Chapter 7

Half a year in this hospital, moved down wards slowly. I was out of the critical care when the outside wounds healed and the majority of the crash accident wounds were gone. The pressure from inside my head passed. My sight and hearing was normal again. My voice returned back eventually with some practice. I had a lot of time getting a better grasp of my other side, and now fluently speak a voice through the mask even when my living side isn't. I learned some things on accident too, like being about to summon a wood door and have storage like a cartoon character (anything of weight or size can just be put into a shadow/ afterimage). I had fun pranking my neighbours with this, amusement to pass the time and still be somewhat useful to learn.

In half a year, my dogs and cats were moved to a foster home. The company that did that is totally shady business which could only mean to me, undertakers were meddling with my life totally. I can no longer prevent them from doing. I had not signed a deal to work with them but they find themselves obligated to convince me to join them. At least they are straight forwards and giving me benefits for it. Yet even the undertakers want me to be buddies with the society my grandparents had business with.

I missed a whole ton of stuff I needed to do, like the funeral of my British grandmother. Which has put me in a constant sorrow for not having that closure. I am sorry to her, to not having the closure to let her go. I missed three family weddings and four gatherings events with once close friends.

My brother who I finally had signal to see the pictures for has no recollection of me ever asking to check some grave site for me. He just remembers that I asked for a bunch of pictures of us growing up. They were lovely to have at least. He has a hard time remembering the conversation clearly and blames the 7 hour time difference. I no longer wanted him to go find the grave site again. I have put unnecessary danger to him and he doesn't even know it.

I am officially discharged with a dilemma. I am to not live alone anymore. I need assistant care living because the pins in my lower spine disc no longer allows me to function a normal life - so they say. They don't want me to risk breaking it and recognize that I am now disabled. I guess I can accept that label in the benefit of having nice handy government scheme handouts. Being a proven disabled give parking in tough places and other lower minor benefits like discount of prescription. I however have the issue of not seeing myself as a disabled person and that if I could walk without a crutch - I would be no different to other people. But then again they have me on meds for nerve damage and a lot of other fun stuff. Walking in a straight line or driving is out of question. Not that I had ever needed to drive a car before. I couldn't learn to now. The hospital has already enrolled me into a care company, which happens to be a lot of people in nice black uniforms. Everything was packed for me in a bag as I was seated in a wheel chair which was parked by the window. I was clothed and ready to go.

My two of the three lawyers had just left with the news about each court battle they won claims for me. The one from losing my job, won. That case actually got raised to a higher court with more people like me banding against the companies that wrong us. The umbrella company is now going into liquidation. All money from the umbrella was spilt to us, pennies really. My original case gave me better return then that. The second case was the motor cyclist, I was the guilty one in this case but I was pardoned due to emotional ruin at the time. It was they only way to explain why I was in the middle of the street where it is busy with no pedestrian zone. The money made from my job case was used to pay the motor cyclist. He however didn't have much to claim other then a replacement bike. The judge didn't favour him having a custom bike replacement only the price of a normal bike as my charge. The custom bike was totalled, there was no way to repair it in the condition it was. His lucky to make it alive out with barely scratch compared to me and his bike.

The third lawyer was for debts being owned that I had no hand in making. The undertakers in digging around had crossed that I was about to be wrongly sued for money I don't own. The debt actually was from my biological father, who used my information falsely. This case was closed with no further moves on me, as the case will have be reopened on him instead. But there is warning that I could be the owner of this debt since I was the only known family member so far. I may not know where he is, but I knew the people they should chase. So a deal is being struck that when I talk to the society I can find if he has any other closer members to take the debt on instead. I might be lucky to give the final bill to him directly. So it's a pending case.

The stress over everything has had side affect, I have really ill again due to it. Hints me being in a wheel chair. I have been in dizzy spells and vomiting due to stress. The doctors have done everything can and tell me I just need to relax. I wish it was easy to do just that.

"Miss Fallown, are you ready to leave?" I fluttered my left hand in annoyance, not due to them. Someone was annoying the tomes and this was giving me a issue. I took a moment of medication and focus one whatever pages or section it is. I could sense the reader who has it open not actually bothering in looking at the page. Only that they kept poking the page on a empty space. They moved they hand away and it was opportunity to slam it closed. It were 'returned' as in handed to the keeper that protected that section or was shelved. A lot of sections live on shelves. I finally take a deep breath and have focus with the room.

"Yes. Please get me out of this hospital. I am quiet finished with the disinfect sterile spray smells and the sounds of uncomfortable injured people." Someone carries my main suitcase. My purse handed to me so it may rest on my lap, "I take it that we are going off to somewhere planned to be a lot of fun."

I could not stop my sarcastic tone. Mostly that being bored in hospital has gotten to me and stress of everything. I am about to be kidnaped by total strangers to do some shady business, so nice of them. I can't be mad at them, they are helping me. Maybe with not the purest intent but now I own them a lot of favours.

"You will regret being snotty." Curiosity having his say in that strange never lifting or falling tone.

"I am a little sour over a lot of things. Not everything is always meant to be aimed at those who helped me." I sigh and crossed my arms in my normal habit of folding my lower torso, "Sometimes it not even caused those around me." That much is true even if I am not explaining it.

"As power of attorney, I had to take out a suitable loan to pay for the expense while you haven't a job to pay for things." My third lawyer is my main guy who has taken charge of my financial issues, "The job that they offer allows you to pay off the loan and still make enough to live on. There is added benefits like perks such as free travel and holiday flexibility. You can already sort of guess what sort of work hours are like." Yup this is all to get me into a deal with them.

"We can discuss the types of contracts on offer away from public hearing, thank you." I cut him off since I heard this part a few many times, "I am not a blind either. I can connect dots just fine." they all were all doing that talking among each other thing and so I changed my voice too.

"I will give you all equal warning. I avoided the society when I learned of them from my mother, when I turned 21 really. There is a reason why I am not among the society even now. I had been fencing away from them. Now that I had that black letter, it confirmed everything that I forgotten long ago. I never went to that boarding school, they couldn't accept me because I wasn't special enough for their elite. A fact I remembered with why I moved schools in America all the time." They all seem scared of my current voice and they heard me just fine. So I give my living throat a clear before I returned to it.

"I am an outcast. They believed I would never achieve any worth in my life to be something great. That is what they choose all that time ago. I no longer share a happy peaceful smile with them." I continued, "Yet you all want me to what. Spy? I am something better then that at least. You likely want to make me a pawn for some game between you two societies." I shrug, "I guess I was always going to end up in the middle of it. My choose was never to matter." I held out my hand, I dared considered it. But I choose to not, closing it empty. I go back to the other voice.

"I can give you a few little dirty secrets they let me. Because the dirty secrets no longer matter to me." They all tilted in a same off angle and I pondered why in one direction, "That is of course the secret allows me to speak." I huffed in both voices and the all jolted, "I own undertakers some favours. Sure. We can accept maybe doing some favours, no contracts needed. A trade is fair."

"How do you do that?" Curiosity lowered to my level and slams both hands on the arm rest, "How are you that voice?"

"Interesting." I noted and he give me a glare, "Because someone has to tell people off when they misuse the tomes." I reply. He had a slight snarl but he didn't backed away, "We own some favours to undertakers." I continue in spite of his place, "Sometimes knowing to much is a curse, you know." I leaned a little with wanting some personal space, "Sometimes if folks forget that the books are actually sentient, they talk around them. They talk a lot. So many voices in many languages. I may not be able to understand. But I can give you a whisper that was overheard from among the tomes. I do mean, all tomes. If I so wished to end up in a coma, I could summon the actual books too. Like the red one I touched once. I regret doing that. But it had to be done. Someone was burning it."

"That's a interesting way to pay back. What value is whispers around the tomes?" He asked standing back up.

"Because everything has a place in the tome. Even dreams." I shrug, "I heard that you lot like dreams. Some demon was just talking about it about an hour ago. Something along the lines of, 'undertakers follow the whims of the dream walkers on the silliest of small matters'. Not a clue what demon was originally talking."

"That is very impressive that you can spy in our realm."

"Your realm? So it would have to be a copy of the death tomes. Some slice the section that I keep having annoying folks in." I tilted and in trying to understand what that means in directions of voices, "The society would have to have more then just that one section certainly." I tilted in medication and was moved very suddenly. Making me aware of Curiosity being that cause.

"Excuse you! What right give you to eavesdrop like that?"

"Like how you lot took over my life currently. It nice that you have so I can't complain." he frowned at me, "I didn't know that set of words would mean such offence. I have never crossed over to the other side before. I don't know where or what things are there. I just have the books to be pestered by."

"Fair point." So quick to see things and not argue pointlessly unless it is with each other. I am carted out the hospital with enjoying fresh free air indefinitely then begging a nurse to sit me outside. I made my mask check everything and pack things it has (that it didn't want to carry).

Once I was moved into the disability van, I took out a book I have been trying really hard to enjoy. I have my yellow plastic read guide to continue where I left off. The only undertakers in the car are the folks borrowing living people. Everyone in this car was part of the care company that is looking after me. I got so focus with trying to read that I ignored any passive conversation. I had partly cracked open the window at my side for fresh air too, spooking some folks that I did, but it wasn't open fully or a lot. My masks side wears over my face and I can at least escape for a short time. At least long enough for either my annoyance of no focusing on the right portion of the page get to me or that I did have to listen to these people about something. My frustration of focus was the quicker at making me put the book down, again. Using my plastic highlight as my book mark. Putting the book away and peering out the window in trying to temper down again.

"Why do you use a reading guide?" The person next to me asked, and I sighed at hating to explain being dyslexic to someone normal. I had a answer I used thousands of times, even down to explaining how it seems for me in a way they understood. But I am tired of answering, just I am done explaining I am from America and lived in Britain longer them my accent seems. Just another small frustration in daily life that I just get on with. My prolong silence of not answering them made them assume I was somewhere else but before they can insult me further. I caved in.

"I was born with the inability to properly understand things correctly. To be exact the way we read is how our mind can flip the image to memorize it easier or process it better. I am slightly unable to correctly flip that image in my mind, thus creating a issue of not able to keep focus or correctly read some long passages of text. Words just jump about the page for me. I use the reading guide to refocus me when I am unable to stay fixed to the words I am trying to read." the question asker has that look of trying to understand this and so I moved to the second part. "the things that you look at are this way." Posing my left hand flat with the thumb directed outward, "You mind has to turn that image upside down to process it." I turn my flat hand point my thumb to my right - as demonstration of my meaning, "When we go to recall it, we automatically return this flip back over." my hand back to the originally way, "But I struggle with this. I have done so always. it can't be cured." So now it was back to repeating this but with never twisting my hand about, "When I look at a image, it is how it processed in my mind as is. I will automatically flip the image when there isn't a need to when I want to recall it." Now that i waved my hand about, he had the ah moment, "That is how it is for a person with some level of dyslexia." a few of them turned to look at me, "Some can read find but struggle with numbers. Some can draw but it will be a flipped image. I can sort of read but I take longer to do so. My personal struggle is with white. The shade of white disrupts my mind flipping imagines into memory. I use yellow to read because it keeps the letters on the page for me. When I get to annoyed at not be able to process the words correctly."

"You are kidding me?" So here comes the next part that I have learnt with undertakers and what I sort of gathered as bias caused from the society, "You're a trickster with a learning difficulty." Yup, it amazes them. The lot are newbies sent to look after me, no one told them to not ask me why I am.

"And!" So that I can get it out of their system, "I am full blood American. Explain that one." they all were at a gaggle about this and I ignore them. I turned to look on my own reflection. Sad. I still haven't fixed that creak in my mask. It seems important that I should have. Maybe it why my spine is so bad, sort of like one side damage mirrors the other. My spine is important so I guess that my mask was just as important. I took it off with looking at myself in both sight types, feeling what my living face was strange. I peer at the scar chip through the mask. It was as if someone took a blade through where my cheek was. The creaking spread into a chipping of that part off removed. I seemed to lost for good it seems.

I focused with how a phone rang in someone's pocket, the answer it with light hums. The volume of the phone made it hard to hear the voice on the other end. It was a quick conversation, with the passage of the drive changing the satnav destination on the console. The drive peers at the new location and sighed length fully. The two undertakers within them were also arguing about something and were clearly a pair together. The two who sat around me have their undertakers suddenly throwing in two cents too.

"At the next service station, we should make a stop." the jolt of them all freaking out a moment like I heard them or something, "I would like a toilet break." the humans here were at agreement for this, some of them needed it too. The undertakers could not prevent them from this. By the time the service station sign was ready for turn off. Everyone was glad to get out of the car. I got out with two crutches and for the most part alone was making my own way to the main building. The humans that smoked took a cigarette break and the one lady follows me to make sure I wasn't totally alone. The undertakers left the humans for now and followed me all the way to the outside of the toilet doors. They were still in argument when I left the toilet. The carer lady waited for me and we together went for a coffee. The folks who were smoking were inside having one too and one guy that had that call wasn't around here.

"How long have you been living in England for?" This conversation I have 100 times. I have a script down to the T. Bland answers that would follow predictable questions to answer again. I say in the way I have always done, regardless of it being for spirits or living - nothing to on point personal to be a issue. Now that all the questions I normally have answered are gone, conversation turns to asking about how I ended up injured as I am.

"It doesn't matter now, what was going through my mind at the time." I hold my drink because it was warmer then the atmosphere of those listening to me, "All that I cared about was myself. A sort of blind panic or paranoid episode really." I take my sip as the humans frowned to this, "I woke up that morning, having gotten over the off news that my biological father's side grandparents might have passed away. I had a message from my mother about my British grandmother passing. Then my phone showed me that I was nearly late getting out the house for work really. I have dogs and cats, I have to sort them before I leave the house." I continue talking really with my right arm crossed in front of me, "I made it to work on time and I was mostly talking to myself all that time. Trying to organize what I needed to do and remind myself what I am doing. I was struggling to focus for work really." I tuck my feet up now too, "I was put to work at till that morning. Made a big sale of the morning. It was nice." I looked how engrossed everyone is at listening to me, "A gentleman came to me very confused, asking about someone who he assumed was staff was being rude to him. But he was very confused. My manager came over to see the fuss and the man was about to collapse. I ran over to the other side of the counter and helped him not fall into glass display items. I continued helping our on site first aid through the process and seen the man off on the stretcher. In that time I had to figure out his name and address. I wanted him to keep conscious. So I had him spell his name to me. He kept spelling it differently, I had to find his wallet to check. My work thought I stole from him which I was wrongfully accused and fired for on the spot." The gasp all of them had even a pair of undertakers did too, "I left work early because I was fired. It added to my pain and stress. I was now worried about affording the roof over my pets and feeding them. I sort of just broken down in a panic really. I blanked out what happened between leaving a bench to eat some food, my attempt to calm down and staring at a ceiling of the A&E." I sip my drink and the case of comments from others that felt bad for me or had shared feeling lost in a blind panic before. It was nice that we can normalize panic attacks and talk about them. Yet its what I expected from people who work in a job that helps folks like me.

"Are you any better now?"

"No and yes. Courts have past. Missed a lot of events. I lost touch with my families. I own a debt to total strangers. Things are going to nicely for my misfortune." I frowned, "I hate how annoying that the a letter warned me. I had some creepy mail from some folks my biological side were into. Warning me about befalling a terrible fate. Even since I opened it, that has exactly been everything that happened."

"Oh that is creepy." I put the now empty cup down. Time is paused around me, I of course cross my arms around me and glare about who and why.

"I happened to over hear something about creepy mail." A demon, middle ranking sort. Human shape, glamour but not perfect to hide the wings or tail. The smile and eyes are an added bonus. Undertakers stood blocking him being close and for sure he pushed them out of the way. A strong man, "I came to be looking for a little strange no body somewhere. I was told that at some point that make their way here. What great fate it is that you, little trickster..." He paused in looking at me properly, "that..." He really looks at me.

"Piss off man, I have nothing for a demon like you." I hissed at him, "I don't have care for temptations or some made up things you can conjure on a whim." He gives a little snarl in shock of my rudeness, "When whoever sent you to find me thought I would been some damsels in distress that would fall head over heels for some sick joke. They were idiots. I am not nice or kind being. I clearly don't have the manners that them folks of the society of humanity have." The demon shook and coughed in trying to take this a different way. He pulls up a chair and sits staring at me, "Careful looking into an any abyss. There is plenty of teeth there watching to bite you." He laughed.

"Very amusing, but isn't the saying that its watching back at you." I used my right hand and flicked him away from me, straight through my wood summoned door to what I assumed a god eater home. The door closed itself, with a sound of some screaming. I coughed and bring time back to normal. The undertakers all skittered away from the fade of the wood door disappearing.

"Are you cold?" A human asking.

"Yes. I think my coat was left in the van but don't worry about it." I cross my arms in front of me as normal, "Maybe another coffee before we get back on the road." They nod and undertakers had to stand themselves back up. They all had to be writing now and returned back to each human once finished. Back into the van, coat on my lap now. A small cup of hot drink in my hands, a tea this time. The folks in the van talked about times they or someone close to them was struggling. How each person dealt with it was very different. The driver admitted it was why he started smoking. Small things we all do now to prevent it happening again. Small changes or changes to lifestyle that had made a benefit for them. I consider the advice they all have and wondered if the healthier options would work for me. Not smoking. The next destination was 45 minutes of such human based conversations. Ignoring the increasing tension of undertakers also here.