“I’m sorry.” A tiny frown creased the skin between the nurse’s manicured eyebrows. She wasn’t the same one who’d been on duty during our previous visit. I’d have remembered the discreet tattoo on the side of her neck, half-hidden by a shock of ginger hair. “Mr Wright is no longer a patient at this facility.”
I grabbed Mum’s hand, feeling like the floor had dropped out from under me. “Wait, what?” I said. Or tried to say—the words came out in more of a squeak. Mum’s lips pressed together until the pressure bleached them white.
The nurse pursed her own lips, looking from me to her computer screen and back again. “He was discharged yesterday.”
“But…” I didn’t know what to say. Constable Nelson had told me he’d been to see Ewan in hospital yesterday, but that had been mid-morning. Had Nelson known Ewan was about to be discharged?
“I’m sorry, we’re just a little surprised,” Mum said smoothly, taking over when I continued to flounder. “We’re family, and we didn’t realise he’d been allowed to leave. He was rather, um, unstable when he was admitted.” She dropped her voice to a whisper, as if she was sharing a scandalous family secret. “There was an incident with a fire, you know.”
The nurse didn’t seem impressed at Mum’s attempt to draw her in. She turned back to the screen, clicking her mouse once and then returning her attention to us. Had she closed Ewan’s record? It was a little pointless; we couldn’t see the screen from the other side of the desk anyway. “His doctor wouldn’t have authorised his discharge if she thought he was a danger to the community.”
“And the police…?”
“Have been notified.” The nurse smiled politely, although the expression didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything more. Have a good day.”
Once Mum and I escaped the building, I swore vehemently, attracting a glare from an old man shuffling through the nearby carpark. I resisted the urge to flip him the bird; it wasn’t his fault Ewan was on the loose with a probable Oneiroi hitchhiker.
“What now?” Mum said as we walked towards the street, where several cars crawled along, no doubt driven by people trapped in the maze of roads—and roadwork—around the hospital.
“An early lunch, maybe?” I kicked a pebble out of my way and it pinged off a nearby concrete barrier. We’d called Serenity first thing to swap shifts so we could bus it into the hospital. As a result, we had a couple of hours before we were due at the shop, which was a short bus ride from here. Monday mornings were quiet, so Serenity hadn’t minded. “We could catch the bus to Griffith, eat there before work.”
“Good idea,” Mum said, “but I meant about Ewan.”
“I don’t know. I don’t have his address or anything.” Daniel might have it, but I wasn’t sure I could convince him to tell me what it was. Helping me navigate hospital bureaucracy was one thing; helping me track the man who’d burned down my place of work was another. I wouldn’t risk it if I were him.
“We could try the White Pages.”
“Yeah.” I shoved my hands in my pockets.
“What about the Oneiroi? Can they help?”
“Leander’s sent one of the other Oneiroi the Morpheus left behind to try to convince him to come back. The Morpheus, not Leander. He shouldn’t be more than a couple of days away, though I don’t really understand how travel in Erebus works.”
“Try to convince him?”
I nodded, staring at my boots. Their purple laces were almost neon in the morning sunlight, and seeing them gave my spirits a tiny lift. “We don’t exactly have proof. Just a hunch,” I said, raising my chin and squaring my shoulders.
“Still, given how much effort the Morpheus put into pursuing Ollie for all those years, you’d think he’d be keen to catch the exile who’s been organising to overthrow him.”
It hadn’t been that much effort, not really. Sure, he’d set Leander on Ollie’s tail, but that had been all. Still, Mum had a point. Dad’s crimes had been comparatively inoffensive. “So we just have to keep a slightly unhinged pyromaniac nurse and his uber-powerful dream spirit master away from us for two days. And maybe a slightly unhinged police officer too.”
“More like five days. Maybe six,” Mum corrected as we crossed the road, heading towards the bus stop.
“Huh?” I glanced at her.
“You didn’t factor in the return trip, or the fact the Morpheus is still moving further away. Assuming the Morpheus is travelling slowly—which is probably the case since he’s travelling with a retinue—and the other Oneiroi hoofs it, he’ll be about three days’ away by the time he gets the message. Then he needs to get back here again, which would take at least two days if he rushes. Maybe another three.”
I rubbed my temples; listening to her sounded like one of those maths problems that involved two trains travelling at different speeds. But it also made sense. “Dammit.”
“We’ll be fine,” Mum said. I wished she sounded like she meant it.
After Serenity swept out of the shop, leaving us in charge, I took advantage of a quiet moment to reply to a couple of client queries. Then I logged onto Facebook on the store computer, sending Daniel a chatty message that, among other things, asked if he’d heard that Ewan had been discharged. When he didn’t reply immediately, I spent a few minutes figuring out how to search his list of friends. Sure enough, Ewan was there, but when I clicked on the smiling, two-tone-haired profile picture that pre-dated his arrest and hospital admission, all I could see were a few shares from different pages, and one of Daniel’s posts from several months before, which he’d tagged Ewan in. If Ewan had updated his page since he’d been discharged, I couldn’t see it. There was also nothing to indicate where he lived.
A White Pages search also didn’t turn up any hits for an “E. Wright”, at least not alone. There were a few hits with an E and a second set of initials, but, as far as I was aware, Ewan wasn’t married. He’d better not be, given he asked Jen out. I took a box of scented candles down from a shelf, grunting at the weight. Then I laughed at myself. Given he’d invited her out so he could drop a blight larva in her coffee, the fact he may have done so while married seemed like a lesser offence.
“What’s so funny?” Mum asked when I came out to the shopfront, the box balanced on one hip.
“Nothing.” I dropped it onto a stool and pulling a box cutter out of my back pocket to slit the tape. The mingled scents of vanilla bean and berries drifted up as I pulled open the flaps. “Has it been quiet out here?”
“As a graveyard.” Mum wrinkled her nose. “I rearranged the incense alphabetically, African violet to ylang-ylang. Any luck on the computer?”
“No.” I pulled out a couple of multi-coloured candles. “Normally I’m on board with people using social media privacy settings, but it’s inconvenient when I’m trying to stalk someone.”
“I can imagine,” she said with a smile, coming over to help me write on the sticky labels we used for price tags.
I couldn’t shake my sense of unease; every time the bell tinkled to announce a customer, I spun towards the door, half-expecting it to be Ewan, Nelson or both. After the vehemence of my reaction frightened a teenage boy into backpedalling out the door, Mum set me to working off nervous energy by restocking the shelves, cleaning every square inch of the store, and respraying the building’s exterior vents and around the window sills and doorjambs with surface spray. I said a silent apology to any butterflies or bees in the area as I did that last task, trying not to breathe in the spray’s sickly sweet aroma—but refreshing the spray did make me feel safer.
By the end of the day, the door glass was so clear it gleamed, and there wasn’t a speck of dust even among the dream catchers: no small achievement given the dangling feathers seemed to attract the stuff. I was exhausted, but I’d worked off some of my demons. And at least I’d earned my salary.
I checked the computer one last time before shutting it down for the night. Daniel still hadn’t replied. Maybe he was on shift.
“I’m thinking about getting a car,” Mum told me as we locked up, packing the take into Serenity’s safe and setting the alarm—another benefit of this new shop location. “I did get my licence before you were born, but I let it lapse after I went into the home. Do you think I’ll need to re-sit the test?”
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Probably?” I’d gotten my licence a couple of years ago but I rarely drove. A terrifying thought dawned on me, and I paused midway through dropping the shop’s keys into my handbag. “You wouldn’t need me to give you lessons, would you?”
“You don’t have to look so horrified.” Mum sounded vaguely offended. “I was a good driver.”
Most people think they’re good drivers. “I’m just not sure I’m ready for that responsibility,” I said, avoiding eye contact. I didn’t want to teach anyone to drive—or remind them how to—for a long, long time. Not until I had kids and had no choice … and maybe not even then. I tried to force some enthusiasm into my voice. “Anyway, having a car would be awesome. You should go for it.”
“I couldn’t afford a new car, but I could get a decent—”
My phone buzzed in my pocket; I’d set the ringtone to silent. “Hold that thought,” I said as I fished it out. Justin Armstrong-Taylor. “It’s Jat.” I hit the answer button. “Hello?”
“Have you seen Olivia?” My cousin’s voice was low and fierce.
“Not since her party. Why, what’s she done?” I’d seen posts from her in amongst my Facebook feed, but I’d been in a rush and hadn’t paid much attention.
“She’s missing.”