The Prologue
Now.
He was playing tricks on her again. She saw him everywhere she looked: in the rearview mirror, in the backseat, standing in the middle of the road. She drove calmly and cautiously, afraid his projected image may be something real, like a deer or an actual person. She clicked her nails nervously against the side of the steering wheel. It had been so long since she had seen an actual person. Would she be able to distinguish a real human if she saw one? The woman gave a shaky breath and accelerated the stolen car.
She had slipped past the guards around midnight. It hadn't taken much. They weren't there for her, after all. What did it matter to them if she stepped into the night for some air? The inside of the house stank of rot and sulfur, no matter how much bleach and soap she used. Often, she could be found standing in the courtyard, her tears glistening off her cheeks in the starlight. But this time she didn't stay in the courtyard. She fingered the keys in her pocket, and smiled. They had been laying carelessly on the kitchen countertop, practically waiting for her. She licked her lips and snatched them.
The music on the radio was going in and out. She reached over to adjust the dial when a familiar voice startled her.
And in other news, local housewife Elle MacLeod pronounced dead after—
She swallowed and changed the station.
Her husband—
Change.
Mrs. MacLeod was brutally murdered last night—
Change.
AFTER THE DIRTY NASTY SKANK RAN OFF AFTER YEARS OF LOVE AND—
Her breathing was sharp and labored. Tears were beginning to well in her eyes, blurring her vision. She could hardly see, and yet she drove faster and faster. She turned off the radio but still the voice persisted through the speakers.
YOUR TIME IS NOT UP YET
YOU BELONG TO ME
TURN AROUND AND COME HOME
ELLE ELLE ELLE
I AM NOT FINISHED WITH YOU.
The next sound she heard was that of the car colliding with a tree.
Chapter One: The Visit
Then.
Before the collision. Before the escape. Before the entrapment. There was a girl named Elle. The year was 1944 and Elle had just graduated nursing school. Her brothers had been drafted into the war and everyone in Elle's family worked to do their part. Her father, crippled from the previous war, went from school to school raising money for war bonds. Her mother hosted sewing circles and neighbor-hood wide can drives. And Elle was sent to England to care for wounded soldiers. Her family wept when she received her papers. First her brothers and now their only daughter? But Elle was proud to go. She had graduated top of her class and had certificates in trauma and critical care. She stayed in a flat with six other nurses. Every day they walked to work, arm in arm. It was blood and pus and tears and sweat. Many nights they stayed late, stitching, wiping, and praying. In 1945 when the war ended, Elle stayed on.
"Where's your head, Ellie?" Nurse Margaret waved a pen in her face. "Come on, angel. I need you to go upstairs for me, right? We're out of saline. You know where the supply closet is?"
Elle nodded. "I used to work up there. Before they moved me to pediatrics." The peds floor was so much more stressful. Crying children, crying parents, even crying nurses most nights. Elle sat beside them, sometimes after her shift ended, holding hands and smoothing down sweaty foreheads. The ICU hadn't been much less stressful, but there was something about a sick child that could break your heart. One such little one had Elle wrapped around his tiny finger. Teddy. He could always con her into an extra pudding or cookie. Elle just couldn't resist his sweet face and angelic eyes. After I fetch the saline, she thought to herself, perhaps I could pop in for a visit. She and Teddy's parents had become rather close. She admired their strength and their codependence on one another. Teddy's mother would sit up and watch Teddy's fitful sleep, while her husband stroked her hair and spoke to her in loving tones.
Still thinking about them, she climbed the stairs to the ICU. The supply closet was already unlocked, so Elle signed out the solution and made her way back to the stairs. The light was on in one of the patient rooms. She stepped inside to turn out the light.
"Hello, darling." He was sitting in the guest chair, smartly dressed, and with a small pointed beard. There was something funny about his eyes but when he turned his head, Elle thought it may have just been the light. She placed her hand on her heart.
"Sir, you frightened me. You can't be in here! It's nearly one in the morning." The man in the chair raised his eyebrow, but made no move to leave.
"Visiting hours are over at nine." She crossed her arms over her chest. She was a tiny woman with a sweet demeanor. She wondered if she would need back-up, when the man stood. He wasn't tall, but with his firm jaw and dark overcoat, he seemed to tower over here.
"Oh yes. Well I'm very sorry. I seem to have lost track of time." His smile made Elle uneasy. She took a small step back. "Perhaps you could show me the way out?" The way he asked made Elle feel as though she didn't have much of a choice. She tried to stand tall.
"Yes. Please follow me, Mr.?"
"Just call me Crowley."
He followed silently behind, still smiling slightly to himself. Elle tried to maintain her cheery disposition, but was growing more and more uncomfortable under his watch. She had hoped she may cross paths with another nurse or doctor, but each floor seemed to be emptier than the last. At long last they reached the exit. She gave him a forced smile.
"Visiting hours will resume in the morning." She turned to leave, but he caught her by the wrist. Ice ran through her veins. She held back a shriek.
"I never caught your name, darling." She told him. He left.
The next few nights were surreal. Nurses would come up to her giggling, asking questions. There was always something addressed to her on the nurse's station. One night it was a hundred red roses. The next night it was a box of French chocolates, wrapped in gold paper. The whole hospital buzzed with gossip about her mystery suitor; even Teddy's parents questioned her.
"Is it from your boyfriend, Elle?"
"Are you going to share?"
"Share what? Her boyfriend or her chocolates?"
Elle giggled too. The attention was nice, and the strangeness of the night she met her suitor was wearing off. He was probably just visiting his friend, and lost track of time, like he said. She wondered why she hadn't seen him. Obviously, he was stopping by to drop off the gifts. But when she went back to the ICU to inquire about the mysterious visitor Crowley, the nurses said they hadn't seen him. She paused by the patient's room where she had first seen him, but the bedridden man had checked out. The gifts continued, and Elle became more and fascinated with her suitor.
"Is Crowley his first or his last name?" Nurse Margaret asked over her steaming cup of tea. It was the morning after a long shift, but Elle and Margaret couldn't bring themselves to make the long walk home. The cafeteria was full of visitors and patients, dragging their IVs in tow.
"I think it's his last name. I don't know. He doesn't sign any of the gifts." Elle sipped from her mug. "It's all very strange."
"Well I think it's creepy."
Elle rolled her eyes. Margaret never held back punches, and said everything as soon as she thought it.
"That man is staring at you," Margaret said suddenly, leaning in. "No don't look! Oh, Christ, he's coming over. It must be your Mr. Crowley!"
It was him. He wore the same dark suit as the first night. His hair was neatly combed and his beard was trimmed. His eyes seemed black, the same way they did the first night she saw him, but then he moved into the light and he was back to normal. He was walking towards them and Elle could feel her heart thumping in her chest. Her palms were sweaty. She opened her mouth to say something.
But he walked right past her without a word. Margaret seemed to be holding her breath.
"Wait, was that him?"
Elle shook her head. "No," she lied smoothly. She could feel her cheeks turning red with embarrassment. "That wasn't him. Are you ready to walk home now?"
There wasn't much of a break between their nights in the hospital. Not all of the nurses she first lived with had stayed on after the war, but Elle was close with the girls that did. She and Margaret shared one room. They both worked nights in the pediatric ward. Lyla and Kate worked in the operating theatre. There was no telling when they were home or not. Elle was grateful that even with her long hours she was never forced to come in during the day when she was sleeping. That day though she couldn't sleep. She sat straight up in her bed, pretending to read, while Margaret snored beside her. Why hadn't he acknowledged her? Not even a head nod, she thought to herself. Perhaps he wasn't as keen on her as she had assumed. Or perhaps the gifts weren't even from him. How silly of her to think that in the first place, seeing as they had met only the one time. And so briefly. God, what an idiot she had been. Thinking a man she met one time had fallen for her.
At six thirty, Margaret woke in preparation for their shift. They dressed in silent. Elle slipped into her clogs and regarded her white clad figure in the mirror. She looked so small in her uniform, and so young—more like a little girl playing dress up than a real nurse. Crowley had looked much older. There was no way he had been the one to send the gifts, she thought now. She pulled her hair back, an effort to look more mature.
"Let's go. I don't want to be late," said Margaret.
"Coming."
The two went their separate ways when they arrived, seldom even catching glances of each other as they went from room to room. There was a staph infection floating around the ward and nothing the nurses and physicians could do seemed to stop it. The pitiful cries of the children were heartbreaking. Elle was coming out of a patient's room when she ran, quite literally, into Teddy's mother.
"Ellie?" It was the little boy's mother. The one she cared for nightly. The mother was weeping and her voice was barely a whimper. Elle stiffened.
"Elle, it's Teddy. He started coughing and coughing. And his machines started beeping and there's blood—"
Elle didn't listen to the rest. She skirted past the boy's mother and into his room Margaret and a few other nurses were already there. Margaret caught her eye.
"Elle fetch a doctor!" she snapped. But one was already making his way inside the cramped patient room. He pushed past Elle, throwing her into a wall.
"We're losing him," she heard someone say. Suddenly his mother was in the room, and his father too. Elle didn't even know he had been at the hospital that night. One nurse ripped off the boy's shirt, and another was readying the paddles. Now his mother was sobbing. She was trying to reach for her son, but her husband held her back.
"Clear."
Elle steadied herself for the noise that came next, and the smell of burnt flesh that followed. She clamped her eyes shut.
But there was nothing. No sound. No scent. Elle opened her eyes.
It was as if time had frozen. There was Teddy lying limp in the hospital bed. He was practically all ribs, his skin grey, his little blue eyes rolled into the back of his head. There was the doctor, standing over him with the paddles. There were the parents, huddled in grief in the corner. There were the nurses, poised and ready. And there was Crowley, seated in the armchair, just as she had found him that first night.