Chapter 3

The third chapter.

The next day was dark and smelled like the threat of rain. Purple and rumbling clouds lined the horizon when I showed up to see Eliie and my mother. Another day of being ignored at school had passed seemingly in the blink of an eye.

When I walked into the room I knew that you had taken a turn for the worse. What little colour had been in your face was gone, and one of your arms was a light blue. A read of the file on the end of your bed told me that you were having circulation problems.

Your heart wasn’t trying hard enough to pump blood, it was why you were so pale. They had given you a transfusion, and that was why your arm was bruised blue.

Mum was there, but there was little of anything in her eyes. She didn’t even acknowledge me when I walked into the room. I thought it was grief, I thought it was lack of sleep. I wondered if I should force her to come home. Maybe too much time in the hospital was making her worse.

“Oh, you are back again dear?” Nurse Avery was back again, her black hair was always tightly pulled up back in a bun. Her eyes were green and the first day I saw her they had been soft and warm. Now, I got more nervous every time I looked into them. Something deep inside me screamed to flee.

“Mum are you okay?” I stepped towards mum, she was so calm that I was worried she was falling ill. She hadn’t moved or made a sound. Nurse Avery’s eyes flicked from my mum to me.

“It’s been a rough night here, but don’t worry I’m taking good care of your mum. Why don’t you go on home? We can manage…” she tried to step forward and put her hand on my shoulder and I stepped back instinctively. She had pushed me out of the room yesterday, but I was not going anywhere today.

“Mum I think you should sleep in your own bed tonight. What would Ellie think if she saw you like this?” I got no response from my mum, and it scared me. I knew something was wrong. Normally she would have told this pushy nurse to leave me alone.

“visiting hours are ending. It’s time for you to go” Nurse Avery dug her fingers into my skin when she got her hand on my shoulder. It hurt, and it wasn’t the gentle touch a nurse should have.

“Let go of me! I can walk myself out!” I hadn’t gotten to spend barely any time with Ellie today and I knew that visiting hours were nowhere near over. As children though we are taught to listen to authority so I did. I shouldn’t have. My inner alarm bells were going off. I should have insisted on staying.

I went home and I felt so wrong about leaving my mum there with Nurse Avery, I had wanted to bring her home with me. To keep her safe. From what? Well I wasn’t completely sure.

That night, I bandaged my hand before bed, but I still awoke in the night to a familiar pain and bleeding from fresh blisters. I had no idea what was going on, but I was far more worried about my mother than I was about myself.

I knew by now that there would be more writing on the wall, and that Stacy would be lying beside it. This time, I got the message loud and clear, and it made my alarm bells become sirens of fear. I couldn’t have been more certain that Nurse Avery was up to something bad.

‘DON’T LEAVE YOUR MOTHER’ Stacy was trying to warn me, I was more afraid of what Nurse Avery was doing with my mother than I was of my possibly sentient doll. True, under normal circumstances I would have been terrified, but of the two I sensed she was the less malicious.

It felt almost like she was trying to protect us, like she knew something that I didn’t. I looked at her in my good hand, and I thought she looked scared too. As it turned out, she had a good reason to be.

I decided to skip school the next day, it was a Friday anyway. I thought maybe I might be able to have a conversation with my Mum before Nurse Avery arrived at our room. After all I knew Nurses work in shifts.

When I opened the door to my sister’s room. Nurse Avery was there already. Except, she wasn’t quite herself. She was standing beside my mother. Arms wrapped around her. Her eyes closed, absorbing energy or life or something unnatural from my mother’s slouched form.

I gasped, and I should have stayed quiet but I couldn’t help myself. She was… She was… Oh please help us.

Nurse Avery opened her eyes and not only were they angry, they were also red instead of green.