That man, Jonah Goodwill, had been from Earth. Like me. And now he was dead. That was perhaps the first step on my journey from human to beast: I had killed the human Goodwill to save Criminy and predators like him, predators like I would one day become. And I had no regrets whatsoever.
At first, the box had felt like a coffin, my heart beating frantically and claustrophobia descending each time Criminy kissed me gently and closed the glass top. But now, knowing how little time my Nana had left, it felt like Willy Wonka’s great glass elevator, and I all but slammed it closed before slipping on Criminy’s charmed ruby locket and sprinkling a few grains of his sleeping powder over my head. Sleep fell like a bludbunny on an unclothed ankle.
Almost instantly, my eyes opened. I was on Nana’s old striped couch, facing the only non-flat-screen TV I’d seen in years. Her favorite news channel was on, muted so that I could sleep through all the righteous indignation. Under the ticking of the clock, I heard soft sobs.
“Nana?”
A surprised and guilty snuffle was followed by the sound of a Kleenex box falling to the floor. “You didn’t hear nothin’, sugar,” she said. “Go back to sleep.”
I sat up, my back aching and my arm asleep. Each time I woke up on Earth now, I learned a little more about what it felt like to be old, to feel your body giving up. The magical aging meant my hips popped and loosened when I walked, and I could feel arthritis settling in my knuckles. I couldn’t imagine the kind of pain Nana was in, even on her high doses of morphine.
And that meant, of course, that she wasn’t crying from pain.
Her health had gotten worse quickly, and we both knew what that meant.
Despite my protesting body, I was on my feet and in her room in seconds. There was barely anything left of the Nana who’d mostly raised me and who’d been my savior when I left an abusive fiancé. She was all bones and stretched skin and sunken yellow eyes. Even though she’d been crying, she barely had enough juice for tears, and I went immediately to switch out her IV.
“Nothing my butt, Nana. What aren’t you telling me?” I crossed my arms and loomed over her, hoping she hadn’t noticed my new wrinkles and the age spots on my hands. Without her glasses, she was practically blind, but she was still sharper than she had any right to be.
Nana took a deep breath and leaned back against her pillows, thin lips turned down in grim determination. “You want to do this now, you go to the cabinet over the fridge and bring me the bourbon.”
“You can’t drink. You know that.”
“Don’t tell me what I can’t do! I’m dying here, pretty damn soon, and we both know it. I’d rather meet my maker full of good whiskey, so you get your sassy little ass into that kitchen and pour it.”
I was too shocked to move. The anger, fear, and cuss in her voice told me just how close she was, and before I knew what I was doing, I was on tiptoes feeling around the high cabinet over the fridge until I found a heavy glass bottle. I didn’t even know she drank, and there was no way she could have reached it without a ladder, but the damn thing was half empty. I slopped some into a jelly jar, sniffed it, took a sip, and added another pour. Then, on second thought, I poured myself a glass, too. I needed it.
She reached for the jelly jar but couldn’t hold it, so I helped her with shaking hands. My sweet old Nana took down the ninety-proof bourbon in deep gulps until the glass was empty, then doubled over in a coughing fit.
“You’ve got a fifty-percent chance of vomiting that up and a forty-percent chance of getting alcohol poisoning, so you’d better make it fast,” I said, mainly because if we both focused on being angry, we wouldn’t break down crying.
“Guess that gives me a ten-percent chance of saying what needs to be said, then.”
She took a swipe at my glass, so I followed her lead and chugged it. It went straight to my head, and I went and poured us each another glass. After we’d both glugged it, I hopped up on the other side of the bed, leaning against the headboard and letting my hand hold hers where it had fallen on the flowered coverlet.
“When I’m gone—” she started.
“Don’t say that.”
“Somebody has to, sugar, and for a hospice nurse, you’re pretty bad at saying it. When I’m gone, you know all this is yours.” Her hand flapped up like a waving queen’s at her two-bedroom mill house, and she gave a short laugh. “Ain’t much, but there’s some money set aside, too, and it’s bigger than your apartment, anyway. Now, don’t let that cat of yours mess up my afghans. Your great-grandmother made those herself, you know.”