The Silenced Tale, стр. 56

“So goddamn cliché,” Juan snorts, and then winces again, free hand back on his nose. “Cutting my brake line. What a cunt. I think he got that from one of the movies we watched.”

“What happened?”

“Couldn’t stop,” Juan says, looking guilty and exhausted suddenly. He keeps his eyes on his lap, twisting the sheets in his good hand.

“Not your fault either, if it’s not mine,” Elgar admonishes quietly.

Juan’s eyes flick back up to Elgar’s, and his smile, a softer, more tentative one, shines through. “Okay, boss. Well. Uh. We got t-boned when we rolled out into the road. The other guy smashed into the driver’s side door, did me up good, and you hit your door pretty hard. Hard enough to . . .” He stops and swallows. “At first, they couldn’t tell me if you were gonna wake up or not, what with the swelling.”

“Jesus,” Elgar says again, the reality of it starting to settle in his guts. “He’s really trying to kill us.”

“Yeah, I think he is.”

They’re silent then, as the nurse comes back with a new drip-bag and a tiny plastic cup with two yellow, house-shaped pills, as well as something Elgar knows for a fact is an antacid. “Swallow these, Mr. Reed, and they’ll put you out in a few minutes.” Elgar obeys. “Do you need the bedpan while I’m here?”

“No!” he yelps, mortified.

The nurse smirks. “Okay. When you wake up next time, we’ll see about getting you sat up and some food into you.” She turns to the door, then stops and comes back. “Is there anyone you want us to contact, Mr. Reed?”

Elgar blinks, brain already starting to soften at the edges. “Uh . . .”

“I’m listed as your emergency contact,” Juan says. “And as I was conscious enough to make decisions about your health care, they didn’t contact your next of kin. We sort of wanted to . . .”

“Make sure I woke up at all?” Elgar hears himself slur, but his eyelids feel so heavy, and the room is starting to float away from him.

“Yeah. I called Gil and Kim, though, to let them know that you . . . hey, boss? Boss? Right. Sleep tight.”

Forsyth

I have a key to Elgar Reed’s house. Until now, I have never had occasion to need it. But I am grateful to be able to store my luggage and take a quick shower in his guest bathroom before I head to the hospital. I am also grateful that my connections with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have set me in good stead, and that not only are Seattle’s finest not going to arrest me the moment I trip their motion sensors in Elgar’s house, but they have also agreed to go so far as to escort me to Elgar’s hospital room themselves.

My escort consists of two police officers in full uniform, respectively named Riletti and Jackson, who are already familiar with the case. Believing in the badge I flash at them, and their orders from on high, they fill me in on what’s been happening here while Pip and I have been run ragged surviving her magical attacks. The hospital smells the way they always do in this realm—no calming lemon, and lavender, and menthol from Mother Mouth’s poultices and potions, but strong astringents and bleaches. It makes my nose twitch as Riletti and Jackson lead me to the secure ward where Juan and Elgar are convalescing.

Police officers stand outside their door, and I pause there to take a deep breath and prepare myself for what I am about to see. I read the report. Severe cranial edema—swelling of the brain—for which they kept Elgar immobile and unconscious until they were certain the swelling would cease. The updated report I read upon landing in Seattle had mentioned that he had awakened, and was currently undergoing a course of muscle relaxants and painkillers to deal with the traumatic whiplash his injury had caused. In addition to that, the glass of the car window had broken and been driven into his right arm, so his flesh will be a mass of tiny stitches covered over by light gauze.

I bet it itches horribly, and Elgar will be giving the prettiest nurses he can find as much trouble about it as possible in an attempt to be charming. Juan will have more luck with that—his left arm was broken in four places, his nose as well, and one of his ribs. But even though I have never met the man, I know from Elgar’s reports that Juan has all the charm and grace my creator aspires to claim for his own.

I flex my own right hand, contemplating what the nerve damage will do to Elgar’s ability to write once the injuries have healed. He will be able to type, I am sure, and to dictate to the computer, but will he be able to hold a pen without it shaking? Will he be forever deprived of the ability to sign his own books for his fans?

“Mr. Piper?” Jackson asks me, as I hesitate by the door to Elgar’s room.

“Do we know if he is awake?” I ask, stalling. “I wo-would n-n-not l-uh-like to wake either of th-the-them when they are s-so in need of sle-ep.”

Jackson gives me a funny look, and I realize I’ve slipped, in my distress, into my old, formal mode of speaking. Blast and drat.

“I’ll check with the nurse,” Riletti says, and turns down the hall to double back to a station we passed, set in the junction of several wings.

“Co-could we n-n-not ask the—?” I say, gesturing to a nurse who is standing at the other end of the hall from us. She is speaking to a man in dark jeans, a wash-grayed hoodie pulled up to cover his face. His hands are in his pockets, his posture slumped and miserable, and I wonder what trauma or tragedy he is having to endure. He is nodding slowly, talking elaborately with one long-fingered hand.

The gestures