THE FERAL STRUT

Chapter 46

Mary sat at Ginger's bedside, reciting a nonsense poem. She was still half in shock from the carnage. She hadn't slept, much. Maybe not at all. But concentrating on Ginger kept the images from taking her away again. She'd stared over the edge in the parking lot, close to tumbling herself, with all those burnt and battered. The first ambulance crew on the scene hadn't known where to start. So many.

She'd tried to help, holding IV bottles, keeping oxygen masks and dressings in place, unable to straighten out her thoughts.

I'm not strong enough, she thought.

Things get bad and I fall to pieces. She started singing those words, in a low voice: Patsy Cline.

Her brain kept dishing up pieces of songs in place of thoughts. She'd already sung to Ginger that she loved her, in pop song variations, a few hundred times. Is that all I am, she thought? Words? Like dry leaves hanging in the air, after the tree falls?

She hadn't told Ginger that her Dad had been in a room just down the hall and was now at the University of Utah Medical Center.

To keep her thoughts at bay, she'd brought a book and kept reading bits of it:

Twas brillig and the slithy toves,

Did gyre and gimbal in the wabe.

All mimsy were the borogoves.

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Ginger opened her eyes. "What the fuck are you talking about?" she said.

"Omigod! Gin!" Mary jumped up and made it halfway to the door, then flung herself at the bed, pawing, kissing, weeping.

"What's going on? Am I, like, sick or something?"

Mary pushed the call button for the nurse, and then tried to talk in a coherent way. "Okay— in a nutshell. You've been out for almost a week."

"Out?"

"Unconscious. A coma, sort of. When we talked you made faces, so I think you could hear us."

"Something hit my neck. There was this flash. I thought I was dreaming. First it was like I was lying on silk, silk sheets, and someone was pulling me along. But I got bigger and they couldn't move me. It was weird, like my bones were trying to get out of my body. Then it started to hurt and everything changed. Dad had sent me off to some school where they tied me up and were, like, smothering me and people kept talking. I couldn't get any sleep. So I kept yelling shut up, but they didn't pay attention. My throat is sore."

The nurse scooted in, shoes squeaking on the bright-waxed floor. She did a quick check of Ginger's monitor and peered at her pupils, as Mary circled to the other side of the bed.

"Can you tell me your name?"

"You don't know it?" Ginger was feeling cranky.

"This is important," the nurse said. "Just answer."

"Okay. Severine Melisse Rozier. "

"Where are you?"

"I'm guessing St. John's." She squinted against the window light. "Yeah. That's Snow King."

"Do you know what day it is?"

"How would I? Mary said I'd been out a week. O Shit! The gig!"

"I called and cancelled. They gave us another date, in June."

Ginger scowled at the nurse. "The questions. Could we, like, take turns?"

"Go ahead."

"Where's my Dad? I remember him talking to me— here, I guess."

The nurse looked at Mary.

"He was here. There was an accident. Well, not an accident. Somebody planted bombs at the memorial thing. Your dad got hurt. Pretty bad."

Ginger's face slackened, and tears popped out in the corners of her eyes.

"He's in the U of U med center. He'll live, they say. But they had to take off one leg, at the knee. Fractured skull and some other stuff. The bombs were in ceramic pots and the pieces, like, scattered."

"Who would do that?" Ginger said.

"The FBI's working on it," Mary said. "So is Slim. I'm betting on Slim."

"My turn," the nurse said. "Could we draw the curtain?"

Mary pulled the curtain around the oval track.

"You can stay— if she doesn't mind."

"Yeah. I'd like that," Ginger said, as the nurse flopped the cover back. "One thing." She looked at the IV tube taped to her arm, and gagged.

"What's that?"

"Could we, like take the needle off? And no shots? I'll, like, barf. Seriously."

"Here's some water. If it goes down alright, then we can take the IV out. Meanwhile, don't look at it."

Ginger accepted the glass, keeping her gaze averted. Drinking it, she gagged, but managed to swallow and keep it down. "Okay," she said.

"The doctor is on his way. He needs to approve it."

Ginger rolled her eyes in despair.

"T'was brillig and the slithy toves. . ." said Mary.

"What?" said Gin and the nurse, in unison.

"I'm distracting you, dear. Just listen." They stared at her, fascinated, as she recited the entire poem.

"Did you make that up?" Ginger said.

"No. It's Jabberwocky.  Lewis Carroll— Through the Looking-Glass."

"He wrote Alice in Wonderland," the nurse said.

"Right. And this:

Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread,

With bitter tidings laden,

Shall summon to unwelcome bed

A melancholy maiden!

We are but older children, dear,

Who fret to find our bedtime near."

"Spooky!" Ginger said. "How do you remember that stuff?"

"Actually, I just memorized it." Mary pulled the book from her bag. "Sitting here, waiting for my melancholy maiden to wake up."