Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

way that night. After checking in on Venus, I was planning to go back to her apartment and spend the rest of the night reading her correspondence with Harry, hoping for something, anything, that would point me in the right direction.
    Digging my hands into my pockets, because it was late enough that I was chilly now, I felt Venus’s necklace and wondered if part of seeing what I had to would mean seeing through David’s eyes.
    Or Jackson’s.
    And then I wondered if I was up to it.
    Sure, sometimes I could see like a dog, I could understand what should be unfathomable. But this was different, David and Jackson were of my own species, yet more baffling than anything I’d run across.
    Still, I couldn’t help feeling that part of what I was seeking lay hidden there, with David, Jackson, and Charlotte, maybe with Cora, too—people who were unable to see the world as I needed it seen because they were infinitely more lost and confused than I now felt.

CHAPTER 28
    I Whispered Her Name

    Except for the sound of machines doing the work some people’s bodies had refused to do, and the occasional squeak of rubber-soled shoes on the tile floors, there hadn’t been a sound in the ICU since I’d quietly moved a chair closer and sat next to Venus’s bed. Even the receptionist downstairs had only nodded when I came in, maybe figuring if I was here so late, there must be a good reason for it. The night nurse, too, had merely looked up as I passed her, as if making rounds with a pit bull was a normal part of hospital procedure.
    For a while I sat still, not wanting to disturb the quiet. Then I reached for Venus’s hand, sliding mine under it, hers lying limp on mine, palm up. I watched her breathing for a while before I realized she was off the ventilator, doing it on her own. My heart did a little dance in my chest, enough excitement to get Dashiell up from where he’d wedged himself, head and shoulders under the bed, trunk, rump, and tail sticking out, legs straight back in the frog position. First he looked at me, then at Venus. Head up, nose moving, he began to test the air, going closer to the bed until he had no choice, he had to get up there to get what he was after, and with a quick turn behind me to make sure the curtain was closed, I let him, watched him climb up and stand over Venus, his tail moving slowly from side to side, then suddenly dip his big head and begin vigorously to lick her face. I moved my hand to her wrist to protect the place where the IV needle had been inserted to give her fluids and hoped like hell the nurse wouldn’t pick this particular time to do a bed check.
    I had a powerful faith in the wisdom of a sound dog, having seen and heard enough miracles to know that animals sensed things that were beyond human knowledge. So as odd as this scene would have appeared to most of the rest of the human race and probably all of the hospital personnel, I sat there with a wait-and-see attitude when anyone else would have kicked the dog off the bed in no time flat.
    Dashiell kept licking, and the speed of his tail revved up, enough so that I had to move a bit to avoid getting hit in the face.
    And then I felt it: Venus’s fingers moved, as if she were trying to close her hand.
    I felt a flutter in my chest again, but then I thought, who said they didn’t move before? Did a twitch mean anything? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t about to ask the nurse, but now even I thought it was time to get Dashiell off the bed. It’s not that he was doing any harm. It’s just that I wanted to get a better look at Venus, and he was in the way.
    Off, I whispered, not wanting to hear the nurse’s shoes Squealing as she came running.
    Dashiell backed up and got off the bed, standing next to my chair, his tail still going like a runaway metronome.
    Now Venus’s eyes were moving, the lids still closed, the way Dashiell’s do when he’s dreaming.
    I took her hand. I whispered her name. Venus opened her eyes.
    I knew I should have called the nurse right away, but I didn’t. I waited to hear what Venus would have to say. She looked at me for what seemed like ages. I thought for a moment she might need time to focus after being out for so long. But her face didn’t look confused. It just looked blank. And then her mouth moved, and Venus whispered something, so softly that I couldn’t make it out.
    “Say it again,” I said, getting up and getting closer, bending over her so that I could hear the word Venus had