I wondered if I’d looked that way at her age. I shouldn’t have. I’d had a good life. But moving from one world to another, from a parent who’d listened to me and instructed me and loved me to one who didn’t display emotions had taken its toll on my fragile self-esteem.
I’d never felt as if my mother loved me. I’m sure Sissy must have had a similar experience. Although Mrs. Dickinson had given her food and clothes and shelter, I wondered if she was able to reproduce the sort of love Sissy needed—the love of a parent.
In some ways, Sissy reminded me of myself. Damaged.
I glanced at Kull as he fixated on the skyscrapers. He looked at this new world with one part curiosity and one part suspicion. What kind of childhood had he had? Most of the time, he put on an easygoing, carefree façade. But the few times he’d let his guard down, I had also seen pain, like his sister. A warrior’s life couldn’t be an easy one, and soon he’d have the responsibility of two nations on his shoulders.
When we arrived at the hospital, Sissy refused to leave the car. It took fifteen minutes of begging, plus the promise of more apple pies, for her to finally climb out. At one point, I’d felt tempted to let the warrior wrestle her out, but I resisted. How do parents do this?
We made our way to the ninth floor, where the nurse at the desk pointed us in the direction of Jeremiah’s room. I thanked her, and we walked down the sterile white hallways.
Call me weird, but I actually liked hospitals. They got a bad rap sometimes—probably because normal folks couldn’t afford them—and not all hospitals were created equal, but without them, a lot of sick people would die. In Faythander, we didn’t have hospitals, and I wondered if sometimes people took them for granted.
My rubber-soled Docs made little sound as we walked down one hallway and up another. Pictures of stereotypical, pastoral scenes filled the walls. Meant to be calming, I supposed.
Sissy looked anything but calm. Her hands shook, a fine sheen of sweat coated her brow, and she looked ready to vomit. Good thing we were in a hospital.
We stopped at the wide wooden door leading to Jeremiah’s room. I reached out to knock, but Sissy grabbed my arm.
“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t go in there.”
“But he’s your brother. Don’t you want to see him?”
“I—” she swallowed.
To me, she didn’t look afraid. That look seemed more like the face of a guilty conscience.
“I don’t like to see him that way.”
Something else was wrong, something other than her overprotective foster mom and sick brother, but I wasn’t sure what. “He needs you.”
“Maybe.”
I scrutinized her. “What are you not telling me?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you sweating?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
She swallowed. “I just have a hard time looking at him like that.”
“I understand. But are you sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?”
Tears formed in her eyes. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”
“What wasn’t?”
“He got sick, you know? Right after I done something real bad to him.”
“What did you do?”
She shook her head.
“You can tell me.”
She exhaled.
“I know this is hard, but you’ll feel better after you tell someone.”
She nodded. It took her a few tries, but she finally found words. “We… we never had toys. At Christmas, people usually gave us socks or something. But for his birthday, my foster mom got him some LEGOs. I’d never seen him so happy. He played with them all the time. Couple weeks ago, he went in my bedroom and left them on my floor. I hated those things when I stepped on them.” A tear broke free.
“I threw ‘em away. I meant to go back later and get them out of the trash, but the trash truck came already. When he found out…” A sob caught in her throat, “…he started crying. He got sick after that.”
I hugged her, bony shoulders and all. “Sissy, this wasn’t your fault.”
“It is! You didn’t see the look on his face when he found out what I’d done. Like I’d betrayed him or something.”
“You’re wrong. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but he’s under a spell. Whoever did this to him is sick and depraved. This had nothing to do with you. Let me help him. I promise, you’ll have your brother back.”
She pulled back. Tears stained her cheeks. “I already tried. I did everything I could. He can’t be helped—he’s stuck like that. He’s never coming back.”
“That’s not true. I haven’t given up on him, have I?”
She stared as if she saw me for the first time. “No.”
I felt like I was finally getting somewhere. If she had information that she wasn’t telling me, now would be the time to find out. But how did I connect with her?
The way she stood there, arms crossed, tears in her eyes, reminded me of her mother. Perhaps mentioning her mom would be how I could finally get her to see reason. “Sissy, did you know that your mom and I were best friends in junior high?”
She looked up.
“Shawna was always laughing. She was one of the happiest people I knew. And she had a kind heart—she’d do anything for anyone.”
Sissy swallowed. “I don’t remember her much.”
“She cared for you and your brother. She loved you two more than anything and would’ve done anything to protect you.”
Sissy wiped away a tear. “She would?”
“I remember when she asked me to be Jeremiah’s godmother. She was in rehab, and I’d gone to visit her. She still had that smile, even though she was too weak to walk. Do you know what she told me? She said that she knew her two babies
