meadow faraway and distant. I blinked fast to keep the tears from brimming over, and Ivy laid a hand on my shoulder.
The girl with the red pajamas smiled like Ceri, wise and fragile. “You’re not bad inside,” she said, petting my wrist. “Just hurt.” She put her hand on Daryl’s shoulder, and her gaze going distant, she murmured, “It will be okay. There’s always a chance.”
It was so close to what I was feeling, what I’d felt when I was growing up, that I leaned forward, and with Daryl between us, I gave her a hug. “Thank you,” I whispered, my eyes closed as I held her to me. “I needed to remember that. You’re very wise.”
Daryl slid down and away, squirming to get out from between us, darting to stand nearby, looking uncomfortable, yet pleased to have been included.
“That’s what my mom says,” the girl said, her eyes wide and serious. “She says the angels want me back so I can teach them about love.”
I closed my eyes, but it didn’t do any good, and a hot tear slipped down. “I’m sorry,” I said as I wiped it away. I’d just broken one of the secret rules. “I’ve been away too long.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “You’re allowed if there aren’t any parents around.”
My throat closed up, and I held her hand. It was all I could do. Jenks’s wings clattered a warning, and all the kids sighed and drew back when he landed on my upraised hand.
“They know where you are,” he said.
Ivy, almost forgotten, shifted the chair, rolling it back as she turned to look behind us. “We have to go,” she said to the kids.
Instead of the expected complaints, they dutifully dropped away, all looking toward a distant clacking of heels. The king straightened and said, “You want us to slow them down?”
I looked up at Ivy, whose grin transformed her face. “If we get away, I’ll tell you two stories next time,” she said, and delight showed on every young face.
“Go,” the girl in red pajamas said, pulling the king out of the way with the gentle hands of the mother she would never be.
“Let’s save the witch princess!” the boy cried, and he ran down the hall. The others fell into place the best they could, some moving fast, others slow, the bright colors of childhood scarred with bald heads and gaits too slow for their enthusiasm.
“I’m going to cry,” Jenks said, sniffing as he flew up to Ivy. “I’m going to freaking cry.”
Ivy’s face, as she watched them, showed a depth of emotion I’d never seen; then she turned away, divorcing herself from it. Lips tight together, she started into motion. I turned to face where we were going, and her brisk steps seemed to carry the desperation that there was nothing she could do to save them.
Jenks flew ahead to get the elevator, holding it by hovering at the sensor. Ivy wheeled me in and around. The doors shut, and the tragic wisdom of the children’s wing was gone. I took a breath, and my throat tightened.
“I didn’t think you would understand them,” Ivy said softly. “They really like you.”
“Understand them?” I said raggedly, my throat still holding that lump. “I am them.” I hesitated, then asked, “You come here a lot?”
The elevator opened to show a smaller, friendlier lobby with a Christmas tree and solstice decorations, and beyond, a big black Hummer burning gas at the snowy curb. “About once a week,” she said, pushing me forward.
Jenks was humming happily about a horse with no name. The lady at the desk was on the phone, eyeing us, but my worry vanished when she waved, telling whoever she was talking to that the lobby was empty. Just her and Dan.
Dan was a young man in an orderly’s smock, and he opened the door for us with a grin. “Hurry,” he said as Jenks dived into my jacket and I zipped it up. “They’re right behind you.”
Ivy smiled. “Thanks, Dan. I’ll bring you some ice cream.”
Dan grinned. “You do that. I’ll just tell them you hit me.”
She laughed, and with that pleasant sound in my ears, we left the hospital.
It was bitterly cold, but the doors to the Hummer swung open, and two living vamps jumped out. “Uh, Ivy, that’s not Erica,” I said when they made a beeline for us. They were in black jeans and matching black T-shirts that all but screamed security, and I tensed.
“Erica’s got people,” Ivy said when Erica slid down and out from the backseat. Ivy’s sister looked like a younger version of Ivy without all the emotional baggage: bright, happy, and active. Piscary had never looked her way due to Ivy intentionally distracting him, and the young living vamp was innocence where Ivy was jaded, loud where Ivy was reserved, and Ivy would do anything to keep it that way, even sacrificing herself.
“Oh my God!” the young woman squealed. “You’re really breaking out of the hospital? Ivy called, and I was like, oh my God! Of course I’ll pick you up. Then Rynn offered to drive, and it was a no-brainer. I mean, who wants to be picked up in their mom’s station wagon?”
