Silent Treatment

by David James

The next session with the children was only a few minutes away and she could see her assistants starting to busy themselves in preparation.

  John and Helen were both only slightly younger than Sarah. When she was put in charge she had been concerned that they might be slightly resentful of her position. She was acutely aware that she owed her position to the influence of the director and in no small part the history of her father and him.

  Her father had involved Sarah in his work from an early age. Most children would spend the summer holidays helping out around the house or just playing. But she had shown such an interest in his work, that when she was old enough to be of some use and not a hindrance to him he had let her become involved, in a small way, with some of his psychological experiments. She had felt the visceral thrill that all children felt when they were treated as adults.

  'The equipment is all set up and ready,' the voice belonged to John. He was in his twenties but still looked like he was at university. There was no official uniform at the institution, after all the days of the psychologists resembling prison guards in their defensive white uniforms were long gone. But John stretched the no uniform rule to the limit. He looked as if he had emerged from a particularly good student party that had gone on for two days at least.

  Helen seemed to have taken the opposite route. Her appearance appeared to have been carefully tailored to give off a professional if slightly daunting air. If truth be told, Sarah was a little afraid of Helen. Sarah was aware that as she instructed them what to do, she didn't have a large experience advantage over them. Unlike when the director was talking to Sarah where it felt natural to follow his instructions. He had the gravitas bestowed by his age and experience. It was reinforced by the plaques and awards that adorned his office.

  Sarah had thought about putting up her degree certificate at her desk in an attempt to proffer some sort of authority. But she quickly became worried that Helen would have better grades than her, which would have the opposite effect to the one she wanted.

  'Can you get the children assembled please?' said Sarah.

  'Already done,' said Helen, maintaining her eye contact with Sarah just long enough to become slightly uncomfortable. It was at moments like these that Sarah wondered if Helen knew more than she seemed to let on. Did she know about Sarah's problems?

  She dismissed her own thoughts, she had to concentrate on the session ahead. She had to concentrate on the children.

  The room for the sessions was designed to be as comfortable as possible, or at least as comfortable as was possible to make it within the confines of an institution. After all, the children weren’t inmates, they hadn't committed a crime. Though they hadn't actually volunteered to be here either.

  Sarah sat flanked by John and Helen. Helen sat poised; John sat cross legged.

  The door opened and despite herself Sarah felt her back stiffen.

  The children were led in by one of the orderlies and Sarah was not at all surprised that the first one in was the person she now knew as Nathan.

  When they had first appeared out of the blue in the remote part of the country, the newspapers had used the word “children”. It made for better headlines, she supposed. But Nathan and Emily definitely seemed to inhabit that strange twilight world between childhood and adulthood. Nathan had the uncanny ability of altering his demeanour to be at one point a teenager, and another a fifty year old man.

  They all filed in and sat down in the allocated chairs, silently of course. Nathan positioning himself in the middle of the group. Despite his youth, when she was dealing with Nathan Sarah had to remind herself at times that she was the one in control, she was the figure of authority. Rather unnervingly, she had on occasion felt as if the roles had been reversed as she sat opposite Nathan. The fact that his eyes appeared strikingly similar to her own father's didn't help the situation.

  By comparison to Nathan, Emily appeared surprisingly cheerful. Her blonde hair, tall slim frame and the way she seemed to bounce rather than walk helped add to the impression of happiness. It was always a bit of a surprise to Sarah that Emily didn't launch into some chatter about something she had seen outside in the garden. Sarah had the feeling that Emily might be the one to speak first. The dam would burst and Sarah's next few days would be spent interpreting her incessant speaking and longing for her to be silent again.

  But she hadn't spoken. Just like the rest. If the dam was about to burst, there was no sign of a crack appearing yet.

  The other two she assumed were twin brothers. They weren't identical twins, but they seemed to share the near supernatural ability of identical twins to talk between themselves without uttering a word. And they hadn't entered anything in their journals. They still remained completely blank to Sarah.

  Sarah had noted how they had sat down and established the group dynamic. Nathan and Emily sat slightly closer together and the twins were seated slightly further apart. Sarah wondered if this could be significant. It was also possible that Sarah was reading too much into small behavioural patterns; taking something that was possibly meaningless and extrapolating an entire scenario out of it. But when your patients won't talk to you; when you have no idea about their backgrounds or their upbringing; what else was she left with apart from theorising with the tiny scraps of information that she had available?

  But she had high hopes for the journals.

  They had only been given them a few days ago, but Sarah already felt that it was progress.

  She was also aware that it was a bit of a one way process. The power balance was with the children and they would tell her only what they wanted to, when they wanted to.

  When they had first arrived, the psychologists at the institute had all nodded, turned to one another and pronounced that the children must be suffering from some form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD as they referred to it. There must have been some traumatic event that had triggered their silence. A few weeks of “watchful waiting” and they would begin to tell them all they wanted to know. Basically, sit there, smile a lot and wait for them to speak.

  Eight weeks into the twelve week course of watchful waiting and still they had not spoken nor had they shown any inclination to do so.

  Today she had decided to try and see if there was any “trigger” that would cause the children to betray what was troubling them. It could be a word or maybe a gesture, she didn't really know. She would just have to watch them closely.

  'Thank you for coming everyone, I hope you are all well?' She wasn't really expecting an answer, but she paused for a second, nodded slightly and continued.

  'Firstly, I'd like to thank you for filling out the journals, I think it will be a great help for us all.'

  She looked at Nathan, he had a faintly amused expression on his face.

  Undaunted, she said 'If you could continue to fill them in that would be great. Anything you want to say, it's all helpful.'

  The children displayed no emotional change in their expressions.

  Her colleagues had questioned the point of these sessions. Helen had been particularly vocal on the subject. After all, none of the children had spoken in any of the previous sessions. But Sarah was trying to read their body language, their facial expressions, their demeanour. It was the only tool at her disposal.

  So far in all the previous sessions she had been gentle in her probing. Her questions had been conversational. One way, but still meant to feel conversational.

  As she looked down at her notes she could read through the questions she had asked previously and any comments she had made next to them.

  Can you tell me your names? No response.

  Can you tell us how you got to be at the village? No response.

  Is there someone we can contact to tell them that you are okay? No response.

  After a while she had stopped bothering to write “No response”.

  But now she had decided to change tack slightly. It was not particularly in her nature, but she was beginning to realise that she need
ed to show some progress, no matter how patient the director was seeming to be.

  She waited until she had their attention and said 'Won't your parents be worried about you?' She knew it was blunt, but she hoped for some form of reaction. Maybe this would be the trigger?

  As she stared intently at their faces for a reaction, she particularly focused on Nathan.

  Nothing. Not even a flicker.

  She knew that she would be writing “No response” into her notes again.

  Sarah could feel John and Helen staring at her. She could imagine them saying 'Is that the best you can do?'

  Not for the first time she wondered what could possibly have happened to these children to make them act like this. If they were traumatised then they didn't seem to be showing the normal reaction. Was someone else controlling their behaviour? The institution had been very careful about controlling access to the children, so that seemed unlikely.

  She didn't want to rely on the journals alone. Despite everything, she thought that face to face sessions were necessary. But as she looked at Nathan's expression and Emily’s half smile; not to mention the twins who didn't even acknowledge her existence, she wondered how effective it was.

  She realised that she would need to get more creative. An idea was beginning to form in her head.

  Sarah looked into Nathan's eyes for as long as she dared, hoping to see a glimmer of something. But his expression remained an infuriating mix of calmness and mild amusement. She broke off the eye contact with him; feeling, not for the first time, that she had lost a personal battle with him.

  Slightly exasperated, she decided to wrap up the session. She stood up and said 'Thank you for coming in. ' And then just before everyone began to stand up, she said 'Is there anything that you want from us?'

  Nathan and Emily stopped and looked at each other. Something passed between them and they both smiled at each other and both turned in unison to look at Sarah. It was extremely unnerving as they both stared directly at her and it was all Sarah could do to avoid turning away. She could feel the blood beginning to pound in her head and she instinctively reached into her pocket for the tablets. But she knew she couldn't stand there and pop a pill into her mouth. Not in front of the children, not to mention Helen and John, it would appear weak. She held their gaze for as long as she could, her head was now swirling as if she was on a carousel at the fairground. Just as she felt she could maintain eye contact no more the children began to turn their heads away as they broke their stare. Nathan flashing a brief discomforting smile as he finally looked away.

  Sarah felt that children had been testing her and she was unsure if she had passed.

  As the children began to file out, Sarah said, rather like a school teacher reminding her pupils about their homework, 'Don't forget the journals.' And with that the children left the room.

  Chapter Five

  BREAKING NEWS: Four teenage children have mysteriously appeared in a village...they apparently won't speak.

  A slightly unsteady hand poured another coffee as he looked at the headline on his screen. It was a few months old, but it still filled a large part of his waking day.

  Ben was sat at his computer and was skimming through his list of current stories. It was a way of leading himself gently into the day. It was an odd list, ranging from stories about terrorism to celebrities walking on beaches. But this was the one he always ended up coming back to.

  How could he not?

  In his world this was about as big as it got. Children; check. Human interest; check. Mystery; check.

  It was already his fourth cup of coffee and it was only eight o'clock on the morning. It felt like a four coffee morning. He was barely dressed and barely conscious, but he could feel the caffeine coursing through his veins and the neurons beginning to slowly fire in his brain.

  It had been a late night. But not in the way that people might think. His late nights usually involved sitting in cars and drinking more coffee in the vain hope that he might catch sight of something useful. Most nights he saw nothing. Last night had been one of those nights.

  As a freelance journalist he needed to put in the hours. At times, if he was honest, he was jealous of the permanent staffers on the big papers. He suspected that they didn't stay up as late as him and they probably even had holidays.

  But he had chosen this way of life, so he shouldn't be complaining. And his reasoning had been sound; probably. He had thought that he wouldn't always have the energy to live this sort of life. At some point he would crave the normality and the regularity of a more ordinary life. At the moment that sounded suffocating but he accepted that inevitably he would think differently at some point in his life, when he was older than his current twenty eight years.

  So he had decided to make use of his youthful energy and take the risk of living a life without any security, any guarantees and often without any money.

  As he downed the cup of coffee he wondered how much of his youthful energy he had left.

  He sat at his computer and was scanning the news pages as he always did at this time in the morning. Of course, if it was already appearing in the papers then it was already too late for him. The story was out. But he liked to look at the major stories and wonder if there was a different angle that he could pursue. If it was a criminal case then perhaps the police were looking in the wrong place, or at the wrong person.

  He got on pretty well with his police contacts. Initially he had been forced to endure several barbed comments and some less than complimentary nicknames. But when they had seen that he was serious about it all and not just some rich kid playing at being a journalist, then they had begrudgingly begun to take him seriously. And it did work both ways. He was happy to let the police know about anything that he thought they might find interesting. After all, if he wanted to sit outside someone’s house for a few days all he had to do was pack up his thermos of coffee and drive. He didn't have to fill out forms for overtime or justify his actions to a superior.

  He had been thinking about his university days this morning. It was probably due to the fact that he had woken up feeling terrible; he had woken up feeling this bad most mornings at university. Only the hour had changed quite dramatically. He wouldn't have been surfacing for another few hours at university.

  He had got his degree, a two-two. Not the best, but it was still a degree. Just occasionally he wondered if he should have concentrated more on the work and not the social life. But even at that age he had appreciated that this might have been the only time in his life that he could live like that.

  He had left for university with advice ringing in his ears from his father.

  'Make sure you make the most of it.'

  'Drink a lot, and if you do drugs make sure they are good ones.'

  He had taken his advice and he felt that he had got about as much out of university as he could. Except perhaps a higher degree.

  His father would, usually later at night and after a few beers regale Ben with stories about his university days. Even allowing for embellishment and the warm glow of late night scotch and fond memories, it had all sounded like a time of freedom and experimentation. Ben hadn't found university to be quite like that now. Everyone seemed just that bit more serious about it all than he had imagined. He suspected his father wouldn't last more than a few weeks at university now before he was either expelled or arrested.

  Still, the memories were overwhelmingly good and he would find himself smiling as an impromptu memory popped into his head at an inappropriate moment. He would sometimes find himself smiling at a recollection as someone read out a description of some grizzly murder, which had led to some strange and disapproving looks around him.

  He had begun to keep a file on whatever developments there had been in the story about the children, but it had all gone slightly quiet recently and he hadn't looked for a few days. He scrolled through the list of documents, it showed the story as it had unfolded in headlines. It displayed the initial frenzied excite
ment of the media. Followed by a period of speculation and finally a sense of frustration that they weren't being told anything official.

  Moving them to the institute seemed to have annoyed the media and then the wild speculation had started in earnest. If journalists can't get information, they still have to fill the papers and blogs. So they are reduced to speculation, no matter how wild. Twenty four hour news waits for no person. And it certainly doesn't wait for that person to check all the facts before it appears.

  He looked at the pictures of the van containing the children arriving at the institute. Very little to see, despite the lenses being thrust as close to the vehicle as possible.

  The photographers hadn't given up though as they remained camped outside the institute. Every morning they were out photographing anyone leaving or arriving. Hoping that each morning would be the morning when something broke. Even if they usually ended up photographing a cleaner or administrative assistant arriving.

  And Ben wasn't immune. He sometimes popped down there to the outside of the institute; just to see what was going on. If nothing else it was a chance to renew acquaintances and hopefully make new ones, since at one time or another just about everyone turned up there.

  He skimmed through the list of photographs on his computer. They showed the daily pattern of people arriving and leaving. He began to recognise some people. There was the director of the institute; he was easy to recognise. Various people who Ben had researched and had turned out to be low level employees.

  And he was back to the director arriving again.

  Those were the main photographs, from the well known photographers. The ones that actually got published. But Ben was friendly with another photographer and she would routinely send him all those that didn't get published. The blurred ones, the over exposed ones. Some were the result of an arm being jostled in the mad melee outside the institute. She had expressed surprise when he had asked to see these. But it was the only way Ben could hope of stealing a march on the others. He hoped that he could see something that others had missed or misinterpreted. Besides it had led to him meeting up with her on several occasions and had led to some pretty special evenings. He did wonder sometimes if she was hoping that he would discover something and let her know. He suspected that she wasn't doing it out of the kindness of her heart. Maybe he would give her a call today? But he suspected that in common with the other photographers, she had started to move onto other stories. He would have to think of another excuse to see her.