1 Falls Forward, 2 Steps Back

Chapter 5

Chapter 5Lina

When Lina woke up, the woman with the kind eyes was gone, along with everyone else. She was lying in a bed and for a brief moment it all felt like a dream, except the bed wasn’t her own and neither was the sleep shirt she was wearing. Panic gripped her as she recalled they’d wanted to take her to a hospital, but the nice and very clean room she was in surely could not be it. For one, she was alone and there was no moaning and crying—sure signs of pain and suffering—anywhere to be heard. Secondly, the air didn’t reek of illness or neglect, it smelled like—

Lina sniffed cautiously but it was impossible to place the smell or lack thereof. In the light that was coming through the huge window, she could tell that the bedspread and sheets were very white and her shirt was a faded cotton, often washed but serviceable, and she made a mental note to thank the woman who’d lent it to her. She must’ve put it on at some time last night despite having no recollection of having done so.

Lina blinked a couple of times to shake off the sluggishness that stubbornly clung to her and carefully turned her head from right to left. The pain from last night was mostly gone, apart from a little stiffness that would likely disappear as soon as she got up and about. Bringing her right hand up to her face, she touched the bandage someone had wrapped around her head. No, glued to it somehow, for it stuck on its own. Her hair had come loose at some point and hung past her shoulders, and she longed for a comb or brush to untangle it. But first she needed to—

“Ow.”

Not only had her knee collided with the edge of the bed which strangely was higher than the mattress, something had yanked on her arm as well. A rivulet of blood ran from the crook of her elbow down her wrist, but what alarmed her more was the strange contraption she was tethered to. A container of sorts hung high on some sort of metal stand from which snaked a long tube. Fascinated, she watched a drop form inside the container, watched it fall and—

“No!”

Tearing the tubing that contained the poison from her arm, she screamed just as the door flew open and a woman charged in. It was a tall buxom woman with skin the color of the deer she’d seen on yesterday’s walk and her hair—if it was hair—hung in many braids, alternating red and deep black, as if she was the very devil.

“Aw, honey, now why in the Lord’s name would you do that?”

Lina scrambled to one side of the bed as far as the rail allowed but the woman had already grabbed her arm, and weak as she still was, Lina was no match for her. Before she knew it, the woman had wiped the blood from her arm and wrapped a bandage around it. A real bandage, only it was not white but a vibrant blue. It clung to her arm like a second skin.

“All done, see? No need to get excited.”

Lina took a deep breath. As outlandish as the woman looked in her matching blue pants and top and her red and black hair, her voice was that of a regular person and she was looking at Lina now with what seemed like honest concern.

“I am not excited,” Lina enunciated stiffly. “I was just looking for the chamber pot.”

“The what?”

The woman gave her a confused look, before guffawing loudly. “Oh, sweetie, aren’t you the funny one? Now, you stay right here and I’ll get you one, okay?”

Lina nodded and the woman procured a pot from a cupboard across from the bed. “Lift your bottom, will you?”

“I will not.” Lina glared at the woman, only now noticing the name spelled out on the front of the shirt she was wearing. “Kiara. I shall do my business in private like any decent human being.”

“My, my, someone is feeling better. Why don’t I accompany you to the restroom then? Sorry, alone is a no-go, according to doctor’s orders.”

Lina’s face grew hot at the mention of a doctor but her need was pressing enough that she didn’t argue any further. To her surprise, there was small room embedded in this larger one and it held an actual commode, the newfangled, fancy kind Lina had heard about but never seen. Relief was bliss—Kiara, thankfully, had turned her back—but Lina was unsure whether the neat little squares of paper she was handed were indeed meant for wiping herself. There was no other option, though, so she quickly dabbed herself dry and in vain looked for a place to dispose of the little papers. Only when Kiara nodded towards the commode did she let go of them, jumping when Kiara pushed a button and a waterfall suddenly roared. Fascinated, she watched the papers disappear with a loud gurgle.

“Come on, now. No, wash your hands first.”

Kiara turned a knob and water flowed from a spigot above a basin. She didn’t even have to pump. Lina stuck her hand underneath to wash. She gave an astonished snort, for the water was quite warm. How it had gotten there was akin to a miracle.

Lina would’ve liked nothing better than to wash her whole body with the warm water, but her head reeled and she had to lean heavily on the arm Kiara offered as she slowly made her way back into bed.

“Now, you stay put, hear me? There’s bound to be a breakfast plate waiting for you somewhere.”

Kiara left and Lina once again bowed her head.

“Our Father, which art in heaven—”

Was this purgatory? After a night’s rest, it felt less possible, despite the toilet and warm water in the sink. The grey light of winter was coming in from the large windows and there were scuff marks on the worn linoleum next to her bed. In a corner of the room, Lina spotted a dead spider. Also, the plaster behind the shiny black rectangle that hung from the wall across her bed was beginning to peel.

Surely if God had created this place, it would be pristine. Scary, yes, for purgatory must be scary, but certainly perfect in every other way. But—and a glimmer of hope formed somewhere deep inside Lina’s body—what if this was not the afterlife? What if she’d not plunged to her death when she fell into that hole, but into another dimension too farfetched to fathom?

As if on cue, the door opened and another woman stepped in, also wearing a matching top and bottom, except hers were black. She carried a large tray with several domes on it and with her came a distinctly kitchen-y smell. She set it on a small table on wheels, then rolled it so that the table stretched across the bed and the wheeled legs disappeared beneath the bed. That was handy!

Suddenly ravenous, Lina lifted the largest dome. Underneath was a pile of fluffy scrambled eggs with several sausage links beside them. The next dome covered a smaller plate with two pieces of browned bread cut into neat slices. There was a shiny rectangle with some colorful pictures across the top of it and a smaller square wrapped in silver paper next to the bread pieces on the plate. But what attracted Lina’s attention the most was the steaming mug of coffee off to one side, next to a glass that contained a thick, orange fluid.

The coffee was hot and Lina took a careful sip. It was also weak but it was coffee, free coffee that someone other than Lina had prepared, and to have it served in bed was decadent and not at all what she’d expected. The scrambled eggs were cold and didn’t taste like eggs normally tasted, and the sausages were rubbery with some kind of strong herbal flavor, but not ever having been one to snub food, Lina dug in with gusto. The bread, however, was the real surprise. It was soft and spongy, and in flavor resembled no bread Lina had ever before eaten. She ate it anyway, the first slice plain, the second with what turned out to be a rather peculiar and very sweet jelly. It said grape on the label and was purple in color but it didn’t taste like anything she’d previously encountered either.

She’d just swallowed the last bite and was contemplating the small see-through container that held tinned peaches when there was a knock on the door, and another woman came in. It was the first woman Lina had seen in a skirt since she fell through the hole and her eyes were immediately drawn to it, despite it being shorter than modesty demanded. It not only showed the woman’s ankles but half of her calves. The woman wore glasses in bright and shiny red with sparkly stones on each side and her hair hung loose and very unevenly cut around her round face. Over the skirt, she wore not a blouse but a sweater in red and green that had the most ridiculous design on the front of it. Some animal with antlers that might’ve been a deer except for the big eyes and red button of a nose. Lina stared at it so fascinated she completely missed what the woman said.

“Hi, sorry to interrupt your breakfast, Miss—” The woman looked down at some papers she was holding, “Gavenredden?”

“Gaugenrieder.”

“Um, yes, Miss…may I call you Lina?”

Lina nodded, figuring it didn’t matter one way or another as she’d already been called Sweetie and accompanied to the lady’s room by Kiara.

“Okay, Lina. My name’s Amanda. I’m the social worker assigned to your case. I understand that you came in last night under sedation after attacking one of the EMTs and that you’ve been unable to provide any information about your home situation thus far. Is that correct?”

“Most certainly not.” Lina narrowed her eyes at the woman, wanting to clam up, yet sensing she could somehow trust this woman. She’d just have to teach her a lesson or two about the impertinence of assuming.

“My home situation is just fine, thank you very much, Miss, em, Amanda, and I certainly don’t make a habit of going around attacking people. I am a respected teacher in town and have been for many years. I was visiting my cousin Hans on the farm over Christmas when I fell into this…this hole on his field. I didn’t know I was in a cave, you see, until these angels came, well, I suppose they weren’t real angels. I just thought they were because of the light and—” She paused to catch her breath for a second.

“There were lots of lights, more lights than I’ve ever seen. Red ones and green ones, too, even blue ones, and—well, you have to admit, that’s not natural. Not natural at all.” She shook her head, recalling the wonder of it. But then maybe her brain, exhausted from the experience, had just made it up. For this room she was in, despite the unusually large windows and newfangled toilet, was just that, a room.

Amanda chuckled. “I have to agree with you there. I hate the commercialism myself. It seems like every year people get more and more carried away. Seeing angels wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing in my opinion. But it’s important I ask you some questions before your doctor releases you. Do you feel up to having a little chat with me?”

“I can go home afterwards?”

“That will be up to your doctor, of course, but it’s my job to make sure you have a safe living environment to return to. Do you feel safe at home?”

“Yes.”

She hadn’t at first, not as a young woman. But she was an old maid now, and as a long-term inhabitant of the boarding house, she enjoyed special privileges none of the other girls had. Fridolin, for example. She’d found him injured in the streets when he was just a pup and while Frau Langstuhl had balked at first when she’d brought him home, he’d become such a faithful protector that the old lady gladly kept him with her for the long hours Lina spent at school.

Fridolin. Lina swallowed drily, willing herself only to think of the here and now and how to leave this strange place.

“This may seem like a peculiar question, but I’m afraid I was not myself when I came here last evening. Do you mind telling me where we are?”

“We’re in Memorial Hospital. It’s the closest to where they picked you up.”

Pressing her lips together, Lina nodded.

Just focus on getting out of here.

Once she had the dirt of the street under her boots and could see the sky above, things would make sense. They had to.