“I’m not sure I want any more revelations.”
“It’s the nature of reality,” Simon said, “to be fluid. No two people have ever lived the same exact lives. Time, space, and perspective are all subjective. Most of us agree that an hour is sixty minutes, and a day is 24 hours, but remember those long summers when you were a kid, and how the days dragged by? Or how the trip to the theme park was over before you knew it? It all depends on who’s doing the counting. You’ve got your own unique little piece of reality. Why not claim it?”
I stared at my hands. “Why am I learning this now?”
“Because the three of us need to figure out how we’re going to take down the hag before it kills anybody else.”
“The hag or whatever you call it—is it from…a galaxy far far away?”
Simon said, "Not from mine. I suspect it's an agent of Purgatory."
"Purgatory?"
"The bad guys," said Corona. "Colin's mafia family."
Simon added, "We don't know for sure why it's here or what it wants, but we think it came looking for Colin. It found him, and it also found you. And your mother."
“My mom?”
“Your mother took the red pill too,” Corona said. “Her signature is a beacon to the hag.”
Simon added, “But you don’t have to worry about her. She’s shielded by charms and talismans and voodoo hoodoo that even I don’t understand. It’s enough to know that she has the magickal equivalent of Fort Knox around her.”
I could do nothing but stare as my mind skidded to a near standstill.
Corona said, "It'd be nice if we could have wards and stuff too, right?"
Simon replied, “I’m afraid they’re in short supply these days. But, you’re safe in Gisèle’s room. Unfortunately, you can’t stay there forever, and the hag isn't going to give up. It’s already attacked you several times. It won’t stop.”
“Oh.” I was reeling. “Can't we make it go away?”
“Nope,” Corona said.
"I did."
"You did what?"
"Made it go away. In the shower."
"You did? How?"
I shrugged. "I just ordered it gone."
Simon chuckled deeply. "I'm proud of you, Viv. Your powers are surfacing."
"Excuse me?"
"Magick, my bonny girl. Magick. You're a natural."
"Magick, my ass." My stomach had begun to churn. I wanted all of it to go away. I changed the subject back to the problem at hand. “Can we kill it?”
“Most definitely,” Simon replied. “It’s dangerous, but not invulnerable.”
With a laugh that sounded more than a little hysterical, I asked, “Why don’t you just twist its head off then?”
Simon coughed. “I was exaggerating—just a little—when I said that.”
♦♦♦
CHAPTER 23
Corona and I waited in the rec room for the call to lunch. Polly and Dahlia sat together watching TV, talking in hushed voices about whatever was happening on the show. Corona joined them. Una was a large presence in the corner of the room, rocking from one foot to the other and watching everyone with suspicion. Iraida Karim, draped in her burka, was hunched over a book at one of the tables.
I went to the piano, and without waiting for an invitation, I sat down beside Eun Hee.
She scooted to give me room. A small tight expression of pleasure came to her face, and she hovered her hands just above the keys before launching into a tune that I didn't recognize. On the second go-round, she started singing.
Haloperidol makes you itch.
Paliperidone makes you twitch.
Fat on risperidone,
flat on ziprasidone.
But without them, you’re one crazy bitch.
Chlorpromazine blocks dopamine.
Ol’ clozapine cuts back the mean.
Your doc’s the controller,
And if you’re bipolar,
He’ll make you take olanzapine.
Several others joined in on the chorus. Their voices produced a discordant harmony, some singing too loudly, some off-key. Iraida’s trill gave it an exotic note, and one beautiful voice—Eun Hee’s—was the rope that tied them all together.
So suck it up.
Don’t chuck it up.
You’ll spend more time on the stool.
But, you won’t be down,
Not wearing a frown.
It’s time to stop playing the fool.
If Prozacking, try perphen’zine.
If yacking, trifluoperazine.
Loxapine makes you spit.
Quetiapine is the shit.
It feels so damn good, it’s obscene.
I couldn't stop laughing. By the second stanza, everyone in the rec room had gathered around the piano to dance, clap, and sing.
Something made the back of my neck spasm. I looked over my shoulder.
Nathan was there, on the far side of the room, dressed all in black. His asymmetrical haircut looked wind-ruffled. He stood with his hands clasped in front of him, watching me with a crooked smile.
“Excuse me,” I said, rising to my feet. I crossed to where Corona stood, singing. My ears buzzed. I asked her, “Do you see that man over there?”
“Where?” She looked where I pointed and said, “Oh, yeah.”
That was a relief.
He kept his eyes on me.
That wasn’t.
“Who is he?” Corona asked.
“He’s the one I told you about—Colin's brother, the guy I saw at Mom’s window.”
“He’s invisible.”
“What do you mean?”
Corona waved her hand, indicating the other women in the room. “Look. No one else can see him.” The other women were all preoccupied. No one, not even Una, not even Nurse Linda, registered his presence. “He’s here to see you. I suspect the only reason I can see him is because you pointed him out to me.”
“He’s not from here?”
“Definitely not. Be careful, okay?”
“Okay.” I started toward him. Corona followed.
He looked both young and mature, his baby face beginning to wrinkle at the eyes and around the mouth. He wore eyeliner and maybe even a touch of lip gloss. His skin was so pale, it was worrisome. When we got closer, he bowed to me, actually bowed like an actor at the end of a play, and said with his strange accent, “It’s a pleasure to see you, Viviane.”
The cat had gotten my tongue, and a rankling sense of danger began to creep up my spine.
Nathan turned his attention to Corona and introduced himself. “I’m Nathan, Colin’s brother. I'm trying to find him.”
Corona said, “You should talk to the police.”
I said, "So you know he's not dead?"
“Shall we sit?” Nathan grinned, and I noticed his teeth. I remembered how white they had been the first time I’d met him—gleaming. They still were. He spread his arms wide and turned to face a grouping of armchairs.
As if on cue, Eun Hee played a strange piano tune, the notes plunky and dancing—a melody from a macabre carnival.
Nathan molded himself to one of the chairs and, with a courtly wave of his hand, indicated we should sit as well. He crossed one knee over the other, his foot dangling. His pant leg rose up, revealing black socks with purple stars. His ankle-boots had pointed toes. He said, “So, you girls don’t know where Colin is?”
“No,” said Corona. "But—"
I cut her off. “I really want to meet Colin’s dad. Is he here, too?”
Nathan's left eyebrow wasn’t an eyebrow at all. It was a tattoo, as thick and black as his real eyebrow, but the tattoo ended with a flock of crows breaking apart from it and flying up into his hairline. I hadn’t noticed that before. Perhaps it was new. “No, unfortunately not," he said. "Our father is quite ill.” His expression shifted into sadness, melting downward as if made of wax. “That’s why it’s so critical that I find Colin.”
My eyes stayed locked with Nathan’s for
several long seconds. His had the shifting feel of oil on water, black water, water that held no life. I looked away first.
“It really is urgent,” he said. “I’m at my wits end, and I find it hard to believe that you girls know nothing about his location.”
I asked, “What’s Colin’s real name?”
“Colin's real name is Aubrey. Interesting how the subconscious works in an amnesiac.”
I realized I had no way of knowing whether he was telling the truth or not.
"He's in danger," Nathan said. "His family needs him, and there are people who want to use him as leverage against us.”
“You think he's been kidnapped?”
“We think they staged the accident in order to take him. Staged his death so we'd stop looking for him.”
"Why?"
Nathan pulled a cloth handkerchief from his pocket. Several bits of white confetti, tiny circles, came out with it and fluttered to the ground. He made a big deal of wiping his brow, then asked, “Do you know where he is?”
"No," I replied. “Have you talked to the police about this?”
Nathan’s tattoo eyebrow went up. The crows soared. “Those monkeys are too busy flinging feces at moving targets to notice what’s right under their noses." His hard eyes softened. "Our father is dying. He begged me to bring Aubrey home, and I'll keep searching until I find him or until my father dies.”
The charm left Nathan's demeanor. “Please understand that if you’re not on my family's side, then you’re on the kidnappers' side, and that makes you my enemy. This is your last chance to do right by Aubrey. Either you tell me what you know or suffer the consequences.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m merely pointing out that if I don't find him, he could be lost to us forever. You want to be my ally.” He held my gaze.
I didn’t care for him, I didn’t trust him, and I could tell his threats were sincere.
I told him, "I don't know where he is."
Nathan blinked free of my gaze and uncrossed his legs. “Remember,” he said as he stood without using his hands to push himself up, "whatever happens next is because you refused to help me."
"Wow," said Corona. “You’ve got more bats in your belfry than we do.”
Nathan looked cockeyed at Corona. “You don’t know the half of it.” He handed each of us a business card. “Don’t be strangers,” he said, then turned—literally—on his heel and strode out.
“Holy shit,” said Corona. “He’s creepy.”
“Yeah.”
I looked at the card in my hand. It was black with silver, fancy letters. It said, “Nathanatos,” and it had a phone number. That was all.
Corona and I went to the dining room and sat down to lunch at a table in the corner, away from the others. I watched her push her tater tots around her plate and said, “I still can’t believe Simon’s real. I’m in a David Lynch movie, minus the sex.”
Corona frowned. “Plenty of violence though.”
“How long have you known him?”
She took a bite of her burger. After a few chews, she said with her mouth full, “Since I got here. He was pretty nice to me when I needed it the most. I don’t know what I’d have done without him.”
I realized I’d never heard anything about Corona’s history. Until I became a patient, I'd only known her as the sweet schizophrenic who lived down the hall from my mom. More recently, she'd become a good friend. I asked, “How'd you end up at the Center?”
“There was an incident,” she answered. She studied me for a moment, as if gauging whether I was worthy of her secrets. Finally, she went back to rearranging her tater tots and said, “I was at M.I.T. when I first started seeing crazy shit. It scared the crap out of me. I didn’t understand what was happening. I started thinking my professors or those asshat grad students were experimenting on me. I caught them watching me. I was convinced they were putting psychotropic drugs in my food and water. So I burned down their center of operations.”
“Wow.”
“Um, yeah. Two steps away from terrorist. I’m lucky nobody was hurt, or I’d be on death row right now.” She set down her fork. “My mother paid off the university, and they dropped the charges. Then she sent me here.”
“Do you ever talk to her?”
“Who? My mother?” Corona shook her head. “Nah. She remarried right before I went away to school. She’s got three other kids now. She figured she botched it so bad the first time, she better just clear the slate and start from scratch.”
I could hear the bitterness in Corona's voice, but then she flashed me her dimples.
“It’s cool,” she said. “I never really liked her much anyway, and now I’m free to be my own woman. Feelings of ‘family’ are nothing more than genetic drives instilled in us to ensure survival of the species.”
I couldn’t have agreed less, but suddenly, I understood why she was so drawn to my mom. I wondered if she'd let Mom brush her hair on those nights when I wasn’t there.
Richard came into the dining room, looking collegiate as always in blue corduroy pants and a burgundy jacket, an island of jewel-toned colors in an otherwise faded sea of white coats, bleached robes, and pastel pajamas. I saw him before he saw me, and I watched him.
Several of his patients were there, but his eyes scanned over them, found me, and stuck.
I warned Corona. “Here comes Richard. It’s time for my session.”
“I know.”
“He’s got me booked all afternoon. He’s scared and in a hurry to get me well.”
She spoke through a mouthful of tater tots. “He's afraid of losing you. Just don’t tell him the truth about Simon.”
“I won’t.”
♦
“I’m serious about moving out of the Center,” I told Richard.
He sat back and tented his fingers on his chest. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stray too far from your support structure.”
I leaned forward on the couch. “Lettie and I are going to share a place.”
“Do you really think that’s wise? Lettie’s a nice woman, but her life isn’t exactly stable.”
“What do you mean? She’s stable. She’s got a steady job.”
“That’s true.” Richard looked me right in the eyes. “But, she’s also got a steady stream of lovers who pass through her life and disrupt her emotionally and mentally. The last thing you need is to put yourself at Drama Central. You need peace and quiet, Viviane.”
It never did any good to defend Lettie to Richard. His opinion of her hadn’t changed in twenty years.
“Peace and quiet? With people dying all around me? I can’t stay here any longer. I can’t. I keep looking over my shoulder. I can’t sleep at night, wondering if I’ll be next.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. That’s all over now.” Richard got up and crossed to sit beside me. “The police have everything under control. You’re perfectly safe here.”
I shook my head, but I didn’t know how to explain that I wasn’t safe at all. He wouldn’t understand. “You said this was only temporary. You said I’d be able to go home when I was feeling better. I’m better now. I want to leave.” It was getting hard to keep my cool. “I’m not a prisoner.”
“Calm down. You’re getting worked up over nothing. No, you’re not a prisoner, you’re a patient, and it’s my job to make sure you get well. That will happen on my schedule, not on yours. Your grandfather has entrusted—”
“Fuck Abram.” I stood. “I needed to be here after…what happened to Colin. But I'm better now. I don't need this anymore." I waved my hands to indicate the office around me. "We can keep up my sessions, but living here isn't doing me any good.” I meant every word of it, though the thought hadn’t occurred to me until just that moment. The sudden sense of power over my own destiny was enlightening.
Then, Richard said, “Unfortunately, it's not your call. You were remanded into my care.”
"Then fuck you too!" I clenched
my hands at my sides, wanting to lash out at him. "This place is no good for me.”
With professional nonchalance, Richard looked down at his hands. “I’m not heartless, you know. I understand what you’re going through, and I want to help you. There’s one possible solution.”
My heart beat a little faster. He had my full attention. “What?”
He pushed up out of his chair, slowly, as if afraid to spook me and reached to take one of my hands in both of his. “You could come live with me,” he said. “I have an extra bedroom. I’d be right there if you needed me. We could continue our sessions there. You wouldn’t have to work. I make enough money to support us both, and I’m willing to do that. It’s the perfect solution.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“No. I need more time with you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I love you, Vivi, and I believe—as does Dr. Lamb—that we're well on our way to controlling your illness. If you come live with me, we can do the work in the evenings.”
My mind raced a thousand miles a minute. I felt my lip curl in revulsion. My entire being rejected the idea of being under his thumb twenty-four/seven. I tried to pull my hand away from him.
He didn’t let go.
“I can't live with you,” I said. "You're my therapist."
“I know, but I'm also one of your oldest friends. You've told me so many times. I know you love me too.”
Maybe once I had, when I was an impressionable teen, but I'd grown out of that. I said, “We can still do the regressions during our weekly office visits. Not a problem. I want to live with Lettie.”
I tugged harder to free my hand, and Richard released me. His face went concrete in a flash, and in a firm voice so quiet I almost couldn't hear it, he said, “That's not going to happen.”
The upset built in my chest, rose to my sinuses, and pushed tears into my eyes. “Fine!” I said. I had to get away from him. I headed for the door.
He came around the couch and caught me there, wrapping his arms around me and holding me tightly—too tightly. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t struggle. I just let him crush me against himself, turning my head to one side and letting my hair spill down over my face.
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