Page 44 of The Fae’s Treasure

“Did your brother call?”

Geez, it’s been months since I saw Lennox and Cindy in person. Weekly video chats help. I know my brother doesn’t hate my guts. Cindy actually likes me—somewhat. We both have a raunchy sense of humor and mouths like truckers.

Or Vietnam Vets.

I hold Earl’s hand as he moves around the room, his feet shuffling. He’s lost so much weight. At first, I thought it was healthy—but then it kept dropping.

The grizzled, blind man next to me is too thin, and his middle is swollen. When I help him to his chair, his skin looks tight, red and shiny through the gap between his socks and the worn leather vest that’s draped over his knees, covered in patches, the twin of mine.

“Yeah, he called. Doing good. Loves his job. Loves his wife. They have a nice little place. Still the same good bunch of pals.”

“Good. Good.” Earl’s voice is mumbly. He stares at Jeopardy on the television with unseeing eyes.

Earl hates Jeopardy—and he’s blind. He can’t see anything but shadows, and he’s staring so intently—or his eyes are glazing over. Fixed. He used to be able to see fuzzy outlines and shadows, and I’d catch his eyes moving towards the light, or he’d turn his head towards sounds. Not now.

“Earl, you’re scaring me.”

“Huh?”

I swallow down the panic rising in me. I don’t like feeling like this. Tilly whimpers in the corner and then runs in circles around our feet.

She knows I need to help him.

I don’t know what’s wrong.

The VA moved Earl into Mint Woods Senior Care this year. Earl and the docs at the VA nursing home agreed Earl didn’t need that level of care. And hell, they were right. You ever seen a blind man trying to get a bunch of eighty-something veterans in wheelchairs to raid the kitchen to get enough jello cups to make a slip-and-slide ramp? No? Neither had they.

So, Earl was happy to be set free from that place (without getting arrested), even if he was pissed he couldn’t go back to living alone. Mint Woods Senior Care is like an assisted living place, where he gets some looking after, but not enough to make him rebel and lead an octogenarian mutiny.

At first, things were okay. His sugar was under control. He was eating regularly. They even let me spring him for my brother’s wedding. Those little “glamour pendants” from the Pine Ridge magic shop really work—although Len reassures me we don’t need ‘em. Humans can’t see the paranormal for shit, not unless it bites ‘em on the ass, or in my brother’s case, crashes down at someone’s feet.

Then about... Oh, six months ago? Things started going downhill at the place, but Earl was still okay. First, it was the company. They cut staff. Then they cut the care. As someone independently able to dress, feed, and bathe himself, Earl gets to go to meals in the dining room if he wants—but they won’t make him. Won’t check on him. He gets his meds dropped off in a big plastic box with days of the week stamped in braille on the lids—but no one checks to see if he takes them.

There’s no medical care other than his annual check with the VA doctor and his endocrinologist.

I think something is really wrong, and even though I’ve now learned that humans can’t necessarily see monsters (and their brains just see us as something else), I’m still helpless. I’m not kin. I’m a visitor—and I’m supposed to leave at six on the dot.

I do—and then I fly back up to his second-floor window in a cubby of an apartment that smells of menthol, talcum, and antiseptic. But those smells have been fading. Other smells, like urine, stale food, and body odor, are taking their place.

“When did you check your sugar, Earl?” I ask, my feathery setae feeling wet on my palms. I’m sweating.

“Huh?”

“Fuck this.” I have seen him do this enough times. If a blind guy can do it, I can do it.

I take Earl’s hand and prick his finger. He doesn’t even react.

“Three hundred.” Holy shit, that’s not good. That can’t be good. “Earl. When did you last eat?”

“Scrambled eggs.”

Breakfast. Did they bring him breakfast? I know Earl doesn’t cook on the little two-burner stove they give him.

I look around and see no evidence of cooking. If his blood sugar is this high without eating...

I grab the white phone attached to the wall. A static-y voice answers me, tinging and pinging.

“I need a nurse to my buddy’s room. Now!”