The Night of the Bat
Copyright© 2026 by Heel
Chapter 6
Three weeks later Clara finally stood again.
Barely.
The enormous upper body cast had been replaced with something smaller after new examinations from Martin suggested the fractured vertebrae were stabilizing properly, but she still remained trapped inside a heavy hip spica cast that enclosed her injured leg completely and wrapped tightly around her waist and hips, forcing the broken limb permanently outward while keeping her pelvis rigid and immobile.
The cast was still enormous on her small frame.
Martin had fitted her with crutches that first morning, though “walking” was not really the correct word for what she managed.
It was more like controlled falling.
Every movement demanded concentration.
The cast forced her body into unnatural balance, and after only a few exhausting steps across the bedroom she collapsed breathless into the chair beside the window while Edgar instinctively moved forward to steady her before she tipped sideways.
“I’m okay,” she said automatically, though her face had gone pale from effort.
“You nearly broke your neck.”
A faint smile crossed her lips.
“You’d just put me in another cast.”
The joke should not have worked.
But Edgar laughed anyway.
That frightened him slightly.
Because the sound felt unfamiliar after so many years.
Outside, spring had begun overtaking the hills around Bell’s Crossing. Sunlight filled the enormous house now where storms and darkness had ruled weeks earlier, and Clara’s presence had altered the atmosphere of the place in ways Edgar still struggled to fully understand.
Rooms were being used again.
Music occasionally drifted softly from upstairs.
Conversations replaced silence.
Even the kitchen no longer felt haunted.
Martin noticed it too.
“You look different,” the doctor remarked one afternoon while examining Clara’s healing leg.
Edgar frowned. “Different how?”
“Alive.”
Edgar did not answer.
Because he knew exactly what Martin meant.
— Two days later Edgar drove Clara into town for the first time since the accident.
The trip exhausted her badly.
Getting her into the car alone took nearly fifteen minutes because of the massive cast immobilizing her hips and injured leg, and by the time they returned home she looked pale and drained from pain despite trying hard not to show it.
Edgar helped her slowly up the front steps afterward while she balanced awkwardly on crutches.
Halfway through the entrance hall she stopped suddenly.
“What?” he asked.
Clara stared at him strangely.
“You paid it.”
Edgar said nothing.
“The hospital bills,” she whispered. “For Daniel.”
Still silence.
Her eyes widened slowly.
“All of them?”
Edgar removed her coat carefully before answering.
“The treatments too.”
Clara continued staring at him as though she had stopped understanding the world properly.
“How much?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“How much?”
Edgar hesitated.
When he answered, the number left her speechless.
For several long seconds she simply stood there trembling slightly on the crutches while tears slowly gathered in her eyes.
“You can’t just...” Her voice weakened. “Nobody does that.”
Edgar looked away toward the windows.
“Your brother deserves a chance.”
The words broke something inside her completely.
She covered her face suddenly and began crying with deep exhausted sobs she had apparently been holding back for years, her crutches slipping dangerously sideways until Edgar caught her before she fell.
“Easy,” he murmured instinctively.
Clara clung to him then.