“Another side effect of the pall sickness, but it’s even worse if you come in contact with one of the unsettled dead. Right now, your brain can’t tell your memories apart from theirs. It’s all jumbled—”
“Hers,” Maggie interrupted in a quiet voice. “She was a woman. A mother.”
Arthur’s jaw twitched again. “Her memories,” Arthur corrected. “It won’t take long for things to get sorted in your brain, but it might be a few days. Until then, your dreams will be…” He trailed off and cringed. “Confusing.”
The way he said it, the way his face crumpled, she thought he must know exactly what it would be like. “Did you touch one of the unsettled dead?”
He nodded slowly. “On my first attempt. I’ve avoided them since, but that first day, I’m surprised I made it out at all. It was hard to understand from the memories I experienced…” Maggie understood the use of that specific word, because it wasn’t like watching a movie or reading a book. It was like living them, even briefly. Like they were hers, if only for a moment.
Arthur went on. “I gathered that he was a young boy who never got to be much older than my nephew.” His face collapsed, and Maggie thought he might start to cry. She wanted to reach for him, to envelop him in her arms and keep him from feeling that pain—any pain—again. When he looked up, his eyes were dry, but his voice was raspy as he continued. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him. I don’t know his name, or where he lived. Or when, for that matter.”
Maggie hated the idea of the unsettled dead floating around the lab on the third floor, whatever rest they’d found in the afterlife interrupted. “We have to help them home,” she said quietly. There were one hundred reasons to dissolve the pall, but none of them seemed to matter quite as much as this one.
“I know.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Ever sincemy first time in the pall, I’ve thought about him up there, waiting to return to his rest. I hate how long I’ve made him wait.”
“You don’t have to do it alone anymore.” She knew she should tell him. If they were going to keep working together like this, he needed to know the truth. It didn’t matter what his reaction would be. They were both adults. They could handle this. Couldn’t they?
“C’mon,” Arthur said. “Let’s get you home.”
“Wait.” She sat up. “There’s something—”
But he interrupted her. “No. Not today. You are going to go home, and you are going to rest. And you are going to text me every hour so I know that you are alive and well.”
“But…”
“You’re not even going to think about the pall,” he said sternly, and, unbidden, Maggie remembered the sure way his fingers had moved her where he wanted her as they kissed. She wished that particular image could be banished from her brain again, because it was not something she needed to be reminded of in this minuscule office, where the only distance between them was six inches. How easy would it be to close that distance? To feel his lips against hers? It was lucky she was so exhausted, because she might have done something she regretted.
“And then?” she asked, her voice breathy.
Arthur didn’t seem to notice, though. “And, if you get a good night’s rest, if you do exactly what Nurse Whitney has asked you to do, then maybe tomorrow we can resume our investigation.”
“You make it sound like we’re a pair of detectives.”
“Sure,” he said with a small smile. “Hard-boiled private eyes.”
They were silent for a moment. She couldn’t tear her gaze from his, from the intense way he was looking at her. Had he always looked at her like that?
“What now?” she asked, anything to stop the heat and want building in her body, even as she felt weak and exhausted and still so nauseated.
“I’m going to walk you back to your apartment. And then, if you’ll let me, I’m going to arrange your medication in an easy-to-reach place along with a glass of water, some snacks, and the television remote. You are going to change into something comfortable, and then you are going to curl up beneath a blanket and let the sleeping aid give you a dreamless sleep.”
“Does that mean I have to give this back?” she asked, tucking her arms back under the jacket. She couldn’t imagine what possessed her to say it, but she found she didn’t regret it.
His eyes widened just for a moment before he said, “It’s yours.”
—
Finally, Maggie hadmade it out of Ilex Hall into the cool night. She still had Arthur’s tweed jacket around her shoulders, and her arm was threaded through his so she didn’t fall over. She was weaving from side to side like she’d had too many of Rodrigo’s old-fashioneds, when she was struck by the vague fear that her apartment was a mess—clothes strewn all over the floor, mail and packages crowding the entrance, an old cereal bowl still in the sink from earlier in the week—so she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
She pulled her arm out from Arthur’s grip and swayed on her feet only slightly. “I can make it the rest of the way,” she said, gesturing to her apartment, which had come into view.
Arthur crossed his arms, taking a step back from Maggie. “Fine,” he said. “Show me.” Her eyebrows rose and her stomach dropped.That was just the nausea, she thought, but she knew she was lying to herself. There was a small, ever-so-tiny part of Maggie that liked the way he sometimes told her exactly what he wanted her to do.
She would rather fall on her face than let on that she liked it even a little bit, so she looked at him defiantly and walked in the direction of her apartment. She truly did think she’d make it on her own at first, but then each step began to feel like an effort. It was like walking through knee-deep pall slime, and each wave of nausea was worse than the last. She wondered if her face was turning that sickly shade of green again, or if she was going to collapse on this sidewalk out of sheer stubbornness.
She clenched her fist at her side, her brewing frustration getting worse. Arthur hadn’t been so affected by his pall sickness, not even the day he’d come back to their office and collapsed on the couch. He’d still been alert, still able to stand, even if he’d swayed on his feet. He could hold a conversation. And here she was, afraid she was about to fall to her knees hours after she had escaped the pall’s clutches. She stopped, swallowing her frustration and blinking away the angry tears pricking the corners of her eyes.
She didn’t like to need anyone, let alone Arthur. A man who, up until thirteen minutes ago, she thought she hated. And she had hated him, hadn’t she?
