Everyone at St. Andrews Private Hospital knew Victor Harris liked making folks feel small.
Even with one leg trussed up in a mountain of white plaster, Victor managed to sit like he was the king of every room. The nurses murmured when passing his door. Administrators picked up their pace if he so much as pressed the call button. Doctors smiled too wide whenever he cracked a joke.
So when that scrawny kid shuffled in one afternoonstained ballcap tugged down, faded jeans with the knees blown out, suspenders danglingVictor burst out laughing before anyone thought to ask who let him wander upstairs.
The kid looked out of place against the slick tile floor and the warm, golden glow on the walls, with the Manhattan skyline smeared beyond the glass. Both hands gripped a heavy, knotted baseball bat. Sweat trickled along his temple, but his eyes never left Victor.
Victor spread his arms, grinning with all his teeth, sprawled on the crisp hospital sheets. Heal me and Ill give you a million bucks!
The doctors by the window forced some nervous smiles.
The kid stepped forward fast and swung.
The bat crashed straight into the hanging cast.
Plaster shattered and dust exploded in the air. The cast jerked violently on its straps. The younger doctors eyes jumped wide. The older docs jaw dropped. Victors fists twisted into the bedsheets as all the color drained from his face.
A hush fellthick, heavy, unnaturally still.
What did you do? Victor hissed, voice little more than a croak.
The kid was breathing way too fast now, knuckles white. His cheeks shone, but he didnt budge.
You said you wanted to be healed, he said.
Softer, barely above the hush:
So feel it.
Victor stared at him with thunderstruck disbelief
And something beneath the busted cast shifted.
Just a twitch. Quick. Barely there.
His toes.
Victor froze.
The older doctor caught it first, then the other. They staredfirst at the cast, then at Victorlike all the rules of medicine had just broken in half.
Victors breath snagged.
The kid stepped closer, his voice brittlecut deep and raw.
My mom begged you to help her, too.
It hit like a punch.
Victors face changed all at once.
Not confusion now.
Recognition.
He really looked at the boy for the first time.
The chin, just a bit stubborn. The wide, watchful eyes.
The boy slowly uncurled his fist.
In his palm lay a tiny, battered locket on a chain.
Victor paled. He recognized that necklace.
Once, a long time ago, he’d clasped it around Carolyns neck on a summer nightright after shed laughed, telling him she was pregnant, tears in her eyes.
The boys hand shook as he held the locket up.
She told me if your leg ever woke up His voice broke, youd finally look at me.
No one moved.
The doctors looked lost.
Victors mouth fell open, but no sound came out.
The kid edged up to the side of the bed, closer than before.
A single tear cut a line down his cheek.
Tell me why you left us.
Victor pushed himself higher, staring between the locket, the boys face, and finally
the boys wrist.
A tiny mark, pale, shaped like a crescent moon.
Just like Carolyn used to trace with her thumb, calling it lucky, before their baby was even born.
Victor sucked in a panicked breath.
His eyes flashed wild with realization and dread.
At last, his lips formed words:
That mark
Everyone at St. Andrews Private Hospital knew Victor Harris liked making folks feel small.