Chapter 4
When I woke I found myself in a white room. I was propped up on pillows in a long hospital bed. The bright lighting killed my eyes, but I noticed mother and daddy were asleep by my side, my father reclined back in his chair while my mother's upper body was sprawled across my midsection. Jack was sitting in the back of the room, leaning on the armrest, staring at me.
"You're awake." I said, getting up and sitting at the foot of the bed, keeping his perpetual green eyes locked on mine.
"So are you." He responded.
"Jack, what happened?" I asked. "How did I get here?"
"Well, I woke up at about twelve and heard you talking in your sleep." He replied, a bit of laughter in his voice. "It was funny for a while, hearing you go on and on with someone that wasn't there." Then his face fell. " But then you started to act strange, you started moaning and begging and I got scared and went to go get Mom and Dad." His words quickened, he looked frightened. "Next thing I knew you were screaming bloody murder."
"What was I saying?" I implored.
"I don't remember." he said quietly. "All I remember is walking back into the room and seeing you slumped over in dad's arms. Your face was so...white and you were so still...I...I thought..." His lips trembled.
"And then what." I asked, pressing further.
"Mother started crying and Dad told her to go and wake up Thomas because we had to take you to the hospital, because of your fever." His brow furrowed the way our dad's did when he was trying to put something together. "On the way to the hospital, you said something. Something that made both Mother and Dad look scared.
"Was it we're all going to die?" I said. I remembered shouting that. But he shook his head.
"No. It was Cal's going to kill me. It's what you said when mother was holding you. I swear both mom and dad looked like death when you said that." Jack said. "Do you know who Cal is?"
"No. I don't remember much, not even most of my dream." I said, wistfully. "But you were there. You were being taken away in chains and I had to save you before the ship went down. And Nathan was there, he-"
"You really scared us, you know." Jack said, looking frightened still.
"Oh, Jack, you know I was only dreaming." I assured, putting my hand on his shoulder.
"I know you were dreaming." He said. "But you sure as hell didn't." I opened my mouth to retaliate when the nurse interrupted us, her tall slender form standing in the door frame.
"Miss Dawson, you really shouldn't be up." She snapped, shooing my brother off the end of the bed, smoothing out the white wool blanket.
"I feel fine now." I said, affronted. "I'll get up if I feel like it." She just sighed in exasperation.
"Miss Dawson that pond water you swam in was contaminated." She stated. "You're lucky you got away with a mild virus and not something worse, especially a girl like you." She was referring to my wiry build and ghostly complexion. I frowned.
"How come my little brother, Thomas didn't catch anything?" I snapped." I'm seven times his age and as far as I know he's quite fit.
"Babies are resilient." She muttered bitterly.
"Well so am I." I said, equally spiteful. Jack giggled and the nurse just fixed me with a withering stare that would have stopped any sane person but when it didn't work she stormed out of the room offended.
"At least now we know that fever hasn't affected your head." He laughed.
"Jack." I asked. "How difficult do you think it would be to sneak out of this hospital and go see Nathan?"
"Depends on who you're asking." He grinned.
So we had given mother and daddy the slip at the hospital, hoping that maybe we could make it back before they woke up and realized that we had escaped from them again. I felt terrible, breaking my promise to my father. But then I remembered how Nathan had acted in my dream, he had tried to kill me. I had to see his face, I had to have him hold me in his arms and make sure he was still the same Nathan I knew.
I held the brass knocker in my hands and let it thud against the heavy oak doors of the Hockley Mansion. I small red haired maid opened the door. She was pale, with sharp features and frizzy red hair similar in color to mine.
"H-how may I help you?" As soon as she looked upon me, her pupils dilated and she backed away a step, clutching her heart.
"Are you alright?" I asked, thinking it was my appearance that terrified her.
"Yes. I'm sorry." She said, in a dry voice. "It's just...you look so much like my daughter."
"Eliza has a twin?" Jack slapped his knee. "Where is she?" He asked peering over her shoulders.
"She's dead." The maid said quickly. "Died, years ago. She was just seventeen."
"Oh, I'm so sorry." The poor woman I remember thinking. Her daughter was just three years older than I, and I couldn't imagine dying so young.
"Whatever." She said coldly. "To whom do you wish to speak with?"
"May we please see Nathan Hockley?" I asked, beseechingly.
"Master Hockley is ill at the moment." She said bitterly. "I'm afraid his mother is insisting he have no visitors."
"Please Mrs..."
"Ruth." she said, a pang of sadness in her voice. "Just Ruth."
"Please, Ruth. Please, may I converse with him briefly?" The woman's sharp grey eyes met mine, as if they were magnetized. I wondered what she saw in me that reminded her of her late daughter. I wondered if maybe it was my eyes or maybe my expression that made it so painful yet so remarkable to look at me. I wished I could see what she saw.
"Very well. Come in, quickly!" She whispered, cringing as my brother's muddy brown boots met the freshly waxed foyer. She let us up a winding staircase and onto a narrow hallway. It was by far nicer than the upstairs corridor in my own home, but it didn't quite measure up to my mental image.
"This is where they sleep?" I asked her as we followed her to a closed door at the end of the cramped hallway. She shook her head.
" This is the servant's quarters. Mrs. Hockley fears that her other children may be exposed to the sickness if they are around him, so she had him moved to the gardner's bed chamber." Said Ruth, taking a key ring fastened around the sash of her apron and unlocking the door.
The room was dimly lit with an oil lamp flickering, casting ominous shadows on the peeling walls. A boy sat propped up in the metal four poster bed, reading a book. He looked up when the door opened and smiled. He looked about ready to get up but I beat him to it, pouncing on the bed and straddling his body with my legs before inflicting him with a long, passionate kiss that seemed to take his words from his mouth.
" Jeez, there are children in the room, Liza!" Jack said sarcastically, making a disgusted face before settling into a wicker chair in the far corner of the room. I slid off Nathan's body and onto the mattress, pressing my head against his sweltering skin.
" Eliza, don't do that! I'm sick!" He warned, before totally disregarding his words and catching my lips in a warm, wet kiss.
" Don't worry. I'm ill too." Rubbing his chest with my hand as he coughed. " But I had to see you." I said. " I had the most vivid, most horrible dream last night and I wanted to make sure it wouldn't happen again."
" Okay." Nathan drawled, flipping me over so I lay sprawled out over his chest. I put my hands over his flushed cheeks, blazing from fever yet so beautifully chiseled out he still looked unbelievably handsome.
" Do you feel any angst towards my brother?" I inquired. He looked over my shoulder at Jack who was pretending to read an old newspaper, growing red in the face at each remotely affectionate gesture.
" No. I barely know him. Why would I hate him?" He said locking my lips into his again, but in order to spare my brother I wriggled out of it.
" And would you ever handle me roughly or try to murder me by throwing me off a foundering ship ?" I asked feigning gravity.
" What's that supposed to mean!" he laughed out loud and started to tickle me hard under the arms and around my midsection. But then the door swung open again and a young, sleek woman with clear blue eyes was standing in the doorway looking livid.
" Nathan!" She said aghast. " What are you doing!" If her face wasn't so twisted in anger she might have been pretty with her tall, slender build and glossy dark hair swept off her neck.
Nathan pushed me off him so I landed on the floor, behind the bed, smacking my already throbbing head against the metal post. Jack rose to help me up.
"Uh, I can explain, mother." Nathan said shakily. I got up and lowered my head humbly praying that somehow he could.
