The Orchard by Charles L. Grant Read Free Book Online

carved Mary walked through the walls and joined me under the covers.
    I woke up when Aunt May shook me; I sat up when I saw how pale her face was, and how sad were her eyes.
     
    The hospital reception room was practically empty when I got there. There was an old lady sitting with a little kid who wouldn’t stop asking for his mommy, and a guy who looked like he’d be more comfortable sitting in the cab of a truck. The nurse on duty told me there were no visitors. I said thanks, asked for the men’s room, and walked around the corner, right into the elevator that took me to the top floor. The station there was deserted, so I went down the hall almost walking on my toes, looking through large windows that showed me mostly old people, lying under clear plastic tents, tubes and wires and monitor screens keeping them out of sight.
    And Mike.
    In the last room, wrapped like a mummy, both legs in traction, both arms in casts.
    “What are you doing here? Visiting hours are over.”
    In the movies, the guy says he’s a brother or a cousin. I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him until the nurse took my arm and led me away. She was sorry, she said, but there are rules and did I know him very well. The look on my face shut her up; and when I asked her how he was, the look on her face told me I’d asked a stupid question.
    I waited for a while downstairs before going home. I was glad there were clouds because I didn’t need spring sunshine to tell me life goes on no matter how lousy you feel; what I did need was a thunderstorm, a strong wind, a cliff overlooking a turbulent sea. What I got was Uncle Gil and Aunt May, sneaking around like I had the plague, smiling sadly, nodding, and keeping themselves so busy I didn’t have a chance to ask them to talk.
    I called Stick, but he couldn’t come to the phone.
    I called Mary, but she wasn’t there.
    I even called Amy, but her mother said she was locked in her room and wouldn’t come out. Would I mind coming over to see if I could calm her down?
    I hung up without saying goodbye.
    Then I went out to the shed and stared at dead Mary, and thought about how some people can go all their lives without having all their friends die on them until they’re supposed to, how some people can get through college without having a crisis every ten minutes, about how some people just can’t seem to help latching onto someone else, like having a transfusion and all the problems flow from one person to the other, get solved, and flow back and everything’s all right—and if it isn’t all right, at least it’s bearable until next time.
    A finger traced the lines of her wooden hair, the lines that soared up and away from her forehead and down around her ears, just like in real life; it stopped to show the way her cheeks were slightly sunken, the way her chin was almost but not quite pointed, the way a muscle on the left side of her neck stood out even when she was resting.
    Rich was dead, and I was glad.
    Mike was going to die, and all afternoon I worked at some decent tears, some feeling other than a horrid sense of relief that I wouldn’t have to listen to his constant bitching anymore about a woman only a year out of high school who wouldn’t give him the right time of day.
    I thought he was my friend, and I thought I should cry.
    I knew something was wrong with me, but I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know then whether or not to be scared.
    I slept in my bed, but I dreamed I was in Mary’s, made of cloud and soft rain and warm sunlight and her; I slept so soundly that Aunt May had to wake me, and remind me that in less than two hours I had my first exam.
    I don’t think I ever moved so damned fast in my life. I skipped my shower, skipped breakfast, and couldn’t believe it when I ran the whole two miles to Hawksted’s small campus. I was, barely, on time; luckily, English still remained my best subject and the professor my easiest mark—the questions were simple, the