More gently, at my ear, he said, “Colin is dead. It's time for you to move on.”
“Prove it.” I hid my face against his shoulder.
"What?"
“I need to see proof that Colin is dead.”
Richard’s hold on me loosened, but not enough for me to step away. Rubbing my back, he said, “Please, forget I said anything. We’ll work on getting you out of here, okay? There’s paperwork and tests. I’ll have to perform an evaluation, but we’ll make it a priority, okay? Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Richard released me and went to the door. “I’ll take you back to your wing.”
“I need to see those pictures of Colin’s body.” I wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands.
Richard's expression was one of dark determination. “If that’s what you need to move on with your life, then that’s what we’ll do.” He put his hand on the doorknob and turned it. “I’ll contact Detective Hayward tomorrow.”
We didn’t say another word until we arrived at the door to the Women’s Wing. Richard held it open for me, but he didn’t follow me in. “I’ll see you tomorrow for our session.”
“Yeah, sure.” I felt that, despite his maddening insistence on controlling me, I had won a small victory. I didn’t dare show it, however. Richard hated to lose, and I’d need to plow a straight row if I wanted his signature to get me out of the Center.
♦
Corona sat against the headboard in my room, reading a fat paperback. She closed it when I entered and just watched me.
I went to the windows, then back to the door, did an about-face and returned to the window.
“You’re thinking so hard I smell ozone,” Corona said.
“Richard is fucking with me. He doesn’t want me to move in with Lettie. Instead, he suggested I live with him.”
“That’s uncool.”
“Yeah.” At the window, I looked out over the circular drive. Bea walked toward the Center from the employee parking lot. She had on blue jeans and a t-shirt. I’d never seen her out of her nurse’s scrubs. The clothes and the swing in her step made her look younger. When she got close to the building, she looked up and spotted me. A smile spread across her face, and she lifted her hand in greeting.
I smiled too and waved. She was okay, so long as she wasn’t talking.
A movement at the corner of my vision drew my attention. Down where the road cut through the orchard, the wind played in the treetops. A large raven sat at the very tip of an evergreen—or most people would have seen a raven. I saw Nathan. Nathanatos. His black coat waved out around him, moving in synchronization with the tree, and his hair ruffled like feathers upon his head. He perched there, avian, weightless upon the tree’s slim top, levitating. He was watching the Center.
My hand was still raised from waving at Bea, and I looked back at her. She’d seen that something was wrong, but I couldn’t let her think that. I waved again. The last thing I needed was Nurse Bea thinking I still had hallucinations. She’d tell everyone. I moved away from the window.
“Who were you waving at?”
“Nurse Bea. She was coming across from the parking lot.”
“Oh.” Corona got up and went to the window. “I don’t see her.”
“She went inside.”
“Oh.” Corona turned away, then stopped, and did a double-take. Her eyebrows came together, and she put her nose right up to the glass. “What the fuck is that?”
I went to her side and looked out. Nathan was still there, a black silhouette against the gray sky. “What’s what?”
“You don’t see that? That bird thing on the thing over there?” She pointed right at Nathan. “It's a man, but he’s on top of a tree.”
My heart filled my throat with thumping. “You see him?”
“Yeah, though I wish I didn’t. He’s watching us.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s unnerving.”
“Yeah.”
As we looked on, Nathan stretched upward. His body elongated, then came back together in the form of a raven. His coat flaps became wings, and he rose into the sky. He soared and made a lap around the treetop before diving toward the ground and disappearing behind a close community of evergreens.
We waited, our mouths hanging open, for him to rise into view again. He never did.
I said, “It’s Nathan.”
“That creepy man I met? That makes sense. He’s a ‘chuter.” When she saw the look of confusion on my face, she added, "A parachutist."
“You mean like Simon?”
She took my hand and pulled me away from the window. “Just like Simon. Don’t you see the patterns? Colin’s involved in something really big, so big that he has crazy supernatural beings looking for him. This isn’t your everyday, backyard missing person. The risks reveal the stakes. If we aren’t talking potential apocalypse here, I’d be seriously surprised.”
I sighed. “So what do we do?”
“We find Colin.”
♦
Corona and I looked both ways before we headed into the hall and down to my mom’s room. Mom was at her desk. I said, “Hi, Mom,” but she didn’t look up, and she didn’t respond. She just kept writing in her journal, methodically scratching letter after letter.
I went to her, pushed a stray lock of her hair back from her face, and studied her. She was still so striking, and I could only imagine how beautiful she must have been when she was younger. Although she was fifty-five, she had the smoothest, clearest skin I’d ever seen on anyone. In some light, it looked almost translucent, although when she got upset, the scarlet rushed up her neck to her cheeks and gave her a splotchy blush. My skin was similar, except years of janitorial and laundry chemicals had left me with a duller, dryer surface that required more care.
My mom was a doll that Abram had put away in the closet. She'd stayed there, untouched, pristine in her box, for decades.
Corona sat in the big fan-back chair and pulled her legs in sideways with her. “Tell us a story, Lady Gisèle. Please?”
It was weird hearing someone call my mom “Lady Gisèle,” but Corona and Polly pretended they were her ladies-in-waiting. Polly especially believed she had a sworn duty to take care of Mom. It was sweet.
Corona’s request had an interesting effect.
Mom sat there for a long moment, pen poised over the paper, as if someone had hit the pause button on her movie. When the action started again, she set the pen aside and picked up her journal. She licked a finger and flipped back until she came to the page she wanted.
Her midnight-blue eyes roamed down the lines, searching, then she put her finger to one of them, and started reading.
The jonquils and daffodils had breached the last of the snow. They were determined to find sunlight and warmth in the wake of winter. Kypris felt the same. She had spent days cleaning her house, washing linens, and scrubbing floors. She wanted to grasp Spring and pull it to her for a long, wet kiss.
Her first sight of him left Kypris breathless. He was standing on the street in front of her house, hands on hips, looking up at the sky as if he could command it to hold its rain until he was finished with his errands. He had a regal tilt to his head, and his beauty was beyond compare.
Kypris was sweeping her front porch. She didn’t know why she looked up, but she was glad she did. Big, fat droplets of rain had begun to fall.
Admitting defeat, the man opened his arms and welcomed it. His laughter drew Kypris to the edge of the porch. It was the most uninhibited, happiest sound she’d ever heard. She clung to the post and called, "Hey! You’re getting all wet."
Dressed only in shirtsleeves and a pair of black trousers, he was soaked to the bone. The downpour showed him no mercy. He called back, "The sky feels I need a bath." He waved and began to walk on.
Kypris couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving. She called, "Wait!" She would never have done such a thing otherwise, but she felt that if he left, a piece of her fate would leave as well.<
br />
He stopped and turned to look at her.
Kypris didn’t know what to say.
He waited, and when she didn’t speak again, he grinned and said, "I see you’re in on the sky’s joke. Will I never learn not to fall for a beautiful woman’s temptation?" He blew Kypris a kiss and, again, turned to go.
She called, "Would you care for some tea?"
The man paused…again. The rain ran in ribbons down his face, past his smile, as he looked at her.
"You’ll catch your death," she said.
He replied, "Far be it from me to chase after—much less catch—my death." Then he was on the porch with her, out of the rain. She retrieved a towel for him and watched as he dried his handsome face and close-cropped hair.
The silence between them grew tense with her desire. To break it, she said, "I’m Kypris."
When he answered, his voice held all the promises Kypris had ever wanted to hear. "Of course, you are," he said. "And I’m Chance, my princess, forever in your debt." He bowed, and Kypris fell in love.
They had tea that first rainy afternoon. They talked of wishes, dreams, and the poetry of nature. Kypris dried his clothes for him with a sachet of lavender to scent them and fed him honeyed bread from her larder. Their hands nearly touched more than once.
As Chance was leaving, he promised to return the next day, and he did. The second time, they clasped hands spontaneously on the porch. The rain had washed away the lingering snow and its dirt. The world seemed a bright, new place. The afternoon fled, and when it came time for Chance to leave, he stole Kypris’s soul with a kiss.
The third time he visited, they made love in her bed. For days, they languished in each others’ arms, loving and laughing. His every touch and every kiss was a promise of forever happiness. Kypris basked in him.
Then, one morning, Kypris awoke to find he had gone. For weeks, she mewled with a cat's heat and wept with a widow's grief. Months passed, and Kypris came to realize that she had retained a part of him inside herself. His child grew in her womb. She did the only thing she could—she called her mother.
Her mother knew from the details of the tale that Kypris had been with an unearthly being. The two women set about hiding the child from its father. Even before it was born, plans were put into motion to keep the child safe. Kypris changed her name, for names had the power of finding. If Chance were ever to discover them, he would take the child away, and Kypris would never see it again.
♦♦♦
CHAPTER 24
The last person I expected to see at dinner was Dr. Jake Lamb, but there he was, looking lumberjack-chic in a plaid flannel shirt, jeans, and heavy boots. Corona and I were sitting at our table when he appeared beside us.
“Hello, ladies,” he greeted, brown eyes lit with flecks of gold.
Corona turned a grin on him. “Jake! You’re back. I’m so glad.”
“Hey, kiddo,” said Jake. He offered his hand for a shake, which Corona took enthusiastically. “I hope you’re doing well.”
“Pretty good,” she replied. “Better than Viviane. She got attacked again.”
A dark shadow crossed Jake’s face, and he shifted his gaze to me. “That so?”
I shrugged. My mind was on the questions I wanted to ask him. He still wore the ring, and it still screamed secret society or fraternal brotherhood. It taunted me, large and uninhibited on his finger.
“Why don’t you join us?” I offered. “It'd be nice to get to know you better. Corona says great things about you.”
“I’d be delighted. Tell me about this attack. What happened?” Jake claimed one of the empty chairs.
Corona was eager to share. “It happened in the shower. The hag went for her. Isn’t that right, Viviane?”
“It was over pretty quick.”
Jake showed concern, but that was it. No disbelief. No condescension. “You’re all right?”
“Yeah.”
We all looked at each other for a moment, then Jake cleared his throat. “I have a proposal for you, Viviane. I’ve already talked to Dr. Reuter about it, but I wanted to talk to you in person as well.”
“A proposal?” I was suspicious.
He leaned forward in the chair, put his elbows on the table, and folded his hands. “I specialize in a certain type of schizophrenia. I work with patients who present specific symptoms.”
“What kind of symptoms?”
“For example, long-term friendships with people no one else can see. Or, the recurring paranoid delusion of being followed or even attacked by monsters.”
“Uh huh. Because if someone thinks they’re being stalked, say…while they’re at a nightclub, they must be delusional, right?”
He got my reference. “I was beginning to think you hadn’t recognized me.”
“I didn't right away, but eventually… Why were you following me?”
Jake leaned forward and lowered his voice. "I had to confirm that you fit our profile. But. If you tell anyone, I’ll deny that it was anything other than a coincidence.”
“How long have you been watching me?”
Conversation paused for a moment as one of the kitchen staff rolled her cart to our table and set out three plates of spaghetti and meatballs, along with silverware and a plastic cup of water for each of us.
“Not that long,” continued Jake after the woman had moved on. “I arrived in Peoria a week before I met you at the dance bar. I was actually here looking for Corona when you appeared on my radar.”
I glanced at Corona, and she gave me a bright smile. She wasn’t even remotely surprised by any of that. I said, “What you did at the club was rude.”
“Sorry. I'd planned a better introduction, but you escaped before I could do it properly. Unfortunately, I have a tiny penchant for drama. I come by it honestly, but yes, I got carried away.”
Some of my anger dissipated. “What do you want from me, Dr. Lamb?”
He pointed at me and wagged his finger. “Now, that is a very good question. I don’t want anything from you. I want to do something for you. And, please, call me Jake.”
“What can you do for me, Jake?”
“I can teach you how to control and understand your schizophrenia.”
I laughed. “I don’t need your help with that.”
“Really? Then why are you in here?”
My temper flared again. “Because I had a car accident and thought my fiancé had been killed. I was upset. These are not normal circumstances.”
“I see,’ he said. “And under normal circumstances, you hold down a job and take care of a home, a catatonic mother, and an amnesiac boyfriend. I’d say you were quite the Wonder Woman, under normal circumstances.”
“That’s right.”
Jake looked at me intently to underscore the importance of his next question. “And where, in all that caretaking, does Viviane fit in?”
He’d made an abrupt turn that I hadn’t expected.
When I hesitated to reply, he said, “Hiding behind everyone else’s problems isn’t the same as controlling and understanding your own situation. If you keep making choices based on other people’s lives, your life will stay as it is—one long series of sacrifices for someone else.”
When I started to speak, he raised his hand to forestall my comment. “This isn't a criticism. I respect what you’ve done. You’ve given up so much to be near your mother. I admire that. However, I would also ask you to consider whether it’s time to remember your own dreams and to pursue them again, maybe in small measure at first. I’m here to offer you the chance to do that.”
Corona leaned toward me. “Hear him out. You won’t be sorry.” She had spaghetti sauce on her chin.
To Jake, I said, “Go on.”
He leaned back in his chair. “I run the Lost Lamb Halfway House in Wyrdwood, Oregon. The only people living there are special like you. We offer classes and support one another. You could join us.”
A thousand reasons came immediately to mind for why I didn’t w
ant to go with him. My mom was at the top of the list. There was no way I’d leave her. And then there was Colin, who I believed was alive and being held against his will somewhere. I had a job I intended to go back to, and what about my sessions with Richard? I’d been doing them for so long, I was half afraid I’d fall apart without them. I could go on and on—I had so many reasons not to take his offer.
Jake said, “We can get you integrated back into society. You could take university classes. The halfway house is funded by grants, and your stay would be free to you. You wouldn’t pay a cent for room or board. The house isn’t an institution, it’s a home, and we treat it that way. We don’t force you into bed at a certain hour or lock you inside. We work on a system of mutual respect.”
I interjected, “What did Richard say about it?”
Jake inhaled. “Well, he didn’t like the idea. As a matter of fact, he told me in no uncertain terms he wouldn’t allow you to go.”
I snorted, not the least bit surprised, and said, “So you figured you’d come straight to me and work around him, is that it?” At that moment, I wasn't sure who was the lesser of two evils.
Jake leaned forward again, intently lowering his voice. “He’s wrong, Viviane. He’s trying to control you at the expense of your well-being. Surely, you see that?”
"And you're not?"
“No,” said Jake.
I rested my palm flat on the table and looked him in the eyes. "I don't even know you. Richard has been my doctor for twenty years. He knows me better than anyone."
Jake shook his head. “He really doesn’t. He can’t even begin to understand what’s happening to you.”
“Oh, right! And the stalker guy I just met does?” Amused, I put a snarky smile on my face. “Please. I don’t know what you want from me, or what you think makes me special, but I’m not going anywhere with you. My life is here.”
Corona poked apart a meatball in her spaghetti.
Jake nodded. “It’s your call. But, if you need anything, I’m staying here in Peoria for a while.” He pulled a card out of his breast pocket and handed it to me. On it was his name, an address, and a phone number. “Call me any time. I can help more than you think.” He checked his watch, pushed back his chair, and stood. “I need to go. Bon appetit, ladies.”
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