“No, no, no, no, no,” I cry.“No, Marie.Marie.”
I gingerly touch her face, trying to get her eyes to look at me, and my hands are shaking.
She blinks slowly, her eyes open again, staring at nothing.
The blood spreads.
Ray remains where he is behind me, hyperventilating.
“Marie!”I cry, pressing my trembling fingers to the side of her neck, feeling for a pulse.
There is none.
I stare at her chest, it doesn’t move; her mouth, there is no breath; her eyes are still as death.
“No,” I say again.“You’re not dead.You can’t be dead.”
I look over my shoulder at Ray, who looks close to fainting.“We have to do something.Ray!We have to do something!”
But Ray doesn’t move.He’s in shock.
So am I.I’m in shock, and yet there’s something I can do.
There’s something I can do.
I remember medical school, how the cadavers came to life when I touched them.
I look back at Marie’s lifeless face, and I know she’s dead.She’s dead.
But she doesn’t have to stay dead.
I put my hands on her cheeks and close my eyes, trying to conjure up whatever energy I have left in my weary, war-torn heart, and once I feel it moving through me, I try to push it through my hands into Marie.
Please work, please work.
She twitches under my hands.
I open my eyes to see her open hers.
She stares right at me.Pupils like a black moon.
But there’s no gratitude on her face.No relief to be alive.
There’s nothing but horror and shock, betrayal and a sense of looking beyond the veil, looking at something no one should ever look at.
I brought someone dead back into this world.
Perhaps that’s the biggest sin of all.
Marie opens her mouth in a silent scream, wider, wider, and now she’s shaking, convulsing.
“What is happening to her?”Ray finally whimpers, coming closer.“What are you doing to her?”
“I’m not…,” I begin, trying to hold her down, panic clawing through me that I’ve made a huge mistake in attempting this.“I’m trying to bring her back to life.”
But I shouldn’t have said that.I shouldn’t have said anything.
Because now Ray knows, he really knows what’s wrong with me.
