Part Six: Evil twin

Jul 05, 2009 Features / Columnists, The Creative Corner

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By Michael Jordan

They placed Karen’s baby near the sick girl in ICU. It slept little, awakening every few minutes to cry feebly.
The naked terror in its eyes chilled Maxwell. He found it hard to believe that this shrunken child was the same chubby boy that he had tickled under the chin only the day before.
The baby was in Dr. Delon’s care, and it was to the Haitian specialist that Maxwell decided to unburden himself.

Because there was little doubt now that something was horribly wrong. He had spoken to both Karen and Sandra, and their stories appeared to be the final pieces of a macabre puzzle.
The baby was alright when Karen put him to bed. But that night, she had a strange dream. Full moon…and someone was chasing her on the seawalls. A fair-skinned, red-eyed woman, whose feet did not touch the ground. Strange, but she felt that she had dreamed of the woman before…
She’d awoken to her baby crying; a choking sound, not his usual healthy bawling. She had thought that maybe he was suffocating in his blanket and had tried to turn to him. But she could not move. She could not scream. She could hear him threshing around near her.
She could not see…her eyes seemed pasted shut. And someone, she sensed, was standing near the bed watching her.

No…she didn’t think she had been dreaming. When her eyes had finally opened, something had shifted from the bed towards the bedroom window…
Maxwell had believed her, because Sandra had dreamed, too…
Sitting on the bed, hoarse from weeping, she had told him everything.
It was another ‘flying dream’, almost like the last one. She had flown over Alberttown, entering a house that tugged at her memory; feeling someone dragging her to a room; crying because she did not want to go.
But this time she knew who was with her, because, in a way, the person was her…
“My name was Isobella,” she said, and Maxwell felt himself grow cold at the sound of the familiar name. “When Isobella’s grandmother was dying, she asked to see a priest. She told him…things about herself, but he thought she was mad. She begged them to bury her with her jewels. But Isobella stole the ring, and from then—” She broke off, shaking her head, before continuing her account of the dream…
“…we went into the room. We floated above a bed. A woman and her baby were sleeping there. Max, I knew them! Oh God, I feel like I going mad…”
“It was just a dream, Sandra…”

She sighed. “Max…Max…it was real! The stroller by the door. The pink sheet on the bed…”
He and a few neighbours had gone to Karen’s house after the commotion began. And a stroller was by the door. He couldn’t remember, but had the bed sheet been pink?
“…we moved nearer to the bed. Karen start to breathe fast. Her lips were moving, like she was trying to say something. But Isobella laughed. She bent to Karen, blow her breath in her face.
Karen moaned something and kept on sleeping. But the baby woke up.
“It see us, Max! It eyes open big, then it start to cry. I wanted to pick him up, to comfort him. but then Isobella move to the baby. It start to hiccup—.” She was crying again.

“Stop, Sandra—“
“—and—and Isobella p-put her mouth to its neck—“
“Sandra—”
And then she look at me. She look at me and I—oh God—“
At that point Sandra had fled to the washroom, and he had heard that awful vomiting from the night before.
Later, she spoke of an earlier dream in which she had made a sort of pact with ‘Isobella’ not to harm Wayne. But yet it had almost happened the night before. She had awoken with this terrible thirst and had eventually drained the ketchup bottle in her desperation.
All this he related to Dr. Delon, sitting with Sandra in the doctor’s Kingston apartment. She did not show skepticism about his story. She did not tell him he was mad. She merely nodded, as if she had known all along.
She remained silent for a moment, staring at them as if gathering her thoughts. Then:
“I want you to understand this, Sandra. You must not blame yourself. You are not doing these things. It is the thing inside you—”
He felt Sandra tense. He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “What—thing?”
“Every culture has a different name for it. I believe that it was passed on to you through the talisman…the ring. I believe that in sleep, the ring-spirit takes over, and your soul, and whatever it is, wander in the night—”

“And we kill babies…oh God, what is this…”
“Not you, Sandra. It just uses your body. I believe that because Maxwell removed the ring, it doesn’t have as much a hold on you. Like a new transplant, you are rejecting it. And maybe because you are a good person.”
Now something like fear touched the regal features. “As I said, this thing is not you. But it could become you in time.” She stared at Maxwell. “You need to find someone who can help your wife.”
Maxwell stared back at the Haitian doctor, his vision blurred by sudden tears. “I don’t—I don’t know anybody. I thought—” He shook his head, unable to continue.
Dr. Delon sighed. “In the hospital at home, I have treated three children like the ones in ICU. But I have never helped the person who was —like your wife.”
She was silent again. Then suddenly she leaned forward and squeezed his hand. She nodded, and he sensed that she had come to a decision.
“Maxwell…Sandra, I think I may be able to help you.”
Sandra was weeping again.
“You can…help us now?”
“Tonight,” she replied.
“Tonight.”

(Next week: Haitian magic)

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