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A Halloween Tale
by Evilida
Remy Hadley was a woman in a hurry; her own mortality was nipping at her heels. She wanted to make a mark on the world, and she didn't know how much time she had. Remy had been working at a regional hospital in upstate New York for about eight months. She rented an apartment in the village of Crowkill, a half an hour's drive from the hospital. Her landlady, who owned the village bookstore, was also her lover, and their relationship was relaxed and low-key. She liked Joanna Marquand and Joanna's ten-year-old son Wayne, and she liked Crowkill, which was picturesque without being touristy, but her current life wasn't big enough for Remy. She wanted to matter. She had already applied for fellowships or residencies in half a dozen different hospitals.
This particular evening, Remy needed to think, but her cozy apartment seemed too small to contain her thoughts. She'd offered to walk Joanna's dog, Butcher, thinking that the clear night air would help her make some necessary decisions.
Butcher was enormous. Joanna joked that he was part elephant, and had once told Remy that she had decided to rent out the apartment over the garage in order to pay Butcher's food and vet bills. With Butcher by her side, an intimidating 200 pounds or so of pure canine muscle, Remy felt invincible and fearless.
Remy decided to visit Pyewacket's Grove, a wooded area outside the village. There had been an article about the grove in the local newspaper. Developers were looking at building a subdivision there, even though it was one of the last totally untouched areas of the state. Remy had expected that the destruction of such a piece of unspoiled nature would be controversial; she had expected protests or at the very least a few angry letters to the editor. However, the only opposition to the project came from outside the village. The natives were unconcerned. Joanna, a lifelong resident, said that she had never even been to Pyewacket's Grove, even though it was only a twenty-minute walk from her front door, and she would not miss it when it was paved over. Remy had been shocked by her girlfriend's attitude. Remy cared passionately about so many things. It always pained her to realize that so many people went through life like apathetic zombies, not caring about anything very much. She hadn't counted Joanna among their number.
The moon and stars had provided enough light for Remy and Butcher while they walked along the road, but as soon as they stepped under the forest canopy, it became impossible for Remy to see her way forward. Luckily, she had brought her flashlight. She advanced into the forest. Her senses were fully engaged. She felt the cool pine-scented breeze, with a snap of coldness to it that told her winter was coming, She listened to the music of the grasshoppers and katydids, the low hoot of an owl and the startled squeak of its prey. As she advanced further into the grove, Butcher started to whine. He wanted to go home. Remy wanted to continue; the article had said that there was a kind of natural arena or stage in the centre of the woods, and she wanted to see it.
Despite his size, Butcher was a good-natured and obedient dog, so Remy's will prevailed. The woman and the dog went further into the forest. Remy had picked up the dog's unease, but she was too stubborn to turn around and go home. In a few minutes, she found herself in the centre of Pyewacket's Grove. The wind had died down, and Remy could no longer hear the rustle of leaves; even the song of the grasshopper had stopped. The silence was rather unnerving. She shone her flashlight. The tall straight trees that marked the boundaries of the clearing seemed to form a perfect circle.
"They must have been planted," Remy thought. "So much for untouched nature."
She would not have described the place as a natural arena herself. It seemed more a kind of altar to her, a place of solemn ritual. Thoughts of druids and secret satanic rites popped into her head. Ridiculous thoughts, she knew, but there was something strange and eerie about the clearing... She shivered. It seemed far colder in the clearing than it had under the trees, which wasn't logical at all.
Remy was now as eager to leave as Butcher was. Remy normally had an excellent sense of direction. She had known the way back home a few seconds ago, but she had turned around to look at the trees, and now she was lost. It didn't matter. She would follow Butcher, who would know the way home.
Butcher wasn't there though. She had dropped his leash, though she didn't remember doing so. She told herself it wasn't important. Butcher could find his way home by himself, and so would she. The grove wasn't very big. A few minutes' walk in any direction would take Remy out from under the trees, and she'd be able to tell where she was. She took a step away from the centre of the clearing. Her flashlight went out. Remy shook it and tried the trick of polishing the batteries, but the light was gone for good.
Remy debated whether to stay in the clear moonlight of the clearing, or try to walk out of the woods. Under the trees, the darkness was almost total. She would have to feel her way slowly and carefully, or risk twisting an ankle or even walking into a tree.
It is impossible to say how long the being had waited. It was older than the forest. It was older than the rivers or the mountains. Perhaps it was older than the sun or the moon; the being had no sense of time's passage at all.
It is not even possible to say whether or not the being was alive. If men or women of a scientific bent had ever learned of existence, or if they had found a way to perceive it, they could have had themselves a lively debate. How could something that had existed for vast cosmic stretches of time, something that seemed no more capable of sensation or independent action than a rock, suddenly come to life?
Perhaps what animated the being in the clearing was no more than a programmed response, an involuntary action that drew it towards a soul as instinctively as a moth is drawn towards the light of a candle. Perhaps it was something higher, something more like curiosity or even wonder. There are no words for what the being experienced. We cannot know.
Remy tried to control her breathing and slow down her rapidly beating heart. Panic threatened to take her over, but she refused to let it. She could break her neck, running through the woods in the dark, but it's what her body is urging her to do. She couldn't let her physical reactions control her this way. She would behave logically. Remy forced herself to sit down in the center of the clearing.
The bare skin of Remy's right hand touched the particles that made up the being. The being had never come in contact with sentience before, and it couldn't comprehend what was happening. With her touch, it became part of Remy. It felt what she felt. There was so much sensation, so much thought, that it could not cope. For the first time, it experienced fear, and it lashed out. It did not mean harm; it was incapable of intending either good or ill. Still something in Remy Hadley was mortally wounded by its attack. Whatever you want to call it - soul, spirit, psyche, mind - that essential spark that made Remy unique - was dying.
She collapsed on the forest floor. Her heart beat, she breathed, the electrical activity of her brain was normal, but Remy herself was dead. The being was bewildered. It was trapped in her body. The thoughts that went through Remy's brain were its thoughts, her feelings were its feelings, but everything seemed remote. Thought, action, feeling were disconnected. This new kind of existence made no sense to it, but it had no choice. It had to find a way to live in this body. Its continuance was all that mattered.
The being that others called Remy Hadley rested a long time in the forest. When the transformed Remy got up, her first steps were awkward and gawky, like a newborn fawn, but she learned astonishingly quickly. The mechanics of walking and talking, eating, drinking and defecating, all come easily. The body told her what to do.
Logical thought was slightly more difficult, nuanced and coherent speech harder yet, and emotion ... the being was never going to master emotion. All the secretions and hormones flooding Remy's system seemed like a kind of pollution - impure and ugly. The being recoiled from emotion with a kind of fastidious intellectual disgust.
Remy's relationship with Joanna didn't survive Remy's trip into the woods. Joanna and Wayne both noticed a change in Remy; she seemed strangely indifferent and blank, like an automaton. Butcher growled at her. When Remy refused to talk about the change in her personality and behaviour, Joanna broke up with her. She changed all the locks on her house, saying that she didn't want Remy to have any further contact with her or with her son, and gave her tenant a month's notice to vacate the apartment. Remy knew that she should convey anger or hurt or some of the other emotions that her knowledge of Remy's history told her were appropriate to the situation. She knew that emotion was made apparent to others through tone of voice, language, and body language, but she also knew that there wasn't much point in putting on a show without an appreciative audience. She walked away from Joanna without saying a word.
Remy gave notice to the hospital that she was leaving her job. She had decided to take the first position offered to her. Crowkill was beginning to feel dangerous to her. People were beginning to notice that she wasn't quite herself, and her colleagues at the hospital were asking questions. It was time to move to a new city, where she wasn't known. They wouldn't know the old Remy, so they wouldn't make comparisons. They wouldn't expect her to feel what Remy used to feel or react the way she used to react, before she had been transformed.
A year later
Allison Cameron stopped at a supermarket over her lunch hour to pick up a loaf of bread. She had picked up the bread and a few other odds and ends and was heading for her car, when she spotted her - a sixtyish woman in a royal blue velvet coat, sitting on the curb, her groceries scattered beside her. Other shoppers walked passed her without looking down, but Cameron stopped to ask her if she was all right. The woman smiled up at her.
"You're my good Samaritan," she said. "I was expecting you. I've tripped and hurt my ankle. My own fault for wearing three-inch heels."
"I'm a doctor," Cameron said. "Let me take a look at it."
She knelt down and examined her ankle. It was very swollen and even Cameron's gentle and practised touch made her patient wince.
"I can't tell whether it's a break or a sprain. You'll need an x-ray to tell."
"It all comes from vanity," said the woman philosophically. "Still, these shoes are madly sexy and I couldn't resist them. I've always been a sucker for a hot pair of slingbacks."
"I'm going back to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital," said Cameron. She took a quick peek at her watch and saw that she was already late. "I'll give you a lift. Actually, I'll probably be the one treating you. I'm an emergency physician there. I'm Dr. Cameron."
"I'm afraid I don't have insurance," the woman said. "I'm self-employed and it was either medical insurance or the electric bill."
"Or slingbacks," said Cameron smiling.
"Well, slingbacks aren't in the same category. They're a necessity, like oxygen."
Cameron carefully hoisted the woman to her feet. She was very light, and Cameron thought that she could carry her if she had to. It wasn't necessary though. With Cameron's help she hopped over to Cameron's car and into the passenger seat. Cameron went back to retrieve the woman's spilled groceries.
When she returned and put the groceries in the trunk of her car, the woman handed Cameron her card:
Mrs. Selinda Moonpenny, Psychic Readings, Tarot, Blessings.
"You're thinking I don't look like a Selinda," she said, "and you're right. Selinda was a good professional name when I was young and sylphlike. Now, I've got to accept it; I'm entering my crone years. I need a crone name - something like Esmeralda or Martha. I'd have to read tea leaves with a name like Martha though, and I hate tea. I'm a confirmed coffee fiend."
"Ambulance chaser," muttered Dr. Moorhead, as Cameron carefully helped Mrs. Moonpenny into emergency. "We're busy enough without you dragging in people off the street."
Cameron ignored him. The emergency room was unusually slow today anyway - no major accidents or gang activity, and flu season was months away.
"He's a once-born," Mrs. Moonpenny said. "Sometimes I think they're put on the earth just to torment old souls like you and me."
An x-ray showed that Selinda Moonpenny's ankle was sprained not broken, so Cameron wrapped it in a tensor bandage and told Mrs. Moonpenny to keep it elevated and apply cold. She lent her a pair of crutches to use until her ankle was strong enough to bear her weight.
"You've been a real sweetheart to me," Mrs. Moonpenny said. "I'm going to hang around a while and wait for my son to get off work so he can pick me up. When it's your break time, come and see me out in the waiting room. I'll do a reading for you. Free, of course."
"Really, it's not necessary."
"You afraid I'll tell you something bad. I'm not that kind of psychic. I help people make good choices in their lives. You'll enjoy it."
Cameron actually preferred the emergency room when it was busy. When she was rushed off her feet, she didn't have time to notice how repetitive her work was. It was only at slower periods that she really felt the monotony - an endless conveyor belt of stomach aches and headaches, sprains, bruises, lacerations, broken bones, overdoses, gunshot wounds, and all the other injuries, major and minor, that human beings inflict on each other.
She seldom got to know the people she treated. The only patients that she saw on a regular basis were those who had already committed themselves to a path of self-destruction. It was frustrating trying to help them. Her last patient before her break was Misty, a sixteen-year old who turned tricks to pay for her meth habit. Misty had been roughed up by a "bad date". Cameron recommended rehab to Misty again, but both Cameron and her patient knew that there was already a long waiting list. There was no place for Misty, and Misty wouldn't go even if there were.
Cameron meant to go to the cafeteria and pick up a doughnut, or some other calorie- laden treat, in the hope that the sugar hit would give her the energy she needed to get through the rest of the afternoon. However, she spotted Mrs. Moonpenny's royal blue coat in the corner of her eye as she was walking by. The older woman was waving at her, smiling warmly. Cameron decided to skip the sugary treat, and the routine grumblings of her workmates, and spend her break with someone who seemed genuinely happy.
"Good," Mrs. Moonpenny said. "You've taken me up on my offer. Do you have a question that you want answered? Is there a decision you need to make?"
Cameron nodded.
"Just think of your question while you shuffle the cards. Are you thinking, dear?"
"Yes," Cameron said. "I've got two questions really. I'm trying to decide which one to ask."
Cameron was engaged to marry Robert Chase, another doctor at the hospital, but she wondered whether she was making the right decision. Her other question was about her career. She had already decided that emergency medicine was not for her, but had scarcely begun sorting through career possibilities.
"Have you decided yet?" Mrs. Moonpenny asked a minute later.
"Yes, " Cameron said. "I'm concentrating on my question."
"Good," said Mrs. Moonpenny. "I'm going to use a very traditional spread called the Celtic cross. Now, dear, was your question about money or romance?"
"Romance," said Cameron.
"It's always one or another. Usually romance with women; money for men. This card here is a fair-haired young man. He's your intended, isn't he?"
Cameron nodded.
"He's not your first love. You've loved two men before him. One of them was a young man who died. You gave your heart to him completely, even though you knew he would be with you for a short time. Loving him caused you such pain and such joy.
The other man is older. He used to be a mentor to you - a father figure - but he isn't any longer. You respect him and you pity him.
I'm going to tell you your question now. Your question was: Do I love my fianc enough to marry him?"
"That's right," said Cameron. The accuracy of the psychic's reading was scary. She wasn't sure that she wanted to hear what she had to say.
"Dr. Cameron, you don't always have to be the person who loves more. Sometimes, you can let yourself be the one who is loved. Besides, you two do each other good. He teaches you to lighten up a little bit; you show him it's good to stand up for your principles and take responsibility. You help each other. I say, go for it!
I don't need the cards or any psychic powers to tell what your second question was, do I? You're obviously not happy in your work, are you?"
Cameron nodded in agreement. "I feel like I'm on a treadmill, and I can't get off."
"Talk to your old mentor. Let him know how unsatisfied you are in your current job. Maybe he can help you."
"Dr. Hou--my mentor isn't interested in helping people."
"Even so," said Mrs. Moonpenny, quickly gathering up the cards. "That didn't take long. Show me a photo of your intended. Sometimes I can get a reading from a photo."
Cameron dug into her purse, and pulled out her wallet. She handed Mrs. Moonpenny a photo of Robert Chase.
"Such a pretty young man!" she said. "It's a good thing he isn't vain. He really loves you."
Cameron handed her a photo of House.
"Oh, I'm not going to ask why you carry a picture of this man in your wallet. Your fianc can ask you that! This is your father figure? The other man you love?
He's not for you, dear. He's an old soul, of course, just like you, but he's wounded. Besides he already has a soulmate. Having a soulmate isn't always a good thing. People think Romeo and Juliet, so romantic, but they forget how the play ends. Both of them dead, and Juliet only fourteen. Soulmates can hurt each other, and the person that steps between them always gets hurt."
"I'm not the soulmate?"
"I don't think so. Really, you're fortunate not to be. There's hurt and betrayal and love all mixed up together. They love each other but they can't be together. Every lifetime they try in all possible combinations: mother and son, husband and wife, best friends, lovers. It hasn't worked. His soulmate's wounded too. Your mentor displays his scars as if they were medals; he forbids the world to pity him. His soulmate hides the scars, pretends they aren't there. It's very likely that the soulmate has brown eyes. Your's are blue."
Cameron tried to remember what colour Stacy's eyes were.
"I'm exhausted now," said Mrs. Moonpenny. "A good reading always takes it out of me. If you're heading for the cafeteria, maybe you could bring me back a cup of coffee, black, and a piece of cake. Chocolate preferably. "
Cameron picked up a piece of chocolate cake and two coffees and stood in line to pay. Dr. Remy Hadley, one of House's new team, got in line behind her, and said hello.
Hadley said, "House agreed to see the patient that you referred to him yesterday."
"Good," said Cameron.
She smiled awkwardly at Hadley. There was something about her that made Cameron uneasy. Perhaps it was simply that she had too much information about the other woman while scarcely knowing her personally at all. Hospital gossip already told her about Hadley's bisexuality and that she had been diagnosed with Huntington's disease, which would eventually kill her. She even knew her nickname - Thirteen. To Cameron, that nickname seemed oddly apt. There was something impersonal, even mechanical, about Hadley's beauty. There was a symmetry in her features that seemed artificial. Such perfection is seldom found in nature.
Chase had teased her about her reaction to Thirteen. It was jealousy, he had said. Cameron was upset because the new woman in House's staff was just as beautiful as she was. Perhaps to demonstrate to herself that Chase was wrong about her motives, Cameron now made an effort to befriend her colleague.
"Thanks for keeping me informed," Cameron said. "Would you like to join me for coffee?"
Thirteen agreed.
"I've got to deliver this cake to a patient of mine first. You don't mind taking a little walk with me? Actually you'll like this woman. She says she's a psychic. I don't actually believe in psychics; I know it's all guesswork and deduction and fraud; but she's really quite impressive. She made me think that she could really see into my soul."
"I'm not sure that I want..."
It was too late for any objections. Cameron, whose breaktime was almost over, had been walking very quickly, and they were already standing in front of the patient. Hadley had been hoping for an obvious fraudster in fake "gypsy" attire - scarves and beads, dangling earrings, and long gossamer skirts - but the woman rummaging through her purse was conventionally dressed, except for her slightly inappropriate shoes (which were actually no worse than the ones she had seen Dr. Cuddy wear.) Mrs. Moonpenny looked up and stared into Hadley's eyes.
"You don't have a soul of your own," the psychic said, "so you tried to steal someone else's. You're worse than evil. You're nothing at all."
Hadley turned pale. She lost her grip on the Styrofoam cup she was carrying, and it fell to the floor, splattering herself, Cameron and Mrs. Moonpenny with hot coffee. Neither Hadley nor Mrs. Moonpenny noticed.
Cameron and Thirteen were in the ladies' room, trying to remove coffee stains from their clothes before the stain set.
"I'm sorry," Cameron apologized. "She seemed perfectly normal when she spoke to me. I had no idea that she would say something crazy like that."
Thirteen had regained her customary composure.
"There are a lot of mad people in the world. It's a shame that they can't all be isolated and treated. They're a danger to themselves and others."
"I wouldn't say that about Mrs. Moonpenny. I know that what she said upset you, but I don't think she's dangerous."
"Moonpenny, is that her name?" Thirteen said.
Cameron regretted mentioning the patient's name. It was a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality.
"Are you going to ask for a psych consult?" Thirteen asked.
"I don't really think that's necessary."
"I think it is. That woman needs to be locked up for her own good."
"Well, I'm the responsible physician, and I'll make the decision whether or not to call in psych," Cameron said.
Hadley turned and faced Cameron directly. Cameron found it difficult to look directly into the other woman's cool blue eyes.
"You don't believe her, do you?"
Cameron looked away.
"Of course, I don't. I'm not sure that something we call a soul even exists, but if the soul does exist, then every person has one. Don't let her upset you."
"I'm not upset," Thirteen said, and indeed she didn't sound upset at all. Her voice was perfectly expressionless and level.
When Cameron returned to emergency, the psychic was gone. Instead of waiting for her son to pick her up, she had hobbled to the front entrance of the hospital and hailed the first taxi she could find.
Kutner told Thirteen that House was grumpier than usual because he missed his best friend Wilson. Thirteen hadn't noticed, of course. Grasping that other people lived in a stew of emotion, that they could be happy one day and sad the next, was difficult. It was a challenge to respond to people, when they kept changing. Everything would be so much easier for her, if people just slowed down a bit. Her sense of the passage of time had developed, but she has still more accustomed to time on a geologic scale.
Though Thirteen was still preoccupied with assessing the threat that Moonpenny represented, she knew that she was expected to show some interest in the health of House's patient. She lowered her chin and dropped her gaze. The patient was an eight year old boy, and Thirteen was trying for the look of almost maternal concern that she had seen on the face of one of the attending nurses. She didn't quite succeed. Foreman and House were both looking at her rather sceptically. Taub didn't look at her at all; he was busy reading the case notes, but Kutner was rapt. As far as he was concerned, Thirteen was the perfect woman.
"While Thirteen is busy posing for a portrait of the Madonna and Child," House said, "the rest of us can discuss all the illnesses this boy DOESN'T have."
"We've ruled out leukemia and other cancers," Kutner said.
Thirteen made several worthwhile points in the resulting discussion. She had become quite skilled at logical reasoning. Her suggestions were just as good as her colleagues, and her memory was superior.
That evening, Thirteen looked for the name Moonpenny in the phonebook. When there was no Moonpenny in either the white or the yellow pages, she went online. She did a phone directory search, and then went that produced no results, she went on to Google. She went through pages and pages of results without success. She tried to reduce the number of hits by adding the word "psychic" to her Google search, but the smaller hit list didn't contain any relevant items.
Mrs. Moonpenny presumably had clients for her psychic services, so how did they get in touch with her? She gave that question some thought and then called a "new age" shop listed in the yellow pages. Luckily it was Friday night, and the shop kept late hours. Her phone call was answered after the fourth ring.
"Hello, Morning Glory House of Arcana," said a bored male voice.
"Hi," Thirteen said. "I'm wondering if you do referrals."
"Depends. What are you looking for? Spiritual healing? Channeling?"
"I need a fortune-teller."
"A fortune teller, huh?" Even Thirteen could tell that the owner of the Morning Glory House of Arcana wasn't particularly pleased by Thirteen's choice of terminology.
"A psychic," she amended.
"What kind? I've got tarot readers, astrologers, both Chinese and Western, palm readers, and aura specialists."
"I'm actually looking for a specific person. My friend used her and she said she was brilliant. She had a name out of James Bond. Miss Moneypenny."
"Moonpenny, I think you mean," said the man, happy to correct her.
Thirteen had noticed that few things gave a man more pleasure than being able to correct a woman.
"I've heard that she's not bad. I'm not acting as her agent, but I'll be a nice guy and tell you anyway. Next time you're in my neighbourhood, you can drop by the House of Arcana and thank me. This is from our customer database. Do you want her phone number or her address?"
"Both please," said Thirteen. This was proving much easier than expected. The shopkeeper had given out
Moonpenny's address without even asking for her name.
Thirteen stood in front of Mrs. Moonpenny's house. She didn't think the woman possessed any real psychic powers. She was probably only a sensitive, more attuned than others to the cloud of emotional excreta that human being exude, and able to convince a credulous woman like Cameron of her exceptional powers.
The being had never killed anything in all the long aeons of its existence. It had never had to protect itself. Remy Hadley was more acquainted with death. She had once caused a young man's death through her own carelessness. She ate the flesh of her fellow creatures, mammals and birds and fish, even though she could have survived on plant life alone. The being was relying on Remy's emotions, Remy's will, to give her the strength to protect herself as she knew she must. The scalpel was in her coat pocket.
Thirteen knocked on Mrs. Moonpenny's door.
"Is that you, Danny?" she heard Selinda Moonpenny call out.
Thirteen had been proven right. The so-called psychic had no idea that her executioner was on her front porch.
"I'm not going to get up and go to the door. Just use your key."
Thirteen jiggled the door handle. It was locked.
"Forgot my key," she mumbled in a deep voice that she hoped sounded male.
She heard Mrs. Moonpenny grunt exasperatedly as she got up from her chair or couch, and the thump of the crutches on the bare wood floor. Thirteen grasped the scalpel and drew it out. One slash across the neck. It would be easy. The only problem would be the spray of blood, but Thirteen already knew what to do. One swift movement, severing the carotid, and then she would jump back and shut the door. She couldn't expect to walk away completely unbloodied, but it was already night, and her dark overcoat would hide the stains.
It didn't work out precisely as Thirteen planned. Mrs. Moonpenny stood a bit farther away than Thirteen expected, and she also had much better reflexes. She leaned back to avoid Thirteen's blade. The scalpel came very close; it nicked the older woman's cheek, as she lost her balance and fell to the ground. Thirteen entered the house. She leaned over the other woman but Mrs. Moonpenny wasn't the passive victim that Thirteen wanted her to be. She used one of her crutches to defend herself. A blow to Thirteen's body forced the breath out of her. She was on the floor now, just like Moonpenny, and gasping for air.
Thirteen was in excellent physical shape and recovered quickly. Mrs. Moonpenny had backed away and was heading for the living room, where she had left her cellphone. She swung wildly at Thirteen whenever she made a move towards her.
For the first time, Thirteen actually enjoyed the surge of adrenaline making its way through Remy's body. It made her feel powerful and real and part of the world. She was a doer rather than a observer, and it felt wonderful. She loved killing, and knew that once Moonpenny was dead, she would want to repeat this experience with someone else. Would it be different, she wondered, if it was someone she knew? Would it be even more exciting if her victim was Kutner or Foreman or House?
Mrs. Moonpenny made a mistake. One of her wild swings brought the crutch within Thirteen's grasp. She wrenched it out of Moonpenny's hand, and got to her feet. She had intended to offer the woman a quick and relatively painless death, but if the foolish woman preferred being battered to death, Thirteen would oblige her. She swung her weapon high, aiming for her victim's head. The blow would fracture her skull. If they both were lucky, it might kill her outright.
"Put down your weapon." It was the voice of Mrs. Moonpenny's son, a police officer in the Princeton Borough Police Department. Danny had come to look in on his mother after her accident.
Thirteen wavered. The desire to kill was so strong, but she knew that the policeman would shoot her if she attacked Mrs. Moonpenny. Her continuing existence, in the end, was all that mattered. If she lived, she might find means and opportunity to kill another time. She dropped the crutch and raised her hands.
Cuddy had a major public relations disaster on her hands. Thirteen's murderous attack put all House's shenanigans in perspective. At least, House had never purposefully tried to kill one of the hospital's patients.
She was incensed by the article in the local paper. One of their reporters had gone to the hospital where Remy Hadley had worked before she came to PPTH. He quoted several of her colleagues saying that Hadley had seemed "strange", "distant" and "unlike her usual self" just before she left her employment there. Cuddy had spoken to the other hospital's administrator and to Hadley's immediate superior before allowing House to hire her, and neither of them had mentioned any unusual behaviour. They could have warned her.
There was also an interview with a woman described as "Hadley's best friend in the area." She said that Hadley had gone out one night for a walk quite normal, and had come back hours later "disconnected from reality" and "oddly emotionless." The woman speculated that Hadley might have suffered a head injury. The article went on to say that Hadley's psychiatric condition was being assessed, but the newspaper's confidential sources thought it was unlikely that she would be able to stand trial. In the meantime, Selinda Moonpeny's business was booming. She told the press that she had been saved by sending out a psychic SOS to her son.
Cuddy was pleased that at least one person was profiting from the horrible situation. Cuddy felt as if she were under siege. In addition to members of the press, she had talked to lawyers and board members and even officials of the New Jersey Department of Health and Social Services. She took another aspirin to quiet the thudding pain that lurked behind her eyes, and reached again for the ringing phone.
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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