A Case of Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Wildes Chronicles Book 1)

by Dominika Waclawiak

  "No magic is going to sprout from your fingers. You are just a normal human being like the rest of us. We're outside of Los Angeles, and you committed yourself for depression. Do you remember that?" he asked me. No, that didn't sound like me at all. And no way had I been there for so many years.

  Or had I been? Because if I had been, and I had no memory of that, what did that say about me? Was I as insane as he was making me out to be?

  "Henry, how are you feeling about the full moon happening tonight?" Dr. Jeremy asked him. Henry cocked his head at him.

  "Why would you ask me such a question? You know as well as I do that werewolves aren't real. Are you trying to catch me in a lie?" he asked. Dr. Jeremy smiled. Henry had told him exactly what he wanted to hear. Dr. Jeremy made several more notes in his notebook.

  "I've redone all of your medications after the session. I am concerned about the relapses some of you have experienced. I'm unsure of what happened last night in the common room, but it was triggering enough to create these delusional thoughts. Once we stop the delusional thinking, then we can try to get to the root of all of the issues in this group. And there are many of them." He motioned for one of the orderlies to come with a tray of small paper cups. He passed each cup around, two pills in each one, all of them a pale shade of blue.

  Why were we all getting the same pills though, I thought. Each of us had individual issues, didn't we? I did not want to swallow them.

  Dr. Jeremy knew that because he had a nurse come by with a tongue depressor. She stood over us as each one took the extra pills. She gave a small cup of water and when we had gulped the pills down along with the water, she depressed each tongue to make sure that we had swallowed. Dr. Jeremy looked as pleased as the Cheshire cat. A warm feeling spread through me as the meds began to work.

  "I was delusional. Delusional and depressed and unhappy and lonely. And now I could just float with my friends all around me. This was the way to get healthy. A way to get better," I thought as the warm, comfortable wave crashed over me and sucked me under.

  16

  "The medication is giving me nightmares," I started. I had scheduled a special counseling session with Dr. Jeremy. The last three nights had been filled with horrors both real and imagined. Or imagined and real? I couldn't tell the difference anymore.

  I was in a waking nightmare and when I was sleeping I thought I was awake. My grasp on reality was becoming tenuous at best and I was shocked to wake up each morning with the sun coming through the windows.

  The nights melded together and I couldn't tell Dr. Jeremy exactly how many days I had been here since he had upped the medication. I thought three nights had passed but it could also have been a week. Every meeting and every meal was running into each other to the point I couldn't separate each task.

  I wasn't the only one having problems either. I could tell that Damian and Leslie were becoming more and more agitated as the days went by. They kept upping their medication as they did mine and Leslie, at least, started to resemble a walking zombie. Oh, that's right, zombies didn't exist in this world.

  Each therapy session we had, she was still convinced that she was a powerful witch. I could tell that the others were starting to get irritated by her and so I kept my own feelings in check. For good measure, my skin kept turning into scales and then back to skin. Just to keep me on my toes, I thought grimly. I was too drugged up to even feel the terror I had experienced the first day I'd woken up here. I barely felt a damn thing. I finally decided to schedule a special appointment with him.

  "What kind of nightmares?" Dr. Jeremy said as he scribbled into his notebook. His office resembled a small library. All of the walls were filled with books and there was no window. There was a small Buddha sitting to the left of him. I was shocked that I even knew what a Buddha was.

  "I can't tell when day is day and night is night. I know that when the sun comes up, it's day and when the night happens it is dark. But there's confusion there. Sometimes they run into each other. I wake up and it's morning and then I blink and then I close my eyes again and it's night. It's not normal. I'm losing my mind and I thought I was supposed to be getting better." The words fell out of me in a rush. If he really wanted to help me as much as he said he did, then he needed to do something. I needed a different medication. I needed help.

  "Let's talk about your abandonment issues," he said. My stomach clenched as if on cue.

  "What does that have to do with me getting night and day confused?"

  "It all starts there. It's what we call your core wound. You never knew who your father was. Your mother was distant and more concerned with appearances and her friends than about raising you. And then she died. So you are left with no family. When that happens at the age that you were at, the child careens back thinking that everybody that she loves will leave her. And then, of course, what happened to your partner," he said. The bile rose fast and quick in my throat and it was all I could do to swallow it before I puked all over his shiny, mahogany desk.

  "Peters," I whispered my partner's name. How could I have forgotten Peters? He had been my partner for over five years and he had been the reason why I quit the Los Angeles Police Department. I forgot him? How sick was I to forget somebody who I had cared so much about?

  "In your mind, he left you, too. But that's not really what happened, was it?" I searched my mind for what I thought he was talking about but I drew a blank. How did Peters die? It was bad enough that I couldn't remember the man, I had no idea what the traumatic event was that caused his death. I felt the pain around the thought that I could not draw up any images.

  "You were the one at fault," he started. "It was the reason you were brought here. You couldn't deal with the guilt of not having had your partner's back at the moment when he needed you the most."

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out.

  "I, I always had his back," I whispered.

  "If you did, then he wouldn't be dead, would he?" Dr. Jeremy said, his eyes holding mine captive. I couldn't look away even though I wanted to. Run as fast as I could back into my room. Why was he being so mean to me? Did this have anything to do with my confusion on reality? I didn't even fully remember what happened.

  "How could that be my core wound if I don't remember what happened," I struck back, my anger rising.

  "And there it is, your anger and fury. Why are you forgetting this definitive moment in your life?" His question hung between us like a spider suspended in the air. I didn't have the answer to his question. I had my anger now, and my shame for being angry. He was only trying to help, wasn't he?

  "I'm not forgetting it, Dr. Jeremy. I, I'm just having a hard time dealing with its consequences," I lied. I needed to play his game because if I didn't then he would give me more meds. I had been wrong in making this appointment.

  He wasn't trying to help me. He was breaking me down.

  I couldn't listen to him anymore.

  I stood up to go.

  "Sit down, Ms. Wildes," his voice held such an authoritative air that I obeyed. When he saw me sit down, he relaxed.

  "I know how difficult it is not to belong. To have people whispering behind your back, being used as a way to get back at others. I have handled the bully in question and you don't have to feel like a victim any longer. But you need to stop this narcissistic streak. This is not all about you. We are all here trying to get better. Trying to help each of you get to a place where you can actually leave and lead normal, good lives," he said.

  I sat there transfixed. I had no idea what he was talking about. I wasn't being bullied. Nor was I a victim.

  "This story that you've created about you being a witch and a fairy is your way of dealing with your powerlessness. You want to be special. Don't we all? Especially when you feel victimized. It's hard to face the harsh reality that you are just a normal human being like the rest of us. No better nor worse. Human and normal. I know that society has bought into their children being special snowflakes but we know what kind
of fallacy that is, don't we?" Dr. Jeremy said and watched my face carefully.

  I wasn't going to cry. I wasn't going to cry and give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had hit me where it hurt. I was special. I was Fae and my skin told me that I was. He could tell me until his face turned blue that I was nothing special but I knew better.

  "Damian doesn't like you."

  He might as well have kicked me in the head.

  "What did you say?" My voice came out small.

  "The men don't like you," he said. "That's why you've been bullied. You being a former policewoman makes them feel less than. I was wrong when I said that you weren't special. You do have that skill and it’s one that puts a target on your back. You can't let them get to you, though," he said and leaned back in the chair. "I know how difficult it must be to hear these hard truths but when we look at ourselves with eyes wide open then we can start truly doing the hard work it takes to make us whole again."

  I didn't want to agree with him. I wasn't that person, was I? But then, if I was a totally healthy person with my faculties all around me then why was I sitting in a mental hospital for over four years? That meant that I was very sick. It meant that I needed those drugs to make me feel better.

  "But it hasn't helped me yet, has it?" I asked him. "Is it typical for you to have patients that have stayed at a mental hospital so long? That means that I'm not curable, am I?"

  "Narcissistic personality disorder is not curable. But, what we can do is give you tools to deal with the outside world in a more appropriate manner. Right now, you think you are the center of the universe. You are not. You are small and insignificant. An ant really. And you know that, and you take advantage of the people around you to make yourself feel better. It's a very difficult situation for everyone involved. It would most likely be better if you kept to yourself a little bit more than you did. It would help your treatment," he said.

  I wanted to excise those words out of my brain. They hurt and stung so bad that I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out. Was it ethical to be so cruel to a patient that obviously needed help? A patient so heavily medicated that she could barely get up in the morning?

  "I think you've heard enough truth for one day," he said. "Would you like to schedule another appointment with me?"

  I twitched at the very thought of speaking to him again.

  "No, I'll just wait for the next scheduled session. I don't think I'll need any extra special appointments anymore," I said. Dr. Jeremy eyed me critically.

  "Mabry, please don't be like that. You needed to hear the truth. We need to hear the truth in order to get better."

  "Yes, Dr. Jeremy," I said. "I should get back to my room now. I know how important schedule is."

  He nodded once. "You'll see I'm right in due time."

  "I think I've made some real progress," I said with a straight face. I wasn't about to give this bastard anymore ammunition to use against me. I was shocked that I was even on my feet. I had no idea how he knew all those things about me. I couldn't imagine me telling him such secrets. Especially when I myself didn't even know half of those issues. I was not a narcissist. I was a good person and had been a good cop.

  Peters was still strangely a memory that I could not quite picture but that was okay for now. I waved one last time at him and started back towards my room. As I walked down the cream hallway, the walls shimmered and shifted. I stopped, closed my eyes and opened them back up again. The effect was still happening. The hallway of the mental hospital was there in front of me, and then it wasn't. Concrete cinderblocks took its place with warehouse style lighting instead of the nicely recessed lighting that the mental hospital had. The image kept shifting back and forth until I grew dizzy. I leaned against the nearest wall, waiting for the attack to pass.

  Instead, the image shifted and a woman I recognized stood in the middle of the hallway. It was Callie, the woman who owned the Fae bar that Leslie and I had ventured into twice. That memory floated front and center. There I was again, thinking I was special and otherworldly and magical. I'm only human, I reminded myself.

  "No, you are not. This isn't real," Callie said.

  "I so want you to be telling me the truth," I said.

  "I am. You need to fight this. Trust your instincts. You know what you are deep inside. Don't let anybody tell you differently. It's the only way you're going to escape out of this." I opened up my mouth to ask her the next question when I heard Dr. Jeremy's voice behind me.

  "Mabry, could you please send Leslie in here? I know she's on your way back to your room and I need to speak to her." I stood frozen in place. Had he seen Callie? Had he known that I knew this place was just an illusion? But when I turned around, his smirking face showed that he had no idea what I had just seen. Good, I thought. I needed to hold that truth close to my heart. I couldn't let anybody know until I definitively knew how to break the spell.

  The ugly, nasty voice in my head started up immediately. 'See, Dr. Jeremy was right. You have to be special. You can't be normal like the rest of them. He was right about you. Maybe you need more medication?' I shook the nasty voice away. If I didn't, I wouldn't survive here another day.

  I walked down the hall, past Leslie's room. I was going to save my friend the heartache of going to that horrible, disgusting man. I walked right on by and into my room. I lay on my bed, curled into a ball, and the sobs came deep and guttural out of me. All the pain and hurt that I had felt in that room came streaming out.

  Damn him. Damn him to hell.

  17

  I didn't come out of my room the rest of the day. At least, I thought it was a day. I woke up the next morning and only then managed to get out of bed. Dr. Jeremy's words followed me wherever I went and the nightmares that came at me from every direction while I slept had left me broken and unsteady on my feet. The only thing that was keeping me from trying to off myself was Callie, coming to me and telling me that I was not crazy. I needed the others to know that. There was strength in numbers someone had once told me and I really believed that now. Because if I had the support of at least one other person then I knew that it couldn't just be in my head. There was a reality that people shared together that reinforced what was real versus what was in my head. Or at least what people told me was in my head. Those thoughts carried me into the dining hall where I found Henry, Damian and Chance eating their breakfast.

  "Where's Leslie?" I asked, feeling slightly guilty that I had never sent her to Dr. Jeremy. The guy was an asshole, but I knew that he wanted to help and Leslie was in bad condition.

  "She's probably making spells in her room," Chance said cackling. That's an incredibly cruel thing to say, I thought.

  "Ouch," was all I managed. I was still sensitive to what Dr. Jeremy had told me about the others not liking me. I didn't want to believe him but if he talked that way about Leslie, I can't imagine what they said about me. I also didn't want to give them any ammunition to sideline me either. I needed their support if I was going to get to the bottom of what I was seeing.

  "I can't be around people with such delusions. I have to get out of here, and I know that if I play my cards right, they will have to let me go," Henry said.

  "So, you don't think you're a werewolf anymore?" I asked him.

  "Magic doesn't exist. Magic dwells in books and fairytales and movies. This is the real world and we are only human. Apparently, with numerous emotional problems," Chance said and Henry shook his head in agreement.

  "But what about the things that you know are true?" I asked.

  "That's all relative. What is truth exactly?" Chance asked. Why was he being like this? I had always thought that he was on our side but as the days in this hellhole had progressed he was the one that constantly kept making sure that we toed the line. It was especially difficult for Leslie who had the added burden of dealing with the grief over her husband's death. The cruelty that he had shown towards her regarding Marcus was inexcusable.

  "I doubt Marcus even existed
," Chance added.

  That was enough, I couldn't take anymore. I slammed my hands on the table and pushed back.

  "How dare you! How dare you question somebody's grief? You've never lost anyone that you've cared for? Who cares if she thinks she's a witch. You claiming her husband doesn't exist makes you a despicable person. Magical or not, there is no reason for such cruelty," I yelled.

  I got out of the dining hall as quickly as I could. Chances' and Henry's stunned looks of shock felt righteous. I was happy that I told him exactly what I thought about his horrifyingly bad thoughts. My outburst hadn't reached the orderlies, and I'd escaped without more pills shoved down my throat. I'd been hiding pills under my tongue whenever I could, and the clouds in my head had started clearing.

  What if they were right? The thought flitted into my mind and refused to go away. Had I gone too far by stopping the meds? Should I be telling the doctors what they wanted to hear as well? Maybe my problem was I clung so hard to my truth that I wasn't being open to getting help. I turned around and headed back to the dining hall.

  When I walked back in, the whole place turned silent. The news of my outburst had spread to the rest of the patients. I walked over to where they were still sitting but no one looked up.

  "Listen, I'm sorry that I lost my temper. I've had a very difficult time at night and," I stopped when I noticed that no one was speaking to me.

  "Come on, guys. Trying to apologize here." But none of them responded . Instead, they closed ranks and refused to look at me. I had lost them. Dr. Jeremy was right after all. I didn't have anyone in my corner.

  I left the dining hall then, unsure of which way to go. I could go left to my room and to the isolation that apparently was what everyone wanted me to have or go right and find Leslie. I closed my eyes and Callie's kind face appeared to soothe me. I knew what was real. And none of this felt real or made sense. My eyes fluttered open and the scales appeared on my arms, My body tried to comfort me in any way it could. It was telling me to believe it. Hell with all of them, I thought, Leslie was with me. We'd break through all the lies and horror the doctors and our fellow patients were trying to put on us.