The Book: Chapter 20

The book was back.  Alice wasn’t surprised. She knew what it was the second she saw the brown paper parcel on her desk. Its vibration filled her head from across the room and gave her an instant migraine. She should have been repulsed and consumed with terror but her only emotion was resignation. She knew it wouldn’t let her leave it with the anthropologist, but she’d had to try.  

She opened it, there wasn’t even a note. With discarded paper framing it, the book lay in front of her like a patient waiting to be dissected by somebody skilled in surgery—but it wasn’t as simple as cutting out its cancer. It was back, clinging to her life like an ex-boyfriend who wouldn’t take the hint. Not that she had that problem with Mick, he hadn’t called, and she was devastated. He left her a week ago. She’d had too much time to miss him.

When she left Desrosiers’s office at the university, she’d wanted to believe that the book had lost interest in her. But it was as though it had never left. The first time it reappeared in the hospital library she’d refused to touch it. But the pull was too strong now. She stood a better chance of dieting through Christmas than getting rid of this damned thing.

What the hell had it done to Solène Desrosiers?

What had she done to her?

The book was a deadly predator, waiting for her to break first. She scanned the text, relieved that Desrosiers wasn’t dead. It derided Solène, ridiculing her research into voodooism as hocus-pocus nonsense. It challenged Alice, called her stupid for falling down the voodoo rabbit hole, and even used her real name, mocking her. It said she wasn’t smart enough to find the book’s origins after debunking the ancient Haitian religion and modern superstitions surrounding it. But Alice felt victorious. The book had slipped up because it told her Solène hadn’t been harmed. It couldn’t help but brag, and was a font of self-important knowledge, better than reading The Guardian to catch up on the evil in the world. It shifted tack suddenly, moving on from the doctor.

‘Rosalina Espinal.’ Alice read the name aloud.

Her stomach dropped. Rosa was one of their night nurses, originally from the Dominican Republic. She was a quiet woman, loved by the patients and staff. Words jumped at Alice like flashing alarms. After dismissing voodoo as a parlour trick for goths, emos, and idiots, the book dropped its real bombshell by writing that Rosalina used dangerous protection spells on her patients. Voodoo? The hospital barely managed to order a decent brand of coffee, let alone conjure spells at a patient’s bedside.

It was absurd. Rosa was an excellent nurse, and after leaving her home country as a small child, she’d adapted to Western society long ago. And yet, the book had never lied before—it distorted, twisted and manipulated, but never outright lied.

She read on. It dropped cryptic clues woven into its narrative. Some references were familiar—hints to specific herbs, charms, and whispered incantations. But other parts were obscure. The more she pieced together, the clearer the implication became: the book led her back to Dr Desrosiers.

Solène was knowledgeable. However, her interest in the book made Alice uncomfortable. Could Desrosiers be the puppet master behind all this madness? Alice read on and attributed Desrosiers’ expressions and mannerisms to her theory that the woman had been the cause from day one. Maybe she was the seller and then manipulated her way back into the book’s world. Alice’s paranoia claimed her—and then took over all rational thought. According to the book, Rosa had been secretly buying potions from Desrosiers. Alice believed the professor wanted to infect the hospital with voodoo.

If Rosa was administering potions to patients under the guise of medical care, she was crossing an ethical and legal chasm. Alice had no choice but to react.

She confronted Rosa in the corridor, gripping the book like a weapon. She was about to accuse a nurse of witchcraft, and somehow that wasn’t even in the top three strangest things she’d done that week. It was just another Tuesday in the life of crazy Alice Grant. ‘I need to talk to you,’ she said.

‘Of course, Dr Grant. What is it?’

Alice went straight in. ‘Are you using any form of unorthodox treatments on your patients?’

Rosalina’s face froze, then broke into an incredulous laugh. ‘Excuse me?’

Alice pushed forward, her voice low. ‘I have information that says you’ve been buying items related to voodoo from Dr Desrosiers.’

‘I’ve been buying what?’ Rosalina looked confused, but Alice wasn’t taken in by her Miss Innocent act. ‘Well?’

 ‘Who is Desrosiers? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘There’s been a complaint made against you.’

Rosa realised that Alice was serious. ‘A complaint? Who by?’

Alice didn’t dare shout about the book again, but she was convinced of the nurse’s guilt and tapped the cover. ‘All you need to know is that I have it in writing.’   

‘And, with respect, doctor, all you need to know is that you’re mistaken. I’ve never heard such rubbish. Voodoo? Have you heard yourself? That book is poison. You should burn it.’

Alice watched her. There was no guilt in her expression. She looked angry and displayed irritation, but there was something else in her eyes. Rosa pitied her.

‘You have to understand, I’ll be filing a report, and when this gets out you’ll be struck off,’ Alice said.

‘Gets out? You’re accusing me of harming people. How dare you. I help my patients with training and knowledge, not superstition.’

Alice hesitated. The book had never been wrong before. ‘Why are you in cahoots with Desrosiers?’

Rosalina didn’t answer and walked away.

Alice felt conflicted. She’d contact Desrosiers and get to the bottom of this and then report both of them to the board of directors.

She returned to her office to make the call but, minutes later, she was drawn out. A force stronger than her will, made her leave the warmth of her office and step into the corridor.

Rosalina was carrying some patient files to the nurse’s station.

As Alice walked into the hallway, Rosa appeared from the opposite end, their paths colliding like a pair of cowboys outside a dusty saloon. One of the huge medication trolleys on castors had been left askew in the corridor. Every staff member knew it should never be left unattended for a second. And the trolley was unlocked. ‘Do you know anything about this?’ Alice asked her.

‘No. Like you, I’ve just seen it.’

‘Stay here while I go and see what’s happening,’ Alice said.

As Rosa went to the trolley, one of the wheels snagged on the hem of her uniform trousers, making her stumble. An agency nurse heard their voices and rushed out of a patient’s room to get back to the trolley before she got into trouble. She was wheeling an IV stand and bumped into Rosa sending her sideways into the trolley. The jolt dislodged a box of syringes, which tipped onto the floor.

Rosalina wheeled backwards, fighting to regain her balance, but her foot slipped on the flying needles. She flailed, reaching for the wall—where her fingers found the edge of the IV stand, instead.

‘I only left it for a second,’ The nurse said, motioning to the drugs trolley.

It was okay, Rosa had regained her balance. But the catalogue of interlocking events still occurred and she knocked a measuring jug off the cart as she straightened. It shattered over the ground, sending shards of glass flying. Alice only had time for the thought that she’d told the nurses to use plastic jugs. The bureaucrats wouldn’t let them throw the glass ones away, so despite her instructions regarding safety, they kept circulating.

The largest piece flew through the air and lodged in the valve of an oxygen tank left outside the patient’s door. It was another abandoned piece of lethal equipment that shouldn’t be left lying around. Only Alice saw the impossible trajectory the shard of glass took, and that it altered its course to hit the valve.

She realised the danger and watched the domino of unrelated happenings continue. ‘No,’ she screamed, already moving forward. But her voice echoed back in slow motion, coming from a far distance.  

The glass caused a hiss of gas to fill the corridor. Panicked staff ran over, trying to help, but in the commotion, Felix was pushed too hard from behind and slammed into the metal trolley. After he fell to his knees, it lurched forward, moving as though somebody still pushed it—right into Rosa. The impact made her stagger backwards. And Alice watched in horror as the lift doors opened without being called.  

Rosa fell into the elevator shaft.

The doors had been malfunctioning all day. Maintenance had already been called, but they hadn’t arrived yet.

Rosalina disappeared into the darkness of the shaft and Alice felt time stretch and distort—a sickening, impossible moment extended into forever before the inevitable impact. People screamed as she disappeared. Being the closest to her, Alice ran forward with her arms outstretched, but it was too late. The distant, bone-breaking thud of Rosa’s fall carved into a memory Alice would never escape.

The hospital was a chaotic mess as staff herded patients back to their rooms; a familiar happening. Felix rushed forward with Alice, looking down the shaft, and Debbie covered her mouth in horror.

Alice went with two members from the annexe to administer first aid, but it was too late. Rosalina was dead. When the ambulance arrived from the main building, she had already called the time of death.

She couldn’t process what happened. It was a freak accident: a domino effect of tiny actions that led to an impossible conclusion.

The book had written about Rosa with glee. It had toyed with her and then nudged reality to stage manage the macabre accident—because it could. It had claimed another innocent. And now she was dead.

It eliminated Rosalina Espinal for fun.

 

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