by Lenore, Lani
“My father had an affair,” she stated in the factual tone of the shameless.
“How did that affect your family?”
“It ruined us,” she told him flatly as if the words were rehearsed. “I never knew her name – the other woman, I mean. Father met her at the bank. She was married as well, and everyone was spreading the rumors. My father lost his job and couldn't find decent employment because of the scandal. We ran out of money.”
“And what about your mother? How did she react to the betrayal?”
Wren remembered it all clearly, as though it had not been six years since she had seen her birth parents. When the ordeal had come to light, she remembered how her mother had not said a word. She had not tried to fight with Wren’s father about the rumors.
She just…went away.
“My mother shut herself up. She grew distant from us.”
“From you and your brothers, even young Max,” Witherspoon confirmed. “He was a mere babe at the time, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“All of those responsibilities fell to you then, didn't they? You had to grow up too soon.”
Wren looked into his eyes as he watched her expectantly, awaiting her answer – her admittance or her revelation; she couldn’t say which.
“I suppose,” she replied finally, lowering her eyes, but she knew that he was right in a sense. She remembered how her life had been – hadn’t been given the chance to forget. Max had been an infant at the time. She remembered the sound of him crying upstairs – after they had lost their nanny – and their mother simply hadn’t known what to do. Wren hadn’t either, but she had learned quickly, for she was the only one who would respond to the boy’s wailing cries.
Max, my little boy, where are you now? I hope you’re safe. I know you must be. Wren often wondered about him, but she knew where he had gone, and could only find comfort in the thought that both of her brothers were in better places than she was now.
“Let's skip forward a bit, shall we?” Witherspoon said, interrupting her thoughts. “You said that your family ran out of money. What happened then?”
“My parents had to give us up. They took us to Miss Nora's Home.”
“The orphanage, correct? What was life there like?”
She had always been a bit torn about the Home before, but given the chance now, she might have gone back to it with the promise to never stray again.
But I can’t go back there, she thought. Not ever.
“Most of us were sent to work in factories during the day, but at least we had a place to return at night.”
“That’s what you told the others, isn’t it? They looked up to you, didn’t they?”
Though Wren had tried to keep her distance from the other orphans in her days after returning from Nevermor, it was true that those children had always looked up to her. She had cooked meals for them and joined them in games. She had gathered them in the closet when there was a storm; told them stories. She still remembered the way many of their faces had looked as they’d smiled at her gratefully.
They had names. Polly, Liam, Lewis… They had thought a lot of her.
“Yes, they did,” she said, lowering her head.
“But you wanted out, didn't you?” the doctor said, leading her on. “You were finally able to escape. Where did you go?”
Wren lifted her blue eyes. This was, perhaps, the turning point. It was the fork in the path, often presented but never taken. One direction might have brought her out of the woods while the other led her deeper into the depths until she was utterly lost in the dark tangles of her impossible reality. Perhaps it was true that if she’d only changed her story here, she might have been able to alter her situation. At the same time, it might have been the only difference between the asylum and the noose.
Should I speak the truth or a lie? Should I deny or confess? Wren looked toward her shadow as if it would give her some cue, but it did not move, sitting as still as she was to gaze back at her.
“Wren?” Witherspoon drew her back with his voice, watching her carefully. She blinked, looked at his face, and then took a breath.
“I didn’t go anywhere,” she said, and she saw his eyes widen a bit – but she wasn’t finished. “I was taken away – to Nevermor.”
His shoulders slumped. He had anticipated too strongly, but Wren could not change her story now. She’d told nothing but the truth.
“Nevermor,” the doctor repeated, discouraged, but he humored her. “As you describe it, Nevermor is an island beyond the sea of dreams, full of fantasies.”
“Yes,” she said quietly, as if the answer was going to turn around and bite her.
“There, you made a new life,” Witherspoon said, getting back on track. “You made a life with a boy, I understand.”
“We called him the Rifter,” Wren said lowly. Sometimes it pained her to say his name.
“This Rifter, who you have spoken so fondly of in the past – the two of you had a relationship. Would it be going too far to ask if it was intimate?” Wren’s eyes widened as she looked at him, and he paused a moment before probing further. “Was it of a sexual nature?”
Wren tensed at that and felt her face grow hot. As much as she believed she loved Rifter – even still – their love had not been perfect, but she remembered the way she had kissed him with her eyes shut so tightly. She remembered the night in the dark of a tent when she’d said she loved him. He had wanted to have her, but she had pushed him away.
I wasn't ready.
“No,” she answered finally, averting her eyes.
“Yet it was very much like a marriage in your eyes, wasn't it? Didn’t you say so yourself once? And like your parents’ marriage, it was ruined by the denial of physical intimacy, isn't that right? Wasn’t your mother depressed after Maxwell was born? Her relationship with your father was scarred. He sought love elsewhere.”
Wren didn’t answer, clenching her fists against her legs. This was an attack. Witherspoon had never done this to her before. Had she told him these things? She had recounted the story so many times in the past that she sometimes wasn’t sure of the exact details she’d given.
“You told me once that there was an instance in which Rifter was unfaithful to you – with some sort of savage, Tribal maiden, I believe. Don't you think that event mirrors exactly what you believe your father did to your mother?”
Wren had never heard this angle before, and she wasn’t quite sure what he was trying to prove.
“It doesn't matter,” she uttered, feeling defensive.
Witherspoon was able to see her unease and sat back a bit, letting the pressure off.
“I shouldn't have said that. I apologize,” he told her, withdrawing. “Let's talk about something else. Tell me about your time in Nevermor.”
Wren was able to exhale. She felt her muscles relax, making her as putty in her chair, though she hardly moved at all.
“It was better in the beginning,” she said absently, becoming so lost in those old memories that he had to call her back.
“Yet even in those first days, there were dangers, correct? In fact, everything in the world was a danger to you, I believe.”
Yes, those first days had only been better if she could get past the threat of the pirates that had wanted to rape her, the mermaids that wanted to drown her, the hateful savages that might have killed her without blinking, not to mention a nightmare monster around every corner – and that wretched fairy with murder in her heart, the same which had eventually caused the deaths of the rest of them.
But why would Whisper do that? Why? Those children did nothing. Was it because of me?
Wren had thought that she and Rifter’s vindictive fairy companion had come to a truce near the end, but there was no proof of it now – not after what had happened two years ago.
“I’ll accept that life was good to you for a while,” Witherspoon said, leading her on. “You were with your brothers. You made friends with those other boys – Rifte
r’s ‘Wolf Pack’. You were in love. But circumstances changed. Tell me.”
Yes, things changed…
“It started with the storm,” she said, recalling it. “Nevermor is a world of dreams and Rifter is the guardian of it, but when he dreams, sometimes things happen to the world. The landscape might change without warning, and another thing that often happens when he dreams is that the Scourge comes back.”
“And the Scourge is –”
“A terrifying man,” Wren interrupted, meeting the doctor’s eyes. “Rifter’s worst nightmare. He changed everything – changed Rifter. Things got worse. There was conflict and war. There was fire and darkness. But in the end, Rifter conquered. He faced his fear and killed the Scourge. He promised me that things were going to get better.”
“That was when he brought you back here. With Maxwell.”
“Yes. So I could make sure he was safe from that life,” Wren admitted. Her choice with her baby brother Max had been a difficult one – letting him go off to another mother who would raise him. She had cried every night for a while, wondering where he was and praying that he hadn’t forgotten her, but eventually, she had managed to let him go. She hadn’t wanted Nevermor to corrupt him at such a young age. He’d deserved better.
Wren had become firm in her agreement, but Witherspoon’s next question caught her off guard.
“What happened to Henry?”
She felt an abrupt choking sensation in the back of her throat when he said that name. Her other brother, Henry… Rifter had renamed him Fang.
He was given the highest honor.
“I don’t want to talk about Henry,” she said solidly. Even though time had passed, it still felt like a sword in her chest.
“Fair enough,” Witherspoon said, making a note in the sideline of her casebook. Then he started off on another line of thought. “Rifter left you here with a promise that he would return for you in a few days, but he never came back, did he? Why do you think that is?”
“He has a tendency to forget things,” Wren said swiftly, feeling a bit frustrated by now. She thought that he must have noticed. “It’s the fairy’s fault. She takes his memories away; sometimes even the small, insignificant ones.”
“You’ve told me before that he has to be willing to let go of the memory first.”
“Usually,” she confirmed.
“Then how does that explain why he might have forgotten you?”
Wren caught her breath, staring. She’d tried not to think on it, but of course she had considered that Rifter had wanted to forget her – that he was angry with her, or had decided he didn’t care about her after all. Was she so forgettable? Wren let her gaze drift down to the floor, wondering how Witherspoon liked the sight of her heart ripping in half.
“Let’s talk about that night,” he interrupted, writing a few more notes across the page. “Tell me what happened.”
Wren closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of a stray sunbeam cross her eyelids. Not even the light could aid her. In this, she was utterly alone.
“I was waiting for Rifter to come back for me. He said he would come back. He promised not to forget. I waited for a long time at the orphanage. I was even put into another job – domestic work – and yet he didn’t return. Then one night after nearly two years, it was Whisper who came back instead – the fairy wisp. She woke up all the children, and they were very eager to see her. They looked to me for guidance and I…” She paused, shaking her head. “I don’t know why I trusted her. I hardly remember it, as if it happened to someone else.”
This was true. Every moment that she could recall seemed so far away that it was as though another person had lived it and she was merely watching, just as she had once seen Rifter’s memories.
“What did you tell them?” the doctor asked, leaning forward again to hear her confession like a priest through the lattice.
“I told them to follow her,” Wren said sorrowfully, “that she was going to help us get to Nevermor.”
“Then what happened?”
Wren was breathing harder now, reliving the moment – the vertigo of being on the roof as the wind blew all around her, the weight of the storm that was gathering overhead–
“She led us to the roof. She pretended to give us a blessing so that we could fly.”
Wren knew that she should never have believed this. One could not merely fly to Nevermor. Only Rifter could go to and fro as he wished, and anyone he brought back with him had to be unconscious or blessed to pass through the veil that divided this world from that.
I knew it. Why didn’t I see through that lie? It was my fault.
“And they jumped, didn’t they,” Witherspoon said, guessing that she would not say it herself. “But you didn’t jump.”
“No, I didn’t.” Wren thought she had regret in her own voice.
“Why?”
Even now, Wren could still recall it. Each one of those children had jumped off the roof. She had been meant to join them. It was only several moments afterward that they realized that they were falling instead of flying. It must have been the sound of their screams that had snapped her out of her own trance, teetering on the edge of the roof just before stepping off herself. By then, Whisper had been gone – gone like she had never been there.
She had tried to save me for last.
“Rifter didn’t come,” the doctor said, snapping her back. “He didn’t come to deliver you from that, or take you back.”
No, he didn’t. Wren kept quiet and looked at the floor.
“It has been nearly two years since then and he still hasn’t come for you.”
“Sometimes it’s hard for him to remember things,” she repeated more forcefully, even though she thought she’d made that clear.
“You don’t have to defend the boy, Wren,” Witherspoon said calmly, shaking his head. “The answer is simple. You have grown up and he has not. Yet perhaps you have a point: you should allow yourself to forget about him as obviously he has forgotten you.”
Wren’s eyes rounded like moons at this assertion. As many times as they had talked about it, how could he even suggest this? Though her fear of outgrowing Rifter was very real – that he would cast her away because she had broken the Vow – she could not embrace the idea of life without him.
“No,” she told him bluntly, her voice as level as ever. “I could never give up on him.”
Witherspoon leaned back, staring at her a moment before rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses. She wondered what he was thinking, but guessed that she knew. He had found hope in her once – perhaps the only thing that kept her here – and he was losing it. She wondered if she ought to be worried, but it was fleeting. She had determined long ago that she had to keep up appearances here. That was her only hope of survival.
“That will do for today, Wren,” he said. There was a sigh in his voice – a note of despair – but she could not be concerned. All she had to care about was herself.
Wren waited patiently as he scribbled in his final notes of the session, and all the while she sat, rigid and still, staring at his shadow.
Chapter Two
1
Wren peered into the cage, watching the birds hop from perch to perch. They seemed content enough, even though they were locked away behind steel bars that would not let them soar.
Yet if they were free, there would be dangers for them, Wren knew. Perhaps it is best that they are caged. Behind these bars, they are protected.
The inmates were allowed to enjoy the birds, but were quickly chastised if they tried to open the cage doors. Still, Wren often reached her fingers through the bars to feel the soft feathers as their warm little bodies darted past. They were flickers of life in this colorless place. The birds talked happily together and none of it was directed at her. She didn’t have to respond.
Two years, she reflected. Two years in this cage. The irony of her name had made her sigh helplessly on more than one occasion.
Wren stared at the birds now,
absently watching the blur of their colors as they swooped by. Across the room, a few female patients were staring into adjacent cages – some muttering quietly, some licking their chapped lips. Sometimes they tried to open the doors and grab the birds inside, but there were always nurses nearby to scold them. They were constantly supervised as if they were children.
We are not children. We are like the birds, Wren mused. All of us are birds, cooped up together.
Wren lifted her eyes through the cage to peer across the room, observing those who shared the ward with her. The girls housed at the asylum were of different kinds and from different places, with assorted coloring and breeding. Some of them had been normal in the beginning, but years of confinement had broken them, and even the improvements to treatment had not been able to fix their tangled minds. Others were just on the verge of slipping away – like herself – while a handful or two were complete, raving lunatics.
There was Trudy, for example, who screamed every night about the wolves in the walls – who had tried to cut into another girl with a razor to expose the secret monster inside her. Trudy had always been that way, since her first day here. She was no worse, but not yet improved. There were a few others like Trudy, but there were also more docile types that had never been meant for a place like this.
Clea, with her lovely red hair, had been married to an older man who’d been very jealous of her and had eventually become so paranoid of her flirting that he’d sent her here as punishment, claiming incurable promiscuity – at least, that was what Wren had heard the nurses say.
Yes, we are exactly like the birds.
Wren rested near the cage, her head on her arm and fingers outstretched through the bars. A young cardinal hopped down and pecked at her finger before retreating. She was languid now, wishing to drift away. Through a dream fog in her mind, she saw the face of a boy, distant but emerging slowly in her memory. She reached for him –
With a short gasp, Wren snapped awake, suddenly aware of a presence nearby. She lifted her eyes to see that another girl had approached her, looming now like a crooked gargoyle on the eave of a cathedral. Wren knew the girl’s face – pale and homely with the sunken eyes of the abused. Her name was Adele, and though Wren had never spoken to her much, she knew something of the girl’s behavior.