The Key of Astrea

Cursed

It was Saturday, June 19, 2024, and it was a clear winter day in New Zealand. Jenny Tripper parked her aunt's sedan at the Wellington Regional Hospital and turned the car off. She rubbed at her temples and tried not to think about why she was there. She didn't want to remember that three months ago, her mom, Ruby, had been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. She was only thirty-nine, and the doctors had been helpless against the rapidly spreading disease.

Worried that her tears had ruined her makeup, Jenny flipped the visor down and opened the mirror. She wanted to look happy and healthy for her mom, and part of that was to hide her sadness.

Jenny's eyes were dichromatic, one brown like chestnuts and the other green as an emerald. It was a favorite feature, unlike her black hair, and her brown skin.

Jenny's hair crunched against the headrest as she leaned back in the seat and opened the door. She oozed out of the driver's-side door. Her breath was visible in the chill air. She wrapped her black coat tightly over her long lace-and-tulle black dress and pulled the collar up to her cheeks.

From the passenger-side of the sedan, her aunt, Beatrice Tripper, stepped out of the car. "I'd love it if you put on a happy face, Jenny." She pursed her artificially bright-red lips. "People are actually dying in there."

Jenny ignored her aunt as she walked to the car's back door to help the third member of their group out. She pulled at the handle, but because it had rained last night, the door had frozen shut. Jenny gave it a hard tug, and it flung open in a shower of sheet ice.

"I still don't understand why a ghost needs you to open the door." Bea said as she flipped her curly brown hair behind her shoulders and straightened her colorful dress around her thin frame.

Jenny rolled her eyes. "So she can get out of the car." She didn't know why the ghost couldn't pass through solid objects, but this was Jenny's first and only specter. The ghost had been with Jenny since she was eleven, and had even given her a name, Sally, after the dead heroine in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Being dead was where their similarities ended. Jenny's ghost wasn't a solid, stop-motion animated doll. She was ethereal, like your reflection in a car window. Though she was bound by hard objects like doors, and the ground, she could pass through living matter, like plants and animals. It didn't make sense to Jenny, so she tried not to think too hard about it.

As they reached the doors to the Blood and Cancer Centre, Jenny's heart started pounding in her chest, and Sally's form, which was normally steady, now flickered, like the flame of a candle.

"It's okay." Bea reached out to touch Jenny's shoulder.

"I'm fine." Jenny pulled away and stepped through the automatic doors.

The smells of laundered sheets, industrial-strength cleaners, and rubber gloves inside the hospital building irritated Jenny's already queasy stomach. She, Sally, and Bea took a lift to the third floor and checked in at the nurse's station. From there, they continued down the brightly lit linoleum walkway to Room 317.

Jenny paused at her mother's door and peeked through the small window. Green text broadcasted life signs on a dark-gray monitor. A large plastic mug of water with a thick bendy straw stood next to an empty pill cup on the bedside table. Ruby rested on an inclined hospital bed; her pale scalp was all that remained of once luxurious black hair; her thin blue hospital gown rose up and down over deflated breasts. Ruby wore a virtual reality headset, and her thumb and fingers twitched over a controller.

Jenny took a breath and turned the doorknob. Her aunt and Sally followed Jenny inside. Bea took her place at the end of the bed. Sally sat down in a chair in the corner of the room. Jenny brushed Ruby's hand and attempted to imbue her voice with a cheerfulness she did not feel. "What are you watching?"