Free The Medium by Noëlle Sickels

yesterday, and she’s as thin as a stick. Her sister’s coming to make their dinner tomorrow, or they wouldn’t have any, likely.”
    Emilie turned to go back to the kitchen, then paused in the doorway.
    â€œWhy don’t you ask Mary over to play?”
    Rosie, whose back was to Emilie, rolled her eyes at Helen. They didn’t much care for the company of Mary Steltman, who had strong tendencies to whining and telling tales.
    â€œMary doesn’t like Scrabble,” Helen said quickly.
    â€œWell, you might think of something else to do,” Emilie replied, but her tone of voice said she wasn’t going to push it.
    It was dark when they crossed the street to the Steltmans’. Helen carried the warm, heavy pie wrapped in a clean dish towel, and Rosie held a jug of whipping cream carefully upright.
    When Mary opened the door, she didn’t look especially pleased to see them. But when her mother called in a husky voice to ask who it was, she had to step back and let them in. They followed her into the living room.
    It was a small room, crammed with overstuffed furniture covered in floral chintz. A fire blazed in the fireplace, and to Helen, fresh from the crisp November night, the room felt overheated, the air stale and vaguely sour. Mrs. Steltman sat in an easy chair with afghans around her shoulders and across her legs. The thinness Emilie had described was evident in her caved-in face and in one bony hand fidgeting with an edge of the lap rug.

    â€œSo thoughtful,” she said, when Helen explained their errand. She was smiling, but she looked sad and terribly tired.
    Mary received the bundled plate from Helen, and after letting her mother lift a corner of the towel to admire the pie, she took it to the kitchen at the back of the house. Rosie accompanied her, valiantly chattering about whether the pond might freeze this weekend and if Mary had gotten her skate blades sharpened yet and how she would have to use her brother’s old hockey skates again this season but was hoping for figure skates for Christmas.
    At Mrs. Steltman’s insistence, Helen sat on the end of the couch near her chair. There was the usual exchange about how she was liking school and how her family was, and then they fell quiet, both of them directing their gazes to the fire, whose occasional crackles kept the silence from feeling awkward. When Mrs. Steltman sighed audibly, Helen turned to look at her.
    The woman was still staring into the flames, either unaware of Helen’s attention or ignoring it, and around her glowed the lights. They were different from any Helen had encountered before, sky blue with silver sparks, and there was a hole in them near her stomach. As Helen was puzzling over this, she sensed the presence of someone else in the room. Twisting around, she expected to find Mary and Rosie, but instead an old man was standing at the hall door. He was looking at Mrs. Steltman, and his eyes shone with kindness and concern. He took two steps forward and stopped. Helen checked on the sick woman, but she continued to watch the fire, obviously sunk deep in her own thoughts.
    Suddenly, Helen knew who the old man was, as certainly as if he’d spoken. He was Mrs. Steltman’s father, and he’d come to help her die. His being was so gentle and loving, Helen felt no fear at this knowledge. To the contrary, she saw that Mrs. Steltman had been suffering for a long time, and that death
would be a release for her. Helen knew that Mary and Mary’s father and Mrs. Steltman’s sister would be very sad when she left them, but surely they would come to see that it was better for her than living on in pain and discouragement.
    At the sound of Rosie’s laughter from the hallway, the old man disappeared and Mrs. Steltman looked away from the fire.
    â€œSorry, dear, I guess I dozed off for a moment,” she said, though Helen hadn’t seen her eyes close.
    â€œDid you