The Magic Hour

Chapter 7: Is It Just a Dream, After All?

NALIV WAS TALKING to him. She was standing on a hill and the wind was high, the sky overcast. Her words were distinct.

    "You feel with such intensity, Nathaniel. All your kind do. Whether it manifests as joy or grief, as love, as so many intangible emotions, this life force you hold brings with it an energy of being you cannot live without. It is what gives you the opportunity to open the door into another way of perceiving. Here, take my hand.”

    He felt himself reach out toward her. A sudden blinding light filled his head and he cried out with the pain that came with it. The sound of a phone cut into the silence and scattered the dream into a strange mosaic of serrated edges.

    “Who the hell is it?” he managed.

    “You sound like death warmed over,” the voice at the other end said.

    “Is that a forensic joke? Bad headache, Nan. The phone ringing didn’t help.”

    “Well, the headache isn’t from the concussion. It’s been over a week since that accident of yours. Take some aspirin and get yourself down here, if you want to see something I think will interest you.”

    Nathan sat up and swung his feet to the floor, holding his head in both hands, pressing the phone into his ear as if it could stop the pain.

    “Listen,” he began, “I thought you’d know by now. Should’ve called you. I’m not on the force any—”

    “Like I wouldn’t get wind of that? It’s pretty much the hot gossip right now, so in case you wanted to be anonymous, you’re out of luck. But what they don’t know won’t bother them, that’s my motto, and you know what a fan I am of your captain.”

    He did know. Oberson had hired a chief medical examiner from out of state only a year ago, passing over Nan, even though she’d run the office for two years after the incumbent chief had died from a heart attack. The new high achiever had quit two months later, after bringing down the main website and losing most of the online archives. Nan had them all backed up, but she had taken a week’s vacation time to get over Oberson’s betrayal, as she readily described it. When she returned and learned what had happened, she restored the data and put the morgue to rights. Oberson had to promote her, but he did it grudgingly. It was something she knew and which, she told Nathan once, fed her ambition and revenge. Oberson had to consult her now directly on almost every case if an autopsy was asked for or warranted.

    “On my way.” He hung up and began searching for his clothes.

    Naliv. He could still see her on the hillside, her hair blowing in all directions in the wind. The light had been strange, muted, overcast, yet with a pale edge that reminded him of a visit he’d taken alone to the west coast of Ireland a few years before. He’d glanced up the incline of a side street and had been riveted, feeling as if the light the sky cast over everything held something inside itself for him to see, a mystery he was invited to perceive. The dream had felt the same way.

    Aspirin, Nan had recommended. Still, he was beginning to wonder. The headaches were increasing, not fading, since the concussion. He hadn’t told Janis, and wouldn’t, but it was getting increasingly difficult to treat them. He never knew when one would hit anymore. No, that wasn’t true. There were hints, signs, flashes of light from his peripheral vision, an intensification of color in the objects he looked at. There was pain, and then the dreaming. He had to admit it must be related to the accident. That didn’t mean he’d allow the surgery. He’d just have to find stronger medication. He could ask Nan when he saw her.

    No matter what her outlook, she was still taking a risk contacting him. Oberson had behaved so strangely. He could easily use Nan’s departure from official procedure as an excuse to fire her. It must be important for her to contact him, but what could she have found? The case was for all intents closed. A trivial case, a non-issue, and here he was kicked off the force, for a time at least, because of it.