“We cannot allow gossip to grow. If this escalates, we risk a press frenzy. This hospital’s reputation is at stake. You will investigate quietly and give us answers grounded in science.”
Conrad promised to do so, although his confidence felt shaken. He spent nights combing through case studies and obscure journals, searching for precedents involving neurological conditions that triggered bizarre hormonal effects in caregivers. He found nothing credible. The words supernatural conception appeared in fringe material, but he dismissed them as sensationalized nonsense.
When the fifth nurse, Marina Foster, visited with trembling lips and said she was frightened to sleep, Conrad felt something cold unravel inside him, like a cable snapping in the dark.
“I do not feel alone when I sit with him,” Marina whispered. “Sometimes I feel watched. Sometimes I feel something brush past me, although nothing is there. I know how absurd it sounds. I am sorry.”