Ruins of the Mind Read online

  “Now that you mention it—I saw Mr. Grenchowski using his cane instead of his walker yesterday, too,” Sarah said.

  “Must be the spring air, Miss Tradaul. Rejuvenating!”

  “Must be,” Sarah said, chuckling, not really buying her own words. She considered the recent turn of events at Brockman House but remained puzzled. Unfortunately, not all the developments were positive. Mr. Phillips was now experiencing some troubling health issues. In the span of only two days, he had been to Maggie twice for meds, and according to Maggie, it looked like he was rapidly developing arthritis. Fran Johnson now had pneumonia and was experiencing emphysema-like issues with her breathing. It was almost as if, regardless of the pneumonia, her lungs struggled to function properly. She took every opportunity to complain about it, pressing the nurse call button at least once an hour more to vent than because she needed any assistance.

  Maggie was concerned, however. “If Fran doesn’t take a turn for the better soon, we should send her over to Robinson Memorial,” she said to Sarah.

  “You don’t think her symptoms could be the result of an out-of-control allergy, do you?”

  “No, I would put my money on a bacterial infection but I just don’t have the facility to run the confirmation test. I sent some lab work off that is due back this afternoon, but I don’t know if it’s going to show much aside from an elevated white blood cell count.”

  “Well, you’re the pro. I trust you to handle these things. Let me know if you need me to order a transport for her. I would imagine she’s giving you an earful,” Sarah said with an understanding smile.

  “That old bat would complain if she got a paper cut. Don’t you worry about me. I can handle her.”

  Sarah became lost in thought for a moment. “Maggie, I have to ask you something. What do you suppose might be causing these new behaviors I’ve been noticing in the residents?”

  “Like what, hun?”

  “Well, for one, Edna Peirce is suddenly free of her arthritic pain. She’s no longer using her walker—only her cane—and she’s playing the piano again. Then there’s Mrs. Hillard. She tells me she’s moving about much easier and that she actually walked three miles yesterday. And I saw Mr. Grenchowski walking with his cane instead of his walker. What do you make of it?”

  “If you ask me, it’s a bit of social justice,” the Irish nurse stated emphatically.

  “How so?”

  “Think about it. Edna, Mrs. Hillard and Mr. Grenchowski are good people with kind souls that are feeling better. Then you have Mr. Phillips and Fran, both mean-spirited folk, never missing an opportunity to complain. They have never spoken a kind word to anyone, and now they’re falling apart. Don’t think the Lord doesn’t work in mysterious ways, lassie—because he does,” Maggie said, nodding her chin up and down in agreement with herself.

  Sarah rolled her eyes in response. “I’m not so sure it’s the Lord’s hand in any of this, but let me know if Mrs. Johnson doesn’t improve, and we’ll get her straightened out,” Sarah said, smiling kindly.

  On her way back to the office, Sarah studied the residents walking the halls. Maggie might actually be onto something after all, she thought. The halls were more alive than ever before. Curiously, eighty-year-old people were now moving and acting as if they were fifty, walking taller and without so much difficulty. The residents were speaking more clearly, too, no longer displaying that elderly pause while they struggled to find the words to express their thoughts. It was a peculiar scene to witness.

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Sarah stepped out on the front porch. She was surprised to see that every rocking chair but one was occupied. Some residents were reading while others were knitting. Looking out over the lawn, she stood still, slack-jawed. Four people, including Mrs. Hillard, Kevin’s mother Jessica, and her friend Edna, were playing a game of horseshoes. They were laughing and running after the horseshoes, eager to retrieve them and toss them again.

  Sarah looked over at Edna. Her good friend had fewer wrinkles on her face and clearly looked twenty years younger. She stood taller, too, and was moving about with apparent ease. Sarah then turned to look at everyone else around her. She wasn’t imagining it. Most looked ten-to-twenty years younger. The changes in appearance, including liver spots that had faded, were startling.

  Edna noticed Sarah looking at her with a slack expression on her face. “What’s wrong dear—Sarah, are you all right?” she called from the yard. Sarah broke her gaze, stepping down the stairway while Edna walked over to meet her.

  “Mrs. Peirce, can we walk together?”

  “Nothing would give me more pleasure. Let’s walk toward the side yard.”

  The two women strolled together, not saying anything at first. Sarah now felt as if she were walking beside a woman her mother’s age rather than her grandmother’s.

  “Edna, what is going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at you. You aren’t walking with a cane. The joints of your fingers don’t even look inflamed.” Sarah stopped and looked at her—hard. “Edna, what are you taking? I find it hard to believe you are somehow miraculously growing younger.”

  Edna laughed happily with such a beautiful, melodic laugh that Sarah joined in right along with her.

  “I’m not taking a single thing, child. I just…feel better.”

  “It shows, Edna. I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m not complaining—I have more energy, too. But it’s just so strange. There must be an explanation.”

  “Why demand an answer? Sweetheart, when you get to be my age…” she paused and chuckled, “well, whatever age I’m supposed to be, you find you don’t need to question why things are the way they are as much and that you just need to accept life and enjoy it.”

  “I would like to do just that, Edna. But there are some here who aren’t as fortunate. Several residents are showing declining health—why?”

  “Yes. I heard about Fran. It’s sad, but she’s not exactly the nicest person I’ve ever met. The truth is, Sarah, if you want to find out how and why something is affecting us, you’ll have to look yourself. I’m not prepared to look at that gift horse in the mouth. I’ve been trapped in this body, unable to do much more than survive for the past ten years, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to do anything that might turn the clock forward again. I do hope you figure it out though, just to satisfy your own curiosity.” Edna turned and walked pertly back to her game of horseshoes.

  Sarah looked down at her watch. It was nearly three o’clock, and she had a lot of work yet to finish. She searched for Henry and found him in the boiler room replacing a valve on one of the water lines.

  “Well, hello there!” he said in a welcoming, energetic voice. “Where have you been hiding out all day?”

  Sarah’s tone was less chipper than Henry’s. “Just dealing with resident issues, Henry. How are things coming along? I don’t remember this being on the list.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I was repairing Mr. Phillips’ shower valve when I noticed a soft knocking sound. Turns out there was a regulator valve going bad. I took it upon myself to replace it before one of the residents accidentally got burned.”

  “Good thinking. Thank you, Henry.”

  Sarah paused, unsure how to ask what she wanted to ask, fearing she might sound just a little off. “Henry, have you noticed anything…anything odd with the residents? Have you seen them drinking or eating anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Well, I don’t really have much of a baseline, ma’am, given that I’ve been here less than a week. Most of them seem nice enough. I haven’t seen them acting covertly if that’s what you mean—hiding any drinks or food.”

  Sarah contemplated flat-out asking, “Well, have you noticed how everyone seems to be getting younger, including myself?” She decided against it.

  “Okay, thank you, Henry. I’m going up to the office to work for a couple of hours before heading home. Do you need anything before I go?”

  “Nope. Think I’
m all set. I’ll just finish this, clean up and head out myself. Have a good weekend.”

  “You too. And Henry—I’m glad you’re here with us. You’re doing a wonderful job.”

  “Glad to help, Sarah. Have a good evening.”

  WHEN SARAH ARRIVED on Monday, she was a bit apprehensive, given how strangely the previous week had gone.

  She found three women she didn’t quite recognize in the dining room playing cards. They each had long gray hair. Two of them, however, had about three inches of brown showing up at their roots while the other showed a growth of beautiful sandy blonde hair.

  “Can I help you ladies?”

  “I don’t know—are you any good at poker?” one of them asked, arching her eyebrows and chuckling.

  “I’m sorry—do I know you?” Sarah replied.

  “Sarah—it’s Edna!” the woman on the right who had been talking with her said.

  “Edna? No…” Sarah said, stunned.

  Edna let out a laugh that was unmistakably her own. All three women were looking at Sarah now, smiling as if they were sharing some fun, conspiratorial secret.

  “Edna…you look so young—close to my age!”

  Edna laughed loudly. “We all feel it, too. We have no idea what is going on, but it’s incredible, isn’t it?!”

  Sarah couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She turned her eyes to the other two women. “Mrs. Hillard?” she asked one of them, who smiled and nodded as if to say yes. “And Jessica?” The third woman laughed in an affirmative response.

  “I’ll be ninety-two exactly two weeks from today. How many ninety-two-year-olds do you know who look this good?” Jessica said, clearly giddy over her newfound youth.

  “Honestly? None that I know of. Hell, I know some fifty-year-old women who don’t look as good as you,” Sarah said emphatically.

  “I know,” Jessica said, smiling and giggling like a schoolgirl. Looking at the other women, she said, “My son Kevin is going to freak out—you look his age.”

  Sarah shook her head in amazement. What was she to make of all this? “I’ll be back. I’m going to check on the others.”

  “Others?” Jessica asked, puzzled.

  “She means the ones getting older—not younger,” Edna said.

  SARAH ARRIVED AT the nurses’ station and looked for Maggie, but she was nowhere in sight.

  “Maggie?” She searched in two of the rooms and saw a closet door partially open. “Maggie? Are you in here?”

  In her thick Irish accent, Maggie responded cheerfully from the back of the laundry closet, “Be right there, dear.”

  A few seconds later, a woman no older than thirty with long, flowing red hair stepped out of the closet. She was stunningly beautiful, fair-complexioned and had the same large bosom—only now all the pieces and parts appeared tightened and lifted.

  “Margaretta McLeese!” Sarah shrieked.

  “Sarah, you really should have spent the weekend here at work. Working weekends can…”

  “—apparently make you young again!” Sarah interrupted.

  Maggie giggled. “Well, yes,” she replied happily, and then she got serious immediately. “But things didn’t turn out so good for some, I’m afraid. Mrs. Johnson has been transported to Robinson Memorial, along with Mr. Phillips and Jack Richardson. Mr. Phillips fell into a coma Saturday night and hasn’t reawakened, but I guess Fran stabilized once she got to Robinson. As a result, Dr. Lenton wants to send someone from the CDC over here, but I assured him that those are isolated cases and everyone else feels just fine. I thought it might raise more questions than we could handle if people showed up here and saw a bunch of energized eighty-something residents looking and acting like they were in their forties.”

  “Smart move,” Sarah said, relieved. “I do need to get to the bottom of this, though.”

  ON TUESDAY MORNING, Sarah decided to investigate the one anomaly that fit the puzzle. Henry Legna. Henry arrived for work as usual at 8:00 a.m. and stopped in at the office to say hello.

  “Mornin’, Henry. Can we talk for a moment?”

  “Of course,” Henry replied in his usual good humor.

  “You’ve been here—what, a week now? How are things going for you?”

  “Things are going very well. I feel I’m a good fit for Brockman House, and it’s a good fit for me. I’ve gotten almost everything done on the to-do list you gave me as well as several jobs not even on the list.”

  Sarah paused and then simply looked at Henry, trying to detect any hidden dishonesty or impropriety. She could find none.

  “What’s the matter, ma’am? You seem troubled.”

  “Frankly, I am.” She placed her clasped hands purposefully on her desk. “You see, Henry, I have a puzzle, and the only piece that fits that puzzle is you.”

  “Ma’am?” Henry said, confused.

  “As I’m sure you have noticed, residents have been…changing. Some are getting younger while others are growing sick and dying.”

  “Curious, isn’t it? But wonderful…the growing younger part I mean.” Henry smiled warmly at her.

  “Yes, quite. I couldn’t help but notice that all of this started around the time that you arrived. So it’s either an unbelievable coincidence, Henry, or you have something to do with these changes—do you have anything to do with this, Henry?”

  Henry looked down at his hands for a moment.

  Sarah pressed him. “Henry?”

  “I can’t answer that, ma’am. I’m sorry—I wish I could.”

  Sarah was stunned. Part of her had expected him to claim no responsibility for any of this so she would be forced to chalk up these incidents as unexplained occurrences of some sort. “If you are responsible, I have to know how and why…Henry?”

  “Like I said, ma’am, I can’t answer your questions. I have a higher authority to answer to and a code of ethics to which I am bound.”

  “Henry, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I will be forced to call the police, and I don’t want to do that. You’re a good man. Now please, stop being so cryptic and tell me what’s going on.”

  “Now that you suspect me, I have no choice but to be evasive. Let me finish the two tasks I have left on the list first, and then I will give you an answer, at least to the best of my ability. All I have left is fixing the ice maker in the kitchen and repairing the lock on the first-floor window in the parlor. I will come back and talk to you at ten o’clock.”

  Sarah stared at Henry, not responding for nearly ten seconds. “Okay. But please, promise me you will be back here at ten o’clock.”

  “I give you my word, ma’am.”

  Henry left and finished his last couple tasks, taking special care to ensure that each job was done well. Sarah checked in on him a few times while he was working. She didn’t doubt his good intentions as much as she wondered if he was concealing something. She had never seen him involved in anything other than repairs, really—except once when he had sat quietly and appeared to have his head bowed, lost in his own thoughts.

  Henry cleaned up his mess and appeared in Sarah’s doorway as promised, promptly at ten o’clock.

  “Sit down, Henry,” she said, gesturing toward a chair.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have much time to sit and talk, but I do want to give you an explanation of sorts.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Henry paused, pondering his words as if it were extremely important to get them exactly right.

  “There comes a time when those who have helped the world in small ways deserve a chance to live their lives for themselves because they have spent a lifetime doing good for others. I have simply provided those who are pure at heart the ability to have that purity manifest itself physically. Sadly, the physical changes in those who have habitually wished harm or shown malcontent to those around them are of the opposite effect.”

  Sarah couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But how, Henry? How are you doing it?”

  “I’m not actually doing an
ything. I am simply providing the means for it to happen. I am simply a tool wielded by a higher power…much the same as the tools I use to repair your facility here.”

  “Do you mean God, Henry?”

  “I can tell you this much, Sarah. As long as you keep what I’ve told you a secret, a light will burn here, keeping those who are generous of heart truly young—but those living here who have shown repeated selfishness or demonstrated malice toward others will continue aging rapidly. However, when any resident leave Brockman House, they will once again age at a normal rate. It’s just the way it works.”

  Henry turned to walk out of the room and then turned back abruptly. “And Sarah—only you and Maggie can know the truth of this. Can you give me your word on that?”

  Sarah paused and thought hard. Mysterious youth? Secrecy? This is crazy, she thought. Yet somehow she felt the tug of some invisible thread, making it all seem possible—and plausible.

  “I give you my word, Henry. No one here other than Maggie but…”

  “No more talk now, Sarah. I really have to go. I’ve completed my repairs to Brockman House. If you ever need me again, I’ll be back, and you can donate my pay to any charity you choose.”

  Henry began to exit but turned back abruptly once again, as if he had read her mind. “Don’t worry. Maggie will understand all of this, and she can keep a secret. If anyone should ask questions about the hidden blessing of Brockman House, just tell them the truth—it’s a mystery.”

  With that, Henry walked out the door.

  Sarah stood up and followed him around the corner just in time to see his blue denim overalls fade from view as well as hear his last, fading footsteps.

  Quite suddenly, Mr. Henry Legna was gone.

  Sarah stood a moment, staring silently at the open front door. Then, walking slowly toward it, she paused at the screen momentarily to feel the warm, soothing breeze pass over her face. Turning her gaze to the front of the house, she noted that several energetic residents stood playing Frisbee while a few others sat contentedly on the porch either reading or knitting.