Page 59 of How to Fake a Haunting

Dark.

I stood at the center of a long black tunnel, unsure of which direction I should go.

I turned left, walked for what seemed like ages, spurred forward by the distant night sky.

But when I reached the tunnel’s end, I found the sky was merely a mirror, reflecting back the long passage through which I’d come.

The passage in the mirror appeared featureless, unknowable, which meant the tunnel must go on forever in the opposite direction.

I turned. The darkness was obscene. Intimate.

I didn’t want to step forward, but I didn’t have a choice.

Light.

A flicker. A metal box. The back of a vehicle?

Longer than it was wide. Bright flashes of white.

Gauze. Starched shirt. The bite of rubbing alcohol in my nostrils with no ensuing sting.

“We need to stabilize,” someone shouted.

“Too deep!” and “severed tendons” and “surgery.” I smelled blood like I’d never smelled blood before.

Not after the abortion. Not during my visions of the future.

This was blood as proof of life. Proof of existence. My existence.

Dark.

In the tunnel of my mind, I walked. One foot in front of the other, arms held out like a child balancing on a curb.

I braced for the walls to close in on me.

For the darkness to seep into my skin. Waited, breathless, for something to drag me back to the yawning black hole of a mirror.

For something to devour me in the dark. But nothing came.

Except . . .

This time the way ahead did seem lit by stars, twinkling like a million tiny mirrors against a midnight sky. I could keep walking—would keep walking—and make it out of the darkness.

Light.

I opened my eyes. There was so much color.

Not merely the sun streaming through the blinds, but the flowers.

Pink roses and orange daylilies. Garnet irises, their satiny petals beautiful enough to pacify even the staunchest detractors of the color red.

I could smell them too. Fresh, like sunlight itself.

I turned. Beside the flowers, beside the windows, there were chairs. Empty ones.

But Beatrix was not sitting. She was standing. At my opened eyes, she leaned over the bed. Her face was light and love and safety and happiness. A tiny mirrored image of my own.

“Mommy, Mommy!” she squealed. “You’re up! I missed you so much!”

When she leaned down to hug me, I caught our reflection in the tempered glass of the hospital windows.

I caught our reflection, and smiled.