“I think that’s enough for today,” Victoria said, standing. Alicen hesitantly followed suit as the cold woman gave her a forced smile. “We’re going to do so much good together.”
Alicen didn’t know how to respond to such an odd statement, so she simply nodded.
“I look forward to the path before us,” Victoria said.
All Alicen’s nerve endings seemed to pulse in response. In fear or in excitement, Alicen wasn’t sure. Either way it was uncomfortable.
“I’ll send in a nurse to see you out,” the administrator said as she turned and left.
Alicen had just left her session, all of what Victoria had said still lingering in her brain, when it happened. She was nearly to the parking lot when suddenly the silent world around her was interrupted by the haunting laughter she’d hoped to never hear again. One moment she was alone, contemplating snippets from her hijacked session with Victoria; the next she was surrounded by the eerie sound of her worst nightmare.
Alicen, can you hear us?
It caught her so off guard at first that she nearly tumbled over her own feet. It couldn’t be. She was doped up good and proper, the antipsychotics swimming through her bloodstream, invading her mind and controlling her thoughts. Doped up against her every desire so that she didn’t have to hear them. Didn’t have to see them. Didn’t have to fight them off.
Alicen, we’re here. We’re here.
“No,” Alicen said, her voice nearly lost in the whooshing of the wind around her. It whirled violently and picked up the fallen leaves from the ground, carrying them skyward before dropping them back to the earth. Alicen looked in every direction, the laughter tickling the back of her neck.
Alicen, we’re here. Do you see us?
She wanted to burrow into the ground at her feet. Wanted to disappear. Again she turned in a circle, the wind still howling, seemingly right at her, the scene around her vacant of the children even as their giggling continued to reverberate inside her ear canals.
Alicen.
Their whispers were getting closer, right on top of her. She shook her head, panic and fear crawling through her insides, erasing any numbness the drugs may have induced. She had to get out of here.
She turned back toward the parking lot; she could see the car sitting a couple yards away. If she could only make it inside, maybe she could regain control. She began walking forward, the wind pressing at her shoulders, the whispers and laughter relentless.
The ground at her feet was dry, only dying grass and fallen leaves, but moving forward felt like trudging through mud. Every step harder than the last. Her body was betraying her again, her mind divided into different parts. One yelling at her to run from the imaginary madness, the other yelling at her to stay and believe it was more than imaginary. To give in.
Alicen, we’re here. Do you see us?
She tried to move faster, against whatever force was taking over her body and the half of her brain that was lost to insanity. The wind’s intensity was growing. It was as if she were caught inside a tornado, though the rest of the world sat unaffected. Another delusion of her mind. Another delusion created by the sickness taking up residence in her brain.
“Alicen,” the same voice materialized in more than a whisper. And it was close. Before she could stop herself, Alicen glanced up and saw her. Evie, with three more familiar little faces behind her.
She isn’t real, Alicen. She isn’t there, Alicen, her mind said. None of them are real.
“When through the deep waters,” Evie said, her voice a whisper as the wind whirled around Alicen like an angry force and dragged her to her knees. Another voice joined the imaginary children, an older voice, one she knew well and longed for often these days. On the wind, a familiar song. Grandma Joe’s angelic tones barely touching Alicen’s ears but clear enough to be sure of.
“‘When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.’”
“Time to remember, Alicen,” Evie said.
“No, no, no!” she screamed, but the wind stole the sound as it exited her lips. She refused to become victim to this. “You aren’t real; you’re just my demons.”
Grandma Joe’s singing voice echoed through her brain. Soft and kind. Tears drained down Alicen’s face, her nerves already rattled and torn. She wanted to be free of this nightmare. She felt unsteady and reached out to grab a nearby tree. She took short, shaky breaths, her eyes closed, her knuckles aching and turning white as she held herself in place.
“Time to remember,” Evie said again.
Alicen squeezed her eyes shut and reminded herself that this was only insanity. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.
Alicen.
The drugs weren’t working. The numbness was gone, and she was trapped in the falsehood of her own mind, which was trying to kill her. Alicen turned and pressed her back against the tree trunk. She kept her eyes closed as she tried to release the hold the voices had on her mind. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.
She didn’t notice the wind die down or the voices quiet; she was lost inside herself.
Something lightly tapped her shoulder, springing her from her darkened state, and she screamed. Her eyes opened to be met by someone she wasn’t expecting. An older woman, who took a step back, her eyes wide with fear, even though she had been the one to startle Alicen. She recognized the woman but couldn’t place where she had seen her before through the pudding that was her brain.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” the older woman mumbled, as she tucked a disheveled strand of hair behind her ear. Her voice was tiny, mouselike. Also familiar. It struck Alicen then—this was one of the women in her support group. She grappled for a name, searching back through her memory as she pushed herself away from the tree.
“I didn’t mean . . . I saw . . . I shouldn’t have . . .” The woman took another step back as Alicen moved forward.
“It’s okay,” Alicen said, feeling uncomfortable by how shaken the woman appeared. Like a deer caught in headlights. Alicen was afraid the woman might rush off at any moment.
The woman nodded, her whole body trembling, and fiddled with the ends of the scarf wrapped around her neck. A name suddenly dropped into Alicen’s mind. Shannon. This woman’s name was Shannon.
“Shannon, right?” Alicen asked, hoping to ease her clear discomfort.
The woman’s face lit a little, and she smiled at the ground. “You remembered me. That’s nice.”
“From group,” Alicen said.
Shannon nodded. “Yeah. I saw you over here, and you looked like maybe you were in trouble, so I meddled. Sorry—I meddle. I shouldn’t meddle.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m not in trouble,” Alicen said. Shannon seemed too loose of a cannon, so Alicen wanted to appear stable for fear of the woman losing it.
“Right, right. Well, I saw you talking to them, and talking to them can cause trouble. I don’t want you to get in trouble,” Shannon said. She spoke so fast, Alicen nearly missed it.
“Saw me speaking to whom?” Alicen asked.
Shannon glanced down at the ground momentarily, but her gaze didn’t linger there. She shook her head, her eyes twitching back and forth, as if she wasn’t sure what to say.
“Shannon,” Alicen said, stepping toward the woman, her own mind churning.
Shannon took another step back, her fingers frantically rubbing the stringy ends of her scarf. Alicen paused, not wanting to scare her off.
“I saw you,” Shannon whispered. “I see everything.”
“What?” Alicen asked, shock rising in waves.
“I’m not supposed to—we . . . we shouldn’t talk about it. They were talking to you, I thought. Were they not talking to you?” Shannon said, her words tumbling out confused and jagged.
Alicen tried to catch her breath as her heart raced. “You see them?”
Shannon looked at her, sympathy and knowing filling her eyes. “I see everything.” Something formed between them in that moment, a tether
that made Alicen feel strangely connected to this woman. Shannon nodded, tears filling her eyes, then swallowed hard and dropped her gaze. “But we shouldn’t see them,” she said.
“How can you see them?” Alicen asked.
“I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said anything,” Shannon said. “I meddle. I shouldn’t meddle.” She turned to walk away.
“No, wait,” Alicen said, following her.
Shannon paused as Alicen caught up to her and walked to stand in front, facing the woman.
“I see them; I was talking to them. Who are they?” Alicen asked.
Shannon kept her voice low. “Your trouble. You reap what you sow.”
Alicen shook her head. Shannon wasn’t making sense.
“Bad parents reap what they sow. I know what you did,” Shannon said.
Her words hit Alicen like a punch to the gut.
Suddenly Shannon’s mind seemed to be in a different place, and Alicen watched as a small smile pulled at her mouth. “I never had a daughter,” Shannon said. “I had a son, though.” The smile vanished and was replaced with sorrow. “I don’t anymore.”
Alicen took a deep breath through the pain Shannon’s words had opened in her chest. She wanted the woman to explain herself, but she couldn’t seem to find the words she needed.
Shannon’s mind shifted again, and a look of terror took over. She began to shake her head. “You shouldn’t see anything. Trouble, trouble, trouble, and I don’t want any more trouble.” She stepped away from Alicen, grabbed either side of her skull with her hands, her head still shaking, and began mumbling under her breath.
“Shannon, tell me how you—” Alicen started, finally finding words.
Before she could finish, Shannon stepped so close to Alicen that she could smell the chicken and corn Shannon had eaten for lunch on her breath. Her eyes were wide with terror, and she locked them onto Alicen’s as she spoke. “Don’t come back to this place. You’re special. She hates special.”
“She? I don’t understand,” Alicen said.
“It’s not safe here,” Shannon said. “She’s not safe.” Something grabbed the woman’s attention, something only she heard, and her eyes shifted away from Alicen quickly. “I have to go,” Shannon said.
“Wait,” Alicen said.
Without another word, Shannon raced past Alicen and back toward campus. Alicen considered following, but shock filled her ankles with lead, rooting her in place. Her mind was chaos, running in circles, stumbling over hurdles, falling down black holes of impossibilities.
She wasn’t the only one who saw them. One haunting question formed through the madness, more terrifying than any she’d encountered before. If her mind was creating delusions, how could anyone else see them too?
16
Alicen felt like her mind had been run through a wood chipper by the time she arrived back at the Watson summer home. She sat in the car, parked in the driveway, until nearly dark. The sun was setting, the sky turning a dark blue, before she found the will to drag herself from the car and go inside.
The onslaught of questions being hurled at her mind through time and space were threatening her ability to think clearly, so she decided heading straight to her bedroom for the night was probably best.
It took Louise and Betty a couple of minutes to realize Alicen was back. Both of them, on different occasions, tapped on her door to make sure she was all right. Alicen dismissed them and then immediately crawled under the covers and began working to block out the world. If either of them later poked their heads in to check on her, Alicen didn’t notice. If either of them tried to inquire into the events leading up to her stuffing herself under her comforter, she didn’t register it. Her brain didn’t have enough space or power to accept any more information, not while being suffocated by the weight of what had happened between her and Shannon.
Eventually everything went quiet. Alicen’s mind didn’t slow; she only became numb to the continuous pounding of questions. As if her body were protecting her, an eerie calm started to flood her bones. There was a single moment where she considered trying to get a couple of sleeping pills to drown the night in slumber, but then she decided she probably didn’t need them. Slipping away from reality, hiding in the darkness built by her mind, was all that was left. So slowly, and without warning, Alicen fell asleep.
She didn’t dream under the influence of her sleeping aids and assumed the same would be true of her present state, but when she opened her eyes and saw the depths of the forest around her, she knew her assumptions had been wrong. Unless, of course, she wasn’t dreaming.
She turned her head in either direction, taking in the familiar scene. It was dim but not dark. The sky was captured in twilight but also held a bright round moon and dozens of shimmering stars. Odd, she thought.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a little voice asked.
Alicen turned without surprise. Evie stood there at her side, alone. Her face clear, her eyes bright.
“It reminds me of the place I used to go with my grandmother,” Alicen said.
“I know,” Evie said.
“How could you know that?”
Evie smiled sweetly. “I know many things, Alicen.”
Evie lifted her small hand and extended her pointer finger past Alicen. “For example, you used to come to that bridge with Grandma Joe. She taught you so much truth there. Truth you’ve forgotten.”
Alicen turned and saw for the first time a small wooden bridge that extended over a flowing river she hadn’t noticed before either. Surely they had been there before, though; rivers and bridges didn’t just appear. Unless this was a dream, of course. The thought caused Alicen to glance down at her feet and wonder if she’d wake up in bed with dirt caked on them again. Could you be in a dream and in reality at the same time?
Another thought broke through her consciousness. “This isn’t the right bridge. That was in Billings; this is Red Lodge,” she said, turning back to Evie, who was smiling again.
The little girl shrugged her shoulders slightly. “Those rules don’t really apply here. Only in the world of form.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Alicen said.
“That’s because you’re trying to wrap your mind around it, and the mind is limited. You’re trying to see it with the wrong set of eyes.”
Alicen recalled the memory of her and Grandma Joe sitting on the bridge, discussing how to see clearly. One of the moments Evie was claiming to know about. Alicen felt her gaze drawn back to the bridge, where flittering images of her younger self and her grandmother faded in and out. Seeing even a hazy memory of Grandma Joe opened a well of emotions Alicen had sealed closed long ago.
“You’ve been dreaming of her again,” Evie said.
Alicen turned back to Evie in wonder.
Evie smiled and tilted her head playfully. “I told you; I know many things.”
“So you know what’s happening to me? That I’m going crazy?”
Evie’s face took on a shade of seriousness. “Crazy isn’t a very nice thing to say about yourself.”
“You’re the second person to tell me that,” Alicen said.
“She will tell you many things; be careful of her, Alicen.”
Alicen knew Evie was referring to Victoria. “What she’s told me so far is true.”
Evie shrugged. “If you believe something is true, then maybe you make that thing true.”
“What does that even mean?”
Evie gave a silly grin. “It means belief is a powerful thing.”
“So if I just believe I’m not crazy, I suddenly won’t be crazy?” Alicen mocked.
Evie chuckled, clearly taking Alicen’s mockery as humor, and shook her head. “Who says you’re even crazy to begin with?”
Alicen huffed in frustration, and it turned into a harsh cackle of laughter. “Why am I even talking to you?” She knew she was actually talking to herself, not this small delusion in front of her. She captured Evie’s gaze with her own. “You aren’
t real.”
Evie didn’t flinch.
“You’re just my trouble.”
Evie cocked her head to the side slightly. “More things that she’s told you. Lies that are easy to believe when you’re clouded.”
“The way you say things is funny,” Alicen said. “It almost makes you sound as crazy as me.”
Evie smiled without offense. “Many great speakers of truth have been labeled crazy. The greatest of all time was called a madman. Yet his truth set people free. I long to be his kind of crazy.” The child let out a small laugh, and a warm spot opened in Alicen’s chest.
“I don’t think I know who you’re talking about,” Alicen said.
“Your grandma knew him well. So did you, once.”
Alicen shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t forget someone like that.”
“Yet here we are.”
Alicen didn’t understand and opened her mouth to say as much before she was cut off. A tiny singing voice sounded from behind. Soft and whimsical.
“‘When through the deep waters I call thee to go,’” the small voice sang. Alicen turned to see the twins. Roxie, the one who talked, and Tate, the one who didn’t. Arm in arm, little bounces filling their steps as they moved toward her. Humming the familiar tune, its strains opening Alicen’s heart further.
They both looked up at Alicen with wonder-filled expressions. Roxie smiled and spoke. “You can sing with us if you want.”
Alicen shook her head. “I don’t remember the words.”
Tate leaned close and whispered something in Roxie’s ear. Roxie listened and then continued. “Tate wants to know why adults forget so many things.” Both twins looked at her with curious eyes and waited. Were they actually asking her how she’d forgotten lyrics to a song she hadn’t heard in decades?
“I guess time,” Alicen said. “Life happens, and you just forget things. It happens to everyone.”
Roxie and Tate exchanged an excited glance, as if they had a secret they didn’t want to share, and turned their attention back to Alicen. Tate let out a small giggle as Roxie spoke. “Maybe it isn’t actually forgotten, just hidden in the shadows. Remove the shadows, and you’d see it again. Right?”
When Through Deep Waters Page 16