Page 36 of Crystal Iris #1

Twenty-Nine

“Art is a line around your thoughts.” – Gustav Klimt

I don’t know what questions to ask or what to do as I watch Hoyt ache for his sister. The doctors took Johanna almost two hours ago. She’s been shot, maybe more than once. Hoyt’s body is still covered in her blood. We’re waiting for news when the police show up.

“Awena is… here?” I ask them. Hoyt can barely pay attention.

“There was nobody else inside the house. She’s being examined now,” says the officer, glancing at Hoyt’s bloody clothes.

“You have to find him,” Hoyt growls, his voice tight with desperation.

A doctor interrupts us. Johanna is stable, alive.

“Can I see her?” Hoyt asks.

“Come with me. She hasn’t woken up yet,” the doctor replies, leading us to her room.

Johanna is sleeping, her head wrapped in a bandage.

“I didn’t know she had hurt her head,” I say aloud, not meaning to.

The doctor explains that her right ear was injured.

“The bullet must have passed very close,” he tells us. “We haven’t found any other wounds. ”

“Will she be okay?” Hoyt asks.

“We did everything we could. Unfortunately, her right ear is permanently damaged. I’m really sorry. We’ll know more when she wakes up.”

I take a seat across from Hoyt, each of us holding one of Johanna’s hands.

“She’s alive,” Hoyt says, looking at me, tears falling down his face.

“You both are,” I reply, my own tears starting to fall.

He nods. We take turns holding her hand.

She wakes up a few hours later, but only for a moment before falling back into a deeper sleep. She seems to be in too much pain.

“Hey there,” Hoyt says softly when she opens her eyes that evening.

Her hand goes straight to her head.

“Easy,” says a nurse, stepping in.

I walk out of the room to give them space.

I’m looking for coffee when I find myself wandering down a different hallway.

I find Awena in a hospital bed. Though she seems almost frozen, unable to move, I know she isn’t sleeping—her eyes are open.

I’m about to call for a nurse when she looks at me. At my neck.

She opens her mouth and speaks in her raspy, weak voice.

“You spilled blood.”

I barely have time to process her words when she starts to move.

“You spilled blood,” she repeats. And again. And again. Her eyes never leave my prism. She’s almost out of the bed when a nurse enters.

“What’s wrong with her?” I ask, startled.

“Nothing,” the nurse replies.

“Nothing?” I ask, shocked.

“She’s healthy… besides… her mind,” the nurse explains .

Awena is getting more and more agitated. The nurse administers something to her IV. She finally stops repeating the words.

“Are you family?” the nurse asks.

“She… was gone for a long time,” I reply.

“We need to move her, we need signatures,” the nurse says.

I nod. “I’ll get her son,” I tell her, leaving the room.

I find Hoyt talking to a doctor; Johanna is resting again. I tell him about Awena, but I don’t mention the words she repeated.

“I’ll sign whatever they want. I can’t… deal with her right now.” His voice sounds defeated, exhausted.

“I’ll stay with Johanna. Go sign the papers, go back to the hotel… get changed.” I motion to his clothes. “I’ll call you when she wakes up again.”

He fights me on it but agrees in the end.

Johanna sleeps for hours. Hoyt comes back with a change of clothes for me.

I close the bathroom door behind me, and he says from the chair, “You got out. Of the car.”

“Sorry, I…” I don’t even know how to explain what I felt.

“You saved us,” he says.

“What?” I don’t understand what he means.

“Your scream. When he looked away, I moved on him.”

I don’t know what to say. I want to tell him about what happened with the prism, but Johanna is stirring now.

Hoyt moves to her left side; we still don’t know the extent of her hearing loss.

“Doctor said you’re doing great,” he tells Johanna.

“I’m sorry, Hoyt,” she says slowly.

“Sorry? You’re the one in a hospital bed.”

“I thought I could?—” “

I know. Don’t worry about that right now,” he says, taking her hand.

“My head,” she says, lifting her hand to it.

“I’ll get a doctor,” he says, moving out of the room.

“Are you guys okay?” Johanna asks me.

I nod. I stand by her until the doctor arrives.

“Awena is being moved to a place in Montana. It’s not very close to the ranch, but it’s the best place I could find there,” Hoyt tells me in the hallway an hour later.

“When did they say Johanna can go home?”

“A week, maybe. They want to monitor her. We’ll have to take it day by day.”

“I still can’t believe he shot her. Did you see it?”

“No. When I got there, she was already on the floor, bleeding.”

“I heard two gunshots.”

“He was trying to scare me. He pointed the gun away.”

“I’m so sorry, Hoyt. I’m sorry I can’t even give you a hug.”

“I’m sorry this is how you are spending your summer break.”

“I’m glad I came. I want to be here, with you, with Johanna.”

“Thank you for coming, for saving our lives.”

“I didn’t do anything, Hoyt.”

“You, the prism... I told you I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“The scream, my scream, I think I felt what you did.”

“What do you mean?”

“My prism lit up like yours, your color.”

“You felt pain?”

“I did, like my body was splitting.”

“How, why? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “When I heard the gunshot, I think my body, the prism— I don’t know... Maybe… maybe Awena has answers? ”

“The doctor told me that she’s healthy, but her mind…”

“They told me that too. She kept saying, ‘You spilled blood,’ over and over again when I found her in the room.”

“Don’t read into it, Iris. Her mind is gone.”

I nod.

Hoyt and I are taking turns being with Johanna during the day.

He insists on sleeping in the hospital at night.

We extended our stay twice, as the doctors aren’t ready to release Johanna until they’re sure she’s well enough.

I have to go back to Boston tonight. I’m somehow supposed to return to work on Monday.

I haven’t even prepped any lessons. Luckily, they’re all the same as the previous year.

My life in Massachusetts feels so far away now.

Hoyt has left, and I’m walking to Johanna’s room when I hear the voice. That guy’s voice. I’m already calling for help when he sees me and starts to run away.

“Are you okay?” I ask Johanna, seeing that she’s awake.

“He…”

“What?”

“He said he came to check on me, and our mother.”

“What? He’s the one who shot you, Johanna.”

“I don’t think he was trying to hurt me.”

“He shouldn’t be here, Johanna. He’s dangerous. The police are looking for him.”

“I don’t want to press charges.”

“What?”

“He took care of our mother, maybe all those years, I don’t know. What if he really is… my brother? I can’t send him to jail, not because of me.”

“What if he comes looking for you, or Hoyt?”

“He won’t. He doesn’t have the means. You saw where they lived. ”

“I don’t think we can trust him, Johanna.”

“You sound like my brother.”

“Hoyt was… terrified. He thought he lost you.”

“I know, I never meant… to cause him… any pain.”

“Please talk to Hoyt about?—”

“Kai, he said his name is Kai.”

The nurse comes in to inform me they’ve caught Kai, and I instantly relax with relief. Even if Johanna isn’t planning on pressing charges, I feel better knowing the police have him. Maybe Hoyt can change her mind.

Hoyt comes back as soon as he hears what happened.

“I’m sorry, Johanna, but that’s not an option,” he says when she explains how she feels about Kai.

“Hoyt, what if he is our brother?” she asks him.

“So what? He shot you. I don’t give a fuck who he is.”

“Hoyt, he wasn’t trying to hurt me.”

“He did. Your ear... it’s all because of him.”

“I can hear fine. I still have one good side.”

“Johanna, this is not up for discussion. We are going home. We’re putting all this behind us.”

I know both of them well enough to know this is far from over.

“Will you let me know when you get home?” Hoyt asks as I pack my bag. We ended up staying way too long at the lodge. My stuff is everywhere.

“Yes.” I’m already missing him.

He walks closer.

“Thank you for everything you did these weeks, these months. I’ve really enjoyed having you by my side.”

“Thanks for having me at your home. I’ve enjoyed it too. I never knew how much I could like the countryside.”

“Let me get Jo settled, and I’ll visit you soon.”

“Do you think she’s... okay enough to go home?”

“I think so. I’ll hire a nurse to change her bandages or take care of anything if necessary, but she should be okay to be driven to and from the hospital for those visits now.”

“She doesn’t even seem too upset by the hearing loss.”

“She’s tough like her horses.”

I smile at the thought, Mona coming to mind. “Mona... I really don’t have words. She’s amazing.”

“She’ll be waiting for you, hopefully tamed by the holidays,” he says.

“I’m looking forward to my next break already.”

“Me too,” he says, kissing his fingers and gesturing to put them on my lips.

I could feel my body warm to the gesture, even without the physical touch.

“You know how you say everything happens for a reason?” I ask him, zipping my luggage.

“Yeah?”

“What do you think is the reason we can’t touch?”

“I’ll be damned if I know. Probably because if we could, I wouldn’t be able to pull myself away.”

“And it doesn’t bother you?” I ask him.

“I’m thinking we move to the Bahamas, get a beach shack, and live our days in the water, like fish.”

I smile. “I could do that.”

He smiles back, taking my bag to the car waiting for me outside.