

### The Apocalypse of Hagren Roose

Copyright © 2012 by J.W. Nicklaus

Smashwords Edition

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First publication—digital/e-book format

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

There is one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life – reciprocity.

~ Confucius

Witnessing the almost comical fall from grace of a fellow drunkard provided a good reason to chew a little more on these words from his dying father. The words had rolled through his thoughts so often they surely could have become a grand roadside attraction, the World's Largest Ball of Repeated Thought—if only he could manifest it. Life on the streets gave one plenty of time for thought, an abundance of opportunity to reflect upon choices made or wisdom dismissed.

Anyone who spent time within the seedy confines of lower Nita knew Grizzled Bill; locals fed him, those with weak consciences always handed over a few bucks, and complete strangers who wandered too close would often find themselves ensnared in a conversation with him. Bill was a mere fifty-five years of age but looked a decade older, worn rough and leathery from close to twelve years on the street, kept company by a constant supply of cheap alcohol and his own demons. The rest always seemed to take care of itself. Street life always supplied sights normal people wouldn't see, much less understand. But even for a well-seasoned street veteran like himself, watching this poor slob, a train wreck in the flesh, hit a little close to home. It was a little too much like looking in a mirror.

As he did most nights Bill ambled past the old motel on his way back to the shelter when the slurred, rambling voice sounded from within the dimly lit exterior stairwell. Most nights he would have kept walking—angry, even incoherent voices were nothing unusual on his side of town, especially at this particular motel, noted for its hourly rates. But this voice seemed familiar so he stuck around to see if he recognized the face behind it.

The man was waving his arms about, an ice bucket in one hand while the other pointed, chopped, and punched at the air. Bill watched as he slowly weaved and stumbled toward the ice machine, fell against it, then pounded on it and let fly a string of words which could have constituted cursing, but his slow tongue garbled much of the pronunciation. In the light above the machine Bill could see the man had a moustache the size of a portly caterpillar and was wearing a sport coat and blue jeans.

Bill focused on the man. He knew this guy from somewhere, or at least had run into him more than once. The mumbling was soon drowned out by the crisp thud of ice cubes filling the bucket. Within moments he watched the man flip over the second floor railing and slam into the windshield of a car below.

Maybe dad was right, Bill thought. That fall had to hurt, and if the guy wasn't dead then he certainly was in for an agonizing ride.

HAGREN ROOSE WASN'T the least bit certain about his surroundings, but without a doubt they were at least a thousand-fold better than where he'd been. Light, airy, and calm; he considered that it might just be what the inside of a marshmallow would be like, if one could be inside a marshmallow. He hadn't noticed the woman until she started waving at him.

She hadn't called to him. On the contrary, she had said nothing, just looked up from the ledger cradled in the nook of her arm and smiled, her dishwater-blond hair splayed gently upon her shoulders, and a countenance which gave the impression of acquaintance without having met. Her beckoning wave was warm and irresistible. Hagren stepped toward her.

"Mr. Roose," she said, reaching out to shake his hand. "Good to meet you. Please give me just another minute and we'll get started."

Hagren Roose wasn't a small man, but neither was he, by any definition, large. Unremarkable in most every sense, but once encountered, truly unforgettable: ghostly pale with unnatural brown eyes, a hairline reminiscent of a receding tide, and a moustache more befitting a buffalo than a man. Nodding at the woman he shook her hand without so much as a grunt of acknowledgement.

Hagren looked the woman over, noting how crisply dressed she was. Her neat, white suit barely stood out against the quiet sterility of the space around them; it contained no chairs or tables, not so much as a desk or clock. Yet walls were discernible; those on either side of him were set at opposite angles to each other converging at a point directly behind his mysterious contact. A small window, no more than three feet square, he guessed, seemed to float just above her right shoulder. The light on the other side had the same diffuse, warm, white glow as that which currently enveloped them. She stood before him, engrossed in several pages of the book. He raised his hand and parted his lips to speak.

"I'm Lauren," she stated flatly, looking over the tops of her black-rimmed glasses. "Just another moment, please." Ordinarily such implied, if unintentional, subordination would light Hagren's notoriously short fuse, a topic which had been much discussed amongst relatives and peers. The general consensus was that his fuse was half a millimeter in length, and most found the estimate to be egregiously generous.

Hagren studied Lauren as she pored over her book. Her body language was officious without any trace of coolness. On the contrary, her simple presence made him feel like he should apologize for some misdeed he wasn't aware of; Hagren didn't suffer apologies well.

Without removing her eyes from the page, Lauren took a deep breath then gently laid a gold string in place to mark where she'd left off. She smiled as she looked up.

"So, Mr. Roose," she began, "First, thank you for your patience. Second, you need to know that I am both your counsel and, though you don't realize it yet, your friend. I am not your judge." Lauren paused to look him over more thoroughly and to move the book in front of her, both hands cupping it at her waist. "Although I may opt to voice my opinion from time to time."

Hagren simply nodded.

Lauren grinned. "You may wish to consider a re-think of your wardrobe, however." She gestured with a nod in the direction of his tweed sport coat and faded blue jeans. "Merely a suggestion from a woman's perspective, I assure you."

Hagren had always dressed as he saw fit. Despite the best efforts of his wife, mother, and younger sister he clung to his steadfast belief that a man could wear "whatever he damn well pleased." Nobody could ever convince him otherwise. He once wore an outrageous Hawaiian print shirt, jeans, and flip-flops to a funeral for some distant relation on his wife's side of the family. He'd argued it was a warm day, and since the person was dead they didn't care. His wife, mortified beyond description, gave him all kinds of hell for a week straight, and when that didn't seem to faze him she made him sleep on the sofa for another week. The shirt vanished soon thereafter, but two weeks of spousal reprimand were enough to keep his lips sealed on the matter.

Hagren tightened his jaw. All sense of calm evaporated like a drop of water on an August sidewalk. "There is nothing wrong with my attire, Miss Prim and Proper." He raised and lowered his palm as if exhibiting Lauren for a game show contestant. "You dress like a gauze bandage." Hagren should have stopped there, but he was on a roll; anyone else would call it a tirade.

"You have the gall to criticize my clothes, yet all you need is a pair of dark sunglasses and I could call you Tampon, because you'd certainly be white, tight, and outta' sight!"

The corners of her mouth slowly curled upward. "Yes, we certainly have much work to do, Mr. Roose. The Book," she stated, patting it for emphasis, "alluded to your, um, how should I put this—your quick disposition?"

Hagren seemed to reduce from a boil to a simmer. "Is that so?" With abrupt quickness his demeanor shifted from excitable to one of unpleasant discovery. "Wait . . . You mean—that was some kind of test?" Lauren pointed to the tip of her nose. "Quite right, my friend." She began to turn toward the window, then looked over her shoulder. Hagren stared at her, apparently still absorbing the self-inflicted humiliation of the moment. "Follow me, please," she said.

He stood, fixed in place, gazing at her. "Mr. Roose," she prompted. No response, not the slightest hint of movement. "Mr. Roose," she said a little louder, accompanied by the snapping of fingers. The crisp click startled him, breaking his reverie.

"I'm—I was, uh," he stammered, rubbing the back of his neck. "Just, I mean, for a second you reminded of someone I know."

"It might surprise you how often I hear that," she replied. "Now, if you'll follow me."

Reaching toward the window, Lauren pulled open a door with no handle, no casing or jamb. Hagren stood, unblinking, staring into a long hallway beyond the invisible door.

Hagren's tongue couldn't get out of its own way. "But . . . window . . . where . . . no handle . . ."

"We have no need for those, Mr. Roose," she conceded. "We have a grip on everything here." She giggled at her own pun, a gentle, soothing sound, like the sloshing of warm bath water on a cool evening. Hagren stared at the portal, his face a study in puzzlement.

"I get that look a lot, too," she added. "I promise, Mr. Roose, you will understand soon enough." With the practiced ease of a master illusionist Lauren motioned through the door as if to prove there was nothing hidden within her palm.

Hagren stepped forward into the milky corridor, his eyes still searching the opening for hinges.

LIFE IS FILLED with an infinite number of things which defy our ability to understand. We are, by nature, inquisitive creatures. Sometimes a matter demands asking—sometimes wisdom dictates it is better not to. "Why?" often acts as a catalyst for elusive answers. Reason, when full grown and perfected, is rightly called wisdom—at least according to Cicero.

* * *

Alina Roose stared somberly at her breakfast plate, absent-mindedly pushing around scrambled eggs and hash browns as if she were trying to determine which arrangement was most fashionable. Her coffee was cold, perfectly matched to the barely touched contents on her plate and the gray, persistent drizzle outside the window. The big city had beckoned over five years ago with the prospect of a foot in the door of a start-up interior design firm, and all the perks convenient metropolitan living had to offer. Her enthusiasm for diving into her first heady sojourn away from her rural home had brought with it the attendant exhilaration and unforeseen problems which promise conceals and life, inevitably, divulges; the most endearing of which had been Catherine, who sat across from her now, eyeglasses halfway down the bridge of her nose as she stared intently at the morning crossword puzzle. She held the newspaper folded in quarters and, as was her habit, tapped her pen upon her cheek while contemplating the clues.

"What's a six letter word for 'catatonic boredom'?" Catherine asked.

Alina's typically swift reply didn't happen.

Catherine met Alina in her bookstore, a used bookstore at that. Not that she owned it. She adored, even loved working there. The types of people who walked through the door were as varied as the books they traded, bought, or simply perused. It was that same kind of association between books and people which made Alina so striking to her.

Catherine figured Alina must have lived close to the bookstore. She would stride through the door most every Tuesday evening and Saturday afternoon, smiling as the small bell above the door jingled each time it opened. The attraction was immediate; Catherine sensed something different about her, something innocent yet warm and welcoming. She was always casually yet tastefully dressed, her relaxed nature and wire-rimmed glasses that bridged a lightly freckled nose gave her an air of intelligence, but not commonality. It had been her eighth visit before Catherine screwed up the courage to ask about something other than her favorite authors, or if she ever worked on crosswords. Over the sale of a volume of Poe's work she risked asking if Alina drank coffee—an almost impossibly silly question to ask a book lover.

Catherine, always attentive to detail, recalled Alina drank two coffees that first evening they met away from the store, two packets of sugar and fresh cream in each, and nibbled upon a flaky croissant with honey butter. It rained that night as they sat talking, and both had remarked on the artistic and poetic merits of neon reflected in the puddles on the sidewalk.

The memory would not have bubbled to the surface had it not been pouring outside and rain streaming down the window pane.

Catherine sat in her overstuffed easy chair by the living room window, making use of the muted morning light. Alina, normally chatty, was unusually quiet.

"Ally?" Catherine looked up, the tip of her pen fixed to the first box of twenty-six across.

Alina's dark tresses dangled just past her chin, her gaze affixed to everything on her plate and nothing at all. Her reply was as distant as it was weak. "Hmm?" she mumbled without looking up. The chair next to her groaned as Catherine pulled it across the hardwood floor.

A delicate finger pushed her chin up. "What's wrong, hun?" Catherine asked.

Alina's gaze moved up with Catherine's gentle bidding. The rest of her maintained an almost post-mortem stillness. "It's been four years since Daddy—" Her gray eyes welled with moisture, twins to nature's lonesome clouds outside. Catherine leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Alina's shoulders. She could feel a dampness where her head rested upon her shoulder.

"I know, hun, I know." Catherine whispered reassuringly. Although only a year older than Alina, she still found deep satisfaction in these moments of supportive maternalism. They were two different people, she and Alina, but Catherine's city upbringing gave her an edge her counterpart hadn't acquired yet—an ability to wade, ankle-deep, through life's garbage without a moment's thought to its stench.

Alina allowed herself to sob for a few minutes. If any anniversary could be forgotten then why couldn't she just erase this one and move on? It was an apparition that wouldn't leave her alone—most likely it would never leave, and she wouldn't have to remember because she'd never forget.

"He just stopped talking to me," she choked. "Cath, I can remember bouncing on his knee as a little girl. He'd say "Daddy's little princess!" then toss me in the air." Her hands suddenly flew upward in parallel. For an instant she caught her breath, eyes raised toward an invisible child in mid-air, giggling, with her arms and legs splayed.

And then the child came down, without a sound. Alina stared at her lap and sniffled. "He stopped loving me, Cath." Her eyes welled again, cheeks quivering. "My Daddy doesn't love me anymore."

Thunder pealed in the distance, reverberating between apartment buildings and stealing Catherine's opportunity for a measured but supportive reply. To the degree she was fond of Alina's mother she was equal in her disdain toward her father. "Hagar the Horrible," she'd named him. To Catherine, Hagren seemed cartoonish, a Sunday comic realized as a buffoon in flesh but with a surgical edge of insensitivity that bordered on evil. No, it was best to let the thunder speak for her.

The patter of rain upon the window ticked off the surrender of minutes passing between them. Catherine embraced her again, gently rocking them both as she stroked Alina's soft hair. Catherine knew this day was coming, of course, but chose to hope it might pass one year, then slowly gather dust in some dark recess of Alina's memory. She knew it wouldn't, but hoped it might, for Alina's sake.

The phone chirped, startling Catherine. It rang a second time. "I'm going to get the phone, okay?" she whispered in her ear. Alina nodded, then gently backed away, sniffled, and wiped her eyes with her fingertips. Catherine lifted the handset on the fourth ring.

"Hello?" she said flatly, still infused with the prior moment.

"Hi Mrs. Roose!" Catherine's voice took on an only slightly more pleasant tone. "I'm fine. And you?" She nodded in quiet affirmation to the voice on the other end. "Yes, she's here. Hang on." Catherine handed the phone to Alina, mouthing, "It's your mom." Alina brushed her hair back, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

"Hi Mom — No, I'm fine — really — I know, Mom, it's just, you know." Alina spoke with her eyes closed, vastly different from her usual animated self.

Suddenly she looked up at Catherine. ""Uh, sure, I think I can make it. Not sure about Cath, though — Okay — I'll see you this weekend, then — Love you too — Bye." Alina looked at the phone as she ended the call, a split-second beep emitting from the handset. She looked up to see Catherine peering at her.

Alina's voice took on a mysterious, haunted tone. "Something's happened at home."

"She didn't tell you what it was?"

Alina shook her head. "No. But you know Mom. She hates to talk about serious stuff over the phone." Catherine nodded in agreement,

"So it looks like I'll be gone for at least the weekend." She looked imploringly at Catherine. "You'll come with me, won't you?" Catherine purposefully took the handset from Alina. "I'll call the store and take care of coverage right now." Alina's demure smile returned some semblance of normalcy to the morning. She hugged Catherine, gave her a kiss on the forehead, and said "thank you."

Five minutes later Catherine hung up the phone, having secured not only the weekend off, but also the owner's insistence of taking however long she needed. "Becky says hello, and sends her best," she told Alina as she returned to her chair by the window.

Alina smiled again as she walked into the kitchen to reheat her breakfast. "Torpor," she shouted.

"What's that?"

"The six letter word you need. T-O-R-P-O-R," she spelled aloud.

Catherine picked up the paper and located twenty-six across, then carefully wrote in the letters.

It fit.

THE DOOR-THAT-wasn't-there made no sound, as doors should. Three steps in Hagren turned, hoping to see the outline of the door on the backside, as if it might be different from the front. Disappointed, he thrust his beefy hands into his pockets and caught up with Lauren.

The hallway was nondescript, yet not unpleasant. Nothing broke the space on the walls except the occasional square window: no exit signs, no arrows pointing to a cafeteria or lobby, no starving artist paintings. Even in its sterility it was as soft and white as a cotton ball. In lieu of anything else to look at, Hagren studied Lauren as she walked. The book rested in the crook of her left arm, like Lady Liberty, he noted, and she walked purposefully but not hurriedly. His gaze fixed upon the volume, the gold strand dangling, teasing. Hagren had the unnerving sensation that she knew things about him, things he'd probably forgotten. But she hadn't alluded to anything more than being on his team. An irrepressible shiver flew up his spine at the mere thought of what the "other team" would be like.

They stopped in front of a rectangular window set vertically upon its end, reminiscent of the same look-throughs on grade-school classroom doors. A small grin broke upon Hagren's face, and almost as quick, faded to a pencil-thin line of sadness. As before, Lauren reached toward the window, at nothing.

"Ready?" she asked. Hagren looked undecided, but nodded once anyhow. He didn't bother looking for a handle.

The room's structure was apparent only by the organization of its contents. The large, oval area in the center was the now customary milky white, with a desk and two inviting chairs facing it. Handsome, towering walnut bookcases, shelves brimming with books of every size and color, gave one end of the room dignified contour. Other stacks on the floor resembled lounging animals. The departure from white was as stunning as the sheer number of tomes present.

Hagren slowly scanned that side of the room as Lauren quietly set the book she'd been carrying on the desktop. "Reading feeds the soul," she declared. "Lots of classics—"

"Books which people praise, but don't read," Hagren interrupted, grinning. For the first time, they were connected by a smile. Lauren beamed. "Mark Twain!" she exclaimed, her smile contributing a touch more white into the room.

"I was a fan, even as a boy. I suppose I always felt a connection to his crankiness."

Lauren's smile broadened. "Indeed, Mr. Roose. Indeed." Walking behind the desk, she again donned her glasses, finally taking her seat. "Please, Mr. Roose, sit down." She opened the book to where it had been marked then directed her attention again to Hagren.

"Tell me, Mr. Roose, what did you see when you looked in the window?" She gestured behind her at the rectangular portal. Hagren looked across the corner of her desk and stared at the window—not that he had to.

"You saw your daughter, didn't you?" His eyes locked onto hers. "You saw her sitting at a round table in her kindergarten class, drawing, coloring, laughing with the children around her." He peered directly into her eyes, lost in a fog, as if he could see it all again in her face.

"It was her birthday. Jodi and I—" Hagren stopped, mid-breath, and hung his head. He shuffled his feet before looking up again. "We'd brought cupcakes for her class."

"Jodi?" Lauren asked, watching him lower his gaze again. She knew this reaction well—wounded regret. "My wife," he replied, not bothering to look up.

"She's a good woman, your wife." Her voice wasn't directed at him, rather it sounded distant. Hagren raised his head enough to see Lauren once again occupied by the book, her finger seeming to underline specific passages. He watched for a few minutes, trying to be patient. She would read for a few moments then scribble a note on one of several pieces of parchment, each varying shades of tea-stained beige. Her brow would furrow, then she'd turn the page and her eyebrows would rise. Then she'd make another note. A moment later her head gently shook from side to side.

"I miss her, very much," Hagren muttered. Afraid he may have been heard, he swiftly followed with a direct query: "Is that book about me?" Lauren did not look up.

"Yes. It is."

Hagren fidgeted in his chair. What could the book tell her that he couldn't? Why not simply ask him instead of reading about it?

"Because it's completely objective," she announced. "People are far too prone to embellishment," she said, looking up, "or outright omission." She set her quill down and again marked the page with the gold string, then sat back in her chair and folded her hands in front of her. "What was it you said about your wife?" Hagren was quiet. "A few moments ago, you mumbled something while I was writing."

"Oh," he hesitated. "I said I miss her." Lauren considered his response before leaning forward. "She simply wants romance, Mr. Roose."

Hagren waved off her observation. "Romance? Romance is just like money, Lauren. You can always get more if you've got it. What she really wants is more money," he added emphatically, clearly agitated. Her utter silence didn't seem to affect him as much as her look of reproach. The pair stared each other down, each waiting for the other to crack first. In this regard, Hagren was entirely out of his league.

"What does that book of yours say about my wife?" he asked sheepishly. Lauren's stare was cool. "Not much. Just incidentals. She's not part of my case load."

Hagren made no attempt to veil his flaring contempt. "Your 'case load'?"

"Yes. Is that a problem?" For the first time since their introduction, Lauren was curt. She'd laughed off, or at least quietly excused, his behavior to this point. Under only the most dire circumstances could cases be shifted, and in her estimation this was not one of them. The Plan had been fairly stringent since the beginning, out of necessity. In her sphere things happened at a mortal pace; zero wiggle room for incompetence or dereliction. Every counselor gave nothing short of their heart to ensure a positive outcome, be it a reprieve for their client or pastoral escalation.

"But—"

"My purpose, Mr. Roose, is to help you," she interjected. "My first concern is you. How you deal with and make use of my guidance will ultimately determine not only your course but that of others as well." Her words neither reverberated nor echoed in the stillness. "Mr. Roose, we can argue all you like, but the fact remains that we are wasting valuable, indeed precious, time. Soon you must provide an answer."

"To whom? For what?"

"Yourself, to be precise," she stated flatly. "Soon we'll be speaking with Mr. Petros. You cannot imagine the questions he may put to you, Mr. Roose. I cannot prepare you, my friend. Not for that." The tenseness that built slowly burned off, replaced by a crisp sense of foreboding. Lauren rose and slowly walked to the front of the desk, hands clasped behind her back and eyes cast downward. She perched on the edge of the desk, hands grasping it on either side.

"Mr. Petros is known to me as the Advocate General." She looked at him, her expression ruler-straight. "You may be more familiar with the term 'gate keeper.'"

AS SHE DROVE, Alina watched a carpet of city lights leisurely recede in her rear view mirror; Catherine napped, her bucket seat reclined as far back as it would go. Alina looped her mother's voice over and over in her mind, its tone murky and unsettling. She was thrilled with the prospect of seeing her again, but the edge was dulled by the fact that she had to return upstate to do so.

Nita was a four-hour drive, one way, and more than a decade behind in time. Modern comforts and conveniences were omnipresent in Nita: cable television, WiFi internet, coffee shops, and all the fast food juggernauts. Its agrarian roots, however, kept it firmly planted in a social climate more akin to ideological compost than millennial enlightenment. Most of the young hustled past the county line as soon as they could—some wouldn't wait that long. The few remaining were working hard to hasten the demise of Nita's renown as a 'sundown town'. Toward that sole focus of community reform their job was made only slightly easier by any number of more contemporary prejudices which the local bible-slinging retirees could hang their hats and gossip upon.

Her mother, Jodi, was not a town native, and on more than one occasion availed herself of the opportunity to speak of her great fortune as such. This had resulted in a much smaller circle of friends than she'd grown up with, but she found her current circle was, by and large, most agreeable.

Alina had often heard 'the bank' story while growing up. Over the years it took on a life of its own, becoming something of a welcome tradition, like watching Miracle on 34th Street during the holidays or fireworks on the 4th of July. Her mother always seemed to take a certain amount of pride when telling it—the sole permutation would be the physical year she was recounting it in; the details never changed. Mrs. Roose dubbed it "The Rude Brood Incident," and the name stuck.

Not long after Alina's birth her mother had been making idle chit chat with a new acquaintance while standing in line at the bank, when out of nowhere she was asked if she was one of "Nita's daughters." Hens being what they are, a number of them had, during the short course of the conversation, stopped to ogle tiny Alina in her carrier, cooing and gurgling at the infant, but never so loudly they couldn't eavesdrop. Jodi hated to let slip an opening, a chance to put another sliver under the collective backward skin of Nita's gossip queens.

"I would say that I haven't so much as an older sister native to this town," she'd said, rocking slightly on her heels, "but if I did I sure as hell wouldn't accept her hand-me-downs. No, burlap and canvas would be more comfortable."

The intended sliver was perceived as more of a recklessly swung two-by-four as her stinging reprisal was bandied about the coffee shops, hair salons, and anywhere else a hen's cluck would carry. Her daughter would quickly take on the surname of "That Poor Child" in the wake of the scandal, and it would make Hagren's positions as a town councilman and owner of the local burger eatery, On the Hoof, prickly. Jodi felt badly about that, but held not the least regret for having stood her moral ground.

That storm had been of her mother's making, all tattle bluster and thundering disapproval in social circles. But her father brought the lightning upon the family, and it wouldn't strike just once.

A slow drizzle began to dance in her headlights. As if planned, Alina turned on the windshield wipers the same moment her mother turned on the porch light in anticipation of their arrival.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF a hospital lies not in its walls, beds, medicines and technology—not in the hardware, but rather its more organic components. A small army of dedicated people are entrusted to the care and administration of disparate ends of the corporeal spectrum: sudden impact or hopeful preservation. At one end, triage in an emergency room; at the other, the high-pressure and mortal stress of the intensive care unit. The artificial distraction of a television in a waiting room brimming with life's non-threatening injuries, or a section quiet as a library, if not for the beeps and chirps of electronic sentinels. Often, soul and soft machine enter through the chaos of the former, then tenuously rest in the latter. Sometimes restorative rest degenerates into loss. But numerous mitigating factors can affect the outcome, not the least of which is will.

* * *

Apollo Clayton used his hip to push the large door opener plate, two coffees in one hand, a manual sweeper in the other. He had been on graveyard for over a year now and learned two important things about the ICU: it was most always quiet at night so doing his cleaning and stocking was easy, and the nurses loved to have company; a total win-win, as far as he was concerned.

The automatic doors sighed closed behind him as he stepped through, cups cautiously balanced to avoid spilling on the carpet, not to mention his hand. Setting down the sweeper, he carefully set one of the cups on the counter at the nurse's station, finally looking up. The only nurse in the room looked up from her monitor at the same time. He smiled and nodded then glanced around the unit.

"Evenin'," he said, with another polite nod. "Where's Linda?"

"She said she'd be right back. Wanted to get some coffee and a banana." Apollo grimaced. "Ain't that just like her? She knew I'd be bringing her some." He shook his head before sipping loudly from his own cup. "Want some coffee?" he offered, pointing at the untouched cup, steam still wafting above the lip.

"Not just yet, but thank you. Let's see if Linda remembers hers first."

"Shit, that woman don't never forget her coffee," he assured her, taking another noisy sip. "You new here?" She tucked a stray lock of blonde hair behind her right ear. "I'm a traveling nurse. I guess there's a couple ladies out, so I was sent to fill in."

Apollo furrowed his brow then looked at the wall. "Well, lemme think . . . Yeah, that's right. Ellie's on vacation, but—" he paused, looking directly at her—"I swear I saw Tammy earlier." The nurse shrugged, giving him her best "beats me" look.

"You seem to know a lot about the staff here," she noted.

"Damn right. I gotta take care of my ladies," he stated proudly. "I get all the gossip and they get coffee. ICU can be a real bitch sometimes, so I likes to bring 'em a little Apollo sunshine a couple times a night." He patted his chest twice for emphasis. "Seems pretty slow tonight, though." She motioned with her thumb to their right. "Just one patient, in Room G." She noticed his gaze had not moved from her, his fingers drumming on the side of his cup.

"Do I know you?" he asked.

The nurse stood and draped a stethoscope around her neck. "Pardon?"

Apollo tilted his head slightly. "Damn, you look familiar." She grinned as she stepped from behind the station. "I get that a lot. I have to check on our patient. Nice chatting with you."

"Pleasure was mine, pretty lady," he said, raising his cup. "I'm gonna sweep while I wait for Linda, if you don't mind."

"Not at all," she said, and walked toward Room G.

* * *

Hospitals are nothing if not symbolic of our frailty, making an ICU the garish standard bearer of biological weakness, a place where life itself balances precariously on a razors edge. Family members keep vigil at bedsides, their eyes suffused with exhaustion, circled with dark reminders of sleepless hours. Sometimes a door is left open and the vague chatter of a television spills into the hall, or conversations filled with soothing words and attempted whispers float outside the rooms.

This night, at least, was devoid of such things.

The sliding Plexiglas door to Room G was open, but the room was silent, save for the occasional blip from the intravenous monitor. The patient, male, in his early fifties, lay slightly inclined in the bed, the cotton top sheet gently rising and falling with every breath. His head was wrapped with gauze, ten stitches peeking out from underneath, his chest wrapped with a thick elastic bandage. In a wall pocket next to the door was a binder full of charts, notes, and test results, all of which documented far more interior damage than the exterior showed. He had arrived unconscious but with strong vitals; over the past three days he had yet to awaken, and all indications pointed to his system getting weaker.

She approached the bed, silhouetted by the hallway light that washed into the somber room. She would have kicked the chair next to the bed had she not seen the white sweater draped across the back of it. Visitors often left such belongings knowing that they would return sooner than later. In the hushed stillness she could hear the faint voices of a man and a woman near the nurses station. As she leaned over the bed her black-rimmed glasses dangled from the thin lanyard around her neck. She tenderly covered the man's left hand, careful of the IV tubing, and tilted her head slightly to listen.

"C'mon now, I always bring you coffee," the male voice said. A minor, if playful, argument ensued, followed by an emphatic female voice.

"What other nurse?"

"The one fillin' in for Ellie," said the male, sounding insulted. "There ain't no other nurse, Apollo. Tammy's here tonight. Did you catch her name?"

The man's voice took on a defensive tone. "Hell, I don't know her name," he declared, "we never swapped names while we was talkin'." A clipboard slapped against the counter, dropped to make a statement. "So, where'd she go?"

The woman leaning over the patient heard no reply, only the jiggle of a chair as it was pushed backward in a hurry. She leaned in close to his ear while softly stroking his hand.

"Stay with me Hagren," she whispered. "You can't give up yet."

Two silhouettes appeared in the doorway, the taller one curvier and more agitated than its companion. "Apollo, I swear, sometimes I seriously wonder what the hell goes through that head of yours." Linda turned to leave, throwing her hands in the air. Apollo stood firm, trying to peer past the dimness and catch the nurse he'd been talking to. The only other soul in the room was the patient.

THE TRUNK OF Alina's economy car had no monopoly on space. As she stuffed the four largest duffel bags inside, Catherine complained that a mischief of mice would find the space confining. Their overcoats, umbrellas, and two other suitcases were tossed into the back seat.

On the way out they stopped for gas and their requisite coffee. The conversation and coffee was enough to keep Alina attentive for the first two hours of the trip, but the weight of the past couple days and almost incessant dreary weather, combined with the hum of the road, settled upon her barely halfway to their destination. Catherine took the wheel with simple instructions to drive until the Nita off-ramp; Alina filled the gap between the front seats with an overcoat, and, laying her head on Catherine's lap, quickly drifted to sleep to the wet sweeping of the windshield wipers.

When Catherine woke her two hours later she could see a halo of clouds around the full moon that hung from the top edge of the windshield. "Rise and shine, princess," Catherine said as she stroked Alina's hair. Her warm smile quickly gave way to a distressed frown. "Oh my—I'm sorry, sweetie. I didn't mean—-" Alina leaned up and rubbed Catherine's arm. "It's okay. Really." She smiled as she tousled her naptime hair. "Pull over when you're ready and I'll take over."

After taking a few minutes to stretch their limbs and let the bracing night air slap them awake, Alina resumed the drive. The rain had abated and the road was ink black and saturated. The familiarity of the area was overpowering, not that she felt much kinship to it. Still, despite the dark's aptitude for cloaking she could easily discern some places from well-lit memories: the aged, formidable oak tree by Batten Creek where she had her first kiss from a boy—and hated it; the old Stapley barn, its outline looking every bit like a capsized ark in the light of the full moon; Diggets Hill, where she would sled with friends until her lips were blue, and then plead with her father for "just a couple more runs" before they would leave, dusted with snow and smiles.

"You alright," Catherine asked, quickly burning through the fog of her detachment. Alina forced a smile and sighed. "Yeah, just thinking." Catherine's expression was a mix of curiosity and concern. "About?"

Alina nodded toward the muted scenery. "This. It should feel like home, you know." Catherine could see Alina's smirk in the pale luminescent light from the dashboard. "But?"

"You can't put lipstick on a caterpillar."

THE THUNDERCLAP BELLOWED from every direction as it rebounded and channeled itself through Nita's many hills and valleys. Jodi Roose bolted upright from her late nap on the couch, heart pounding and eyes wide as saucers.

The digital clock cast a soft, candy-red glow into the darkened living room. Seven-thirty—she'd only slept for an hour. Sleeping at the hospital had been almost impossible. What little dozing she could do at home was paltry at best; a heavy conscience seldom rests well, no matter how soft the pillow.

Her stomach gurgled, a reminder that she had not eaten since the small bowl of cottage cheese in the hospital cafeteria that morning. Alina and Catherine would not arrive for almost two hours. Years ago the trio would have met at the restaurant and sequestered themselves in a booth, eating and talking until closing time. Neither of the girls had stepped foot near the restaurant in four years, and Jodi rarely went anymore. Instead she would throw together some crackers and cheese; appropriate choices in light of recent events. Another stuttering gurgle broke the silence.

Something small would suffice for now.

Leaning across the couch, she lifted her purse from the antique side table—the first piece of furniture she and Hagren had bought together; exhaustion, for the moment, overrode her desire to cry. Purse dangling from her forearm, she trudged toward the kitchen. Her entrance tripped a motion sensor, switching on the lights. On the counter, a white ball of fur in a large, empty fruit basket raised its head lazily. Setting the purse down, she scooped the cat up, petting it softly.

"Nitty," Jodi admonished, "you know better than that." Two brown eyes stared up at her as if to ask so what are you going to do about it? Jodi nuzzled the cat then rubbed their noses together. For a moment woman and feline stood motionless, petrified in the kind of stillness that only a long forgotten memory could summon.

The kitten joined the family after three-year-old Alina had spent a full five minutes squealing with delight at a precocious white poof of a cat in a large pet store window. The noses of child and kitten touched and parted a hundred times on the way home. The little girl had trouble pronouncing the hard 'k' in "kitty," but repeated "nitty" so many times that it seemed ridiculous to name it anything else.

Jodi gently lowered Nitty to the floor then pointed toward the darkened living room. "Now go wait for Alina," she directed. "Alina's coming home!" Nitty ignored her, preferring instead to rub against her legs, her tail twitching.

Jodi rummaged through her purse, withdrawing an individually wrapped fortune cookie she had saved from a small dinner of sweet and sour chicken her first evening at the hospital. The food had been decent enough, but the chit chat of the staff around her made eating in the ICU sound as attractive as shopping for insurance. She cracked it open, popping fully half the biscuit into her mouth. Leaning on the counter, she held up the thin, white strip of paper to see what randomness fate had gifted her with: The rain always ends eventually. Too tired to either discount or consider the notion, she tossed the slip upon the counter, then set to making coffee and snacks.

THE CAR'S HEADLIGHT beams bounced against the rear end of her mothers' vehicle as Alina slowly rolled into the driveway. Large drops from the recent cloudburst twinkled and blinked as they reflected the light, then disappeared when she cut the engine. For a moment, the only sound was that of the engine cooling down in the humid darkness.

The sharp squeak of a screen door being pushed open melded with the mellow groan of a well-used car door hinge. Jodi Roose stepped into the jaundiced porch light, her first smile in weeks emerging. "Hi baby!" she called, arms spread wide.

Alina bounded up the concrete porch steps leaving Catherine to get the bags from the back seat. "Hi mom!" she cried, arms equally outstretched. Mother and daughter embraced, erasing months of separation, but opening an invisible gateway to dire matters.

HAGREN STOOD AND watched Lauren shuffle parchment around, seeming to sort them in a manner of order only she could possibly understand. He wanted to read them, to know the extent of her quiet deliberations. Upon deeper consideration he felt a more fervent desire to have this matter done with. He still had no idea where he was, yet felt the unmistakable pressure of accountability, with low odds of providing any kind of defense. A morbid chill made him shiver—he felt noticeably more feeble than when he arrived.

Another woman appeared in the doorway, startling Hagren. "Jesus! Doesn't anybody knock around here?"

Lauren looked up and smiled. "She doesn't have to knock, Mr. Roose" she said smartly. "Parisa, this is my client, Hagren Roose." The woman bowed slightly in Hagren's direction, the pale sanguine hem of her raiment brushed the floor as she did.

He watched, unnerved, as Lauren handed her folder of documents—presumably about him—to Parisa. They exchanged a few whispers before the lithe brunette nodded and departed.

"My apologies, Mr. Roose. Parisa is delivering my work to Mr. Petros in advance of our appointment." Hagren could do little to contain the sinking feeling he had, much like he used to get when he would be sent to the principal's office, and like those truancy visits, he stared at his feet, too. Those were dilemmas of immaturity. These troubles were far more profound.

He looked up at Lauren, standing with perfect posture before him. She was smiling, an expression he began to think might be permanent for her. "Time to go?" he asked faintly.

She nodded. "Yes. Are you ready?"

"No."

"Good. Then you will be answering from you heart and not your head."

"But she just left with your paperwork, right? Doesn't this Petros guy need time for review?" His dread kicked in to overdrive to formulate stall tactics.

"No, Hagren. He has been doing this far longer than you or I can imagine."

"I'd feel better if we gave him a little more time," he said, smiling weakly.

"I'm sure you would, but we don't have the time, Mr. Roose." He was sure her smile was meant to calm, but it wasn't working. He shuffled forward as she gestured to the door, positive that he epitomized the expression 'dead man walking'. A group of odd symbols, distinct but unfamiliar to him, were showcased above the portal. He hadn't noticed them before, and turned to ask, hoping for a lengthy discussion about their origins and meaning. A glance from Lauren was all it took to keep his lips together beneath the thicket of his moustache.

Ushered through the door he dropped his gaze again, feeling both pride and courage draining from his resolve. Shoving his hands in his pockets he stepped forward, promptly bumping into Lauren.

Both immediately regarded each other. Hagren instinctively thought of saying "excuse me" or "I'm sorry," but the incident was minor, far below his personal level requiring an apology. A sidestep settled the issue as far as he was concerned.

JODI ROOSE SMILED through her exhaustion as she swapped gossip and light talk with her daughter and Catherine. Buoyed in spirit by their arrival, physically she felt like an anchor. Adrenaline, fed by caffeine, propped her up during a night that never seemed to end.

She watched Alina stroke Nitty, who sat on her lap, tail twitching. The girls giggled amid stories about the bookstore and anecdotes of Alina's clients and their woeful tastes in interior design. It had been too long since her living room felt so warm with life; the news she had to deliver would frost matters considerably.

Jodi hadn't fully primed herself to broach the topic before Alina unknowingly backed into it. "Mom, you look terrible. Your eyes are so dark. Are you okay?"

"I haven't been sleeping well, that's all." She saw Catherine shoot her daughter a questioning glance.

"C'mon. Spill it. You wouldn't have asked me to come up if you were just tired."

"True." Her mother paused for a moment, unsure where to begin. Though curtate, the delay was too much for Alina.

"Oh my Go—are you having an affair?" Catherine's jaw dropped open. Jodi recoiled from both the idea and Alina's expression; that this was the first indirect mention of her father since they had arrived did not escape her attention.

"Good Lord, no. If only—" Alina and Catherine looked at each other. "If only what?" Catherine blurted.

"If only it were that—" she paused, eyes darting as she sought the right word, "simple." Two plus two was simple, so were boiling water and mac-and-cheese. Simple would have been telling her daughter of the growing rift between her and her father back when it started—simple, and disproportionately impossible. She had made excuses for his sake and her safety. What had once been a dimple was now a crater, and she had to begin filling it in.

Jodi waited for one of them to fire the first salvo, to give her something to rally around. The pair sat facing her, silent. Even Nitty was staring at her. The enormity of the moment made itself known. In her left hand trembled her coffee cup, while her right wiped away renewed tears.

"Mom, what is it?" Jodi struggled for composure. "I should have told you long ago, Ally," she began, reaching for a tissue.

"Told me what?" Alina scooted to the edge of the couch, suddenly upright and tense.

A litany of minor arguments and disagreements boiled upward from her conscience. Every word, every instance colored by her self-imposed shame. She began with the talks she had with Hagren about Alina's affinity for Catherine, and how she dismissed his full-throated misgivings as "Nita-lithic," so punitive he had been in his backwater judgment. Without embellishment she related how increasingly distant her father had become and how she fumed—then railed—over his ill-advised prioritizing of his standing on the town council over his relationship with his daughter—an "emotional embargo" she'd termed it. Reminders of recitals, softball games, horseback riding, and tea parties in her room as a little girl were thrust forward to jolt him back to reality.

Her voice and words became angry and percussive, like hail on a tin roof. For twenty minutes she spoke without interruption. Her accounts culminated after telling how his newfound fondness for liquor created such animosity that both parents all but gave up on one another. Hagren had been ousted to the living room, sleeping on the couch, and in short order began coming home with less frequency. The violence that followed was half-hearted and certainly not from the man she had fallen in love with. She'd evicted him and obtained a restraining order.

When she finally looked up again she could see Alina with her elbows on her knees, both hands covering her mouth; Catherine was tenderly rubbing her back.

Alina's voice cracked as she tried to speak. "Where is he now, mom?"

Jodi sighed, emotionally and physically spent. "At the hospital, in the ICU." She watched Alina's eyes. They were distant. She knew the look well having seen it more than once in the mirror. Her only child was watching her world crumble before her. Catherine wrapped her arm supportively around Alina's shoulders and asked what Alina couldn't at that moment. "What happened?"

Jodi closed her eyes and leaned back in the overstuffed chair. The monkey was off her back, but now sat in her lap, pressing her into the chair. "I wasn't sure where he had gone. He never called or came back. I didn't know where he was until the ER nurse called me." She sipped her coffee in the uneasy silence. Despite having both hands around the mug it still trembled.

"Your father had been staying in that two-story rat hole a block from the restaurant."

"The LMT?" Alina asked, incredulous. "That's the one." Catherine looked from Alina to Jodi. "LMT?"

"The Love Me Tender motel," Alina replied, utterly unable to stop a wry smirk at the mere mention of the name. "Locals refer to it as "the LMT," as if they were ordering a sandwich."

Jodi nodded and then continued. "Remember Grizzled Bill?" Alina barely nodded. "Apparently old Bill saw the whole thing and called for help. Police got there first and found him lying unconscious next to an old T-Bird with a smashed windshield and a large impact indent on the hood. Half his face was covered in blood." Alina's hands flew to her mouth again. "The police found an ice bucket on its side near the second floor railing. They think he," she paused to look down and shake her head, "they told me they think he was probably howling drunk and accidentally dumped a bunch of ice on the concrete, slipped on it, then flipped over the rail, hitting the windshield with his head." Alina looked disbelievingly at her mother. "That's what old Bill said he saw and the evidence supported his story."

Catherine suddenly coughed once, then again, her palm shooting up to conceal her mouth. She cleared her throat in a weak attempt to suppress her amusement. Her untimely reaction dismantled the uncomfortable tension that had built and was beginning to compress. "If I wasn't so flippin' exhausted," Jodi said, "I'd probably laugh with you, Cath."

"Mom!" Alina protested.

"What? Honey, once the tragedy of it stops burning you'll be able to appreciate, as Cath does, the comedic side." Alina flung a scornful stare at Catherine. "But that's my father—your husband!" she spat.

Mother touched child's cheek. "I may be many things, sweetie, but one thing I surely am not is perfect. Your father's actions toward me are one thing. All the arguments and insults, every cruelty, each indignity he showered me with are my—no, our shame to cope with." Slowly she stood up, shaky and unbalanced from her familial confession, and gently taking her daughter's hand silently requested her to do the same. Then tenderly placing her fingertips against each cheek, she finished. "But the way he treated you, Ally . . . a daughter he loved so much . . . that was beyond my ability to forgive." A mother's kiss on the nose sealed the matter from further discussion. "I can only hope you might understand my morbid sense of triumph at your father's condition. Neither of us deserved what we got. We just wanted our family, like it used to be. But he wanted a kingdom . . . so we got a tyrant instead."

A stretch of tortured quiet hung about them. The 800-pound gorilla was making a slow exit, trailing the fetters and chains of four years behind him. But his departure meant only one beast had been beaten. Another dragon loomed.

"Let's all try to get some sleep and we'll go to the hospital in the morning," Jodi announced.

"But mom, shouldn't we—"

"He's not going anywhere, Ally. Trust me." Alina's hollow gaze was all too familiar, a woman whose world was, from moment to moment, held together only by heartbeats and breaths. Jodi wanted to pull the stars from the sky, wrap the clouds around her and let the wind steal her sorrow.

But tears would have to do—for now.

THE PERVASIVE WHITENESS, though almost mystically insubstantial, seemed to point its clandestine fingers in secret accusation at Hagren as he trudged behind Lauren. In the short time he'd been in her presence she seemed imperturbable, though not quite sickingly optimistic. Still, he couldn't shake an impression of nuanced disquiet about her, a decidedly cryptic gloom. In the resolute absence of clarifying information from her he struggled to make sense of things, which resulted in an ever morphing litany of suggestions and potent open-ended questions, a cycle which endlessly fed upon itself—the snake biting its own tail. Every faculty insisted things were not exactly in his favor, whatever that meant. He tried forcing himself to shift focus elsewhere to escape the nagging anxiety that was cozying up to him. Only then did he notice the soft, natural whisper of their steps. It sounded exactly like walking barefoot on grass. More preternaturally, there were never others around when they walked. Hagren nervously looked around, his face sketched with concern.

"Lauren," he began warily, "don't you get lonely without others around?"

"Well, Mr. Roose, I suppose you could say that, if by lonely you mean the absence of company" she replied. "But I can assure you I am never at a loss for company." Hagren motioned emphatically in every direction. "I have yet to see another soul, which strikes me as—well—something more than odd, I guess. It's . . . unsettling." Lauren regarded this in her placid matter-of-fact fashion.

"To you, yes. But to us it is sublime."

"Us? There is no us that I can see." Hagren protested.

Lauren peered at him over the rim of her glasses, a look he was exceedingly acquainted with. Most every female he'd ever known, from the librarian and various teachers to his mother and wife, had all found reason to use the look on him; most to convey annoyance, but occasionally to wordlessly reveal his utter lapse of thought.

"And therein lies the key, Mr. Roose—that you can see." Leveling her gaze she continued. "Remember what I told you earlier. You are my sole concern. To have others around would serve as a distraction." The implication of more surrounding him than he could detect immediately raised more burning questions, inquiries which required far more energy—and time, he suspected—than he had. But he suddenly understood the intense focus she applied on his behalf.

Lauren, he was beginning to realize, was right: whatever this was, wherever he was now, was not a bastion of subjectivity, there were no shades of grey here in assessing ones worth, no ambiguity. This place was something far more pragmatic, a waypoint steeped in the unyielding objectivity of ones rectitude. Something had dropped an invisible seine into the murky shallows of his essence and trawled for the brooding matters of self-servitude, trying to separate the weightier curses from the ill-acknowledged grace of blessings. Even as they advanced toward their destination his perception was clearing, much the way an archeologist's brush carefully whisks away the layers of accumulated time from a precious artifact. His guilt lay not far below the surface, thrashing and feeding upon every new perceived threat or injury—nevermind that the lion's share of them were beasts of his own creation, beasts he summoned from his depths to persecute the same people he should have been embracing. Lauren, he surmised, had hoisted the seine and brought all his shame to breathe above the surface, and like a fishing net full of a day's catch so too was his net, filled with writhing, spasmodic, convulsing abuses—malevolence he nurtured as a way to justify his own moral shortcomings.

Their walk continued, Lauren only a half step ahead. The further they walked the more it seemed to Hagren like they were walking down the center of a cotton swab, and he would be the only one to exit the opposite end, into a dark, cavernous, unforgiving place.

The pair journeyed forward, the surroundings soulless yet with a scant trace of warmth, not unlike an embrace. The disconcerting balance between calm and apprehension that draped itself around everything, and the groaning weight of his surging thoughts all began pricking at him, a white rose with nary a place along its stem with which to hold it. His expectation of a short walk to the Advocate's office had become an amended hike, leading to an equal elevation in his surly disposition. He was increasingly tired, and though he would not admit to it, was losing his fight with a fear he could not put a name to, much less understand; an eruption very much like two kids poking each other in the back seat of a car was swiftly taking shape. Just as the first atom was about to become fissile the corridor quietly came to life before his eyes.

To his left he caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a small sled gliding down a hill—more improbably, it was sliding along the endless stretch of whiteness he had assumed was a nondescript wall. As the sled neared he could clearly make out a child riding atop of it, bursting with laughter; a little girl—Alina. A sense of warmth seemed to waft about him. The little girl brought the sled to a stop in front of his wife, her figure wrapped in her favorite old, grey coat and matching knit cap. Alina's lips were blue and the tip of her nose a bright, mottled crimson. Her mother leaned over to brush snow off the child. Hagren could see the plumes of their breath when Alina talked excitedly and her mother played along.

Then he passed an opening on his right, and looking in saw his daughter sitting at a small table with her child-sized tea set spread out. Her overstuffed pink teddy bear was crowded into one tiny chair, its own name card stood neatly in front. The third chair was regrettably empty—the name card in front of it read, in large, purple crayon letters scrawled ragged but well-intentioned: Daddy.

Lauren never broke stride, never gave the slightest hint whether she could see the apparitions. Hagren was, conversely, numbed by what he was seeing, each step he took seemed more labored than the last, each passing moment more lamentable. As his hopes narrowed so too did the pallid hallway.

Only a few steps later, on his left, they passed by a set of double doors, propped open. At the distant end of an auditorium he watched Alina stroll upon the stage to accept her college diploma, and silhouetted against the glaring stage lights stand a man and woman, applauding loudly—the only two to do so. Hagren shuffled to a halt. He watched the scene play out in the kind of exquisite detail only his heart could remember. Then he saw the man grab the woman and hug her tightly . . . his wife, Jodi. His spirit felt as if it were being squeezed in a vice. Inertia was pulling his knees away from each other.

Lauren turned to face Hagren. He had no way of knowing—no possibility of conceiving— her unnatural capacity for empathy. "Mr. Roose" she said, her soft voice a hybrid of question and statement. "Mr. Roose, are you —"

Hagren's hollow gaze revealed a yawning chasm within. Beneath the unruly moustache his lips trembled and attempted a faint response—"I . . ." His pride and arrogance, anger and indignance, the very pillars that supported him for so long suddenly fell away, the corollary vacuum relieving him of his knees as well. Hagren unraveled toward the floor like a spinning ball of yarn.

Lauren knelt in front of a man whose shell showed every indication of fracturing. "Mr. Roose," she said calmly, "look at me." Hagren slowly leveled his eyes upon hers. Her spectacles gave her eyes strength. "You must believe, Hagren."

"In what?" he whimpered. Lauren cocked her head.

"Start with the most elemental thing, the most necessary—belief in yourself." Hagren shook his head slowly, as if he were coming out from being under anesthesia. "I don't know how anymore," he drawled.

"Of course you do," Lauren nodded, "everyone does. You've just strayed from your connection to it." Hagren tried hard to focus—and failed utterly. She knew this juncture as inevitable ritual, a faltering presence manifested at precisely the proper—the most critical—moment. Her educement varied from client to client, but they always stepped across their threshold to become complete in their understanding. They had to. Otherwise she had failed, and that was a consequence she had yet to experience, and certainly wouldn't start now.

"Look at me, Mr. Roose. Don't you think I have moments of weakness?" If he had thought so he didn't affirm it out loud. "I am before you now, and will be here after you, because I believe, Hagren." Troubled eyes returned her gaze then drooped in shame. Lauren tucked her fingers beneath his chin and tenderly raised his eyes to hers.

"You want to know what I believe, don't you?" she said knowingly. Hagren barely nodded. "I believe that dreams have more potential than the most persistent reality. I believe imagination to be divine, and knowledge to be its muse. I believe a hero can become mythical, but not without being courageous or just." She paused for the emphasis of silence. Behind them the corridor had narrowed to a dead end, the walls converging upon a nebulous space with no distinct linear construct.

"Look behind me, Mr. Roose," Lauren directed. She didn't have to turn, not because she intuitively knew what was transpiring but because his eyes told her so.

In the shifting mist of blank space a doorway materialized. The area around it appeared to breathe, to expand, contract and gently dance like a bed sheet drying on a clothesline in a warm spring breeze. As if lit from behind an image loomed within the space. He could see every detail of it, as if the wall around the doorway was invisible.

The door frame was surrounded by the vision of a lifeless room, its solemn walls exposed where once hung pictures and posters; the dresser and vanity bereft of all the tiny bottles and cases, figurines and knick knacks that little girls love; the closet door left open into a cheerless recess, a single shoe box upon the lone shelf inside. It wasn't just a room—it was his little girl. And she was gone.

Lauren sat quietly. She watched his eyes dart back and forth at the scene behind them. His gaze would linger then sweep across her, stare unbelievingly at another spot, then dance about as if connecting a hundred tiny dots with the most fragile of invisible lines. She could peer behind those haunted brown eyes and see the tumult of two inner universes colliding, the soundless evidence the he had made the most necessary—and most grave—liminal crossing.

She knew that Hagren was ready.

Again, Lauren brought their gazes together. "Mr. Roose, there is but one last thing I must tell you. Listen well." As she slowly stood she kept her eyes locked upon his, tugging gently on his elbow to bring him back to his feet. "Are you listening?" she asked for emphasis. Hagren nodded.

"Death is not the greatest misfortune of life—losing hope is." The counselor had prepared her client as best she could. The chamber of Mr. Petros awaited him on the other side and she needed to save the best armor for last, the best shield to deflect a potent offense. "Hope is the foundation of higher power," she continued, "and if you believe then you have hope." Lauren grasped his left hand between hers—it was trembling. "Do you understand, Mr. Roose?"

The once proud and almost irrepressible man, a soul quick to explode and unhurried to forgive or apologize, stood before perhaps the last entity that cared for him, and he fought to keep his knees beneath his frame. He could not mumble, much less speak outright. Amidst all the rending visions and Lauren's supportive words the best he could manage was yet another meager nod. Lauren smiled, and for the first time he actually felt good about it.

The pair stood quietly for what seemed like passing epochs. The tingling sensation of his hand enclosed by Lauren's helped to restore his corroded sense of self and surroundings. Hagren was, in a sense, waking up. "How much further to go?" he managed to ask.

Lauren's grin broadened as she gestured at the doorway leading into the empty room. "We're here," she announced. Hagren stared, dumbfounded. "The man I spoke about previously, Mr. Petros, is expecting you."

"In there?" It was Lauren's turn to nod. "Remember well what I said about believing, Mr. Roose." Hagren turned to square up to the doorway.

"Speaking of believing, I left one of mine out," Lauren stated. Hagren turned his head to regard her. "I believe, Mr. Roose, that love transcends death." Her words seemed to float upon an ethereal fabric as she motioned for him to step through the doorway.

Hagren trudged through the portal, his spirit decayed by the emotional gauntlet he'd just witnessed. He made an anemic attempt at confidence, no matter how little right he had to it.

ALINA FELT HERSELF falling, for minutes it seemed.

Soon all was quiet. As far as she could see was an expanse of burnished sand, dunes shaped by forces she couldn't imagine; some loomed majestic while others seemed to lie in wait for their hopeful turn as one of the elder hills. The sky was solemn, a waxy mélange of black, midnight blue and amethyst. Far in the distance she thought she could make out the faintest buzz, not harsh like a swarm of flies, but soft like the beating of hummingbird wings. She tried to move forward, willing her feet to go one in front of the other, but the sand underfoot may as well have been concrete for the seeming inches she crept ahead.

The hum moved closer, its soft vibration an almost pleasant distraction in the bleak domain of nowhere. On the furthest horizon a warm orange glow began to flourish, stretching and rolling in the alien sky like cream poured into coffee. A gossamer veil of brilliant indigo hovered in the distance within the saddle between two great dunes, accompanied by the advancing hum. The pulsing wall of flickering blue light seemed to rise in the barren rift as if a mischievous breeze was blowing upward from underneath the mass; and then it suddenly spilled forward, spreading outward to form a bulwark like an overturned spade. Small waves in the living body were drawn into relief, the rise and fall flowed and pushed forward, looking like a small windswept lake with thousands of tiny blue flames flickering upon the surface. She could barely perceive the effervescent white dot moving just behind the wall of light and sound.

She pushed her feet now, moving with a tempered fluidity, striking toward the nearest small hill. She felt the urgent desire—no, the need to get a better view. The realm she was surrounded by appeared to compose itself as she moved, as if to suit her desires before she understood what they were; the hill seemed to roll toward her, dropping in elevation every so slightly so that she was able to easily mount it. The vision made her breathless.

The creamy orange above gently displaced the darker mass around it, and as she marveled at the scene overhead she felt certain the dark was only too willing to abdicate its lofty perch. Immediately below the persimmonesque ceiling moved the body she had only seen from the front before.

A stunning antecedent of blue fireflies darted and glimmered. The sand in front of them steamed, the rising vapor drifted obediently just above the surface, a dazzling carpet of wan pearlescence. And behind the azure splendor walked a woman adorned in white, her contrasting black hair wafting in a breeze, presumably created by the expanse of fireflies before her.

Affixed to the top of the small dune she could discern the arid desert before her, a vast curvature of utter lifelessness—despair given visual form. She stood motionless, awed by the spectacle she beheld as the woman turned slightly away from her and headed for a much taller dune nearby.

She watched the woman move with affected deliberation. The countless grains of sand behind her started to shake and vibrate, then gave way to the tiniest sliver of green. She scanned further behind and saw the once inert desert giving way to the most verdant, beautiful vista of green possible. The arid, fallow earth behind the specter slowly blossomed, becoming a veritable carpet of trees and flowers, wide expanses of wheat and corn, grapevines reaching upwards and entire acres of berry-bearing bushes and ground covers swelling outward. Peering further she could see rejuvenation of Olympian scale, a mat of green bursting with renewed vigor and energy.

Alina stood mesmerized by the supernatural tableau. Somewhere within the complex folds of her brain, amid the crackling of perpetual electrical impulses and chemical messengers, her mind was absorbed with the herculean task of attempting to synthesize the otherworldly display before her. She knew such rapid growth was inconceivable, and even if possible would perhaps be so violent as to be cataclysmic. Yet here she bore witness to the fantastic and serene. The wondrous distraction so intently focused her resources that she had not seen the feminine apparition reach the summit of a much taller dune close by. A sudden inequity in the environment fractured her attention—the humming from a myriad of blue fireflies had dissipated, though their haunting glow remained. From atop the stately dune the woman gazed at her then drew Alina toward the perch with a simple but elegant wave of her hand.

A wink of lucidity collapsed into the sensation of gliding, free of the sense of weight or resistance. As she neared the top she could see the tapestry of growth halted at the base of the dune, a stark contrast at the edge where sand infiltrated the onset of grass—beach sand sprinkled amongst rushes. Alina floated harmlessly through the empyreal radiance of the teeming blue sparkles, coming to settle within the spirit's calm proximity.

The woman's features were almost entirely shrouded by the sheer luminance of her raiment, yet her face was discernable from the framing of silken black hair around it. Her lips were warm with the pink of life, and her eyes dark but studded with the cosmic refractions of a clear night sky. Her gaze penetrated Alina and carried upon it a solitary word she could understand without hearing it: "Look," it whispered.

The woman's hand slowly rose and its fingers unfolded, a nurturing palm stretched out toward the horizon. Alina's gaze followed, the view before her once again creating a paroxysm of neural activity, resources typically engaged in learning were subsidized by rerouted energy from other minor processes—a fever of paradox washed over her brain.

Off in the visible distance, against a ribbon of jade that was replacing the former blot of orange, a spindly dot was silhouetted. Strange clouds began to materialize along the horizon line, wisps of sunset reds and blues streaming and billowing as they formed, then outlined with threads of grey and dusty silver. Beneath the nebulous veil a tree was taking shape, rising slowly yet steadily; its branches reached out, arching and stretching in every conceivable direction. The momentary sapling was growing at a furious rate; she was witnessing the birth of a living monolith. Its canopy splayed outward and upward, seeming to brush the very edge of creation, as if to be pressing the very ceiling, pushing apart, separating the heavens from the earth below.

The mighty arbor continued to rise and expand. Alina watched as the ground around it wrinkled and furrowed as massive roots sought purchase in the earth. Even at the lofty height where she stood she could feel the ground tremble as if thunder were trapped within the soil. In the mist of astral genesis Alina watched a burgeoning carpet of amber glimmers drift as a massive, flowing entity toward the mighty tree—a sea of fireflies.

As she watched the fireflies swirl about the immense trunk the feminine whisper returned. "Alina," it seemed to gently sing. Alina turned instinctively to face the woman. A languid shroud of blue and amber lights enveloped them.

The apparition slowly extended her arms, her hands cupped together. As they approached the level of Alina's sternum the hands carefully opened revealing a perfect egg cradled inside. "You must hold this" she said. An exiguous halo shimmered around the egg.

"But," Alina stammered, "but, I . . ."

The woman smiled and shook her head knowingly. "Understanding the egg is necessary to break the shell." She raised the gift slightly higher so it cast a pale glow upon Alina's cheeks. "Only when the shell finally cracks will your pain do the same." The lips remained fixed but the voice burrowed to her core. "Take the egg, guard it with your heart," she whispered.

Alina reached up and received the egg in her cupped hands. "Peace," the whisper emphasized, "peace will come when you are truly ready to breach the shell."

Pallid moonlight eased through the window and cast a milky aura about her face. She rolled over and felt the blanket move with her. The transition between liminal spaces, from subconscious to consciousness, lacked its usual fluidity—Alina's eyelids snapped open and her mind instantly set to proving reality; a lack of evidence would set neural pathways ablaze in a systematic check of quantifiable elements versus qualitative integrity. The entire process would take mere seconds before the realization would be fired to the pre-frontal cortex, and she would recognize the bedroom as her childhood room.

Deep inside her limbic system the residues of dreaming were still warm but beginning to evaporate. Alina brought her hands out from under the pillow and considered them carefully. The last scene was so fresh she felt disappointment when no egg appeared. Shimmying to the edge of the bed, she reached over to nudge Catherine where she slept upon a makeshift mattress of couch cushions and blankets.

"Cath," she called quietly. "Cath!" Alina pressed her fingers insistently into Catherine's shoulder until she stirred. The voice that rose from the floor was unmistakably annoyed.

"What?" she mumbled. "This better not be another one of your poorly timed yogurt cravings."

"No. It's better," Alina whispered. Catherine rolled toward Alina's voice, her eyes still closed. "Better? Sweetie, I may be half asleep, but trust me when I tell you that 'better' is relative—in this case, to you, not me." Alina forged ahead.

"I just had the strangest, most beautiful dream."

"About yogurt?"

"Cath! Seriously!" Alina complained. Catherine rubbed her eyes in resignation. "Alright, alright," she muttered. "Go on, then."

Alina poured forth details from her vibrant recollection. The dream itself was waning but its imprint was strong. The images she described were cast with the energy of a sputtering sparkler, flecks of pictures scattering, brilliant and random, yet still forming a cogent whole. As quickly as the pictures burned in the darkness they just as swiftly cooled and drifted intently to settle upon both women's short term memories, enough to make for more coherent discussion later in the morning.

THE DOORWAY HE had stepped through had given every indication that he and Lauren would be entering into Alina's old bedroom, a provenance of fatherly emptiness. Passage across the door's threshold unexpectedly revealed a chamber resplendent in its elegance and simplicity. Hagren had assumed that with a title like Advocate General he would be escorted into a kind of opulence that defied description. Instead he was struck by how utterly similar this space was to Lauren's, sparse and efficient, yet oracular. Most astounding was the plenitude of books, most all neatly shelved upon bookcases of perfect marble, smooth as glass and veined with the slightest blush of pink.

"This must be Mr. Hagren Roose," a polite voice said. The soft baritone seemed altogether at one with the chamber. Hagren turned to encounter a man whose countenance fulfilled the very definition of sage: flowing locks of silver-grey hair with uncannily neat and matching facial hair, eyes light and profound, and more than a few lifetimes worth of embodied wisdom upon his frame. His crisp, white suit did not escape Hagren's attention—a neat triangle of dark blue poking out of his vest pocket added an almost playful aspect to the figure standing directly in front of them.

"Everyone likes the suit," he said, stretching out a burly hand. Lauren stepped next to him. "Mr. Roose, this is Mr. Petros," she said. The bear paw of a hand grasped Hagren's hand and practically lost it within its grip. "Good to meet you, Mr. Roose." Hagren attempted to stammer a response.

"I'm, um, not sure—I mean, I think—" Mr. Petros gave a warm smile. "If this were my first day on the job I'd be offended," he joked, exchanging a knowing grin with Lauren. "I've been doing this a very long time, Mr. Roose, so believe me when I tell you that I understand. It's okay, really." Hagren's entire being suddenly found the stiffness it so completely lacked on the other side of the door. The Advocate released Hagren's hand and gently clasped his shoulder. "Lighten up, Mr. Roose. Please call me Peter if it makes you more comfortable." Motioning Lauren to a pair of high-backed stools, he nudged Hagren in the same direction. "Both of you, please, have a seat."

The stools awaited them at the edge of a desk that Hagren guessed was the size of a small swimming pool; it was in perfect accord with the rest of the chamber, no grandiose flourishes or ornamentation, all style and function. At the opposite side of the semi-circular bulk, directly across from where they sat, was an rectangular ingress as wide as two men; two matching ingresses on either side allowed for access to mammoth books at the apex of each end. Hagren leaned towards Lauren.

"Look at those books!" he tried to whisper in amazement. "Nobody reads those but Mr. Petros," she replied calmly. Hagren marveled at their sheer magnitude, leviathans perched atop stands so solid he figured an elephant could sit on them without causing damage. Both volumes were splayed open, pages the color of ancient ivory seemed to glow amid the ubiquitous whiteness. He looked back and forth at them, his thoughts simmering as he gave them reverent consideration.

"Are those the books?" he asked Lauren. The Advocate stepped purposefully into the main ingress of the desk and eased himself into his own chair. He regarded Hagren with curiosity. "One should be more specific, Mr. Roose," he said. Hagren's look of surprise gave his thoughts away.

"I may be old but I hear very well," Petros grinned. "To which books do you refer?" Hagren looked to Lauren, as if requesting her permission to speak, to which she nodded and motioned toward Petros.

"Um, well," Hagren began unsteadily, "the, uh, Book of Deeds and, you know, the, uh—"

Mr. Petros let loose a grandfatherly laugh. "The Book of Life?" Hagren nodded. "No, my dear Mr. Roose, although given their size it's understandable you would think so." Petros leaned on the desk upon his forearms. "For my purposes the Book of Deeds is apocryphal. Earthly kings and mortal magistrates once kept records of their constituencies. Only later did they become famous as the apocalyptic book of deeds. That John wrote one heck of a story, didn't he? I daresay that's a pot that never needs stirring." Petros paused. Hagren wasn't sure if he was preparing to deliver an analysis of Revelation or if he was allowing a moment for reflection—or angst.

"As I'm sure you noticed, Lauren carried a volume with her since the moment you two met. You certainly have surmised by now that book is your book." He paused again, thoughtfully, then continued. "That is to say, that book is about you." Hagren grimaced slightly. Petros leaned back.

"The books you mention are metaphorical, Mr. Roose. But these," he stated with outstretched arms, "are, what you might call, registers. Every soul born is entered within them. Would you like to see your name?" he offered. Hagren brightened. "Absolutely!"

Hagren practically leapt off his stool en route to meet Petros at one of the prodigious tomes. The fluid manner of the advocate's movement caught Hagren's attention—he seemed to glide toward the book on his chair. Petros grasped a solid mass of pages and tenderly turned them aside, then attentively flipped several pages, running a beefy index finger down a column on the far right, closest to Hagren. He slowed to a stop at an entry which pulsed bright yellow. The surrounding entries were entirely cryptic, yet his name was clearly discernable: Hagren Ernest Roose, followed by what he presumed to be his birth date in some form of hieroglyphics.

"Sanskrit," Petros told him without being asked. The two facing pages, their spread about the width of an ordinary desk, blinked in a pastel version of Christmas lights—entries pulsed in muted shades of red, blue, and green; some did not pulse at all—the ash grey accounts. They were plentiful. Hagren thought better than to ask what it all meant. His head suddenly bustled with activity, a strained attempt to make connections, to derive some sense from this newest information. He looked up to find the advocate no longer at the book but back at the center of the vast desk.

"We should get started," announced Mr. Petros, motioning for Hagren to take his seat again. Lauren arose and bowed ever so slightly, then turned to leave. Overcome, Hagren blurted "Where are you going?"

She paused between him and the door. "Mr. Roose, strange thought it may seem I'm not leaving you." She gave a judicious glance in Petros' direction. "I have urgent . . . material matters to attend to." Hagren recoiled, his face flush with sudden panic.

"But . . . but you're my counsel," he pleaded. "What about this?" he asked, his hands sweeping toward the desk and Mr. Petros. Lauren stepped toward him. "I have provided everything you need, Mr. Roose. I won't be seated next to you, but I will be here." Hagren was dazed.

"Remember what I told you outside that door," she said, pointing behind her. She leaned in close, her lips only distant enough to push her whisper to his ear. "Believe." She leaned back and delicately grasped his hand. "Mr. Roose, we have a saying—well, closer to a mandate: amor vincit omnia."

Hagren furrowed his brow. "Twain, I would understand. But not Latin." Lauren began her slow retreat as she replied. "Love conquers all, Mr. Roose. You understand this, otherwise you would not have walked through your daughter's room to get here."

Hagren watched in wide-eyed disbelief as she turned around and vanished through the door. He stood transfixed, another mute, porcelain-white fixture in the vast chamber.

"Mr. Roose," came the level baritone of Petros. Its smooth yet purposed edge sliced neatly through Hagren's abstraction of moment. He snapped around to face the advocate. "Will I see her again?" he whimpered.

Petros grinned, intuition twinkling in his eyes like stars reflected in still water. "Indeed, you shall." Leaning to his right he plucked a familiar book from row of neatly aligned volumes atop the desk. Hagren recognized it immediately, from the gold tassel to the foreign symbols impressed upon the spine.

It was his book.

"Let us begin, then," Petros said calmly.

For Hagren Roose, time and space appeared to freeze, supergalactic and subatomic planes suddenly held motionless in their mortal construct. His mind's eye replayed the scene outside the door, recalling and, for the first time, truly absorbing Lauren's words of support and guidance. In the blinding white flash of an instant he could see the folly in any attempt to presume anything outside of the simple truth. He would either climb the hill of his own ashes of failure, or lie beneath them.

"I am ready," he said.

"Girls . . . c'mon, gotta get up." Jodi Roose had breached household etiquette by entering Alina's room without knocking. No time for such formalities. Groggy though she was she could literally feel her blood coursing through her veins, her heartbeat banging at her temples and thundering in her stomach. She barely avoided stepping on Catherine in her rush to rouse Alina. "Ally, rise and shine. Let's go!" On her way out of the room she slapped the light switch.

Alina squeezed her eyelids tight trying to fend off the intrusive light. Every inch of her mind and body howled for more sleep. She groaned and mumbled incoherently as she rolled over for the clock. Opening her eyes just enough to get a fix on the clock face, she stared at it for a long moment of disbelief. "Mom, it's like, 4:30! We've only been in bed for, what . . ." Alina's brain slipped a few sleep-deprived gears trying to make the otherwise simple calculation; "three or four hours?"

Jodi peeked around the door frame, disheveled black hair pulled back in a ponytail and a toothbrush in her mouth. "I missed the call," she said through the foam. Catherine was grudgingly coming around on the floor. "What's going on?" she asked Alina on the bed above, her arm draped over the edge and eyes stubbornly closed. "Mmm-mm-mmm," was her torpid 'I dunno' reply.

When one is more half asleep than half awake, time, as ordinarily measured in minutes, is sharply compressed into seconds. Further fracturing that time-slice is like pulling off an old band-aid—it only stings for a moment but it can really piss one off. Mrs. Roose never had a problem with poking things with a stick, which was precisely the course of action she chose when she walked back into the room to find the two girls still lying horizontal. Her decision was no act of caprice, rather one of necessity. Jodi promptly opened the hall closet and rummaged along the shelf for a moment, finally hitting upon the air horn she used to use to scare off crows and pigeons from her now defunct vegetable garden. Her arm thrust into the room, she closed the door against her forearm and squeezed the trigger.

The sleepy silence fractured into varying degrees of rudeness: bodies sat bolt upright, the clock slammed against the wall, and shrieks of angry surprise erupted from the once slumbering women. A frightening new Alina had pinned down the once charming, intelligent version of herself and unleashed upon her antagonist a seething current of profanity. A sleep-deprived brain spewed rancor and a cloud of curses into the pre-dawn air of the room. Catherine, now fully more awake than asleep made a quick exit from the room in search of her mother, whom she found smugly brushing her hair in front of her vanity mirror.

Cath tugged her robe around her as she approached Jodi's room and knocked lightly upon the door. "Good morning, Mrs. Roose."

"Morning, Cath! Come on in." Catherine nudged the door open, unsure of what else might possibly be in store from a woman unafraid to use an air horn for a wake up call. "Glad you're up—and Ally?"

"Oh, she's more than awake. That wasn't exactly a Hallmark moment, Mrs. Roose." Jodi sighed and dropped her head for a moment. "I know, but she can be incredibly difficult to rouse, and we really need to get moving."

"I thought we were going in around 8 or 9."

Jodi adjusted the band keeping her hair pulled back. "Well, that was the plan, yes. But the ICU nurse called me not long after we went to bed. I was dead asleep so I missed the call. She left a message that left little room for guessing."

Catherine immediately picked up the brush Jodi had been using and began brushing her hair back. "No wonder," she said. Jodi stopped fussing with makeup and regarded Catherine. It took almost a full minute for Catherine to realize she was being watched. "What?"

"Aren't you going to shower first?" Jodi asked.

"Oh. Uh, yeah. Real quick though." She tossed the brush atop the vanity and turned to leave just as Alina appeared in the doorway.

"Sorry about, you know, back there," she managed sheepishly. She braced herself against the door frame with her right hand, her left came up to cover her mouth as she gave a wide yawn. "I'm a little cranky without my sleep." Jodi and Catherine gave each other a knowing look. "You don't say," her mother prodded.

"Mom, remind me again why you pulled that little stunt?" Catherine nodded at Jodi and pointed in the direction of the other bathroom. "I'll send Alina in with some fresh towels." Catherine passed by Alina and kissed her gently on the cheek. "Mom?"

Jodi recounted the weighty depth of her sleep and the persistent dream that kept trying to wake her. She spoke of the suddenness with which she awoke, startled by a vision in which her daughter sat at a small table with her pink teddy bear, an empty chair next to her; then the uncertainty of a tiny blinking light on her phone—was it part of the dream or was it real? She then repeated, word for word, the message left by the ICU nurse. Her husband's vitals were becoming erratic. "You might want to get down here as soon as you can" said the woman's voice in the darkness of her room.

Mother and daughter stared at one another for a long moment before embracing. Both wished they could remember their once idyllic view above the clouds, their perch from which they had once marveled at a sea of dreams but now seemed to be evaporating to an expansive scab of mud flats.

"MR. ROOSE—" Petros began. Hagren timidly raised a finger.

"Yes?"

"I'm okay with Hagren," he offered meekly. Petros grinned as he gently laid his book precisely between the two of them.

"Very well, then—Hagren." He gestured toward the book. "Hagren, in a moment we both shall journey through your tree of choices. This tree grows differently for every soul, its growth is determined solely by your discretions—the options you adopt have been a part of you since the beginning." Hagren sagged slightly. His most recent years of disgrace seemed to dance around him, taunting and piacular. "The recommendations of your counsel—"

"Lauren?"

"Indeed. Her recommendations have been entered and noted. You must understand, Hagren, this is not a court of law as you would understand it. All information we have is documented in this book. It is, all of it, objective." Hagren nodded slowly.

"This chamber is a place of reason, of applied wisdom—and often of compassion. Tell me, Hagren, do you truly understand the word 'compassion'?" Hagren cocked his head as he replied. "It sort of means a kind of shared sympathy, I think."

Mr. Petros beamed. "Well done, sir!" Hagren seemed to relax a little and shifted slightly upon the stool. "It is a beautiful melding of two words: com—that is to say, with—and passion, meant in terms of suffering. So it implies shared suffering. This is what life, as you perceive it, is respective to. Without suffering one cannot completely appreciate true joy. Without fear one cannot know bliss. Do you understand, Hagren?"

"I think so."

"Then let us discover if you do." Petros calmly turned up the front cover and proceeded to a section about a quarter of the way into the volume. Hagren stared hard at the pages as they were gently pressed down. He became transfixed by the shimmering effect that seemed to hover delicately above the surface, like the sun's heat off the roof of his car on a summer day. The thin layer quivered, a translucent, pliable energy comprised not of simple words but of an ephemeral, vital nature—a memento of one's life. He had not noticed it in Lauren's office—the book had been kept at a distance from him. But now it was within reach.

Petros contemplated the pages with no show of outward expression. He turned pages studiously, seeming to absorb the minutiae of the man's being, his finger tracing lightly within the gossamer layer of energy; a small mountain stream could not have bubbled over stones in its path any more gracefully. After several pages, and considerable anxiety on Hagren's part, Petros looked up.

The advocate cupped his palms together and closed his eyes. Hagren wanted desperately to explain but had no idea what for. He fidgeted upon the stool, once again feeling more like a raw nerve than a body at rest. The urge to ask questions rolled over him then receded, pushing a little further to his lips with each renewed wave, tidal impulses that cascaded from his mortal thoughts and broke upon the back of his tongue—his ragged and blistered conscience had, in the presence of the sage's intuitive lineament, finally achieved the dark mass necessary to become a heaving force of internal gravity, unleashing guilt, despair, passion, and self-indulgence, a Gordian knot which was always attacked with the futile resolve of self serving rationale. Amid the creeping diminishment of his rectitude Hagren's fear latched upon a puerile thought—take the book and run.

Petros erupted into a warm, throaty laugh and fell back into his chair. "And where might you go, Mr. Roose?" Hagren's eyes widened and at once felt ashamed for not being more careful with his thoughts; where to, indeed. Hagren's entire being suddenly felt like a house of cards. Petros allowed himself a final good hearted chuckle before continuing.

"Hagren, come to the edge of the desk, son." The Advocate's eyes seemed to bore right through him. Petros waved his hand eagerly, beckoning him. The gesture reminded him of how he would summon Alina to come sit on his lap when she was a child, a warm memory held in control by his own sadness. Hagren cautiously approached the edge of the desk. Petros smiled.

"Good. Now I would like you to lay your fingertips upon the pages." Hagren stared at him with disbelief, as if he had been asked to submerge his hand in boiling water. "Believe me, Hagren, it won't hurt." Lauren's voice floated to mind: Believe. He knew he'd never be able to climb the ladder without using his hands, so he sat up straight and reached forward.

It began the instant his fingertips broke the surface of the nuanced veil above the pages, then rushed into and filled every finger and traveled up his hand and into his wrists. His every fiber was in tune with the shimmering energy. This was everything. This was the universe in its most personal form, no longer the empiric matter of constellations, stardust, and radiation but the union of ageless myths with nature, of mystery with intuition. This, Hagren surmised, was the very essence of life itself, the authority from which primal and spiritual became an amalgam of self, and it flowed into and through him as a profluent, limpid stream.

"It's under your skin, Hagren," the sage said, "but out of your hands. What you see and what you feel are the pinpricks of stars and grit from sands of Time as they scour your substance." His voice slowly built, rising in tone, becoming purposeful and insistent. "You feel the pull of your malice and the wrenching of your better angels as both compete, fierce and unrelenting, for your precious energy." The voice loomed and reverberated, dominant without being overwhelming.

Synchronic and undeniable, such were the weight and visions the voice carried upon it, like the compression of a dying star, its inner fuel spent and the external shell squeezing down with the untold force of eternal gravity—a celestial machine turned ethereal and at the point of utter collapse.

The stream of energy coursed around each temporal molecule within Hagren creating the sensation of a chaotic internal bubbling, like hydrogen peroxide cleansing a wound. He did not dare lift a finger, not that he felt he could. The advocate's voice once more rolled like thunder across a prairie. "Look upon these pages, Hagren. Use not your eyes but your feelings." The thin layer of energy began to swell upwards at the center.

Hagren recalled such bubbles from his boyhood, dipping a wand into soapy water and gently blowing into the circular end. He would hold the bubble to the light and watch the surface tension shift and sway carrying with it an iridescent rainbow. But this sphere was nothing like those of his youth. As it slowly expanded he began to see a flurry of images, quick glimpses that would be wholly unrecognizable to any soul other than its source. Long forgotten memories roared around the interior of the bubble: riding bikes, playgrounds and sandboxes, little league fields, holidays with family members who had long since passed. It was like watching homemade 8m film at high speed. No sound accompanied the scenes, but the resonance of feeling more than compensated for it. The rim of the bubble eclipsed his fingertips sending shock waves of former life through him.

Mr. Petros held Hagren in close scrutiny, watching for the instant the memories hit their mark. They always did. He again took the gold string between his fingers and prepared to turn the pages. He ducked his head slightly to catch Hagren's gaze before uttering a phrase he had so long lamented not having written himself instead of Shakespeare: "Briefly thyself remember." His weary deponent looked up to confront the advocate's stare; Petros gently lifted the string and Hagren's fingers rose of their own volition.

A little deeper into the tome and once again Hagren's fingers settled upon the pages before him. Once again came the asomatous tingling, more ardent and emphatic than before. Once more the gossamer layer began pushing upward from the center to form a second bubble, the same crystal clear dome in structure but entirely different in the sensation it advanced. The prior warmth of youthful élan drained away, usurped by a rush of vitality. Hagren gave the spreading sphere his full attention, while Petros, fully cognizant of the scenes to come, watched carefully.

Hagren began to smile.

A young woman appeared in the center of the bubble, her dark hair bobbed as she walked, each step made with an unmistakable kind of confidence. Then a young man appeared, hair hanging just past his collar and a smear of dark stubble under his nose. The pair closed in together and he leaned in to peck her on the cheek before wrapping his arm around her. Petros noted a misty quality to Hagren's expression as he watched scenes of he and Jodi Byrd play out. An entire act of his life danced before him, divided into scene after scene of playful pursuit. The couple sat upon grassy berms along campus sidewalks, held hands while skating erratically upon a frozen lake, his free arm a wild, swinging weapon to the skaters around him as he fought for balance; dinners and long drives played in a procession within the dome—and then a sudden flash of white that slowly faded like dust kicked up on a windless day. The pair reappeared, only slightly older, both dressed in the attire of matrimony. Hagren sat motionless, rapt by the succession of images as they slipped by, thoughts and feelings he had long since forgotten welled to the surface. Oh, how fervently he wished he could clutch them around himself forever, their indescribable warmth like a towel fresh out of the dryer.

Hagren and Petros sat bathed in the pale luminescence of the chamber, both almost as still as the shelves and books surrounding them. The singular book wedged between them demanded concentration. From afar, Hagren could have easily been mistaken for being absorbed in an intense chess match. His opponent knew every move ahead of time, a complete disadvantage if the goal is total victory—but that same opponent knew the game itself was the key, not the outcome. One could not move forward without the other. The advocate leaned forward, eager for the next exposition of miracle.

The bubble stopped expanding once it had fully encompassed all four edges of the book. Hagren's hands were completely enveloped up to his wrists under its dome, his fingers affixed to the exposed pages. Its surface swiftly clouded, obscured by cotton candy wisps of pink. As the blushed fog dissipated Hagren leaned his face toward the bubble's surface, straining to get closer to every detail that appeared before him. His recall of the scene was instantaneous as was the emotional jolt that surged upward from his fingertips.

The delivery room, its light dimmed for both mother and newborn. Two nurses scampered about, an obstetrician performed the rituals of a mortal miracle. Another nurse approached a younger Hagren with a tiny bundle swaddled in a pink blanket—the first time he held his daughter. The stream of energy flowing from within the sphere evoked the same powerful feeling he had at that very moment—not a solitary thing existed around him, there was no violence, no money worries, no sensations of exhaustion or unattended hunger, no business concerns, no fear—only a timeless and transcendent moment, cordate and filled to bursting with indefinable awe.

Mr. Petros let the moment linger before reaching again for the golden string. As he lifted the pages the bubble evaporated. The advocate hesitated, holding the pages aloft. Hagren looked up again, the cloak of euphoria slipping away under Petros's halting gaze. He sensed an obstruction, a slithering despair that started at his feet before the pages were turned.

Petros drew the sheaf to one side and again laid the gold string along the gutter then leaned back into his chair, elbows upon the armrests and hands clasped together. This passage was Fear's quarter, a mist-shrouded concealment which every soul knew was there but tried eternally to avoid. Fear badgered, fear tempted, fear clutched at the essence of a person—it consumed the weak and fortuned the brave. In this darkest of spaces the heart would be weighed against truth, a soul balanced with a feather. The outcome would derive not from any rule of law but from nature itself, from that which is in rightful or wrongful accord with its being. The book was nature, and nature was the book.

Hagren's fingers dropped like lead weights upon the pages this time. The energy which before had felt ambrosial and nurturing now pulled his hands fully against the book, by contrast an unsettling engagement. He looked up at Petros and hoped for some utterance of support or comfort but was met with a stare of quiet concentration. He was being watched, likely studied or evaluated, of that he was now certain. He closed his eyes a final time and earnestly replayed Lauren's words in his head. Shards of reason and insight began to come together, an invisible shield as defense against the foe that approached—a foe of his own creation. He could feel the energy surging upwards again, but this time austere, cool, and distant. He was moving away from where he had been.

Both men locked their gaze upon the elevation forming from the veil, its once magical property of shimmering vibrancy now, instead, menacing and heavy—where once the myriad of tiny waves seemed to dance playfully they now swept and swelled like a storm tossed sea. The sphere surely would have groaned had it the means for sound. As before, at its core a scene began to take shape. Hagren tried to clear his mind and calm his pulse.

A car was parked in his driveway, backed in with the trunk and doors wide open. Its interior was crammed full, almost every possible space occupied by Alina's belongings. He watched from the living room window as his wife went outside with the last of her daughter's things, talking as they closed the doors and tied down the trunk. He stood motionless, watching them hug, then saw his wife look at him through the window. She beckoned for him to come out, to say goodbye—her husband hung his head and walked away. Hagren immediately recalled how she condemned him for not seeing his own daughter off. Now he could feel bile mixing in a soup of shame and regret. At the time he'd felt a sense of betrayal because she was leaving him; the loss was palpable, and so too was the equal feeling that rose from the pages and filled his heart.

More scenes and images of arguments and avoidance between he and Jodi. Times he'd willingly repressed came screaming forth: his wife holding out the phone so he could talk to his daughter, and the times he waved her off or angrily stomped out of the room; heated discussions in the parking lot of his restaurant; scene after scene of tirades against staff, including the firing of his long-time friend and manager, Fitch. When Jodi found out she stormed into the restaurant and confronted Hagren during dinner rush. He berated her in front of customers and staff, many whom had been, up to that point, friends of the family. He watched the surface of the bubble display the emotional exit of his wife and his ill-tempered retreat to the kitchen, and later, his all-night stint at the bar, the first of what would become countless others.

The old Hagren would have blustered and ranted against the play evolving before him. No shred of self-righteousness would have been too small, no person too important to denigrate for his own needs, for support of his misbegotten rationale. Excuses would be plentiful, accountability scarce. That Hagren would have got his way through sheer force of will, or the imposition of it. That Hagren was being deconstructed. An altogether different Hagren was struggling to take form, writhing and grappling with the old one for control. Help was on the way.

Ashen darkness billowed into the bubble, a thick mist of what felt like heated particulates, like ash racing from an angry volcano. Petros watched quietly noting the visible attempt to lift the hands from within the sphere. This was a good sign—Hagren was thoroughly engaged and showing no sign of defeat. There were always some who cracked under the strain. The advocate was inwardly pleased that this one was at least making a show of bearing up. Lauren never ceased to amaze him.

Hagren desperately wanted to wave his hands under the bubble, to clear the gloomy obstruction. A sliver of white sliced through the dense haze directly in front of him having the effect of a gust of air blown through the rift, the haze started to lazily dissipate. In its wake shone the image of a door opening—the front door of his house.

Hagren shuddered.

Jodi had opened the door to reveal Alina. The two embraced and upon parting his daughter introduced the woman standing next to her—Catherine Doxie. The numen flowing through his fingers instantly took on a morbid chill; the turmoil within him was working feverishly to stoke the furnaces. Petros did not miss the nuanced movement of Hagren's lips as he watched the scene. It filled him with glowing satisfaction to read the words "I'm sorry" form upon his lips.

The scene continued, erupting into a display of acrimony fueled by two markedly different defenses: mother defending daughter, and husband defending himself; just and unjust, respectively. Alina and Catherine vanished from the image leaving his wife alone in the house; he had departed through the front door, slamming it closed behind him.

A new parade of images and quick scenes floated across the interior of the bubble, new scenes reliving old themes with ever increasing intensity: more spats with his wife, more late nights, more drink, sporadic returns to the house. More blame. More hardship. More heartbreak. Overwhelming failure no longer seeped but poured through every crack he had created. The tortured images continued to flow in a dismal pageant, a rolling cortege of repeated humiliation and pain, both inflicted and absorbed.

The advocate had witnessed all that was necessary. He leaned forward again and gently passed his hands over the bubble which disappeared with a whisper.

A sound like warm breath instantly freezing in winter air gradually coalesced around Hagren, haunting but not frightful. With it came a firmness, an unbounded urgency. "Mr. Roose, you must come to understand all which has passed before you, for this very moment is the most important of your existence. If you understand then you can forgive, and without pardon for yourself then you shall never know happiness again." The Advocate stared at him without blinking. "But genuine acceptance will help repair the fabric your actions unraveled."

Petros tugged at the golden string one final time and carefully pulled the pages atop it aside. From the center sprang a radiant dome of light, a diaphanous film of gases and stardust shimmered iridescent upon the surface as it spun. Hagren watched as the rotation quickened—with each rotation the dome gave slightly under forces he could not sense. It rotated and flattened, growing well past the two of them to extend out toward a horizon he could not see.

Hagren felt a bitter chill erupt around him then just as violently rush back to his core. The maelstrom emanating from the book scarcely ruffled the pages themselves, but blossomed fully into a tempest of sensory immersion as it rose to meet him. Familiar objects were at once born from the leaf, arising on currents of majestic power. Orbs spun and orbited, tiny stars winked amidst the panoply before him; upon the growing fringes danced the pressure differences of wind, tossing droplets of crystalline water and snow at its border, accreting, shifting, and gloriously boundless.

"The sun and moon, wind and rain, fire and ice. Hagren, you must bear witness to these elements. You must strike the proper balance. You can. In this place, in this matter, no machine or magic exists—it is upon you and you alone to choose the elements to your higher advantage . . . or to your sorrowful and decrepit surrender."

Hagren remained spellbound, ensorcelled by the exquisite power coursing through his fingertips and wending its way, vibrant in its strength of conviction, to his center of self. In this moment there existed no time, no space, no rationale; no comfort or pain, nor anguish or bliss—only the unanimity of truth. The swirling tumult once so active and illustrious before him began its retreat, conflating into a vortex and funneling itself back from whence it came—back to the precise center of the spine of his book. The promise which only a moment before flowed like mystical liquid through his fingertips now evaporated with only the slightest of lingering afterglow, like the wisp of smoke when a candle's flame is extinguished—but the wick only briefly remains an ember.

Mr. Petros gently grabbed each edge of the book then began to speak slowly and with calm but deliberate authority. His words issued forth in divine synchronization with the smooth arc of the covers as they converged upon each other. "Hagren Roose, you have served witness to the suffering inflicted upon your wife and daughter. Injustices delivered by you alone." Hagren watched in morbid silence as his book closed and was peacefully laid aside. Mr. Petros continued, "One does evil enough when one does nothing good."

Hagren sat frozen under Petros's unblinking gaze. The tragic weight of his words, with their piercing economy, induced a shattering of animus, a hurricane-spurred pebble launched through a pane of glass. A steady progression of tiny fractures began to spread from the point of impact, invisible lines etched from selfish act after selfish act cleaved and ruptured rending dark from light as lightning does when it races from the heavens to split the atmosphere. Hagren crumpled under the resounding epiphany.

Mr. Petros stood up from behind his desk and wasted no effort in aiding Hagren to his feet. Parisa, who had silently entered the chamber shortly after Lauren's departure, hastened to assist the Advocate when he motioned for her. A shaky, entirely unsteady Hagren Roose teetered between them—behavior they expected more often than not. Petros steadied Hagren with a burly hand against his back.

The Advocate and Parisa began the slow but assured exit from the chamber. "Mr. Roose, the time has come." Petros gave Parisa a knowing nod. "Parisa will see to your return." Hagren suddenly found the strength to raise his head to glance at Parisa then to Petros. "Return? Where? I don't . . ."

Petros encouraged Hagren with each fateful step. "You will understand shortly, Mr. Roose. Your mind shall not recall this place, nor myself, nor Lauren or Parisa—but your heart will."

Hagren swayed, both dazed and bewildered. He fumbled for some semblance of conscious continuity, his thoughts instead weaving seamlessly with the white surroundings, a sensation of beatific anesthesia. The trio paused long enough for Petros to allow Hagren a last thought or concern. "Mr. Roose, are you prepared—are you ready?"

Hagren tried in vain to focus and concentrate. A contentious battle was raging within and without. The latent vestments of sackcloth and ashes were tipping the odds in his favor, yet he could not manage a direct answer, only the same fervent question he'd had since his arrival. "What is this place?" he managed to slur. Mr. Petros gave a comforting smile.

"Misericordia, Mr. Roose."

DAWN ARRIVED PENSIVE and hungover from the prior night's storm. On the horizon a mottled sky began to show the faintest glow of sunrise, a soft pastel of baby blue outlined the hill tops along the outskirts of Nita. The sun appeared in no particular hurry to rise; Alina, Catherine, and Jodi would have been only too happy to let the star begin its party without them. But even as they piled into Alina's car their internal clocks were in gross discord with nature's rhythm. Ironically, they still sensed the press of time; circumstance had temporarily pulled rank on nature.

Roughly thirty minutes away a father, husband, and antagonist lay in the ICU ward of Nita's largest hospital and judging by the nurse's tone in Jodi's voice mail he wasn't likely to make the next sunrise. The Roose matriarch was hosting a bare knuckled brawl in her head, a bruising match between her self-inflicted guilt and the overwhelming exhaustion that threatened to force her eyes shut on an extended basis. Guilt threw body blow after body blow, even a few uppercuts, until she finally came clean with her daughter; having that monkey off her back certainly brought the soundest sleep she'd had for quite some time—and then the missed call. Guilt had come out of the corner swinging hard and Jodi was too tired to lift her hands to block.

Mother flopped heavily, like a sack of potatoes, into the passenger seat as her daughter eased behind the wheel. Jodi suddenly covered Alina's hand with her own. "Sweetie, would you rather I drive?"

Alina gave a tired smile. "I'm okay mom. Just, you know," she started, then yawned, covering her mouth.

"Believe you me, I know."

"St. Anne's, right?" Alina asked. Jodi nodded, tapping her daughter's hand and giving a weak, ill-fitting smile. "But let's stop somewhere for some coffee and something to nibble on first." Cath chimed in from the back seat, "Amen to that!" Alina let loose an uncomfortable laugh and turned to look at Cath, who had her key fob pen light trained on a crossword puzzle.

"Crosswords already?"

"Helps me clear the cobwebs," Cath said flatly. "I would have had a little more sleep if somebody hadn't woke me up to tell me about her dream."

Anything external to her own thoughts piqued Jodi's interest. "Really? A good one, I hope!" Alina turned the key in the ignition and the engine came to life. "It was, well, strange, but wonderful at the same time." She backed the car onto the quiet street and from long idle memory navigated her way through the neighborhood and toward the sleepy main street through town.

"So, what was your dream about?" her mother prodded. Alina looked just past her mother's shoulder as she made a right onto Broughton, Nita's quaint version of small-town Main Street. "It started empty and bleak," she began, letting the wheel spin in her hands as the vehicle straightened out. "And now that I think about it I had a profound feeling of loneliness at the beginning." If Alina had looked in her rear-view mirror she would have noticed that Catherine had set aside her puzzle and was listening intently.

They rode for another ten blocks, halted by two stoplights along the way. Alina let the retelling of her dream shunt aside her nagging sleep deprivation. As she spoke many of the details flashed alive again in her head as her neural networks thrust them to the fore.

Catherine was impressed by the clarity and vividness Alina was able to recall from a biochemical haze experienced almost a full hour prior. The canvas was vast, yet she painted upon it with visceral warmth and emotional candor. Now, hearing the dream for a second time Catherine was able to detect traces of symbols and mythological representations, elements she had not perceived when hearing the story through a fog of partial consciousness. Any attempt to explicate the imagery would have been akin to trying to recreate the Mona Lisa with crayons—it could be done, but the end result would be nothing close to the original; her brain and intellect were still struggling to warm up and she wasn't entirely certain she had the full picture yet anyway.

Jodi suddenly motioned toward the right. "Pull in there," she directed. Tucked between a real estate office and a nail salon was the only storefront with lights on: Jump Start, Nita's version of an uneasy marriage between a bakery, postal annex, and coffee boutique. The only vehicle parked in front of the shop at that early hour was a police cruiser. Jodi rolled her eyes as she unbuckled her seat belt. "Fantastic," she mumbled.

"What?" Alina asked. Catherine was already out the door and stretching. "Oh, I was just hoping we'd be the only ones here," her mom replied. "I'm not in the mood for gossip."

Inside, the scent of fresh pastries and recently ground coffee beans wafted and mingled with the muted strains of soft jazz emanating from somewhere behind the pastry cases. Jodi gave a quick, nervous glance in the officer's direction and gave him a tired smile in lieu of a verbal "good morning" or "hello." He politely nodded in return and sipped at his coffee. A young woman strolled out from the back room wiping her hands on her apron and offered the trio a warm smile. "Good morning ladies," she announced in a barely hidden southern drawl. "Y'all want some coffee?" Alina and Catherine had busied themselves with the array of baked goods, too preoccupied to answer for themselves.

"We need more than want, this morning," Jodi answered on their behalf. Before any conversation could get started Jodi ordered three large coffees and a small Danish; the girls settled on a couple croissants then all three were out the door and once again on their way. For the first few minutes nothing was said as mouths were busy sipping coffee and devouring pastries. Catherine all but inhaled her croissant and then resumed her crossword puzzle, her pen flitting up and down the page before she finally got stuck on a word and called for help.

"Hey—" Mother and daughter visibly jerked, both startled at the sudden break in the silence. "Sorry 'bout that," Cath said.

"You stuck?" Alina asked.

"Yeah. I need a seven letter word that starts with 'a' and ends with 'c'." Catherine fixated on the five empty boxes between, hoping somehow another letter would suddenly appear. Alina pushed the last morsel of croissant past her lips so her mother asked the obvious question, "What's the clue?"

"Purifies, transforms, or refines." Jodi repeated it again for Alina. Both looked at each other, stumped. "You said it starts with an 'a', right?" Alina asked.

"Right, and ends with a 'c'. Seven letters total," Cath confirmed. She watched as both of them counted invisible letters on their fingers then consulted quietly with each other, with no viable result. With the Roose women officially baffled and herself at a loss, all Cath could do was stare at the boxes a few moments longer then set the book aside. The puzzle would wait—St. Anne's hospital loomed in the distance.

THE MORNING SUN had almost cleared the horizon as they proceeded toward St. Anne's. The retreating storm had left the surroundings in a state of beautiful renewal: streets and sidewalks were still damp, birds darted up and down, to and fro, and convened around small puddles, and trees glimmered with rain water that clung to their leaves and branches. Outside the car windows was the world as it was meant to be experienced, absorbed and delighted in—not pushed through or dismissed. But the environment inside that car was antipodal to the external world, heavy with intractable disquiet.

Up until now, even with all the talk and emotional clutter, the entire situation had a sense of macabre fantasy to it, a lengthy series of mental visuals created by the mind from past experiences, transmuted to suit the details of hearsay. But now, as she turned the corner and the hospital filled the windshield, Alina was feeling the chill of reality as it nipped away at the images in her head. With each passing second events she could never conceive of were now drawing into nightmarish relief. She fidgeted in the driver's seat, tugged on her seatbelt, and gripped the steering wheel tighter. She wanted to blame the coffee but knew better—anxiety was settling in for a nice, long visit.

Saint Anne's Drive was the sole public entrance to the hospital, the service drives at the rear of the building led to loading docks. The road was wide, the curbs on both sides tastefully landscaped with flowering shrubs and young trees. Minimal signage, pointing to emergency and in-patient sections, stood out among the greenery without detracting from it. Jodi motioned for her daughter to keep left as they approached the building. Ahead, the lane forked and curved gracefully around a magnificent elm tree, its trunk so thick three people would strain to join hands around it. From their vantage point its trunk and billowing canopy almost completely obscured the emergency room porte-cochère as the vehicle began its sweep along the left side and headed to the hospital proper.

The parking lot was largely empty as they pulled to the front. General visitors would not arrive for at least a few hours yet; ICU visitors were allowed access at any hour. Alina slowed to a stop in the first row, almost directly in front of the arched entryway. Each woman grabbed her coffee cup and purse and exited the car without saying a word.

Catherine stuffed her puzzle book inside her purse before closing her door. As she followed mother and daughter toward the entrance she regarded the building with a quick visual sweep. It was plain compared to the hospitals she'd seen back home—three stories tall, no elaborate architecture to make any kind of structural statement, no hint of pretentious ornamentation. Its form and function were one: a repair and rehabilitation facility for the soft machine. A motion caught her eye as she stepped on the sidewalk, a robin flying up to and perching upon the small sill of a third story window.

Alina walked immediately next to her mother, their shoulders almost touching. As they entered the large entrance lobby she looked around half expecting to encounter an old acquaintance or schoolmate; the mere thought of such a run-in made her queasy. The quiet novelty of her return to Nita began to dissolve after her mother's revelations from last night. Now, in this small town hospital, it evaporated entirely. The early hour meant the lobby was blissfully vacant so they passed nary a soul before coming to a stop at the elevator.

Jodi suddenly turned to face Catherine. "Ally was born here, you know."

"Mom, is this really the time?" Cath could feel the caffeine kicking in. "Really? Well, maybe, you know, later, you could show me where," she suggested.

"Cath!" Alina protested weakly

"I think we should definitely plan on it," Jodi replied, smiling at her daughter. Alina rolled her eyes and sighed. The elevator door slid open as Cath playfully wrapped an arm around Alina's shoulder. "That's so sweet!" she whispered.

The elevator chimed softly as it glided to a stop on the third floor. Both Roose women and Catherine exited the lift, Jodi in front. As they walked by the main family lounge Alina and Catherine got their first taste of life on the edge for visitors, the detritus of others nightmares: stained coffee cups, some half-full and some completely empty, some with cellophane wrappers crammed inside; empty soda cans on end tables; a pillow left against the armrest of a sofa. A handful of people milled about, some retreating to restrooms in the hall, some looking for the cafeteria. Others appeared to be collecting their thoughts or processing emotions. An older couple sauntered past the main nurses station, their faces etched with worry. In the corner of the small foyer just outside the intensive care unit sat a young mother fighting to stay awake, a small boy cradled upon her lap slept with his mouth open.

Jodi paused before opening the doors to the ICU. "Cath, you don't have to come in if you'd rather not. I know my husband isn't one of your favorite people." Cath straightened her blouse then slung her purse over her shoulder. "I'm here for Alina, Mrs. Roose."

Jodi smiled at Catherine, then at her daughter before giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. "That's good enough for me," she said, then pushed the large plate to open the doors.

The trio reached the ICU nurses station before the doors whispered shut behind them. Jodi waved at the sole nurse who seemed rather frustrated with a small label printer at the opposite end of the desk. She looked up and immediately quit fussing with the device. "Good morning, Jodi," she said in a far too cheerful tone for such an early hour.

"Mornin' Becky. Thank you so much for the call. I was dead . . . umm, fast asleep when you called. I would have been here sooner otherwise. What's new?" Alina and Catherine leaned on the counter top and listened. Becky suddenly took notice of the pair.

"Oh my goodness! This must be your daughter," she exclaimed reaching out her hand.

"Yes, this is my baby girl Alina," Jodi confirmed, then motioned next to her, "and this is Catherine." Becky shook both their hands. "Nice to meet you! Of course we'd all rather the circumstances were different."

"Of course," Alina nodded. "So . . ." Jodi prompted.

"Oh, well, go on in. I'll be there in a couple minutes. He's got us all baffled." Jodi shot the girls a quizzical look then started around the corner toward Room G.

St. Anne's ICU ward had nine rooms, just over double Nita's smaller hospital on the other side of town. Six of those rooms were along the exterior walls and, accordingly, had windows. Five of those six were unoccupied and their window blinds were open allowing early morning light to filter in and brighten the otherwise somber spaces—only Room G was dark. The soft, staccato beep of a heart monitor drifted outside the room. Jodi peeked her head in, then turned and waved the girls inside. Catherine stepped past Jodi and slowly eased into the well-worn lounge chair in the far corner by the window and tried to stay out of the way. From where she sat Alina's silhouette filled the doorway; she'd hesitated at the very brink of witnessing the reality of what until now had been merely words, words that had carved monstrous images in her head. Jodi reached forward and gently took her hand.

As her eyes adjusted to the darker confines of the room she began to make out details: the vitals monitor on the opposite side of the bed, the small night stand next to the single bedside chair with her mother's sweater draped over it, the lifeless wall-mounted television. Most unavoidable of all was the bed itself—it looked more like a glorified bier than a proper bed. Alina stared at her father lying practically motionless in front of her. She'd imagined feeling shock or a surge of overwhelming emotion, pre-suppositions which couldn't find their way to the surface, betrayed by unblemished numbness. Long minutes of loud silence passed before Becky arrived to take readings and chat with Jodi.

Becky attended to her notes and readings with practiced efficiency. She punched a couple buttons on the vitals machine then did a quick inventory of supplies in the nightstand drawer. Once finished she turned to speak quietly to Jodi and Alina. "When I called you last night his vitals looked like they were degrading, and quickly."

Jodi instinctively looked at the monitor. "And now?"

"Indications are that he's improving. We can't upgrade him to 'stable' yet but the next few hours will tell us a lot more." Alina watched the discussion like a tennis match, her eyes darting back and forth.

"You said he has you "baffled." I don't understand. At one point the doctor indicated I should consider getting our affairs in order. He said head injuries are some of the scariest cases to get because you don't know exactly what the brain is doing. The next day he told me things seemed to be looking up. I don't get it," Jodi stated flatly.

"He's got it right," Becky confirmed. "All the scans and test results I've seen and discussed with the doctor initially told us exactly what you were told. I've been here close to twenty years and I've never seen an injury of this nature behave so counter-intuitively." Becky shook her head. "It seems one hour he's edging toward arrest and the next he's getting our hopes up." A rapping noise at the window broke their focus. Catherine's attention snapped toward the window. Biting her lip, she turned to look at the others. Becky smiled and nodded. "You're not going to wake him."

The tapping became increasingly insistent. Catherine tucked her finger between the blind and window frame then carefully pushed the slats aside. Alina thought she saw Catherine frown. "What is it?" Becky asked.

"It's a robin pecking at the corner of the window." Cath reported. "And," she paused, craning her neck to get a better angle, "there's an egg on the sill." She kept the slats aside as she turned and looked at Becky, who had an uncharacteristic tight grimace on her face. Their mutual scowls didn't escape Jodi's attention.

"It's a bird pecking at the window," she started, "what's the big deal?" Cath and Becky were utter strangers yet they exchanged a look between them that seemed to speak of a secret shared between childhood friends. Becky sighed. "It's an old hospital superstition," she said, waving the words away with her hand as if they were cigarette smoke. Catherine picked up where Becky's dismissive wave left off. "We once thought that a solar eclipse meant the gods were angry, too, but I think that's been thoroughly debunked."

Alina became suddenly animated. "Yeah, okay, so what does a bird pecking at a window mean?" Catherine raised her eyebrows and nodded slightly in Becky's direction. This was her turf and therefore her news to deliver. The nurse took the cue.

"A robin pecking at the window is supposed to be bad luck," Becky said.

"You mean, like, death?" Jodi asked. Alina shot her mother a stern look of disapproval; Becky nodded.

"But remember, there's an egg there, too," Cath chirped. "So I'm guessing it's an existential wash." Three sets of eyes gave her the same incredulous stare. "The egg is a symbol of birth and creation, right? I'm saying it's a kind of symbolic algebra—one nullifies the other."

Alina leaned against the door frame. "Then why don't I feel all warm and fuzzy about it?" Cath shrugged then pointed at the blinds. "Does anybody mind if I open these just a bit? I could use the light for my crosswords."

"You go right ahead, dear," Becky affirmed sweetly, then turned back to Jodi. "Your husband hasn't had any seizures, which is not typical with severe head trauma. Most of the time there are eventually—at least—minor ones. He hasn't had a single one." She leaned in closer to Jodi to whisper. "We love our science around here, but if you ask me there might just be a little something else goin' on," she added with a wink. Jodi took small comfort from vaporous hopes when physical reality seemed to point in the opposite direction, but thanked the nurse for her bedside manner anyway.

Catherine plucked the puzzle book from her purse and maneuvered herself to make the most of the morning light streaming through the blinds. The tapping at the window had ceased but she could see the egg remained on the sill. Mother and daughter were engaged in a hushed discussion, so the time seemed right for some other preoccupation besides contemplating the mysteries of being comatose, like the wreck in the bed. She opened the book to the spot where the pen rested snugly against the gutter and once again stared at the empty spaces of her unresolved seven letter word, a------c. "Purifies, transforms, or refines" she muttered. She stared at the bold letters at the top of the page, serving as both title and clue for the entire crossword: Clavis Aurea (Golden Key). No help there, either.

With the back pages removed her quickest path to easing her mounting frustration was no longer an option—the solution pages had been stashed at home, in a place of limited access, the better to push her mind and learn; her father loved to remind her that little of true value comes easy.

While Jodi and Alina continued their vigil Catherine solved a few more clues then moved on to the next puzzle. The elusive word would come to her—eventually.

ON THE BORDER of the conscious mind, in the ephemeral state where the brain and psyche begin their foggy separation, darkness and light become one—a place of a different time which itself is timeless. Within its unmarked boundaries of silence are hidden secrets, unspoken folly, and avoided disputes. Only in this most perfect condition can one clearly hear the whispers of better angels. Nature holds the only knowledge of such serene complexity and for the most immeasurable of moments shares its bounty with the soul.

The soul, as immortal guest, has a compass of its own with eyes of internal sight, and but one virtue—the heart. The act of liminal transition requires a new accord between nature and spirit; there are no concessions or pleadings, there is no favor to curry. In this, its most temporary state of mortal release, it bends in subservience only to nature while the human vessel still lay unconscious.

The soul, an atomic stipple against the majestic expanse of the universe will, in accordance with creation, choose the most proper of conduits: to rise again like the sun, its light and energy once more liberated from the threat of diffusion, or to never again walk erect and look at the stars—to forever return to the place of eternal night.

Moments of timeless measure slip by; sadness and joy hang in the balance.

WITHIN A TWENTY-FOOT radius three digital clocks all displayed 4:44: the vitals monitor, the clock on the nightstand, and the large clock directly across from the nursing station, a face so large even a patient with moderate cataracts could read it from the opposite side of the ICU.

For the women in Room G time had taken on a grim elasticity. The intervening hours had been an endless cortege of vigilance, catnaps, bathroom breaks, and uneasy eggshell walks down memory lane. No new visitors came to break the monotony—the ICU's dubious guest-of-honor had largely assured that by his numerous successes at alienating everyone around him, save for the three currently in the small room. And Catherine was really only there for his daughter.

The vending machine just outside the ICU doors had provided their meager sustenance, a poor follow up to their pastries and coffee earlier in the morning. Jodi knew the nurses would be in soon to undertake exercises and gentle massages upon the patient so she made the executive decision that would send all three women to the cafeteria for something far better than cheese crackers and chocolate chip cookies.

"You girls must be at least a little hungry, aren't you?" she asked, hoisting her purse upon her shoulder. "I think we all could stand something decent in our stomachs. Let's get some dinner in the cafeteria." Hunger achieved a swift consensus as Alina and Catherine wasted no time collecting their purses and following Jodi out of the ICU and through the hospital's internal labyrinth toward the cafeteria.

The scents of wrapper-less food met them before they turned the final corner and strode into the eatery: fresh stir fry and fried rice beckoned, spaghetti with what smelled like garlic and basil sauce, baked potatoes topped with chives. Gradients of green salad with bursts of red from cherry tomatoes, and hunter-green stuffed bell peppers stood out against the food-grade stainless steel and Plexiglas sneeze guards. Jodi knew the layout well and took the lead, tray and silverware sliding purposefully along the rails. Around them milled staff in scrubs, some wearing shoe covers, and most whisking about one side to the next then congregating in a corner of the dining area.

The cashier gave Jodi a smile of recognition and a friendly "How are ya?" as she totaled their choices: spaghetti for Jodi, a generous shrimp salad for Alina, and a stuffed bell pepper for Catherine, who thrust her debit card at the cashier before Jodi could grasp her wallet. Cath's insistent stare made moot the slightest whine of protest. The trio picked a table against one of several large picture windows where, outside, dusk was gently stretching its blanket over Nita's sky.

They ate without talking for a time, the only sound between them that of silverware against plate or ice shifting against a glass of tea. Focused hunger outweighed the hazy, grey depths of silence. Cath was first to empty her plate and then, almost reflexively, brought her puzzle book to the tabletop.

"Thank you very much for dinner, Cath," Jodi suddenly said. "That was very sweet of you." Alina leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Yes it was."

Catherine smiled. "You opened up your house to us, Mrs. Roose, so the thanks is mine to give." Jodi waved the notion off. "Please. You took time off work to accompany Ally up here. I wouldn't have blamed you if you hadn't," she added. The inference to Hagren wasn't lost on either of the girls, all the more emphatic given their current surroundings.

Alina sipped at her iced tea as she watched Catherine bounce the tip of her pen around the page. "Have you figured out that word you need yet?" she asked. Cath shook her head. "Not yet. It'll come to me, though."

"Always seems to," Alina added with a smile. From across the table Jodi motioned at the book with her fork. "What's that at the bottom, with all the circles and letters?" Cath pointed at it with the tip of the pen. "This?" Jodi nodded, finishing off the last forkful of her pasta.

"These are individual letters from certain locations in the puzzle," she replied, poking at each small circle. "If a box has a circle in it then the letter it contains gets written down here, too. When they're all filled the word becomes the solution to the puzzle." Jodi stared at the series of circles for a few moments, her head nodding slightly as she counted them. "That must be some word," she remarked. "Twelve letters. Do you get a clue for the solution?"

"Only the title. I mean, the title of the puzzle is the clue." Alina leaned over again in an effort to read the top of the page. "I can't make out the title," she said. "What's this one?"

"Clavis Aurea. It's latin. Means 'golden key'— a way to uncover hidden or mysterious meanings in texts." Catherine gave the page a minute of intense consideration before continuing. "This particular puzzle is loaded with latin phrases or words whose origins are linked in some way to latin."

Jodi smiled broadly and shook her head. "Better you than me," she confessed. "You and Ally are much better at those than I could ever be." Alina turned and smiled at Catherine. "We usually do them together," she said. Jodi looked at the window and was able to see their reflection in the glass. "Two peas in a pod," she said only half aloud. Dusk's rutilant glory had faded to the thinnest of slivers on the horizon, an indigo night sky nipped at its fringe.

The elder Roose began stacking empty plates and silverware on her tray. A burst of memory flooded her thoughts and spilled over into her emotions—the window reflected her efforts as she cleared the three settings; a somber reflection of a comparatively more gilded past.

"Time to go, ladies," she announced, more an effort to flush the memory than create urgency. As she picked up the loaded tray she turned to Catherine. "I think we should swing by the birth ward on our way back." Cath looked barely able to conceal her glee. "Oh yes! We definitely should!"

Alina rolled her eyes and moaned. "Mom!"

CLEAN, STENCILED LETTERS spelled out Apollo Clayton on his name badge, but as much as he moved around and followed the nurses any casual observer would be hard pressed to read it. Apollo didn't work as much with efficiency as he did with flourish, and his personality took on the same sheen. His shift was his stage, and the nurses his audience. When doctors were around he made himself scarce in one of the many stock rooms at his disposal.

The beginning of his shift entailed a quick but routine walk of his assigned areas, all of which were on the third floor. Inside an hour he would know what supplies were needed where and could prioritize their replacement accordingly. Most of this information came from the nursing staff whom he plied with almost flawless charm and coffee.

Apollo strolled into the ICU and, seeing no nurses at the station, set to checking on all the standard housekeeping matters. Once finished he looked to chat up Linda, the swaggering, omnipresent night supervisor in the ward. But Linda wasn't there, at least not at the station. With only one room occupied he considered she might be checking on the patient, so he rolled his sweeper around for a few minutes and straightened linen stacks to kill time, but still no sign of the nurse.

With daylight gone the ICU took on the weight of evening. The artificial light from above seemed almost as false as the hopes of some who were wheeled through the doors. Apollo, always one to follow his instincts, was decidedly unsettled by the lack of personnel. He never stepped into the individual rooms out of respect for the patients and their visitors. But something didn't feel right. He had to know if at least one nurse was in Room G. So he sauntered past the room and tried to peer through the creeping darkness.

Apollo saw movement—and not from the patient.

TIMING, AS AN internal measure, can be the result of sheer happenstance, practiced control, or a sleight of fate—but it is always a link in our chain of experience.

The elevator doors opened onto the first floor lobby, now bathed in the soft whiteness of scattered fluorescent lighting. Four riders entered its belly: Jodi and Alina Roose, Catherine Doxie, and the hint of balance they felt after their visit to the birth ward. Though each woman knew for certain what lay only minutes ahead they stepped a little lighter with full stomachs and the brief but refreshing intimation of renewal.

As the chime sounded its arrival at the third floor Apollo Clayton was somewhere between a walk and jog-step as he approached the elevators. He muttered to himself and cast his eyes in every possible direction, gesturing wildly as he went. The down arrow lit up above the doors as they slid open and three women began their exit.

Apollo stumbled backward, startled by the abrupt shriek that shattered his inattention. Jodi Roose threw her hands back and only narrowly missed busting her daughter's lip behind her as the trio held their ground between elevator and floor level. Chrome doors attempted to slide closed but retracted due to the bodies blocking its path. Apollo recovered quickly and immediately brought Apollo sunshine to the fore.

"Ladies, I am so sorry. You all alright?" Stepping aside he motioned for them to move out of the elevator with a graceful sweep of his arm. Jodi looked over her shoulders and received visual confirmation from the girls' nods. "Yes, I believe we're fine.".

Apollo's face fractured into a wide grin. "Ma'am," he said, turning to Jodi, "you have got some serious lungs!" He snapped his fingers loudly in front of his face. "You snapped me right out of my little world. Good thing, too. Would have been a shame to miss the prettiest things on this floor since those flowers came last night." Two of them smiled. Catherine rolled her eyes.

"Say, you're the lady from Room G, right?" he asked Jodi.

"Uh, yes. Why?"

"And these creatures behind you must be your sisters." She blew past his attempted flattery. "Is there something going on in the room?" Almost immediately the determined Apollo Clayton returned.

He whipped his arm toward the ICU. "That crazy nurse is back in the room," he blurted excitedly.. "I gotta find Linda. You seen her?" Jodi shook her head then turned to look at the girls. They were two steps removed already. "No, we haven't," she stated, then hurried away without waiting for further explanation. Apollo frowned, cheated out of telling his side of the story to a new audience. He considered warning her as she walked away then thought it better to continue his search for Linda, so he took off in the opposite direction.

* * *

THE CUSHION OF air preceding them through the ICU doors and into Room G dissipated like a dandelion in a stiff breeze. A solitary nurse was bent over the bed at Hagren's side, her dishwater-blonde bangs hanging over the rim of her glasses. She appeared to be checking bandages and various tubes that snaked over and about the patient. Jodi and the girls exchanged confused glances. Apollo had been right, a nurse was in the room—but "crazy"? Before anyone could summon a plan to test his wobbly theory the nurse turned and faced them with a smile.

"You must be Jodi," she said warmly, extending her hand. "Nice to finally meet you. And this must be Alina and—give me a second," she paused only for a moment until recollection brightened her face, "Catherine. Am I right?" The three women traded the same stare hopeful that the other could answer the question each was thinking. "I thought so," she finished with a soft smile. She turned back around and made a minor show of straightening out the bed sheet and draping tubes out of harm's way. Jodi began to raise her hand to speak but didn't get far.

"I do believe he's coming around," said the nurse. "Has anyone counseled you regarding post-coma life for, well, for everyone really?" Her words came slightly quicker without any loss of kindness or compassion. Three sets of eyes were affixed to her presence. "I had a hunch not." She waved Jodi to the bedside chair, which was politely declined.

"For those of us holding vigil over a comatose patient the state of uncertainty is frightening and omnipresent." The nurse brushed her bangs aside and looked directly at Catherine. "For the patient, though, a coma can sometimes be alembic" Cath appeared to suddenly snap to, as if breaking out of a hazy daydream. "Alembic?" she asked.

"Sorry. Occupational hazard," she quipped. "I mean, for some coma patients their return, if you will, is often described as purifying or transformative." Again, the prodding look in Catherine's direction. "'Alembic' is a term we use instead."

Catherine's face exposed the narrative that was playing out in her head. Electrical impulses shot across synapses as letters formed into words faster than an eyelid could blink, The nurse's words hung like a beckoning apparition, a chemical net which sought to trap just the right passing messengers. Cath's eyes dropped down, not looking at anything in particular but rather allowing a greater shift of resources to the puzzle at hand.

Her eyes lit up. That was it—the puzzle!

As Catherine fumbled in her purse for the puzzle book the nurse calmly withdrew, from the drawer of the nightstand, a small piece of scratch paper, no bigger than her palm. She and Catherine simultaneously grabbed their pens and began writing—Cath filling in the empty boxes between a and c for the word that had eluded her all day and the nurse jotting a short message then folding the paper twice making sharp, neat creases on the folds. She looked at Alina and Jodi as she stepped toward Catherine.

"Did anyone give you a Glasgow rating for your husband?" Jodi raised an eyebrow.

"Glasgow rating? I'm pretty sure I would have remembered something like that." The nurse touched Jodi's forearm gently. "It's a scale that rates comatose states from 3 to 15. Essentially a 3 is bad news while 15 is closer to a normal person."

Jodi couldn't help but motion at Hagren. Her hand moved of its own accord. Part of her was glad her daughter was there to hear these details for herself, the other half wanted to shelter her. "And, what's his?" The question spun like a developing tornado in her mind, a thick mass of rotating, angry grey; her pulse quickened and stomach clenched. The nurse's soothing smile did little to calm the brewing storm.

The crisply folded note was laid upon the middle of Catherine's puzzle book with a whispered admonition that it would be needed later. Cath fought the urge to read it immediately and instead tucked the small note elsewhere in the book then returned to filling in the circles at the bottom of the puzzle. In moments she had every blank filled. No epiphany was triggered, no revelatory satisfaction in the solution. She immediately double checked all her clues and transferred letters—the resulting word, the ultimate solution to the puzzle, didn't make sense.

Mother and daughter followed the nurse like an eagle tracks a fish under water. After passing her note she walked to the door and retrieved the chart book from the wall caddy hanging just below the hand-sized square with a large blue 'G' on it. She flipped past a few pages filled with numbers and line graphs and appeared to study a page loaded with blocks of text. Jodi pushed her hands into the pockets of her jeans, then withdrew them only to absent mindedly wipe her palms against her legs. Alina reached over and put an arm around her mother's shoulder.

The nurse looked up at the pair. "He's been rated at a 14." She turned the binder toward the two and pointed to a line near the middle. "Odds are excellent he'll make a good recovery, once he comes out of it, that is."

"Any idea when that could be?" Alina asked.

"Hard to tell, really. But something tells me it won't be long." The room became heavy with an odd sort of reverent silence, mother and daughter staring at the nurse—to look up would have been a conceit of spirit, while looking down would be an equal betrayal of a lingering hope. Jodi fidgeted amid the uneasiness and suddenly recalled their run in with Apollo.

"Your presence in here seems to have the unsettled some of the staff," Jodi remarked as the nurse returned the binder to its caddy on the outside wall. "You must have met Apollo," came the reply. "He's something else, isn't he?" Jodi and Alina managed half grins. "He's harmless. Actually very friendly, and seems to be quite protective of the nurses."

"He seemed a little unglued when he caught us coming out of the elevator."

"I can't blame him. I'm something of a foreigner, just here to fill in for a nurse that's out." Jodi noticeably relaxed. Her daughter felt the reaction and gave her mother a reassuring squeeze. "I feel a little foolish about the way we rushed in here, I mean, you know, the situation as it is and all." The apology was as genuine as it was unnecessary. The nurse dismissed it with a wave of her hand.

"It's not worth thinking about." She brushed her bangs away from her glasses then extended a hand to both of them. "It was a pleasure to meet you both." Jodi shook her hand and gave a warm smile. Alina, too, shook her hand, but appeared to narrow her focus upon the nurse, as if attempting to remember an old friend. "Have we met before?" she asked. "You seem kinda familiar."

The nurse's broad smile did much to melt away any remainder of tenseness. "You'd be surprised how often I hear that."

* * *

LINDA SHELLEY FANNED herself as she walked, her pace a little quicker than usual. Apollo was practically skipping just to keep up; his mouth had run almost as fast since they bumped into each other just outside Radiology. Linda barreled through the stairwell door and puffed as she took the first couple steps up toward the third floor. She could feel tiny beads of sweat forming on her brow.

"Apollo, I told you I was going to Radiology! Becky was there when I left. You know I wouldn't leave ICU empty."

"I don't know where Becky went," Apollo stated flatly. Linda's pace had left him winded and only slightly less annoying. "I told you that already!"

All 5'11" of nurse Shelley stomped on the middle landing between second and third floors. Apollo felt the step underfoot shudder. "No, you told me there was somebody there." Her glare was demanding, almost withering. "Since Becky is the only other nurse on duty then it must have been her." Her shoulders rose and fell as she breathed heavily—the look of a bull a hair's width from charging.

Apollo stood his ground. "I know what Becky looks like and I'm telling you that nurse ain't Becky!" Linda considered a number of replies then spun and began stomping up the next nine steps. Her voice echoed in the stairwell as she loudly admonished Apollo, "This had better be legit, or I'll make sure you get assigned somewhere else." He looked down and wisely kept quiet as he followed up the stairs behind her.

* * *

BETWEEN THEIR DEPARTURE for dinner and the recent departure of the nurse Room G had transformed from a dreary fulcrum of balance between death and uncertainty to a small refuge of hope and lighter moods. Alina had sat quietly in the bedside chair absorbing the difference in ambiance. She watched her mother retrieve the clipboard just outside the room and carefully read each page, and wondered how much of it made sense. Of the three women present certainly her mother had the best shot at understanding the many notes, marks, circles, lines, and scribbles given her recent spate of visitation. Catherine's detachment involved a seeming point-by-point, word-by-word replay of her crossword puzzle, her pen having danced and flitted about the page as it retraced lines created earlier in the day. Alina sighed.

"I was thinking of getting a tattoo," she declared out of the blue while gazing at her left wrist and elbow. Catherine's mouth slackened as her eyes darted up—"You're kidding, right?" Her mother followed a split second later with "You can't be serious?" Alina grinned, This was much better.

Catherine took the cue and gave a knowing grin. "The word she used was the one I needed, the one that's eluded me all day." Alina squinted and bit her lip. "The one I asked you and your mom about this morning, in the car, on the way here," Cath prompted. "Oh, yeah," Jodi suddenly exclaimed. "Started with an 'a' and ended with a 'c', right?" Cath nodded.

Alina shot a glance toward her mother. "Apparently I wasn't mentally here when she said it. What was the word?" Jodi answered for Catherine, "'Alembic', I believe." Cath gave an affirming point of the pen in her direction then added, "But the word at the bottom doesn't—" she paused to stare at the clue again, "it doesn't make sense." Alina stepped over to Catherine's side and tilted her head to look at the result. In equal turns the pair scratched their cheeks or pressed finger to lips as they locked wavelengths in an attempt to uncover an errant letter, or, excepting that, trying to discern the meaning of the solution from sheer ocular osmosis. Surely the meaning would reveal itself through the laser-focus intensity of two pairs of eyes.

Jodi replaced the clipboard with a soft thunk then regarded her husband. Had anyone entered the room, or had one of the girls looked up, they would have seen her gaze fixated upon the fragile life lying before her, absent mindedly rubbing the underside of her wedding band. Nobody entered. Nobody turned around. Her moment of solitary disconnect slipped away as quietly as it arrived. With a shallow sigh she stepped over to the opposite side of the girls and placed a third set of eyes upon the puzzle.

Jodi's brain skimmed the page, a visual brush in hopes of finding context as opposed to a concerted effort at deduction. Lots of boxes, some with circles, every one filled with a letter now. Twelve dashes at the bottom, each with a letter perched atop it. She caught the first five letters—m-i-s-e-r, but the rest of the word may well have been invisible as far as her mind was concerned. Her brain, distracted yet needing at least a potential finish to the word placed a 'y' at the end. Her face sagged and shoulders slumped. She felt utterly powerless. Behind her the dark of night peeked through the window blinds and beckoned, a call she answered hoping to find a distraction for her distraction.

Tucking a finger between two hard plastic slats she carefully parted the blinds and let her gaze flutter about the parking lot below and toward the horizon where pinholes of city lights punctured the early evening blackness. Slightly southeast and three floors below, at the juncture where the great elm tree split the incoming road, movement caught her eyes, delicate yet unmistakable. She blinked and looked again; eyebrows furrowed and lips formed a tight line. Jodi looked at her daughter, still engrossed in the puzzle with Catherine. She turned back to the view outside and watched for a full minute before making the inward determination that what she was seeing was, in fact, real. Without looking away Jodi quietly called her daughter.

"Ally." No response. Jodi squared her shoulders and called a little more sharply. "Ally!" Alina's eyes snapped upward immediately. "What, mom?" Jodi motioned for her to step over and look out the window.

Alina carefully stepped around Catherine and stood next to her mother. Jodi nodded toward the window, pointing for emphasis. Her daughters' eyes narrowed a moment then her eyes and mouth opened wide simultaneously, as if a ventriloquist had pulled a clandestine lever at the base of her neck. Undisguised wonder colored her voice as she spoke. "Cath. C'mere," she said breathlessly.

Cath's heart pounded as she stood up. The puzzle book, once a part of her lap, fell to the floor sending her pen tumbling. A crisply folded piece of paper slipped out and settled, unnoticed, under the chair. Catherine joined the coterie gawking through the window, tucking her head between Alina and her mother.

The parking lot below was sparsely populated and no traffic appeared headed away from nor coming toward St. Anne's. Where the road forked stood the huge elm tree, easily discernable even amid the soft illumination of the parking lot. Around its massive trunk bobbed and winked a myriad of tiny amber lights looking like a host of tea lights upon an unseen pond; a shroud of fireflies. Alina began to silently count the lights, trying to bring a measure of logic to the otherwise irrational display of nature's beauty in microcosm; she quickly realized the futility of it and instead took a wild guess. Not that one was necessary—or mattered.

"There must be well over a hundred of them around that tree." All three women considered their human need for order and structure. Each speculated on the possible number of insects, but each also allowed a weighted indulgence to the esoteric beauty of the glowing lights winking on and off beneath the tree's canopy.

Catherine broke the silence. "Have you noticed there are no fireflies anywhere else?" A glance around the area confirmed her observation. Despite the other small trees in the parking lot and shrubbery along the perimeter of the grounds only the elm tree was graced with the natural luminescence. They stood, mesmerized, watching the blanket of lights pulse and swell. It seemed to breathe. As the show slowly rose and infiltrated the lower branches Cath amended Alina's original estimate. "I'd guess there's upwards of two hundred." Jodi broke her gaze from the tree to look at Alina and placed her hand gently upon her back.

Shifting to her left for a better view Catherine pulled the blinds aside and immediately gasped aloud. Her skin tingled as she tapped Alina on the shoulder. "Look," she squeaked, pointing to the outside corner of the windowsill. Mother and daughter moved in unison to glimpse what Cath insistently pointed at.

The egg was cracked in half, and empty.

THE AIR FELT sharp around his arms and face, a soft beep emanated from behind his head. And he itched, in several places. And he ached in every way—and everywhere—imaginable.

And the voices he'd been hearing, all of them, recognizable. A few he could put faces to, but not without conscious effort, an effort that made the ache in his skull more pronounced. A few of the voices were new, disembodied and unrelatable; a couple were vivid and intimately familiar.

Though diffuse the light still seared his eyes as his eyelids gradually lifted. By squinting he could make out a tall woman standing in the doorway, her back turned to him. Her voice he recognized, and though just above a whisper she was being quite assertive to some other poor soul whom he couldn't see—a terse, one-way discussion about a nurse who was or was not there.

Hagren winced. A nurse?

Physical systems long disconnected from external stimuli slowly began the process of binding and affixing themselves to internal networks, rediscovering pathways and sputtering then crackling with communication. A nurse? Hagren could suddenly feel his pulse race, could hear his heart pounding in his ears. Something began to twitch, then to shake. He closed his eyes again in an attempt to return to his former peace and calm. He could feel the shaking on either side of his body; from wrist to fingertips his hands shook like vibrating piano wires.

Two simple words had triggered a sensory overload—a nurse. He was in a hospital? But why? But he heard the other two voices. He knew beyond any trace of doubt they belonged to his wife and daughter. But in a hospital?

Once more he timidly opened his eyes. The tall woman was still in the doorway, He gently shifted his gaze to the opposite side of the room. Though partially fuzzy he could make out three forms with their backs turned to him. Instinct rushed to the fore, completely overpowering his diminished speech capabilities. Hagren parted his lips to speak, to call to the forms on the other side of the room. All he could muster was a shallow whimper he could barely hear himself.

His eyes began to water, and with the moisture came a bitter sting. His chest began to tremble.

"STAND RIGHT HERE," she ordered with a terse whisper and a singular but persuasive index finger thrust at the very spot Apollo occupied. "Don't go anywhere, and keep your fool mouth shut!" A wide eyed Apollo nodded. Linda pursed her lips and narrowed her eyelids then slowly turned to her right. She immediately recognized Jodi Roose standing at the window with two other women she hadn't seen before. She took a deep breath and straightened her top.

"Mrs. Roose?" Jodi looked over her left shoulder, her hair brushing over her it as her head turned. "Hi Linda. How are you this evening?"

"Well, thanks." Linda wrung her hands together. "There's an issue I'm trying to get some clarification on and I'm hoping you can shed some light on it for me."

"I can try." Jodi tapped Alina on the shoulder who in turn tapped Catherine on her shoulder. Introductions were made and pleasantries exchanged. Linda spent the next few minutes in a half-hearted rehash of information about her husband's condition, data which Jodi already knew from her discussions with other staff. Under different circumstances she would have halted the nurse halfway through, but the girls' presence and the uncanny events of the evening gave her a sense of calm she didn't want to spoil, so she let the nurse ramble.

Linda eventually circled around to the core of her uneasiness. She cleared her throat and related the first account of an alleged substitute nurse. She paused just long enough to throw a jagged glare over her shoulder then launched into the latest drama and the details of her march back to ICU with a clearly disfavored Apollo Clayton.

"So I wanted to check with you before I proceeded any further." Another rifle glance backward. "You talked to Becky earlier, right?

"Of course," Jodi replied. "She met the girls and we spoke for a few minutes." Linda's posture suddenly rebounded, slowly but perceptibly rising like a piece of memory foam. She clasped her hands together and smiled. "That's exactly what I thought!" Jodi couldn't see Apollo shaking his head behind Linda.

"Shortly after talking to Becky we went to the cafeteria for some dinner. On our way back we almost quite literally bumped into Mr. Clayton." Linda's focus was now razor sharp. She slipped her hands into big pockets on her smock and nodded gently as Jodi spoke. "I must tell you, once the initial panic wore off I found his concern and urgency to find you sorta sweet." Linda smiled and behind her Apollo grinned.

"When we got here there was a nurse checking on my husband, yes. But it wasn't Becky." Linda's face suddenly took on the sheen of a full moon. "Mrs. Roose, are—are you sure?" The nurse's rigid confidence visibly eroded. All three women gave assured nods. She turned a third time to check on Apollo. He was leaning against the doorjamb and she could read his lips as he silently said "I told you!"

"She was very pleasant, wonderful bedside manner," Jodi offered. Linda only managed a confused smile before suddenly waving her finger at the women. "Did you catch her name by any chance?" The question clearly caught the trio off guard. Jodi, Alina, and Catherine regarded one another. Ultimately each wore the same stunned expression. "Umm, you know, it never occurred to me to ask," Jodi said. Alina and Catherine shook their heads in almost perfect unison. Jodi stared at her feet for a moment then promptly raised a finger. "She did say she was stepping in for another nurse who was out, though." More nods of confirmation from Alina and Catherine.

Linda tossed her line in the water one last time. "No name at all, huh?" Their stares answered the question. Alina stood up on her toes, suddenly animated..

"I asked her if we knew each other, though. She looked really familiar to me." From behind the nurse Apollo crowed "You too?!" Linda spun like a top and unloaded her frustrations upon him. Her wrath was blissfully short, but, like looking up into the eye of a hurricane there was no doubt the calm was deceptive; hurricane Linda spun again to face her guests, determined to find solid answers about the breach. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she continued.

"Sorry about that," she said, thrusting a thumb in a backward motion. "It's been a long night, and my shift is just starting." All three women delivered their best awkward smiles. Linda looked down at her feet, her shoulders slumped slightly forward. She lost her cool about as often as a Saharan rain, but as things eased out of her control she'd allowed frustration to fester. She looked up at the visitors again and parted her lips to speak when Apollo's voice interrupted.

"Linda." Immediately she closed her eyes and tried to subdue the irritation that rose like a bullet. She could hear him shuffling behind her, gently rapping his thumb against the doorjamb. Her attempt to ignore him took a severe blow when he spoke again. "You might want to check on your patient," he urged. It wasn't a demand, more a cue than a jab. Again wheeling to her left, seething glare at the ready, she saw him pointing toward the bed. Alina Roose had practically knocked her mother over as she lunged to the bed side.

The nurse swiveled fully to face the patient. Her hands flew up and eyes drew wide. Apollo barely got out of the way as she barreled past him yelling "I gotta get the doctor on duty!" Jodi quickly settled in beside her daughter. Catherine knelt down to retrieve her crossword book without lifting her eyes from the scene in front of her.

Hagren Roose's eyes drifted from the door and blur of nurse Shelley to the slightly freckled, porcelain face of his daughter. His hands still trembled lightly and bodily movement was unthinkable yet, hindered by head-to-toe pain and lack of voluntary motion for some time. But he could feel the gentle touch of Alina's hand upon his own—and he could plainly hear her soft voice. "Daddy?" it said in a moist whisper.

"We're here, daddy," she continued, "mom's here, too." Hagren tried to squeeze her hand but his will was stronger than his flesh. Tiny spasms prevented proper muscle control. Beneath the iconic moustache his chin trembled ever so gently. He shifted his gaze with deliberate care toward his wife. Her dark hair hung over her shoulders and framed her face as she leaned in. Mother and daughter watched for several wordless moments as their father and husband looked back and forth, from one to the other. Jodi thought she saw his lips move.

"I think he's trying to speak," she whispered to Alina. She didn't miss the small streak of moisture that caused her cheek to glisten. "Lean in and see if you can hear him," she urged. "Go on." Alina leaned over the bedside, careful not to bind or pinch any tubing as she did. With her right ear close to his lips she asked "What, daddy?" She felt her mother tenderly grasp her arm.

Apparitions floated before him as if they'd never left. Sharp details etched deep in his memory hung behind his eyes: an exuberant child flying spread eagle in the air, her laughter like a million honey-tipped darts; a small room filled with kindergartners; a child's afternoon tea party carefully planned down to the name placards. He let the wispy sweetness of her voice settle upon his surging mind then glanced again at his wife. The spectacle of inner haunting replayed itself in vivid, somber tones, each memory now colored with a purposed beauty that complemented the pain. His body was fighting a thousand tiny wars of its own but his mind soared across chasms and crested battlements and swelled and billowed with a renewed fervor. He could feel his throat tightening and the ensuing rush of emotions. Tears spilled from the corners of his eyes as he closed them in an attempt to push his words audibly past his lips. A mild hum was followed by hoarse sibilance. The words escaped with the dryness of sun parched cotton.

Hagren felt his daughter's head lay gently upon his chest, another physical awareness for his quivering body to deal with; then, the searing, life returning sensation of damp fabric—Alina's tears began soaking through his hospital gown and watered his flesh. He heard his wife's voice call to her. "Ally. Ally? What did he say?" A moment later the weight was gone from his chest.

It took a few awkward blinks to clear the watery veil from his eyes. Once free of the visual distortion he could see wife and daughter conjoined, their arms around one another, Alina's head buried in her mothers shoulder. At length Jodi delicately lifted Alina's head and looked her square in the eyes, wiping away stray tears with her thumbs. "Sweetie, what did he say?" Alina sniffed loudly.

"He said "I'm sorry", mom."

Like drifting snow that comes to rest on a tree a passionate relief settled upon both women. Hagren watched his family begin to heal. Behind them, beyond his sight, Catherine quietly wept for them.

* * *

ALL NURSE SHELLEY could see of Room G from her vantage point was three women crying. With the phone pressed against her ear, waiting for the doctor to respond, she could offer neither comfort nor assistance. She couldn't tell if the patient had slipped back into coma, or anything else for that matter. Had he flatlined an alarm would have sounded at the desk, so she knew the worst had not happened. She bounced her knee and drummed fingers on the desktop as she waited while obsessively staring straight ahead.

Apollo sauntered by the desk seconds after she'd lifted the handset to call; she thought she sensed a slight air of smugness about him. She sighed. No matter, she'd have to make good and find some way to apologize without losing too much face. But that would come later. Much later. A barely audible click on the phone and her attentions shifted to briefing the doctor on what few details she had. Assured of his impending arrival Linda hung up and hurried back to the room.

Mother and daughter had stationed themselves on opposite sides of the bed each holding one of Hagren's beefy, but trembling, hands. Linda strode in as calm as she possibly could. "Anything new?" Jodi immediately pointed to his hands. "He hasn't stopped shaking. Is he having seizures?" The nurse performed some cursory visual and physical checks then shook her head. "I don't think so," she said, "but the doctor should be here anytime and he'll be able to tell you what's going on." Jodi and Alina looked up and locked stares for a moment.

Linda reached for a drawer in the night stand to retrieve a blanket. She stopped in mid-lean and furrowed her brow. "Have his lips been moving like this all the while?" she asked openly. Mother and daughter replied almost immediately. "No!"

Jodi grasped the initiative and leaned close, her right ear almost touching his lips. Despite four people holding their breath and the almost complete silence she could only make out a guttural moan, an air-like hiss, and a trailing click. She closed her eyes hoping to heighten her sense of hearing—still a moan, hiss, click. She could tell he was trying to say something, but the vitals monitor was an almost deafening distraction. "Can that thing be silenced?" she asked pointedly. Linda nodded and reached over to push two small buttons on its face, and then there was utter stillness.

"Try again, Hagren," she said with a tender pat on his hand. She leaned in and again four women held their breath and froze in place. Jodi remained bent over the bed, listening intently, for a solid two minutes, and equally as motionless as the others. If only briefly, the room took on a wax museum diorama quality, life-like with an undertone of creepiness. She stood up again, tension seeming to pinch at every possible point on her face, and shook her head. "I can't make it out. All I can hear is something like "mmm-iss-rrr-kuh-d"."

Linda respectfully offered to try and Jodi quickly stepped aside so she could take her place. The cycle repeated itself again, with like results. The nurse stood up and grimaced. "I wonder . . ." Sliding her right hand along the bed frame she located a small rocker switch and pressed the side furthest from her. The bed slowly inclined. Again she leaned down, then pressed the button again, then listened. Mother and daughter fixated upon the nurse's expression while she listened, waiting for the slightest nuance of movement, for any indication of speech recognition; an hour compressed into the tiny confines of three minutes. Linda finally stood upright again.

"I'm hearing the same thing you did, Mrs. Roose, but a little more distinctly after raising the bed. She paused as if mentally processing the sounds through a filter, making a Herculean effort to extrapolate some meaning—any meaning—from practically nothing. Jodi's sudden voice was like a pebble tossed into a mill pond. "Well?"

Linda's concentrated stare dissolved. "It sounds like 'mizercor' or 'miserchord', something like that. There's something at the end, but his vocal chords don't have enough wind to fully develop the sound—but I can tell something is there." Once again the mother and daughter exchanged a familial gaze. This time it appeared to shake something loose for Alina.

"Cath, what was that word we were looking at before, you know, the puzzle thing." Catherine sprang to her feet, the pages an ash grey blur as they were propelled right to left. She folded the book back upon itself when she located the page then raised it for Alina to read. "Mom? Do you think—?" Catherine moved the book for Jodi and Linda to see. The two women looked at each other, their eyes exploring the possibility.

Jodi shrugged. "The sounds would seem to match up, but that could be me wanting them to more than anything else. What do you think, Linda?" The nurse stared at the word again then said it aloud. "Misericordia." She considered the sound of it. "It's possible, I guess. I can't imagine what else it could be." All four women stood quietly, each lost in their own thoughts. Jodi aired hers first.

"I've never used the word. I've never heard him use it. I don't even know what it means." She looked at the book again, then at her husband. All the bandages and tubes, the fluids, the time spent, as far as she knew, unconscious; she wondered. "Is it possible, I don't know, that maybe there is some kind of damage?" Linda gave a reluctant nod. "Hard to say. I can tell you, though, that I've seen many patients come out of comas and many of them seem to babble a bit at first but it always seems to be temporary—for those who remain awake." Immediately she stared at Jodi and Alina, afraid she'd said too much. Jodi looked at Alina as if to question what she heard earlier, and her daughter put the notion to bed. "No, mom. I know what I heard."

While mother and daughter filled in the blanks for Linda, Catherine stared at the word again. Misericordia. Something nagged at her, like a tickle in the throat, a sneeze that wouldn't come, that word on the tip of the tongue—frustrating bits of intuition that always spoke loud enough to announce their presence but refused to manifest into reality. So she did what she always did when something seemed lost; she worked her way backward.

Starting with the 'solution' word at the bottom she considered every letter, then scanned the crossword for every letter with a circle around it. As she jumped one letter, then one word to the next, she found it fairly easy to remember where she was when each clue was solved and written into the grid: in the car, sitting in the corner chair, in the cafeteria, that troublesome last word coming from the nurse—alembic. Her thoughts were fluid, one flowing into the next.

Then she remembered.

Flipping the pages toward the back she waited expectantly for the slip of white paper to fall out. Strangely, it didn't. She tried again, fully confident that she had tucked it between pages. Nothing. She turned the book upside down and shook it—still nothing.

Alina had turned around in time to see Catherine engaged in her fruitless search of the book, and who was currently dissecting the contents of her purse. "Missing something?" she asked. Catherine replied without looking up. "That nurse gave me a note and I can't find it!" Linda clearly heard the word "nurse" and immediately tossed out a name. "Becky?"

Cath looked up, apparently finished with the purse autopsy, her face tinged pink. "No, the other one." She stood up to inspect the chair. Alina's tone betrayed her confusion. "The nurse gave you a note and you didn't read it?"

"I was a little excited about finishing the puzzle. I was preoccupied. So I thought I stuck it in the book but now I can't find it." Catherine paused to attempt some calm logic. They hadn't left the room since the mystery nurse departed. The three of them had stood at the window gazing at the fireflies around the elm tree. She remembered picking the book off the floor.

Nothing appeared on the carpet around the chair, so she dropped to her knees to look. A stark patch of white under the chair instantly caught her eye. Firmly grasping it between thumb and forefinger she drew it out then spent a moment appreciating how neatly folded it was. Catherine bolted up and exclaimed with a huge smile "Got it!"

"What's it say?" Alina asked.

Catherine held her palm upright. "Hold on already!" She treated the scrap as if it were a long lost historical document, unfolding the first half with almost painstaking care, then gently unfolding the remaining half. Mother, daughter, and nurse were focused as one, their expressions not of eager anticipation but of mild curiosity. The patriarch laid much more quietly, his tremors and shivers seemingly on the wane, and wife and daughter each holding a hand.

Catherine eyed the note, her eyes darting back and forth as if looking for some faded detail. Then, slowly, turned and picked up the puzzle book and leafed to the now intimately familiar crossword. She laid the note atop the page proximate to the solution, like a key prior to its insertion into a lock, or the thin slice of dawn as it overtakes night. She absorbed the moment, studied the objects before her, then allowed a warm smile to stretch across her lips. With an almost reverential demeanor, she stepped next to Alina at the bedside and laid the note respectfully upon the sheet between mother and daughter—directly upon the chest of a man she'd considered her nemesis.

Strong, elegant blue lines of near perfect penmanship graced the center of the small note. It read Misericordia = Mercy.

Author's Note

Ever since the moment I fully embraced the title I knew the potential existed for discontent among some readers. "Where are the explosions? The calamity that swallows nations whole? You forgot the ultimate showdown between the powers of dark and light!" Well, not so fast— although those who perhaps had such a reaction cannot be blamed. The misnomer lies in the word "apocalypse".

Many of us—perhaps even all of us—were raised with an understanding that the "apocalypse" was the raging final judgment of all mankind, the end of the world as we know it summed up in one beautifully descriptive word.

Truth is, that's wrong. At least in terms of the construct we draw our emotional reaction from.

Apocalypse actually means to disclose, or refers to a disclosure: quite literally, a revelation. Ahh, now the gears are meshing: The Book of Revelations! The last book of the Bible! If you are Catholic you may remember this story better as the one used to scar your mind and soul for life when you were in catechism as a child. I'm certain that I don't need to recount the allegory here.

Revelations—profoundly disturbing images and all—is in many respects John's way (he being John of Patmos, the author of the book) of trying to help his readers (certainly of his time) to reach a deeper understanding of the nature of evil and the nature of hope. The original Greek word apokálypsis translates into English as "revelation," a way of gaining some perspective or insight into a mystery.

And so it was with Hagren Roose: he was given a disclosure of sorts. On a personal level such a disclosure would undoubtedly be every bit as terrifying as it is to imagine in a wider sense. The same chilling images of death and loss—and equally of hope and redemption—are just as applicable to an individual as they would be to a collective.

The Apocalypse of Hagren Roose is not intended to be, in any way, shape, form, or fashion a pulpit-thumping expression of any particular slant or belief system. It is not meant to be an attempt at re-telling or re-creating a work as powerful, as poetic as Revelations. It's far more humble purpose is to entertain. If it makes you think, perhaps evokes a moment of contemplation about one's future, all the better.

I extend my most sincere gratitude to you for your purchase, and more importantly for your time. I truly hope you found this story to be worthy of both.

Cordially,

Let Others Know What You Thought

While The Apocalypse of Hagren Roose is still fresh in your mind perhaps you would consider writing a review for Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Many readers have accounts at Goodreads and Shelfari as well and the same review can be posted there, too.

If you'd like to send me your thoughts instead you can contact me via jwnicklaus@avomnia.com. With your permission I will gladly post your review or blurb on my blog and website.

If you enjoyed this story then you might very well enjoy my short story collection The Light, the Dark, and Ember Between. You can find out more at www.avomnia.com, or at my blog (on the 'Book' tab) avomnia.wordpress.com. The e-book version can also be purchased from Smashwords or  Amazon.com.

The print version can also be found at  Amazon and  BN.com. Or you can get a signed copy from yours truly directly from my website, avomnia.com.

