Now
SOON AFTER SULLY Dupree gripped Amy Shimp’s hand, the euphoria in the room was replaced by confused, anxious looks of Okay, what now?
Amy’s mom, Tammy, started crying all over again. By then, Archie had left the room like a zombie to whatever part of the house he went when he needed to not be seen. Typically, it was where his current project was; they’d all learned long ago that when he was renovating, he wanted to be left alone. Way back when they’d first purchased the Smite House, he and Maxine did the work together. Then it became the job for the boys, after they were old enough to hand him whatever tool he required, to be his assistants. His little apprentices, he’d call them, although he gave them very little to do. Never once had he allowed Gideon to hammer a nail, although before Sully’s accident he’d begun to trust his little brother with not only the hammer but the screwdriver, and one day Gideon had even spied him helping with the handsaw. After Sully’s accident at the tunnel, Archie made it a habit to work alone.
Maddy comforted the woman with whom she’d driven into town. Her embrace with Tammy Shimp looked awkward, reminding Gideon that the two women didn’t really know each other. Coma was their only bond. But that bond was why they were here, and the “what now” looks Gideon saw around the room had an easy answer.
He started around the end of Sully’s bed like his pants were on fire.
Maxine said, “Gideon, what’s wrong?”
Gideon found what he needed on the end table beside the bed. He held up the newspaper. “The names Sully spoke last night. Jax wrote them down.”
Maddy said, “He spoke?”
“We weren’t here,” Gideon said. “We were down the street.”
“Gideon’s welcome home party,” Maxine added. “He’d been overseas.” She smiled at Maddy, like she needed her to be impressed. “He was awarded a Purple Heart.”
Maddy grinned, like it had worked.
Gideon shook the paper in his hand. “Jax was out of the room, heard some noise, and then a voice, and came running. Whoever it was escaped out the window. We don’t know if he was trying to abduct Sully or kill him or what, but—”
“It was a he?”
“Yes.”
“He had antlers,” said Maxine.
“He was wearing antlers,” Gideon corrected. “According to Jax. Like a Halloween costume or something.” Gideon handed Maddy the newspaper. “But when Jax returned, Sully was sitting up in bed, shouting out names. Random names. Jax wrote most of them down.”
“He has proof,” Maxine said. “Jax … On his phone. He was leaving his wife a message at the time. He can play it for you.”
“No, that’s fine,” said Maddy. “I believe you.” She looked toward the bed, where Sully and Amy still held hands, both sleeping peacefully. “Right now, I’d believe just about anything.” She looked at the names on the newspaper, turning it clockwise as she read, since Jax had written them so haphazardly, up and down, sideways, wherever he could find blank space.
Maddy bit her lower lip, closed her eyes.
Gideon felt something stir within him, because damn she was cute, but get it together. “Maddy, what is it? Do those names mean something?”
Maddy opened her eyes like she’d been hit with some newfound sense of clarity. “These names, they’re not random at all. Ever since I came out of my coma, I’ve … I’ve had what I call memory dumps. Memories from my life, but … even more so from where I was during my coma.”
“What do you mean, where you were?” asked Maxine.
Tammy Shimp perked up too. They all did. Because, perhaps, where Maddy was had something to do with where Sully and Amy were now.
“The names.” Maddy pulled her own paper from her back pocket and unfolded it. “Tammy, before I picked you up, I stayed for three days in a hotel in Atlanta. I’d been having dizzy spells and wasn’t confident I could safely drive.”
“That’s where you remembered Amy’s name,” Tammy said.
“Yes,” said Maddy. “I remembered Sully’s name early on. Amy’s name came to me in Atlanta. But that wasn’t it.” She showed Gideon the paper. “I remembered these names as well. All of them cross-check the names your friend wrote on that newspaper. There’s two more on the newspaper than what I have here, but all of mine are accounted for on yours.”
“But what does it mean?” asked Tammy.
The question had been directed toward any or all of them, but Gideon settled on Maddy, who again had her eyes closed. He wondered if she might be having another memory dump right now. Or was she conjuring the strength to answer what Gideon had wanted answered since she’d said, from where I was during my coma.
“Maddy,” Gideon said, prodding. “What is it?”
She opened her eyes, exhaled. “We need to contact these people.”
“How?” asked Maxine. “We don’t even know who they are, or where they live.”
“They’re all …” Maddy stopped, as if carefully thinking how best to explain. “They’re coma patients. I’m sure of it. These names … they’re familiar to me. I don’t know how we reach them all, or how to even start, I just know that we need to get them here. Right now.”
“Why?” Tammy asked.
“It’s hard to explain … I still have holes.” She gestured toward the bed. “Just know that when these two … on this bed, are unresponsive in this world …”
“This world?” said Maxine.
Maddy looked frustrated but continued her thought. “That they are not unresponsive over there. Their minds … They … Jesus … I’m sorry.”
Maxine said, “Do you need to sit down, dear?”
“Maybe.” She looked pale. Gideon grabbed a chair and helped her into it. Maddy stared at the bed. “Their minds are active. And they’re doing more than you know over there.”
“Over where?” Maxine asked.
“Later,” Gideon said to his mother. And then to Maddy. “Tell us what you came here to tell us. Because I doubt it was just to watch my brother hold hands with that girl.”
“The message …” She touched her temples like she was in pain or trying so hard to remember it hurt. “My message was to … the Seers, that’s what we’re called over there, but the Seers … they’re arguing over how best to guard the doors …”
“Guard the doors?” Maxine asked. “From what?”
“Mom,” Gideon said. “Not now.”
Maddy continued: “We need to bring as many as we can here, together, to … to help unite them over there … And I think it has everything to do with the tunnel, here, at Harrod’s Reach.”
“But, dear,” said Maxine. “Even if we find them. Even if we can track them down …”
“I don’t know,” Maddy said, looking at Tammy now. “How did I convince you?”
Tammy said, “By showing up at my door. By saying Sully’s name and my daughter having a response to it.” Her eyes grew wet. “By giving me hope.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” said Maddy.
“We’ll give them hope,” said Gideon.
“We’re strangers,” said Maxine. “And to all of them we’ll be strangers even more. How do we convince them to come?”
“By showing them this,” said Archie Dupree from the doorway.
They all turned toward Archie’s voice. In his hand he held his cell phone, and on the screen played the video of Sully’s hand moving toward Amy’s, and then the two of them clutching hands. He too had tears in his eyes, and maybe, thought Gideon, a little hope in his heart. He smiled for the first time since Gideon’s return home, and said again, with even more gusto this time: “We show them this.”