The Sisters of Castle Stone

#10 The Night Walkers

The first night was never the easiest, and Charlotte knew this better than most. Her first experience in the hospital as a young girl was frightening, to say the least. All the strange sights and smells of clinical disinfectant clung to the air and her clothes. The sadness, and longing to be with her family, were something that would stay with her for a very long time. Charlotte was not that little girl any longer, she was fifteen and in a few short years she'd be a young woman, old enough to spend one night away from her familiar surroundings.

This was different. Everything about this was different. She didn't have her parents, that goes without saying, but before as a younger girl, she managed to make a friend or two in the other patients on her ward.

There was Poppy-Rose Jones, and Abigail's Wentworth, both became her little gang during her several months stay. They were the same age as Charlotte and their beds were on the same ward. Poppy-Rose was on the right, and Abigail Wentworth was on the left, with Charlotte herself taking up the middle bed. They'd have midnight feasts and chat most of the night, with an angry Matron telling them to shut up and go to sleep, for they kept up most of the other girls who were much more under the weather than they were. Poppy-Rose, who was a year or two younger than Charlotte, and Abigail. She slept with a couple of Barbies in her bed at night and always insisted on a bright pink Barbie duvet cover during the frosty winter months. She always wore several shades of pink from her hair bands that brightened up her whitish-blonde hair, to the socks that warmed her feet.

Abigail was older, not by much, but by a month or two. During her short stay due to chronic asthma, her mother started to have an affair with one of the rather fit male nurses who was on her ward. It led to Mr and Mrs Wentworth divorcing, and her father moving away from the family home. It turned out he, like his wife, also had a wandering eye. Abigail was the life and soul of any ward, with a head full of curls and a smile to light up any room. As they lay in their beds at night they'd plan the adventures they'd embark on when all three of them were fit and well enough to leave the hospital, and they had enough money saved up. Charlotte always dreamt of becoming an Olympic rider, with Poppy-Rose becoming a vet, and Abigail a famous singer or actress. They'd go to America, Canada, Australia and Spain, Italy and Jamaica and Greece, just the three of them. Friends forever, friends for life.

Then one day not long after breakfast, Charlotte awoke to find Abigail loading all her belongings into a suitcase. A huge smile was plastered across her face.

"I'm going home," she said, and hugged Charlotte close, "I'll phone you later and I'll visit loads. I promise."

But Abigail didn't visit.

So it was just the two of them, Charlotte and Poppy-Rose. Not long after her first friend returned home, things started to go downhill. Poppy-Rose took a turn for the worse. Sepsis they said it was. At first, she struggled to wee, not a drop all day. Then she kept being sick, several times a night. It covered the bedding and leaked onto the floor and every time it happened the sound woke up everyone in the ward. She lay in her bed, her whole body trembling like she'd been out in the cold, but when the wound where her chemotherapy was given became swollen and angry, within hours she'd been moved to another ward in a different part of the hospital complex.

Charlotte never saw Poppy-Rose again.

This time there was no Abigail or Poppy-Rose. It was just her, and at that moment what Charlotte needed was a wee. Her hospital room was private, which in a way she was thankful for, but one thing it certainly did not have an en-suite toilet.

Right, where's the loo?

Charlotte threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. Her left arm hurt like hell, but there was no way on earth she'd lower herself to use a commode. Even the thought of it sent shivers down her spine and a tiny drop of sickness back up her throat. She reached forward and switched on the light in her room. Carefully she opened the door and stepped into the corridors. The overpowering smell of string cleaning fluid drifted up her nose as she walked through. She looked left but didn't see anyone who could help her. She looked right. But still, no one was there. And then out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a girl. She looked about her age, with long reddish hair in a loose ponytail that hung down her back gently grazing against her bum. She wore a long white nightdress that almost touched the floor with every step she took.