by E. C. Bell
“I never said I saw ghosts,” I said, through clenched teeth. My jaw ached, but I didn’t know how to loosen it without letting her see. “Not to you.”
“But you did to your father,” Parkerson said.
“Yeah,” I replied. She had me with that, so there was no reason to try to deny it. “But my dad’s a drunk, and it’s better to go along.”
I felt a sudden twinge of guilt, talking about my father that way, and then I felt angry. She shouldn’t have pushed me to talk about my father like that, but she had me backed in a corner.
“So, you’re saying that everything you said to your father was just you ‘going along?’”
I shrugged, unsure of the direction the conversation was taking.
“You mentioned James,” she said. “You were talking about James Lavall, your boyfriend.”
“So?”
“Does he believe you can see ghosts, too? Is that why he was investigating the staff here? Is that why he gave your father the list to give to you? Because he believes that you are interacting with ghosts, in here?”
I honestly didn’t know what to say, so opted for glaring at her.
“I believe he does,” she said, after she waited a few seconds for me to answer her. “And I think that I’m starting to see a pattern in your relationship choices, Marie.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked. “James isn’t a drunk.”
Parkerson blinked. “I wasn’t suggesting that,” she said. “And, I would hazard a guess that your father’s drinking problems are his way of coping with the delusions of your mother—and you. No, I think that you find men who are emotionally crippled. Like your boyfriend Arnie.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” I whispered.
“Ex-boyfriend,” she said with a small smile, “who wanted to own you completely. Or James, who will believe anything you tell him so that he can be with you.”
“Emotionally crippled?” I said, my voice high and much louder than it was moments before. Apparently, I’d decided to give up on the “I’m not upset” gambit. “James is the most balanced person I know.”
Parkerson raised her eyebrows. “And he believes you can see ghosts,” she said. “With no evidence whatsoever.”
Jesus.
“Just like your father believed your mother,” she continued. “And look what that did to him, and to her.”
Jesus. I was never getting out of here. I could just tell.
THE WHOLE SESSION went even further off the rails shortly after that. One of the orderlies knocked on the door and handed Parkerson a very thin file.
“Nurse Willoughby found it during her search,” he said. “And felt you needed to see it now.”
It looked like there was just one sheet of paper in it, and I felt my heart tighten when Parkerson pulled it from the folder. I could see my mother’s trailer, drawn in pencil. The drawing I’d put on back of the list of suspects James had sent me.
She stared at the list, and then up at me.
“Whose writing is this?” she asked. “It looks nothing like yours.”
I didn’t answer her.
“James wrote this, right?” she asked, her voice suddenly sharp. “This is the list your father gave to you, isn’t it? Are these the people James feels could be involved in killings in here?”
I said nothing. Honestly, couldn’t think of a thing to say, but she didn’t respond. Just looked back down at the sheet of paper like she still couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“He does whatever you ask,” she muttered. “And he believes that ghosts are talking to you. He is as delusional as you are. You know that, right?”
That was when I lost it. I think there might have been some spitting on my part as two orderlies pulled me out of Parkerson’s office and back to my room, but as far as I could tell, it didn’t make things worse than they already were. Because they were already as bad as they could possibly be.
Parkerson figured she knew everything about me and didn’t believe anything. She was the one who would decide whether I was going to get out of here or not, and she did not believe that ghosts exist, because she couldn’t see them. No evidence meant it was not real in her mind. And if things weren’t real in her mind, that meant she believed it wasn’t real in anyone else’s. And that included mine.
The only way this situation could be worse was if she was the one who was murdering patients in this place. Because if she was I’d put myself on her radar, big time.
IT DIDN’T SURPRISE me that the other sheets of paper and the broken pencil were gone when I was led back to my room. I would have been surprised if they hadn’t been.
Jasper:
Practice Before the Meeting
I WENT OUT to the meadow to practice as much of the sign language alphabet as I could remember. Marie was with her shrink and I didn’t want to interfere. It just seemed rude, hanging around while someone was having a session. I went back to her room after I’d practiced. She wasn’t there yet, and I thought I’d have at least half an hour to myself, but Nurse Willoughby stalked into the room and tore it apart. Searches weren’t unusual, but when she scooped up the drawing Marie had leaned against the wall above her dresser, I guessed that the rest of Marie’s session with her psychiatrist probably wasn’t going to go well.
Marie was escorted back a half hour later by two orderlies. I was glad to see that neither was Julius Rafferty.
Marie was just the sort Julius loved to bother. Small, cute, and drugged out of her mind. I decided I’d have to warn her about him once we were alone.
She was crying as they bundled her onto her bed, and I hated to see that. The session must have been really bad.
I couldn’t tell if she knew I was in the room or not because she was totally focussed on the orderlies. She scrabbled away from them as soon as she was able but stayed on the bed, just like they’d told her to do.
“Now, don’t move,” one orderly said. “A nurse will be in to see to you. Just stay in bed until she gets here.”
When they left, Marie put her hands over her eyes.
“Bad session?” I asked, feeling stupid even as I said it.
“Leave me alone,” she whispered through her hands. “Just leave me alone.”
At least I knew she could hear me. A step in the right direction and all that. “I’ve been learning sign language,” I said, signing what I hoped was an H and an I at her. “Well, the alphabet, anyhow. Want to practice some of it with me?”
“I said leave me alone,” she sobbed. It was the most forlorn sound I’d ever heard in my life or death, and I’ve heard some forlorn shit in my time.
“Come on, Marie,” I said. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” she said, but sat upright. “I’ve had it with all of you, I really have. If you’d all just left me alone, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t be in here, trapped in this place and drugged to the eyeballs without any way to get hold of James.”
“I thought you said your boyfriend was going to get you out,” I said, trying to ignore how the word boyfriend made my tongue feel like I’d tasted something curdled. “That it was just a matter of time—”
“Not since you convinced me to try to figure out who’s killing people in this place,” she said acidly. “And since I told James to get me a list of suspects.”
I wondered briefly at the fact that she no longer seemed to care if the staff could see her apparently talking to nothing at all. At least she was communicating.
“So?” I said.
“So, Parkerson has the list now,” Marie cried. “And her name’s on it.”
Oh, that wasn’t good.
“I wish I could help,” I said.
“You can’t,” she replied, and I shrugged. She had a point, but still I wished there was something I could do.
I thought again about the pencil. Moving that pencil. Wondered if I could move anything else and walked over to the bedside table. Reached for the glass sitting half empty, but my hand slid th
rough it like it wasn’t there.
“What are you doing?” she asked. I jumped, embarrassed that she’d caught me.
“Nothing,” I said.
She looked like she was going to keep quizzing me, and I didn’t want to have to tell her something as lame as “I moved a pencil once and wanted to see if I could do it again,” but luckily for me a nurse barged into her room at that exact moment so I was off the hook.
It was Melodie, the nurse who smiled all the time. Well, almost all the time. She wasn’t smiling when she walked into the room and closed the door securely behind her.
“I hear you had a bad session,” she said to Marie, who’d scurried back on her bed and leaned against the headboard. “Dr. Parkerson has decided that you need supplementary medication. Something a little stronger, to see you through this rough patch.”
Marie put her hand to her mouth, like she was trying to keep those supplementary meds out, but Melodie shook her head, once. She wasn’t holding a pill. She was holding a syringe. Marie must’ve really messed up.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” she said. “For either of us.”
She walked up to Marie and deftly pushed the point into her upper arm. Marie hissed, but did not move until the needle was removed and the nurse stepped back. Then she rubbed her arm vigorously.
“Sorry about that,” Nurse Melodie said. Her face looked cold, impersonal, and it made me shudder. She freaked me out when she didn’t smile. “But you must have known that was going to happen.”
Marie didn’t answer. Her hand had dropped from the spot on her upper arm where the needle had gone in, and her face slackened as the drug took hold.
“You want me to cover you?” Melodie asked.
Marie didn’t respond but the nurse pulled the blanket up to her chin nonetheless. “You’ll probably want to sleep now,” she said.
She turned toward the door, then back again as though she’d suddenly remembered something.
“I was supposed to tell you that Ellis Wheeler from Global News phoned earlier today, looking for an interview. With you. Dr. Parkerson told him there would be no interviews at this time. I hope you understand. She’s just looking out for your best interests.” Then she shrugged and walked to the door. “I don’t know why I bothered telling you that,” she said. “You won’t remember a darned thing.”
“But I will,” I said, as she left the room. “I’ll remember all of it, and I’ll be sure to bring Marie up to speed, when she’s able.”
I looked over at Marie, still lying in a crumpled ball under the hospital blanket with a bit a drool running down her chin.
“I’ll be back,” I said.
Then I left.
I suspected she was going to need all the help she could get. I didn’t think the sign language was going to help much, but me being able to move things would so I went back out to the meadow to practice that.
I didn’t even really care if it made me disappear for all time or whatever. I needed to do something for Marie, and that was one thing I could actually do.
I was going to help Marie, and that was all there was to it.
Stage Two
Exposing the Truth
Marie:
Things Go More to Crap, If That Was Possible
I WOKE UP on the bed, the front of my pyjamas wet with drool. I vaguely remembered Nurse Melodie coming into my room and giving me a shot of—something— shortly after I’d lost my crap on my shrink about being able to interact with ghosts.
My head felt like it was going to explode, and my mouth was dry as a desert. I looked over at my bedside table and wished there was a way to will the water into my mouth because I couldn’t count on my arms and legs to move properly.
“Holy shit,” I muttered, as I tried, without much success, to move the blankets under which I was trapped. “What’s going on?”
“Well, look at that. The TV star’s awake.”
It was Jasper, the overly friendly ghost. I should have been impressed that I could even hear him but I wasn’t. I was pretty sure before the big drug attack by Nurse Melodie I’d told him to leave me alone. “What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Nurse Melodie said Ellis Wheeler wants to interview you, for his news show. I’ve seen him on TV. Looks like you’re going to be famous.”
Ellis frigging Wheeler, from Global. Still sniffing around looking for a story.
“Don’t be impressed,” I said shortly. “He’s just a local guy. Besides, I wouldn’t talk to him, even if I could.”
“I get that. You don’t want everybody knowing, and if you blab about it on TV, they would. Even if he is just a local guy.” He shrugged. “I’m surprised you’re talking to me. I thought you’d given up on that, too. You know, so people here wouldn’t think you’re crazy.”
“Yeah, I said that, didn’t I?” I said.
My shrink did not believe that ghosts existed. And because she didn’t believe in ghosts, she was certain that I was delusional. Just like my mother before me.
Her watching me apparently talk to the empty room on that never-ending video feed would do nothing to get rid of that idea of hers. So, why was I doing this? Talking to the ghost, even though she was going to see?
Because I just didn’t give a shit any longer.
“I changed my mind,” I said. “I’m allowed, right?”
“Yes, you are,” he said. “And I’m glad. It’ll make things a lot easier.”
My mouth was so dry, my lips stuck to my teeth. I looked at the plastic jug on my bedside table longingly. “Man. I need a drink of water.”
“Can’t help you with the water,” he said, and smiled, looking faded and grey. “Not yet, anyhow.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I was—trying something,” he said. “Kinda took it out of me.”
“What did you try?” I attempted to push aside my blanket with hands that seemed incapable of doing anything real whatsoever, and then gave up.
“I was trying to move things,” he said. “On your side.”
That stopped me. I stared at him, hard, and realized that he didn’t just look faded. He looked dark, like most of his light had been pulled from him. “What?”
“I’m trying to learn how to move things,” he said. “I did it once, in here.” He pointed at my bedside table. “The pencil and the paper. I moved them.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” he said. “Not very far, mind you, but I thought if I kept working at it, I’d be able to do—more. You know?”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” I said.
“Why?” He looked frightened. He tried to cover it up, but didn’t do a very good job of it. “Why?” he asked again.
“It can take a lot of your power,” I said. “You need to practice, to get your strength up.” I didn’t know why I was telling him that because it was better for everyone, including the ghosts, if they didn’t fool around in the land of the living.
I tried to move the blankets again, and it worked this time. I extricated my arms and then the rest of me, and then fought myself to more or less sitting, with my legs hanging over the side of the bed. I could feel the cold of the floor’s linoleum on my feet but didn’t mind it. At least it felt like something.
“Is it dangerous?” he asked.
“No,” I said. Then I shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
He considered for a moment, and then nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’ll take care while I’m practicing. Take it slow, so I can build up my strength. Then, when I can move things properly, I can help you.”
“Oh,” I said. I tried to smile, but it didn’t work out very well, and he looked worried.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine.” I sniffed, and then felt my throat tighten and tears form. “I’m just fine,” I said again, and then I sobbed. Dammit anyhow.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said. “Please.�
��
“Just give me a second,” I said as I grabbed a tissue from the table beside my bed and pressed it to my eyes. “It’s been a rather eventful day.”
He shut his mouth and gave me the moment I’d asked for. Luckily, it didn’t take me long to wipe up my stupid tears and then toss the tissue in the general direction of the small plastic garbage can at my feet.
“Here’s the deal,” I said. “I am in some real trouble here, and I don’t know how much time I can devote to your mystery. I do have a list of potential suspects, and I’ll do what I can to investigate in here, but it might not be much.”
He made a move as though to speak, but I waved my hand at him to shut him up.
“However, I have people on the outside who are helping,” I continued, “so with any luck, we should be able to figure out what’s going on sooner rather than later.”
“Oh,” he said. “That’s great.” Then he frowned. “Why are you crying, then?”
“I’m not crying anymore,” I snapped. “And if you need to know, I was crying because Dr. Parkerson knows about me speaking to you—and the others. She knows that my mother used to have the same ability—and that my father supported her, wholeheartedly.”
“Oh,” he said again, but he didn’t smile that time. “How’d she take that?”
“Not well,” I said. Then, I laughed. “I didn’t take her reaction well either, if I’m going to be honest about the whole thing.”’
“She never did take anything supernatural very seriously,” he muttered.
Now, that was an odd thing for him to say. “How would you know that?” I asked.
His face spasmed and he shook his head. “Forget I said that.”
“Why?” I asked. I could hear the sharpness in my voice, but didn’t do a thing to tone it down. He was keeping something from me, and I’d just about had enough of that in this place.