Then they clear, and my vision focuses.
I’m in a hospital room. I’m lying on a narrow bed with bars raised either side to stop me falling out. The sheets over me are white, but they have a thin blue line of stitching around the edge. The curtains are actually a pale green, the floors light gray, the walls light blue, no strong colors to alarm or upset the patients.
There are three other beds in the ward. Lying on the one opposite me is a young woman with skin the color of latte, and curly black hair pulled up into a bun on the top of her head, reading a magazine. To my right, another young woman speaks softly, in Polish, I think, to a nurse. Opposite her is a woman in her late thirties or forties with scraggly blonde hair, asleep. Light snores emit from her open mouth.
I turn my head toward the window and discover I’m not alone. A man is sitting in a chair, looking at his phone. My knight in shining armor. His light-brown hair looks as if he hasn’t brushed it. He’s wearing dark-blue jeans and a blue sweater, the same color as his eyes. He’s not as old as I thought previously; out of uniform he looks around mid-twenties, same as me. His gaze lifts to mine, his eyes widening with surprise.
He gets to his feet, sliding his phone into the pocket of his jeans, and comes to stand by the side of the bed.
“Good morning,” he says.
I swallow and wince, trying to push myself up the bed so I can sit up. I feel light-headed, a tad dizzy. “Can I have some water?” My voice is hoarse, as if I’ve been shouting at a football match.
He picks up a cup from the locker beside me and fills it with water from a jug. Ice floats in it. As he gives me the cup, I have the sudden, horrible thought that the water is going to slide down into my lungs. I don’t know how to stop it doing that.
The man’s expression softens, and he moves a hand to cradle the back of my head. “Slowly,” he murmurs. “Take a small sip.”
I tip a tiny amount of the water into my mouth.
“Now swallow,” he instructs. With his other hand, he gently strokes his thumb and forefinger down either side of my throat. His touch grounds me, and the dizzy sensation disappears.
I hesitate. It takes incredible concentration to make myself swallow the sip of water. But I do. It slips down my gullet, icy cold. It’s a ghastly sensation. But I survive, and I have a couple more sips before I nod, and he takes the cup away.
He slides his hands into his jeans pockets and smiles at me. “Your name’s Persephone,” he says. “Goddess of the Underworld. Kind of fitting, don’t you think?”
I clear my throat. “Are you really mocking a woman who’s just come back from the dead?” My throat’s sore, and my voice is husky.
“Thought it might lighten the atmosphere.”
My lips curve up in spite of myself. “Everyone calls me Persy,” I tell him. I’m not keen on the nickname. I’m not keen on the name at all, but we get what we’re given and we have to live with it.
“I’m not everyone,” he says.
“I can see that.” My voice holds a touch of sarcasm. He just grins. I wait for him to introduce himself, but he doesn’t, and in the end I ask, “What’s your name?”
“Macbeth.”
The flawed Shakespearean hero who receives a prophecy from three witches. The irony doesn’t escape me.
“Macbeth what?” I ask, adopting a confused face.
That makes him laugh. “My first name’s Callum,” he corrects. “But everyone calls me Mac.”
I want to say, “I’m not everyone,” but I don’t. The nickname suits him.
“Are you from around here?” I ask.
“Yep, born and raised in Devon. My grandfather is Scottish, though, hence the surname.” He smiles. It’s a sexy smile. It sends a tingle down my back. “I’m a police officer at Heavitree Station. A detective sergeant. I work with the Major Crime Investigation Team.”
I’m impressed. He doesn’t look old enough to be doing something that serious.
“You called me ma’am,” I say, remembering. “At the river.”
He gives me that smile again. “I was on duty at the time, on my way back from a meeting at Briarton.”
Briarton is a small Devon village on the edge of Dartmoor. The accident happened on a bend of the River Briar. I was returning from visiting Tia’s house on the moors. She hadn’t been there, and I’d driven back a little cross at having made the trip for nothing.
I look out of the window. “What time is it?”
“Eleven-ish, Saturday morning,” he says.
My eyebrows rise. “I’ve been out for a whole day?”
“They had trouble getting your body temperature up,” he informs me, “and your pulse was very weak. But you’re stronger than you look.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask softly.
“I wanted to make sure you woke up.”
We study each other quietly. A shaft of sunlight streams through the window, and for a moment it’s as if he’s surrounded by a halo. I blink away the fanciful thought.
“Have they found the car that ran me off the road?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “It happened so fast. I didn’t catch the number plate. I know it was a black car, but that’s not a lot to go on. They’ll be removing your car from the river today. Not that it’s going to be usable, obviously, but your insurance company will want to see it. Was there anything important in there?”
I’m tempted to say I was carrying my diamond jewelry in my purse, but I’m not sure he’d appreciate an insurance-fraud joke. He is a cop, after all.
And then it hits me. My purse. It was in the car on the passenger seat. My phone was in it. But it also contained something much more important than that.
“Oh no.” I cover my face with my hands.
“What? What was in there?”
I tighten my hands into fists and clench my jaw for a long moment, then blow out a breath and lower my hands. “Just a book,” I tell him. “A very special book.”
“Can you get a replacement?”
I think of the hours I’ve spent writing in my Book of Shadows, the pictures I’ve drawn, the things I’ve researched and memorized. The loss sits heavy inside me. I feel as sad as if I’ve lost a good friend. “No. It was like a… diary. Very personal.” I wave a hand. I know Kimi would tell me it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I’m alive.
Suddenly I remember something. “Why did you say ‘Kia kaha’?” I ask.
“It’s Maori,” he says. “My mother is from New Zealand. Why?”
Normally, I would never divulge my innermost thoughts to anyone. My parents would stare at me blankly, and Jude would frown and say I was being silly. But something about Mac makes me want to confess.
“I had a… dream… while I was in the water,” I tell him. “When I died, I think. I saw my sister, and she said those words. I didn’t know what they meant. And I don’t know why I saw her. She’s not dead.” She could have been projecting, I suppose. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve communicated by thought, although it’s never been as clear as that.
I wait for him to tell me I’ve got my timings mixed up, or that I had a dream here in the hospital bed, after he’d said it. Or that I must have heard the words on TV. Or that it’s a coincidence.