by E. C. Bell
“Now, I want to make absolutely sure you mean to stay,” Parkerson said. “Talk to your boyfriend, and your friend. They’re here—” she waved at the open doorway. “Waiting for you.”
“Oh God,” I muttered. James was not going to be happy about this. Not after all the wailing and gnashing of teeth I’d done when he’d visited me the last time. And who else would be here with him? “Yeah, I guess I better.”
THE NURSE’S STATION was around the corner from my room. At the end of the hallway, near the exit. I could see the red lit sign above the door, and for one second considered running, hell bent for leather, out that door and away from this place. Then I gave my head a shake. I’d given up escape. And now I needed to tell James why.
He was sitting on one of the chairs that lined the hall, beside a woman who had her nose buried in a magazine. If it was from this place, it was probably six years old. When she dropped the magazine and turned to James, I saw who it was. Jasmine had come with James.
Jasmine, my friend, who now knew my biggest secret because of my big-mouthed father.
She saw me, her eyes widened, and she slapped James on the arm, and pointed. “She’s here,” she said. “Oh my God, Marie!”
She leapt up from her chair and took a couple of running steps toward me. Pushed past Dr. Parkerson, then shambled to a stop before she got to me. I could see that she didn’t know whether to smile, or cry.
“Hi, Jasmine,” I said. “I’m really glad to see you.”
“Me too,” she said, and then she grabbed me and pulled me into her arms. “I was so worried about you,” she said as she hugged and rocked me, like she would have done with one of her own kids. “Are you all right?”
“I’m OK,” I said. “Mostly. What about you?”
“Me?” she asked into my hair. I tried to back away so I could see her face, but she wouldn’t let me go. Just clung, like she was afraid I’d disappear if she didn’t keep me in her arms. “I’m fine. Wonderful. So are the kids. They miss you. Want to see you.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “I was afraid that meeting my father would’ve changed your mind about me.”
She chuckled and pushed me away. “Your father’s a sweetheart,” she said. “He even offered to look after the kids for me, so I could come with James.”
“Yeah, I know he’s a sweetheart and everything, but he said that he told you—everything about me.” I searched her face. “And I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want me around anymore.”
She shrugged and wouldn’t look me in my eye. “I must admit, his story sounded far-fetched,” she said. “And I wondered about him.” She glanced at me, then looked away. “You understand?”
“Most definitely.” I wondered about my father most of the time myself, and I’d known him my whole life.
“But then I talked to James,” Jasmine continued, pointing her thumb in his direction. He hadn’t moved from his chair and wasn’t looking at us. Like he was trying to be invisible, so we’d have the space to talk this out. “And he explained everything. The ghosts, your mother. Everything.”
“And you’re OK with it?” I asked. I could hear my voice shaking, even though I didn’t feel frightened. I figured that particular emotion was having trouble pushing through the chemicals in my brain.
“James is the most down-to-earth person I’ve ever met,” Jasmine said. “And if he thinks this is all real, then I believe too.” She punched my arm, then pulled me back in for another rib busting hug. “You should have told me, though.”
“Yeah,” I replied, and returned the hug just as enthusiastically as she was dishing it out. “I should have.”
“Are you two done?” James called from his chair. “Because I wouldn’t mind getting my own hugs in.”
“Absolutely,” Jasmine said and pulled away as James jumped up and pulled me into his arms.
“I’ve missed you,” he said. Then he stopped and pulled away from me. “Why do you smell like bleach?”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
I dearly wanted him to resume the hug, but he didn’t. He looked down at me in my blue pyjamas, and he frowned. “Why are you still dressed this way?” he asked. “We’re supposed to be taking you home.”
He turned and glared at Dr. Parkerson. “What’s going on here?” he asked. “You said she would be ready to go right away.”
“There have been some developments since you arrived with your court order,” she said. I dearly wanted to slap the snotty, paternalistic I’m winning look off her face. “I think you better talk to Marie about it.” She turned to me. “Isn’t that right, Marie?”
“Yeah,” I said, and looked up at James’s confused face. “I can’t leave right now.”
“What?” James looked even more confused, and I didn’t blame him. “You get to go home, Marie. Don’t you understand? You can walk out of here with me. Now. Let’s go.”
He pointed at the red exit sign, and I stared at it longingly. Then I looked back at him and shook my head. “I’m sorry, James. I can’t leave yet.”
“Why not?” he cried.
“Because I have work to do,” I said. “I’m sorry, James, but I have to finish what I started.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
I looked at Dr. Parkerson, who was standing beside the nurse’s station, openly listening to our conversation.
“Can we have a little privacy here?” I asked.
“Of course.” She obligingly moved down the hallway, but didn’t leave. She was waiting to take me back to my room. Making sure I stayed, like I said I would.
I heard a small gasp behind me and turned. Jasmine stood with her hand over her mouth, looking just about as shocked as James. “Are you going to stay?” she asked.
I reluctantly turned to her. “I have to.”
“She doesn’t have to,” James said angrily. He pushed past me and walked up to Dr. Parkerson. And he leaned in. Hard. “She’s fine. She doesn’t need this place, and she doesn’t need you. We have every right to take her out of here, now.”
“James,” I said. “Don’t.”
He whirled and grabbed me by the arms. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. “What has she done to you?”
Besides drugging me out of my mind? Not much. “James, this is about the case.”
He stared at me like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“The case?” he finally yelled. “You’re staying here for the stupid case?”
Everybody flinched away from his voice, including the two orderlies who had appeared near the nurse’s station. Then I saw a ghost hiding behind them. It was Richard “call me Dick” and he was listening to our conversation for all he was worth. He jumped when he saw that I’d seen him and disappeared.
Good grief, even the ghosts were spying on me.
“Yes,” I said to James. “I made a promise, James. I can’t stop now.”
“Oh,” he said. “A promise. Well, that explains everything.”
“Come on,” I said. “Please don’t be like that. If you let me explain—”
“No need,” he said shortly. “You don’t want to leave because you have a case to work on. We’re probably keeping you from your oh-so-serious work, aren’t we?”
He tried leaning in on me, but I snarled, so he backed off. “Fine,” he said. “I guess what we need to do is just walk out and leave you here.”
“Please calm down, sir,” one of the orderlies said. “Or we will be forced to remove you.”
James turned on him, and they practically bumped chests. I was sure they were going to fight or something equally as stupid, when James finally, finally backed down.
“Oh, you don’t have to remove me,” he snarled. “I’m ready to go.” He turned to Jasmine. “Come on,” he said. “She doesn’t want us here.”
Jasmine’s eyes flashed in his direction, then back at me. “Is this what you want?” she asked.
“I have to stay,” I said. “Pl
ease make him understand.”
“I’ll try,” she said. She hugged me once more, hard, then grabbed James by the arm. “Let’s go.”
They headed down the hall to the exit. They were going to be gone in a minute, and even though this is what I’d asked for, it took all my self-control to keep from running after them screaming, “Don’t leave me here. Please take me with you!”
“You’ve made a good decision,” Dr. Parkerson said. “You have much work to do, and you can best do it here, under my supervision.”
“Sure,” I said. I watched James and Jasmine go through the door. When James looked back at me, looking heartbroken, not angry, my throat went so tight I was sure I was going to burst into tears right in front of her. But that was the last thing in the world that was going to happen. She had to believe that I was in complete control. That I knew what I was doing. That I hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of my life.
But as she took me back to my room and locked me in, I was pretty sure I had.
Dammit, anyhow.
Stage Three
Believing the Truth
Marie:
Now I’m Voluntary
I WAS LEFT alone while Parkerson tried to develop some kind of a plan to deal with me. At least, I imagined that was what was going on, because since no one—including ghosts—came into my room for literally hours, I couldn’t ask them anything.
I should have been happy for the reprieve, but I wasn’t. Staying here voluntarily was supposed to have opened doors for me. Got me out in the common areas so I could actually do some investigating, but my door remained locked, so I went nowhere.
Sometimes my plans were really bad. It was beginning to look like this was one of them.
After a while, I slept. It was more out of boredom than anything else. Maybe so I didn’t have to think about what a huge mistake I’d just made, but then I was back at the ball diamond, where it all started.
But it was different, this time. James was there, and he was angry. He said I didn’t have the right to go on without him. “I told you I’d stay with you forever,” Dream James said. “I can’t do that when you’re in there. Are you trying to keep me away from you?”
I wanted to answer him. To tell him he was wrong, that I just had a job to do and I’d be right back, but then the ghosts attacked Andrew, and I was distracted. I looked over at them and thought that there was something I should be doing to stop them. If I just tried a little harder to remember, it would come to me. But Andrew flew into the air, ripped apart from the inside, as usual, and I couldn’t remember anything.
“Sorry, Andrew,” I said. I turned away from him and back to James. I needed to make him understand. But he was gone.
I jerked awake, covered in the usual nightmare sweat, and wondered about the change to the dream. My nightmares had been exactly the same every time I closed my eyes ever since I got here. Why the change now?
“You’re trying to tell yourself something,” Mother who was not mother said. “About James.”
Oh great. The only thing that wasn’t leaving me alone was the voice pretending to be my dead mother. However, the voice was right, or half right. I was trying to tell myself something, but I didn’t think it was about James. I’d been trying to remember how to stop the ghosts from turning on the living—but I was certain there was no way for me to do that.
As far as my mother—my real mother—had been concerned, it was talk therapy, all the time. No getting involved in how or why they died. No getting wrapped up in their revenge schemes. Just talking them into deciding to move on. That was our job.
“But what about the poltergeists?” I muttered. “What did she do about them?”
I didn’t know, but I thought it was time I found out.
I couldn’t remember any poltergeists ever being around the old house or the trailer after Mom and Dad split up, but they seemed to be coming out of the woodwork around me lately. If this happened to my mother—and I suspected, from the last conversation I’d had with my dad that it had—I needed information. Needed to know what she had done to deal with them. And there was only one person I could think of who might have the answer. Just one.
I jumped out of bed and hammered on my locked door. “I need to talk to Dr. Parkerson!” I yelled. “Right now.”
OH, IT WOULD have been so cool if that had actually worked the way I saw it in my head, but it didn’t. Of course.
Nurse Willoughby, who looked angry enough to chew iron and spit nails, told me the doctor wasn’t available.
“But I need to talk to my father,” I said.
“Your father?” She shook her head. “You’ll have to get an OK from Dr. Parkerson.”
“Which is why I wanted to talk to her,” I said. “Get her.”
“I told you, she’s not here,” she said shortly. “You can ask her at your next session. At the usual time.”
I wondered what had happened. The nurse had seemed sympathetic when she’d first helped me after Rafferty’s attack. Why was she acting so cold and angry, now? Had Parkerson told her she was delusional, like she’d threatened?
Great.
“Am I supposed to just wait around in this room until my session with her?” I asked. “What about group? What about meals?”
“We’re still dealing with the Rafferty issue,” Willoughby said. “We have to determine whether or not you are a danger to—”
“To myself or others,” I sighed. Back to square one, it seemed. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Parkerson had lied to me about giving me more freedom, but it did. I honestly thought we had a deal. “Right.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Dr. Parkerson isn’t convinced that you weren’t involved in the violence.”
“You saw the video,” I said. “And you know I didn’t do a thing.”
“The doctor won’t look at the video. And you are under lockdown, until we can convince her to do so.”
“Nice little Catch-22 situation you got going here,” I muttered. “This isn’t the way this is supposed to go.”
“Did you honestly think that you’d have the run of the place if you stayed?” Willoughby asked. “That’s not the way it works. Everyone gets treated the same way. Everyone has to follow the rules and do what they’re told. For their own good.”
She turned to the door. “Meds in a couple of minutes,” she said. “And then dinner.”
“In my room, I imagine.”
She didn’t turn. “I’ll think about letting you go to the dining room with the rest of the patients,” she said. “If you take your meds without any problem.”
I didn’t quite know how to respond to that. If people were being killed by poison, it was probably hidden in their meds. And Nurse Willoughby was still on my bad guy list, so she could be the one doing it. She was quite open about telling me how I was causing a world of problems for her. If she was the one, maybe she’d decided that enough was enough.
I smiled my best fake smile and nodded. “Absolutely,” I said. “I’ll take my meds, like a good little patient. And then—”
“You get to eat in the dining room,” she said. She sounded relieved, and almost smiled. Almost. “You’re lucky. It’s meatloaf night.”
My fake smile faltered, but only for a second. “Yum,” I said. “Sounds great.”
WILLOUGHBY DIDN’T BRING in my meds. A frightened-looking male orderly let himself into my room, and practically threw a blister pack of pills at me from the door.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Your meds,” the orderly said. I noticed that he hadn’t moved from his spot by the door. “Take ’em so I can go.” He looked around like he wished he was anywhere but in that room with me. “Please.”
“Why are they wrapped this way?” I asked. “Is this new?”
He sighed like he thought that he was never getting out of this room. “That’s the way the pharmacy sends them to us. Usually the night shift opens them, you know? Puts them in those little cups
, so you guys don’t have to fight to get them open, but didn’t happen last night. So deal.”
I glared at him, and he backed away. “Please,” he said. Pleaded really. “Just take ’em so I can tell Nurse Willoughby.”
And so you can get out of this room, I thought, but I obligingly ripped open the pack as well as I was able. I made sure that most of the pills ended up on the bed, checking them out as I dug them out of my blankets.
“Now I get to eat lint on top of everything else,” I said, and threw them into my mouth. Signalled for water and watched the orderly scurry over and pour me a glass.
“Here,” he said, and handed me the glass, making certain that his fingers never touched mine. Then he scurried back to his spot by the door until I dutifully swallowed.
“Good,” he said, and then he was gone.
I carefully sat on the side of the bed opposite the camera and dug the pills out from between my teeth and cheek. If he’d stuck around or asked to check my mouth, I would have been screwed, but he hadn’t. I looked at the pills, and they looked pretty much the same as the last batch. Except there was no pink pill. The one Nurse Melodie had told me was to help keep me regular.
There was no pink pill. Son of a bitch. Nurse Melodie was the killer. I was certain of it.
But I had to be able to prove it. Which meant I needed one of those stupid pills. But if I waited until she came on shift and tried to feed me one, and caught me palming it, she could force me, and then I’d be in a world of trouble. I needed one of those pills before she came on shift, so I could get it to someone who could figure out what it was.
I needed a cop. And that meant Sylvia Worth. But first I needed one of the pills, and I didn’t know who I could ask.
I needed help in here, and I couldn’t use the ghosts, because I’d promised I wouldn’t. That left the living, and they were really no help at all.
Dammit, anyhow.
Jasper:
Phillipa and the Deal
“NOW THAT RAFFERTY has been dealt with,” Phillipa said, “I think it’s time to do something about the shrink.”