Gwendy's Magic Feather

51

GWENDY WAKES UP EARLY the next morning with what feels like a mild hangover, despite having not touched a drop of alcohol the night before. She downs a bottle of water and knocks out a hundred sit-ups and fifty push-ups on the bedroom floor, hoping to get her blood pumping and chase away the headache. She’d slept restlessly, with unremembered dreams lurking just below her consciousness—but even without the details, she senses they were unpleasant and frightening.

The snow stopped falling a short time before daylight, leaving behind four or five inches in Castle County and most of western Maine. The traffic man on Channel Five warns travelers looking for a post-Christmas getaway to adjust their schedules for delays. Gwendy calls her father and informs him that she’s coming over to shovel the driveway and sidewalk, and she’s not taking no for an answer. Surprisingly, he agrees without an argument and tells her he’ll have hot coffee and leftover sausage-and-egg casserole from yesterday’s brunch waiting for her on the table when she arrives.

Gwendy throws on warm clothes and laces up her boots, then heads downstairs to clean off her car. Once she’s finished scraping the windows and brushing off the roof, she climbs inside the Subaru and immediately turns down the heat. She’s already sweating.

On her way down the hill, she spots a group of children having a snowball fight at the Castle View Rec Park. She can hear their excited shouts and squeals of delight even with the windows up. She smiles and tries to remember how long it’s been since she’s plunked someone with a snowball. Too long, she decides.

Ten minutes later, she turns onto Carbine Street and spots the flashing red and yellow lights of an ambulance in the distance. Her first pang of concern is for Mrs. Goff—she suffers from occasional bouts of vertigo and has fallen before. Last spring, she’d spent two weeks in the hospital nursing a broken hip. As she gets closer, Gwendy realizes the ambulance is parked in her parents’ driveway and someone on a stretcher is being loaded into the back. She stomps on the brakes and fishtails to the curb.

Her father stumbles out the front door of the house, carrying Mrs. Peterson’s purse in one hand and a jacket in the other. His face is drawn and pale.

“Dad!” Gwendy shouts, jumping out of the car and meeting him on the snow-covered sidewalk. “What happened? Is Mom okay?”

They both turn and watch as the ambulance pulls away, disappearing down the street.

“I don’t know,” he says weakly. “She started having cramps shortly after I talked to you. At first, she thought it was because she ate too much last night, but then the pain got worse. She was curled up in a ball on the bed, crying. I was about to call you when she started vomiting blood. That’s when I called the ambulance. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Gwendy takes her father by the arm. “You did the right thing. Are they taking her to Castle County General?”

He nods, his eyes big and ready to fill with tears.

“Come on,” she says, guiding him toward the curb. “I’ll drive you.”