The Chapel of the Wyrm by Gerhard Gehrke

Author:Gerhard Gehrke [Gehrke, Gerhard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lucas Ross Publishing
Published: 2020-11-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

TAM LAY WITH HALF-OPEN eyes in a bed in the opposite wing of the hospital. The creature followed behind as Isabel scooted into the room. The staff and patients remained outside or out of sight. Isabel didn’t care how this had been arranged. Tam was here. Alive. Breathing.

The last time she had seen her friend was after the fall. Her dead eyes staring blankly.

“Tam?”

She didn’t respond. Isabel took her limp, damp hand into hers and squeezed it. Again she said her friend’s name. She had dark stitches on her scalp and more along her arm.

“What’s wrong with her? Why won’t she say anything?”

“Her injuries. Broken bones like you which have mostly healed. Damage to her brain.”

“You said you could talk to her. Tam! Wake up!”

But Tam lay there with an unchanging expression.

“I speak with her every night,” the creature said. “She’s listening now. I fear she will never be able to use her tongue. She’s paralyzed. But her mind yet lives.”

Isabel wiped tears from her eyes. “She can hear me? Tam? I’m so sorry. I didn’t want this. This is my fault. You were right. We shouldn’t have tried to come here.”

No flicker or expression crossed Tam’s face.

The creature leaned in above the bed. “She knows. She says it’s not your fault and not to cry.”

Isabel looked back up at the creature. “How? How does she answer? How are you able to speak with her?”

“It’s like how I can get your bones to mend. I can hear her as if she were whispering to us.”

Isabel got closer to her friend’s face. Tam’s parched lips weren’t moving. She put her ear down on her chest. She was breathing gently. But no words were coming out of her.

“But you can make her better.”

“I’ve done everything I can,” the creature said. “Right now she’s tired. Maybe you can visit at supper and help the sisters feed her. Talk to her. Tell her your concerns. Share with her the things you can do and see. Perhaps you, too, will hear her when she speaks. Come, Is-a-bel, she needs her rest.”

Isabel managed to get her chair outside. But she was too overwhelmed to move further. Some time passed. The creature vanished without her noticing, and the sisters and other patients returned to the hospital. A pair of sisters entered Tam’s room and began changing her clothes and sheets. Isabel went back in once they were finished.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. But perhaps like their broken bones, the creature might make Tam’s mind healthy again. And Isabel would do everything in her power to help.

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