Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight

by Andrews, V. C.

  She glanced at the letter, but she didn't move.

  'Take it and read it in the morning," I said, offering it.

  She started to shake her head.

  “You have to take it.” I shoved it under her pillow.

  I stood up and only then realized that Mindy was back and in her cot. She was lying there, her eyes wide-​open, staring at me.

  “Where were you?” I asked.

  “I had a special session with Dr. Foreman. Where were you?” The silvery starlight through the windows put an evil glow on her smile.

  I didn't reply. I went to my cot and fell asleep almost a second after I closed my eyes. I was so deeply asleep so quickly, I thought the poke in my ribs was part of my dream. Finally, I realized it wasn't and awoke.

  Gia was at my bedside, her face close to mine. “At least now you know I wasn't lying. There was a Posy.”

  She returned to her cot. Mindy watched her and looked at me.

  I don't think I had ever really prayed properly in my life. Daddy did his best to teach me religion and took me to church whenever he had an opportunity, but I always had trouble talking to an entity that never spoke back. I used to sit in the church and wait anxiously to hear some great, booming voice come down from the ceiling or out of the altar. When it didn't, I just thought everyone was pretending.

  I asked Mama about it once and she told me I was a fool, but my daddy was a bigger fool.

  “God talks only to the rich,” she said. “Why you think they're so damn lucky?”

  I didn't know what that meant either.

  I still didn't really know what it all meant.

  But what I did know as I lay there was I was going to find a way to ask God to help me and get me out of this place.

  I wasn't rich, but I had confidence that He would find a way.

  But what it would take me a long time to understand was why He chose the way out for me He chose.

  Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight

  Inward Journey

  vJia was certainly different after my basement experience. She seemed less angry, but more depressed. The defiance we had sensed within her when we three had first arrived was gone. She no longer snapped at Teal or Robin, and especially not at me. In fact, I saw her avoiding me. All I had to do was turn her way and she would quickly shift her eyes or look down to avoid mine. It was almost as if she were ashamed of what I knew.

  She had less energy, too, worked slower, ate slower, and ate less. Mindy could babble in her ear and she wouldn't turn on her and whip her with any words, any warnings, as she had usually done since the day we had arrived. It was almost as if she were truly shrinking inside herself, disappearing the way her precious Posy had disappeared.

  Dr. Foreman looked pleased about all this. I saw the smile of satisfaction on her lips when she looked at Gia now. It soaked me in a new downpour of rage to know I had been manipulated and used to help bring this about. I was the one who felt guilty now. I felt responsible for the changes in Gia, even though Gia had trapped me in that basement.

  No one does anything she really wants to do here, I concluded. It might take some time, more time for one of us than another, but eventually, Dr. Foreman pulls our strings. We move like puppets on a stage she creates.

  I think she caught these thoughts in my eyes when she glanced at me and saw how hatefully I was glaring back at her. She didn't cut her face with the sharp, cold smile I expected. Instead, she fixed her gaze on me thoughtfully for a few moments, then turned away slowly and walked off. I can't say I wasn't frightened by that, but my anger disguised it well.

  These dark realizations should have left me as depressed and defeated as Gia now was, but instead, it restored my inner fury and strengthened my defiance. Certainly I was afraid of being returned to the Ice Room and having the rats, real or not, running all over me. So, I worked at my chores. I obeyed all the rules. I recited the morning prayer in which we gave thanks to Dr. Foreman. I recited the apologies we were supposed to make to the buddies and to ourselves. I did all I was told to do obediently, but a fire was building inside me. I could feel the heat around my heart. It made me toss and turn at night. It put a little more strength in my walk and it made those mountains in the distance look closer.

  Like the cornered rats that filled me with terror, I bared my teeth. I raised my back and I looked for an opportunity to strike out.

  Despite what I was sure Dr. Foreman saw in me, she continued to be pleasant, to offer me new privileges, to drive a wedge between me and the others. I knew I couldn't refuse anything, but I believed in my heart that she knew she hadn't defeated me yet. Of course, that frightened me more than anything. She was not going to give up. She had so many other techniques and plans yet to employ. Something new could come from any direction at any time. The expression you 're walking on thin ice never had more meaning for me than it did here. I knew I would in time fall through and she would have me wrapped in something so terrible I would lose my name. I would be erased and re-​created in her image. It gave new meaning to the word clones that Gia had used when she used to talk more angrily about our buddies.

  As Dr. Foreman had warned us that first day in the orientation room, she did have godlike powers in her world and we were surely in her world. Her voice cracked like a whip above our heads, even, I noticed, when she spoke to the buddies. They were her girls, but they were almost as afraid of her as we were when they were in her presence.

  Only Natani seemed to have a sense of well-​being and peacefulness here. He moved through all this as if he were truly in his own world, isolated from the loud shouting, the biting sarcasm, the punishments inflicted on us, and the clouds of depression that hovered above our heads. How could he do that? I wondered. It was like a man walking through a raging fire, never singed, not even sweating.

  I studied him with more interest, especially now that I had read the letter written by the imaginary Posy. Was that all part of Gia's madness or was there really such a thing as escaping into yourself? Was there a way to fortify yourself, to do something that would protect you from Dr. Foreman's bullets and arrows? And if there was, would Natani, who^upposedly owed her so much, be willing to show it to me? Was that what he was trying to do when he had told me to keep my hogan closed inside me?

  I was still the one he favored to work with the horses. Gia had said that Posy had loved working with the horses, and Gia said Natani had taken a special liking to her. Of course, now I knew that she meant herself. She just couldn't believe anyone would or could like her, and if they did, they had to be liking her imaginary second self.

  A little over a week after my experience in the basement, I was brushing Wind Song when Natani came into the barn and began to repair a stall door.

  I took a deep breath and turned to him. “Natani, can you show me how to escape from unhappiness, to travel to another world, a world inside you?”

  He paused and looked at me without saying no or saying yes.

  “I'm afraid that if they put me back in that place, the Ice Room, or do something equally terrible, I'll crack up completely. I need someplace else to go.”

  He nodded and sat back on the barn floor.

  “There is a story,” he began, "about a desert rat pacing back and forth in front of a tortoise and pausing once in a while to look at the tortoise, who had a smile of contentment on his face.

  " 'What do you have to be contented about?' the rat asked him. 'It's one hundred and twenty degrees. Ravens and buzzards are circling around us all day. Who knows when it rained last?'

  " 'I am contented,' the tortoise replied, 'because when something unpleasant happens, I just return to my shell. In here I can cross over to a world where it is cool, where there are no ravens and buzzards, and where there is always a cool and refreshing stream.'

  " 'How can you have all that in there?' the rat asked, amazed. 'Your shell is far too small.'

  " 'No,' the tortoise said, 'this world in which you pace and worry is too small. In here, there
are no horizons, no bottoms to streams, and no roof to the sky, because in here, I make my dreams.'

  " 'How do you make dreams?' the rat asked.

  " 'Ah,' the tortoise said, 'if you knew that, you would be a tortoise, too.'

  “And with that, he pulled into his shell and the rat went on pacing and worrying until he wore himself out and a buzzard had him for breakfast.”

  Natani turned to go back to fixing the stall door.

  “I don't understand your story, Natani,” I said. “What does that have to do with me and my problem?”

  He paused again. “First, you must become the tortoise, daughter of the sun. First, you must make yourself a shell.”

  “But how?”

  “You must find a place where you can make your dreams safely. But, there is another story I must tell you. It is the story of a tortoise who grew so contented and so satisfied with his dreams, he never came out of his shell. He starved to death.”

  “Yeah, well, I might be better off,” I muttered.

  He thought for a moment and then nodded. “Tonight, when the clouds are asleep, too, you come to my hogan and I will help you find your shell.”

  A part of me was afraid, not of what Natani might do and say, but afraid that he might be doing something Dr. Foreman wanted him to do. She had told me she tolerated him and that he served a purpose. She seemed so powerful. It was hard to imagine any place or anyone on this ranch of hers that wasn't in some way under her control.

  What if she had expected I would ask Natani for some sort of help now? What if she assumed I would because of what I had read in Posy's letter? She might even have told Natani to expect me to ask. How much in debt to her was he? Were the animals the only ones to trust on this ranch? The only ones who didn't lie?

  I didn't say anything about all this to either Teal or Robin, and certainly I wouldn't have said anything to Mindy or Gia. It saddened me to realize that no one could be trusted even after all this time together, that we were all so beaten down and defeated that they might betray me as quickly as I might betray them. In the end we will have no place to go and no one else to turn to but Dr. Foreman, I thought. It was almost as if I could feel two large hands molding us into forms the way we had molded our ceramic dishes and bowls.

  There was truly no other escape but Natani's tortoise shell, whatever that was. I would either get up the courage to sneak out of the barn tonight and go to his hogan, or I would continue to be the desert rat and pace and worry until Dr. Foreman, like the buzzard, plucked the soul out of me and turned me into one of her famous Foreman girls. That had been Gia's prediction for me, but ironically, it was turning out to be a prediction she should have made for herself. We were all closing up, but not in the sort of shell Natani had described. We had met as strangers and we were returning to being strangers.

  These days the buddies didn't have to enforce the no-​talking rule when they wanted it to be enforced. We all ate quietly at dinner after mumbling thank-​yous to each other, chewing mindlessly, staring at nothing. Mindy was the occasional exception. She had the most nervous energy, I thought. The silence appeared to heighten it. Her eyes darted about as if she was expecting something terrible to occur or someone to yell at her. She nearly dropped a plate during cleanup and turned white with fear for a moment. Was Dr. Foreman right about her? Was she regressing, becoming worse instead of better each day?

  After we ate dinner, we did at least help each other with the school assignments, but that was still for selfish reasons. No one wanted to earn any more demerits. Our grades were all passing and even the buddies had to admit we were doing well on that score. This was still Gia's doing. She seemed alive actually only when it came to schoolwork, and I began to feel sorry for her, sorry that she wasn't at a real school because she seemed to enjoy studying, reading. It was the only time now that we heard any excitement in her voice, saw any brightness in her eyes. She might even make a good teacher someday, I thought, a real teacher with students who were interested and cared.

  Funny how memories of school suddenly became desirable. I had hated it so much when I was there, or at least, I thought I had. Now when I recalled the chatter, the excitement, even the classes, I felt a longing I hadn't thought I would ever feel. This was in no way like the school I had known and abused.

  This particular evening, after dinner, we had only a little schoolwork in comparison to what we had been given beforehand nightly. It left us with some free time, and to the surprise of us all, M'Lady Two showed up with a half dozen relatively recent magazines popular with teenagers.

  “Dr. Foreman says you all deserve some foolish and wasteful reading. You can share these among you.” She dropped the magazines at her feet.

  Teal started eagerly for the pile, moving like a starving person toward food, but Gia stopped her with “Don't touch them!” She said it with such hysteria, Teal practically jumped back.

  “What? Why not?” She looked at the pile. “What's on them?”

  “In them,” Gia whispered. “It's what's in them.” She stared at them, then looked up at all of us. “Subliminal messages,” she muttered.

  “Huh?” Robin said, scrunching her nose. “What's that?”

  “It's a secret way to get you to think what she wants you to think,” Gia said.

  Robin pulled her head back and looked at Teal, who shook hers and shrugged. Mindy didn't move, didn't speak.

  “We don't understand, Gia,” I said. “How can she put something in a magazine secretly?”

  “She can! It's like you go to the movies and they stick a few frames of popcorn in the movie. It flashes by too fast for you to realize it, but you suddenly want to get up and get popcorn.”

  “You're crazy,” Robin said.

  “It's a proven thing. I read about it,” Gia said.

  “So she gets me to eat popcorn. Big deal,” Robin told her, moving to the magazines.

  “That's just an example. She'll get you to do something else. She never does anything, gives you anything, unless it helps her control you, change you.”

  “You're a paranoid.” Robin picked up the magazine she wanted and looked at Gia. “When are you going to learn? Adults always get us to do what they want one way or another. You're the one who taught me that.” Robin looked at Teal, who moved to the magazines next. Mindy shrugged and did the same. Gia looked at me and shook her head in pity. Her warning got me thinking.

  Dr. Foreman had given me a magazine and told me I wasn't permitted to let any of them read it. Was there something in it specifically for me, something that made me do what she wanted? Maybe there was. Maybe Gia wasn't as crazy as they thought, at least when it came to this.

  I turned away from the pile without taking any magazine.

  “You're not taking a magazine? You believe her nonsense?” Robin cried, amazed.

  “I'm just not interested in any of the magazines.”

  “That's bull. You took one from her already. Now, because of what Gia's saying, you're afraid,” Robin said, smiling. “Gia has you afraid.”

  “So, I'm afraid. Think what you like. I stopped caring about what any of you think about me,” I said. “Just like you stopped caring about what any of us think about you.”

  I went to my cot to lie down. Robin and Teal thumbed through the magazines excitedly, talking about the clothing styles, the new television shows, the movies they were missing. They moaned over this dreamy young male actor or that. They did it all with exaggeration to make me jealous.

  Teal began to describe some of the wonderful things she had at home and Robin talked about her music,

  admitting she even wished she could listen to her mother darling's singing and playing. Both wondered aloud what was the latest hit record, and suddenly, I realized what Gia was saying.

  I sat up and exclaimed, “That's it!” They all looked at me.

  “What's it?” Teal said, smiling.

  “Gia's right.”

  “She's right?”

  “Only it's not s
ub whatever she called it. It's right there in front of you, in front of us. Just listen to you talking. She wants you to see what you're missing, to moan and cry about it all.”

  “Why?”

  “So you'll be sorrier about what you're missing, and more obedient and hope more that you'll go home,” I said.

  “Yes,” Gia said, nodding and whispering. “Yes. You understand, Phoebe. Good. These magazines, anything like that, are a form of subtle torture, torment.” She turned to the others. “Don't you understand what we're saying? Look at yourselves, what you're wearing, your hands, your hair, and then look at the girls in the magazines. What would you do, would you give, to be like they are?”

  The three of them looked at the magazines and then at me.

  Robin was the first to understand. I could see it spread through her face, brighten her eyes. She flung her magazine across the barn as if it were poison. Teal stared sadly for a moment, then dropped hers where M'Lady Two had put the pile. Mindy looked wistfully at her magazine and then flipped it.

  “I hate her,” she said in a loud, hoarse whisper. She slammed her folded arms against herself so hard, I thought she might have cracked a rib. Then she went to her cot.

  Moments later, they were all on their cots and back to being enveloped in a coat of depression. Gia and I exchanged looks of satisfaction, but also sadness. Who wanted to be right about such a thing?

  The girls said nothing more. They were all asleep before the lights were out in fact, but I couldn't fall asleep.

  I could think only of Natani's shell.

  When I felt it was safe, I crawled out of bed, quietly put on my shoes, and tiptoed out of the barn. I stood for a few moments outside and studied the yard. Lights were on in the hacienda, especially upstairs where the buddies stayed, but everywhere else was in darkness and thick shadows because the sky was partly overcast with a thin, long sheet of clouds sliding over the stars.