The king-size, four-poster bed looked so comfortable and luscious with its oversize cream-colored, fluffy pillows and comforter, I longed to crawl into it and sleep for a week.
She smiled at the covetous expression on my face. “All good things will come to those who earn them, Phoebe. Reality checks, remember?”
I nodded and she took me into her bathroom, opened a medicine cabinet, and plucked out a jar of some skin cream. She rubbed it into my hands.
“Natani isn't the only one with miracle medicines here,” she said, smiling. “You don't want your skin to get too soft when you work a ranch, but you don't want to irritate anything and get infections either.”
“Thank you.”
She put her hands on my shoulders and looked into my face. “You're going to be one of my girls. I'm confident of that. Now return to your barracks and do your schoolwork.”
I thought I heard what sounded like someone sobbing and thought about Robin. Where could she be? Was she sent away? Wherever she was sent, it would be a blessing, I thought.
“Where's Robin?” I asked, and Dr. Foreman's smile faded.
“Robin is defeating a very bad part of herself. She will be better tomorrow. Go on.”
I left, went out, put on my shoes, and crossed the yard to the barracks, wondering if I had heard someone crying and if it was Robin. What horrible thing was being done to her? Could it be worse than being in one of the coffins?
As soon as I entered the barn, I stopped with surprise.
On my cot was a mattress, a pillow, and a blanket, and on the blanket was a pair of blue coveralls, the same white, short-sleeve shirt Mindy and Gia wore, and a pair of panties. I was being rewarded. I was pleased, of course, but at the same time I felt a dark sense of foreboding and guilt as I took off the coarse sack dress and the oversize diaper.
When Teal, Mindy, and Gia returned, they stopped and looked at me sitting on my cot and reading.
“Why did you get all that?” Teal asked.
I shrugged. “It was just here when I returned.”
Mindy smiled coolly, her eyes small. “Sure it was. It just grew there.”
“Leave her alone,” Gia snapped. Mindy turned with surprise. “You're no angel. You have no right to judge her or any of us.”
“I didn't say that I did.”
“What does all that mean?” Teal asked. “Why are you arguing?”
“Around here, the fewer questions you ask, the better off you are,” Gia told her. “Get your work done or you'll soon be where your friend Robin is.”
“Where is she?” I asked quickly. “I think I heard her crying when I was with Dr. Foreman before. Is that where the Ice Room is? In that house.”
“You didn't hear her crying,” Gia insisted.
“I did.”
She was quiet.
“If I didn't hear her crying, who did I hear crying?”
“Forget about it. You don't want to know,” Gia told me.
“Is she in the Ice Room?”
Gia didn't reply. Instead, she turned to Teal and said,
“If you want to do your friend some good, just keep your mouth shut.”
“She's not my friend. We only met when we were brought here. We hardly know each other. I probably know just as much about you as I do her, or you,” Teal said, nodding at Mindy, “or Phoebe.”
“You're better off,” Mindy said dryly, and went to her books. Gia did the same. »
Teal walked slowly to her hard cot, her eyes on me. We were all like a bunch of alley cats, scratching and hissing at each other, I thought. It made me feel sick inside. If I followed Gia's advice, I would walk around with a head full of air. Teal looked like she was going to burst into tears again and have another tantrum. It wouldn't do anyone any good, least of all her.
“I can show you how to do the math assignment,” I said. “Gia showed it to me earlier.”
“I don't care. I'm not doing any of this,” Teal said, and kicked her books.
Mindy and Gia looked up and then went back to their work.
A deep sense of dread passed through me.
Where was Robin? I wondered, looking at the doorway. Why wouldn't Gia talk about her? What was happening to her?
What would happen to Teal?
And then to me?
I worked until lights out. Teal went to sleep before, her back to me.
When I crawled under my blanket, I luxuriated in the softness of my mattress and pillow. My fatigue seemed to seep down through my legs and into the bed. I drifted into my first comfortable night's sleep in a long time, and I was so deeply asleep, I didn't hear anything around me. When I opened my eyes, I didn't resent the morning light as much as I had the day before. Mindy and Gia were just rising, too. I sat up and turned to Teal.
Cold shock began at the base of my stomach and shot up to my heart.
Her cot was empty. She was gone!
I turned to the others. “Where's Teal?”
They both looked as if first noticing she wasn't there themselves.
“Maybe she's so eager to get to work and start on the new vegetables, she got up and left before dawn,” Mindy said.
I looked at Robin's empty bunk. “Why isn't Robin back?” I muttered. “What have they done to her?”
“Didn't you hear what Gia told Teal last night? You're better off not asking questions.” Mindy smirked at me. “But you've already learned how to be better off.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” I shouted at her. She turned her back on me, pulled on her shoes, and started for the door. “If you hadn't opened your big mouth, Robin wouldn't have gotten into trouble,” I screamed.
Mindy turned slowly. “How did she get sent here if she wasn't in trouble?” she retorted, and walked out.
Gia looked at me. “Just get to work. It's the only way to get out of this place.”
She left. I sat there fuming, but I wasn't sure if I was fuming at Mindy for being right about me or just fuming at myself for doing what I had done.
Had Teal run off? Was she out there in the desert, dying like Natani's squirrel? Surely, since I had told Dr. Foreman what Teal was thinking about doing, she wouldn't have let her do it.
I hurried out, hoping to find her beside Natani, planting cucumbers and carrots in the section of land he had irrigated. I saw Mindy and Gia joining him, but no sign of Teal or Robin. M'Lady One, looking like she was dragging herself out and about herself, came strolling toward me. She smiled when she drew closer. “Don't you look and feel better in those clothes?”
I didn't say anything.
She stopped in front of me. “You're a quick learner, Phoebe. That's good, and since you're my assignment, it helps me, too. Don't screw up and we'll both be happier people.” Then she nodded at the planting. “Get to work.”
“Where's Teal? Don't start with that permission to speak. Just tell me what happened to her,” I demanded.
Her smile faded. “Maybe you're not so smart after all.” She started to turn away and I reached out and touched her arm.
“Did she run off? Does Dr. Foreman know? Is she sending someone out there to bring her back?”
She spun on me and poked me hard with her thick, right forefinger in the chest between my breasts. It threw me off-balance and I fell back, sitting on my rear and looking up at her. My chest smarted. She might as well have poked me with a pipe, I thought.
“Don't you ever touch me again, understand? Don't you put your paws on me, girl,” she fired down at me. “No one touches me. The last one who touched me was a sorry rat.”
She looked insane, beyond rage, like someone who had slipped into a second personality and was capable of great violence. It occurred to me that all the buddies were former Foreman wards, which meant each of them had done terrible enough things to cause them to be sent here. What were my buddy's crimes and sins? Was she really cured or was she still quite capable of whatever acts of savagery had brought her to Dr. Foreman's School for Girls?
I rose quickly and turned away from her, heading out to the field.
“Don't you dare touch me again, understand?” she screamed after me.
I kept walking, my shoulders hunched up. In my neighborhood in Atlanta, I had seen people under the influence of drugs and alcohol. I had seen hard kids practically brought up in the streets, but something in my buddy's eyes I had not seen. It was as dark as death.
I stopped next to Mindy and Gia and listened to Natani's instructions about how to plant the different vegetables, trying hard to keep my attention and concentrate. Every once in a while, I looked back at the house, but I didn't see my buddy or anyone else. Instead, I started to work and desperately worked at keeping myself from thinking about any of it.
Just after we finished our morning chores and were heading toward the house for breakfast, we saw a lot of dust down the dirt road and heard the van approaching. All three of us hesitated at the fountain and watched as the van pulled up. M'Lady Three stepped out of the van. A dark-skinned man was driving. He looked like an Indian, too. He stepped out and went to the rear. They opened the door and pulled out a stretcher. Teal was lying on it, her face looking swollen and red. I saw what looked like a large circle of red on her right calf, which also looked swollen. She was grimacing with pain and looked like she had screamed herself hoarse. She didn't open her eyes.
“What happened to her?” I cried, hurrying toward them.
“Get back,” M'Lady Three ordered. They carried her toward a corner of the hacienda. The three of us watched until they disappeared. Then we heard the door open and looked up to see Dr. Foreman.
For a long moment, she and I fixed our gazes on each other like two combatants locked in an unrelenting grasp. Then she smiled.
“Breakfast, girls,” she sang, turned, and went inside.
Mindy and Gia were looking at me. They knew what I had done. They knew why I was so shocked.
“Don't ask about Teal,” Gia warned.
“Just keep giving Dr. Foreman what she wants and get out,” Mindy added.
They both walked into the house. I stood there for a moment. If I could cry, I would, I thought.
But shock, fear, and exhaustion had stolen all my tears.
It made sense I was in the desert. Even my well of sorrow was dry.
My second shock came when I entered the dining room and found Robin sitting at the table. She was hunched over her plate eating and drinking ravenously. Her body trembled and she looked like she had been rolling around in a coal bin. Her hands, however, were clean. She looked up at me and quickly looked down at her food.
“Robin. What happened to you? How are you?” I asked.
Mindy and Gia paused in dishing themselves some scrambled eggs and looked at me, their eyes full of warning. I didn't care. I had to know.
Before I could say another word, however, M'Lady Two was at the door.
“Girls, Dr. Foreman wanted me to tell you that she wants you all to devote this afternoon to academic studies. This is actually a reward. We're easing the restriction on talking. You're free to speak to each other at all times in the barracks and on the grounds, but don't forget to excuse yourselves and thank each other.”
My first thought was this confirmed for me that the barracks was bugged. Dr. Foreman wanted us talking now. She wanted to hear what we said and thought.
“You're to spend the day in your barracks doing your lessons and homework,” M'Lady Two continued. “If you do all your work properly and you have a satisfying session, you will have free time after dinner.”
“Free time? What can we do with free time here?” I asked.
“Breathe,” she replied, and laughed.
After she left, I turned back to Robin, hoping she would tell me something about what had been done to her.
“Stop looking at me,” she snapped. It took me by such surprise, I turned to Mindy and Gia.
They both looked at me with I-told-you-so expressions. I served myself some breakfast and ate with my eyes straight ahead. I couldn't remember ever feeling more alone and lost, more helpless than I felt at that moment.
Afterward, on our way back to the barracks, Gia stepped up beside me.
“Even though they're easing up on the no-talking restrictions, don't keep asking Robin about the Ice Room,” she said. “She's been told it's forbidden to talk about it, and if she does, she can end up back there. Basically, she's ashamed of herself.”
“Why would she be ashamed of herself?” What did Gia know?
“Because of what happened there and what she promised or said to get out.”
“How do you know?”
Gia stopped. She didn't look at me. She just gazed ahead, her eyes growing small, dark. “Because I was there, too.” Then she walked on, leaving me behind, staring after her.
I looked back at the house and thought about Teal. I really couldn't blame her for running off, but what was the point of Dr. Foreman forcing me to tell on her if she let her go off like that? Nothing made any sense to me. Nothing I did seemed to help. Whenever I thought things might be getting better, they were actually getting worse. I was afraid to make any more decisions. We could talk, but I was afraid to talk. What if I said the wrong things? What were the right things?
Standing there under the glaring sun, I felt suddenly like I couldn't move. Any direction I took, anything I said or did, would not help me. I was filled with a sense of dread and terror of any decision I might make. Even walking to the barracks seemed like it might be wrong.
Suddenly a cold wave of panic nailed my feet to the desert floor. I couldn't even swallow. My heart was pounding as if I had been running for miles, though. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. I was caught in some sort of invisible web. My arms and legs were stuck. I could almost see the spider approaching. I've got to do something, something . ..
I didn't realize I was being watched, and not by any of the buddies or Dr. Foreman. Natani stood so still and so quiet, I could have walked past him and not realized it. Finally, after looking at me for some time, I guess, he came forward, materializing out of thin air.
“The rabbit,” he said, “grows so afraid, he cannot move. He trembles in place and the fox has a pleasing time of it. Your eyes are clouded with fear, daughter of the sun. Open them wider, look beyond. Go where the sun goes.” He pointed to the western horizon. “See yourself outside and you will not tremble in your footsteps.”
I looked where he pointed. See yourself outside? Yes, think about anyplace else but here. I thought of Atlanta, of being with my old friends, of laughter and freedom and the neon lights, the music, the noise. Envisioning it seemed to wash a cool relief over my body.
“See yourself outside,” I muttered, driving the lesson home to my heart.
“Yes,” he said, and put a turquoise stone in my hand. “Keep this close. It is a piece of the sky that fell many, many years ago and it will remind you to look up and see yourself outside.” Then he walked off.
I turned the stone in my fingers, then looked up at the sky. Who knows, I thought, maybe it was a piece of the sky. I put it in my pocket and felt myself regain my strength. My breathing eased and I started across the yard again. When I stepped into the barn, I saw Robin was sitting with Mindy on her cot and working with her on the math assignment. Gia was nearby, her books opened.
“It's better for each of us if we work together,” Gia said. “We can break up the assignments and each take something we're each good at.”
“I'm not a great reader,” I admitted.
“Well, we already know you're not great at math either. What are you good at?”
“Making excuses for not being good at anything,” I replied, and Gia actually laughed. It was as if a thin wall of ice had shattered between us.
“Okay,” she said. “I'll partner up with you. Come on, we'll start on the social studies assignment.”
I picked up my book to join her, then noticed Robin's cot. It had a mattress on it, a pillow, a
nd a blanket, and Robin was wearing the same coveralls and shirt.
“You were rewarded,” I said excitedly. “How come?”
She looked at me with joyless eyes and then looked down at the math text.
“Let's just get this done,” Gia said, urging me to drop the subject.
She didn't need to. Robin's quick, subdued looks were enough. I understood. Whatever she was being rewarded for was not something she was happy to describe. What terrible things had been done to Robin and what had she given Dr. Foreman as a result? Was it something about me, something I had said? I ran back whatever I could remember saying, drawing in my thoughts and words like a fisherman reeling in fish. Many things would have angered Dr. Foreman, I thought, but from the way Robin looked, she wouldn't tell me even if she wanted to tell me. She looked the way I had felt right after I had given up Teal. I felt sure I was not the only one who betrayed.
And more important, perhaps, was what Dr. Foreman had been after right from the beginning. She would find ways to turn us against each other until all each of us had was herself and Dr. Foreman. She was the spider I had envisioned out there. I and the others were trapped in her web now.
I quickly put my hand into my pocket to feel the stone.
Natani's words returned.
Think of the sky. See myself outside.
Yes, that would be my chant.
That was what would get me home, I thought, wherever home might be.
Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight
Group Therapy
A eal didn't return to the barracks for nearly four days. Every time I started to talk about her and wonder aloud what was happening to her, Gia came at me, telling me to stop asking and to mind my own business. I wanted to suggest that Teal was my business and should be hers, too. We should all be each other's business. Whom else did any of us have here? But neither Robin nor Mindy spoke up in support of me. They avoided my eyes, looked away, went about their work. Teal could be gone for good and none of them would have asked after her. It would be as if she had never existed, the same if I had never existed.
Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight Page 11