Cassandra was on her feet, allowing her ear to lead her across the room. She was dressed in her sweats and fluffy socks. She opened the door and tiptoed passed her parents’ door. She could feel the vibrations of their slumber echoing through her, and she quickly moved away and down the stairs where she was able to focus on the crying again. It was a woman. A young woman. Maybe even younger than she was. She wasn’t sobbing or crying out; she was whimpering without hope. Maybe she no longer even knew she was doing it.
When Cassandra reached the bottom of the stairs, she pushed her feet into her Nike sneakers and found her coat on the stand. Her brain was only partly responsible for these actions. There was very little choice involved. She couldn’t stay in the house. She couldn’t simply lie in her bed while this sadness existed. She manipulated the lock as quietly as she could, but it was an action akin to operating industrial machinery to her senses. Loud, heavy and dragging. When she opened the door, and passed over the threshold, a whole new litany of stimuli attacked her. The gentle breeze was a full wind section; the buzz and hum of the tiny night creatures drilled into her brain. The taste of so many words spoken on the street during the day and left to fester, filled her nostrils; the darkness was so complete that stepping out was to dive into a swimming pool with the water drained, but she had no choice. Above it all was the crying, and it was laced with such sorrow that she would never rest until she had found its source. Maybe there was something she could do. She doubted it. She was powerless to such intense sorrow. Maybe just finding her would be enough.
She moved slowly down the deserted street, led by her ear, which knew exactly where to take her. It must have been later even than midnight because she had never been out at a time so still and quiet, even though her experience of it was anything but. She reached the end of the street. Turned down the next, and carried on this way, led by her senses, for block after block, getting faster and faster with every step she took as if she now knew that the situation had become desperate, although the cry remained the same – a steady whimper of sorrow. Eventually, she broke into a run that took her further still from home. She was aware that she didn’t want a repeat of the day before, but she knew this wasn’t like that. She wasn’t running for herself. She wasn’t running away from anything. She was running to the sadness. Each foot hitting the pavement pounded her brain and shook her core as she weaved in and out of the blinding glow of streetlamps and still the cry went on. She knew she was getting closer, although the cry was neither louder nor changed in any way. And then, just as quickly as it had appeared, it stopped. Everything stopped. Or rather everything went back to normal. The power to her new heightened senses was cut all at once, and she stopped running. It was over. She was a normal fifteen-year-old girl again, only now she was standing in the middle of a street miles from her house, cold, with a world that was far more tolerable to her eyes and ears starting to make sense again. Only, none of it really made sense. Back to her old self, it was all absurd and completely unbelievable. One minute the world has been turned on its head – amplified, heightened, exaggerated, blinding, deafening – and she was compelled beyond reason to follow a whimper; the next she was wondering what the hell it was all for or if she had even imagined it all. She had run so far again that she was nearly in Jenson’s Park. Maybe she was sleep walking. The only thing she knew for certain was that it was a long way back to the house. And, of course, now she was back in the world as she knew it, she was aware that she was out long after the curfew, and the curfew had been put in place for a reason. Young girls – girls her age – were being attacked. She took a few steps in the direction of home, and a chill came over her. She then broke into a run and didn’t stop until she was home again.
Chapter Nine
Before Cassandra even got out of bed the next morning, she picked up her cell and typed ADD symptoms into Google. Some of the results were written in a darker shade of blue, showing that she had visited these sites before, but she wanted to read them again, just to see if she could make last night make any sense whatsoever. She had visited these sites to find out if the nightmares she had over the years were connected in any way to her condition (no) and whether the intense itching of the backs of her hands was a symptom (even bigger no). The new symptom affecting her now was something she had never looked for before, so there was a chance it could have appeared on a list, and she had skipped over it because it didn’t apply to her. She knew all about the hyperactivity, racing thoughts, and anxiety, but she hadn’t bothered reading much about poor concentration because hers was quite good, or fidgeting because she had no problem sitting still. Maybe what happened last night could be characterized by another symptom she had skipped over in the same way because she previously had no connection to it. She tried a few of the sites she had looked at before and then a few new ones, but none of them mentioned anything she recognized as this new symptom, which she would call what? Heightened senses seemed to be the best explanation for it. Or maybe it wasn’t a symptom. She returned to the search bar and typed people experiencing the world differently. This led to thousands of results about movies and songs she had never heard of, as well as spiritual and alien sites that shed no light on what she had experience. She promised herself she would have a proper look at them when she had more time, but she knew she probably wouldn’t. They looked so boring, and none of it really spoke to her. She dropped the phone on the bed beside her then lay looking up at the ceiling, just as she had yesterday afternoon, but she didn’t have the luxury of going back to sleep this time. There was only half an hour left until she had to be out the door for school. It didn’t matter that she felt as if she had less than an hour’s sleep. She thought of faking a cough or something to get her off for the day, but she had to prioritize not scaring her mother with more symptoms, so she eventually pulled herself out of bed and out to the bathroom. Thirty minutes later, she was out in the street clutching a piece of toast between her teeth and skipping her shoe firmly onto her foot. As it was every morning, Bindi was waiting for her at the end of the driveway.
“Hey!” Bindi called, but before Cassandra could answer, she added, “You look like shit. Did you sleep in a bush?”
“Thanks.”
“Seriously. Are you ill?”
Cassandra didn’t think she looked that bad. If she did, she was just grateful that her mom had already left for work and hadn’t seen her. “I didn’t sleep too well last night. That’s all.”
“You got that appointment with the doc yet?”
“Mom’s working on it.”
“Are you well enough to be at school?”
“I’m just a bit tired. It’s nothing serious.”
“Right. Shit, Cass! Did you see the news today?”
Cassandra swallowed down a mouthful of toast and shook her head.
“There’s been another one.”
“One what?”
“Attack. Last night. About four a.m. apparently. Just out in Jenson’s Park.”
Cassandra didn’t tell Bindi about the walk that had led her so close to Jenson’s Park at 4.00 a.m. It was on the tip of her tongue to say the words, but nothing came out. She couldn’t explain exactly why she was now keeping details of her life from her best friend. They had told each other everything for as long as they had been friends. Maybe simply saying it aloud was too difficult and too freaky. She also didn’t tell her about the marathon she ran the day before or Braydon collecting her. Consequently, she didn’t mention the fact that he had asked her out. But Bindi had more to say on the subject of this new attack that brought home the unimaginable horrors taking place in Garden City.
“It was Stacey Hall.”
Cassandra pulled up sharp. “What?”
“She was attacked in the park last night.”
“Stacey Hall.” Cassandra didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t know Stacey Hall too well. They were in the same school, but none of the same classes. It was getting closer. If it was Stacey Hall, it could have been Bin
di. It could have been Cassandra.
“What was she doing out at four in the morning?”
“I don’t know. She’s a bit of a wild child. Maybe she was meeting a boy.”
“At four in the morning?”
“She could have been partying.”
“Do they have any leads?” Cassandra asked as if the limited information in Bindi’s possession made her an expert.
“The report just said her name, where she was found–”
“Jesus! Is she dead?”
“No. She’s alive. She said it was like a couple of guys, both wearing masks. Can you imagine that shit?” Bindi liked to use the word shit, it was one of her favorite profanities, but was also the worse one she used, never uttering the F- word, or any other MoFo or word, as she called it.
Cassandra didn’t answer. She didn’t want to try to imagine it. How could this be happening? Garden City was the quietest, calmest town on the planet. Things like this happened in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, the big cities. Not here. And yet it was happening here, and to people who were the same age as Bindi and Cassandra. She realized seriously for the first time as they were having the conversation that they were all in danger. This wasn’t an episode of CSI or a movie, which is the only way she had experienced danger before. This was really happening. Head on, smack bang in the middle of this boring sleepy little town!
The first period, as always apart from Tuesday, was with Mac. And they were still analyzing Twelfth Night, but the class wouldn’t settle. Even Mac’s teaching superpowers failed to calm them. The only thing on anyone’s mind was Stacey, what she’d suffered, and the fear that they were all now at risk.
Mac walked to the front of his desk, perched there and spoke quietly, so the class would have to stay quiet to listen. “At times like this it’s important to stay close to your friends,” he told them, and the class fell quiet. “Stay with people you know and trust, and stay within the boundaries designated by the police. If you’re not in the park at four in the morning, then you’re not going to get attacked at the park at four in the morning. Capiche? “
Cassandra listened intently to his words. She really liked him – not as much as Bindi and the other girls who swooned over him, and not as much as the boys in the class who obviously hero-worshipped him – but were his words coming across as a little cold? Or maybe this was how the world was now. The sugar coating had been sucked off leaving a sour taste in everyone’s mouths.
“That’s not to say life as we know it has to stop,” Mac continued. “If we stop living then these madmen have won. You just should keep yourselves safe until these people are behind bars, which I’m sure they soon will be. It’s at times like this that literature is so important.” Mac smiled at them, the twinkle in his eye ever present. The teacher gene was still embedded!
The whole class groaned at that.
“What have we been looking at? Disguises in Twelfth Night. Shakespeare shows us Viola’s disguise, but don’t we all wear masks? Don’t we all walk around in disguises in one way or another?”
Usually, someone would have called out something funny about Spike Blue’s face looking like a Shrek mask or Sarah not being able to take her Miss Piggy mask off, but today everyone was silently listening.
“Is what you present to the world, to this class, to your friends and family, to the stranger in the street, an honest representation of the person you truly are? Yes? No? Do you think your neighbor, the guy who works in the store, the cab driver, your gardener, your brother are the same on the inside as they are on the outside? It is easy to hide demons and monsters behind smiles and laughter. You are old enough to realize that now. In life, we must learn to freefall with destiny. I have always encouraged you to follow your dreams and open your hearts to chance, but just now the opposite applies. Trust nobody, stay in, and stay safe.” He was silent for a moment then added. “We’ll call this a free period. Keep the noise to a minimum, and we’ll pick up Twelfth Night on Wednesday.”
There was little excitement about not having to work. They were hardly going to have a party after that little speech. Bindi dragged her seat over to Cassandra’s desk, and they quietly began to chat.
“Aw!” Bindi beamed. “I think he was going to cry. He’s such a sensitive soul.”
“a bit much, isn’t it?”
“I guess it’s what needs to be said at the moment.”
“I guess.”
They turned to look at him, and he was back behind his desk reading a battered copy of a novel they were too far away to identify.
“I wonder if he’s married,” Bindi swooned.
“You don’t think he’s a bit old for you?”
“Ten years is nothing.”
“It’s probably what he’d get in jail if he went out with you.”
Bindi simply sighed by way of an answer. No one had quite the same impact on her as Mac. None of the boys their age did it for her. She said they were too immature. Perhaps they were.
The chatter in the class had surpassed an acceptable noise level, and Mac peered over his novel to tell them to keep it down. The next noise was the sound of another chair being dragged over to Cassandra’s desk. Leo joined them, looking not altogether his cheery self.
“You okay, Leo?”
“Me? Yeah. Of course.”
“What’s up?”
“Nothing. Well, all of this attacking shit is a real bummer. Let me know if you two need me to walk you anywhere. I’ll be there in a shot.”
They both turned to their friend.
“Really? Leo? Is that you?”
“Shut up! I can be kind and caring. You’re my girls, and it’s my duty to make sure you’re safe.”
“Really?” they repeated. This was so unlike him. All his actions were usually motivated by personal gain. Maybe the news had really shaken him.
“Really.”
“Well, thanks, Leo.”
“No problem. I broke up with Thomas last night,” he added as if he were speaking on the same subject.
“No way. I’m really sorry,” Bindi said, but he didn’t look bothered about it.
“And?” Cassandra asked.
“And nothing. I think I want to be on my own for a while. You know, grow a little.”
Again, the girls looked stunned.
“Seriously, who is this guy and what have you done with Leo?”
“I know I said I was going to ask Braydon out, but I realized that I’m just flitting from guy to guy and where’s it going? What’s it all for?”
“My God! Are you okay, Leo?”
“I’m fine. A guy’s allowed to change isn’t he, see the error of his ways?”
“You’ll be telling us you’ve found God next.”
“Very funny.”
Cassandra was hesitant, but she knew the time was right to let them in on at least some of her news. She knew Mac’s speech hadn’t really been about the disguise she was wearing, but she owed it to her friends, to be honest with them.
“I should tell you both,” she said, reddening a little, “I’m going on a date with Braydon on Wednesday night. I know you might both be against it for different reasons, and I’ve tried to resist, but I know there’s something blossoming between the two of us. I think I might be …” she paused, not able to bring herself to say the words, and then a hesitant smile broke out of Bindi’s face.
“Are you sure you knew what you’re doing?” she asked and Cassandra nodded. This was a definite improvement on her previous opinion, which had set her against Braydon. She leaned in to hug her friend. “Just be careful,” she added quietly into her ear. “Remember what Mac was saying about disguises.”
Cassandra turned to Leo and was surprised to see that he was also smiling. “Hey, it’s good news,” he told her. “Like I said, I’m off men. He’s all yours.”
Ellen managed to get an appointment with Dr. Somner for the following morning, so the day started off slowly, and the two of them were sitting in the waiting r
oom at 10.25 a.m. Cassandra could have gone to school for a few hours before, but it seemed a little pointless. She watched the imposing, mahogany door of the office, with the well-polished gold name plaque, and rehearsed what she was going to say to him in her mind as other patients went in and out, one after the other. She then brought her courage to the fore and spoke to her mother. She had wanted to ask her something all morning, and now she knew she only had a few seconds to do it.
“Mom,”
“Yes, sweetheart,” she answered, idly flicking through an old copy of Hello!
“I don’t mean to be rude, and I don’t want to upset you, but do you think …” she paused to make sure the words came out in the right order.
Ellen put down the magazine to give her daughter her full attention.
“It’s just that I don’t want to offend you, but–”
“You’d like to see the doctor on your own?”
Cassandra nodded and was relieved to see her mother smile.
“That’s absolutely fine, but make sure you remember everything he says and that you tell him absolutely everything you’re worried about. Okay?”
“You don’t mind?”
“Completely the opposite. It means you’re growing up.”
Then came the call. “Cassandra Jones.”
Ellen gave her daughter a supportive smile, and Cassandra stood up ready to face the doctor alone for the first time.
Dr. Somner’s office looked the way it always had – it was all dark wood, gold, and physiological models – but it was completely different at the same time. Being there alone put a different spin on it all and made it all just a little bigger and more imposing, but she took a seat and sat up straight, doing her best to look as adult as she could. Dr. Somner also looked just a little more intimidating than usual, his hair bigger and whiter than ever before, although he was smiling, perhaps because he was smiling. It was all a little overwhelming, but Cassandra reminded herself that she needed answers.
Cassandra: And they all fall down Page 9