Strangers Among Us

by Kelley Armstrong

  I looked again. Winged men. Like fay—only fay were mythical. They hovered outside the second-storey windows, whispering and singing. I pinched myself, hard. I was wide awake.

  One man walked up and down the street, his wings tucked back, barking orders to the others. He pointed at the twenty-foot green metal security gate at the end of the street, closing us off from Springfield Road and the Catholics on the other side.

  “Remind them that their tradition has been stolen,” he bellowed.

  His words stirred a fuzzy memory of the time my primary school was attacked by an angry mob—Catholics—throwing stones at us as in the playground. A wave of fury surged through me.

  “They’re being punished because the city built the wall on the wrong side of Springfield,” he raged. “They’re being blocked from their birthright.”

  The whispers of the others changed; they repeated the rhetoric of the bloke on the street. These were the same lines we’d been fed every year during Parade Season, especially when the Orange Order wanted to march through the security gate and up Springfield to the Whiterock Orange Lodge. The words had been poisonous enough then. Now, they carried a lethal combination of weight and induced obedience. I shook my head, trying to dislodge their toxicity.

  It was as if these winged men expected a parade. Soon.

  But what parade? The Whiterock parade was supposed to have been in June, but the Parades Commission had said the Orange Lodges had to march up Workman and through the old Foundry site behind my place. The Orange Order had protested and gone into negotiations with the Parades Commission. I’d gone into the Mater and I thought the parade had gone on. Mum and Dad hadn’t said otherwise.

  The fellow on the street—the boss, I figured—opened up his wings then, and with a bit of a push, was up and walking along the razor wire topping the security gate.

  Dream? Hallucination? I’d already pinched myself—

  I wanted a better look.

  I needed binoculars.

  Dad was snoring. Now was my chance. I crept downstairs, stepping as lightly as possible. Every stair creaked a little and I prayed Dad wouldn’t wake up. I retrieved the family binoculars from the kitchen drawer where Mum kept them to watch the birds on the clematis bushes that covered the section of Peace Line that made up our back fence.

  I stopped to look at the calendar Mum had tacked to the wall by the phone. Melanie home was written faintly in pencil. Dad’s trip to see the Glasgow Rangers play the Celtics was in pen with stars around it. The same with the Orange Lodge meetings, and Mum’s volunteer shifts with the Lodge. And there it was: the Whiterock Orange Lodge parade, the one that had been originally planned for June 25, was there: Saturday, September 10. Two days away.

  That fit with what I’d seen outside my bedroom.

  Back in the privacy of my room, I parked myself at my window, binoculars pressed to my eyes, focused in on the nearest winged man outside the neighbour’s window.

  The boss was back on the narrow street, standing on top of a blue Vauxhall outside Dawn’s house, two doors down. “The Orangemen must be allowed to march. The police are not on their side. The army is not on their side. The government is not on their side. Authority must be destroyed.” Again, threads of fury wove through my thoughts, urging me to fight. I pushed them back.

  Even with the help of the magnifying lenses the boss didn’t get any clearer. A hallucination wouldn’t get clearer with binoculars. Crap. The edges of the red bricks of the house were distinguishable, down to the occasional tiny crack and crevice. He remained only partly there, translucent. I could see the bricks and white window frame right through him.

  Who were they? What were they?

  The boss stopped and looked up at me. He cocked his head to the side, watching me.

  He hopped off the car and walked toward my house, toward me, cautiously, as you would approach a wild animal, so as not to frighten it. He maintained eye contact with me even after I lowered the binoculars. My heart raced. My hands trembled.

  With grace, he flicked his wings and rose up to my window. He was calm, interested, like he hadn’t expected anyone to be able to see him, but like it was a common enough occurrence that it didn’t surprise him.

  I should have been creeped-out that this man, in his forties at least, was staring at me though my bedroom window, and me in my Justin Timberlake emblazoned sleeveless top and shorts for pajamas. I wasn’t. He wasn’t looking at me like that. There was a kindness, recognition, in his eyes. He knew what was happening to me, and it wasn’t strange. Not to him. “Has Oisin sent someone to talk to you?”

  Who? Wha—

  Oh my God. He was talking to me—

  He must have sensed my fear. He nodded. “It’s all right,” he said, his tone soothing, musical. A feeling of calm washed over me. “You’re not alone. Oisin will be happy to hear about you. “

  Oisin?

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said.

  I watched him return to the street, and speak with someone else, a fay woman. He pointed up at my window, at me. She glanced up and nodded. I snapped my curtains shut, sank to my bed and curled up under my McFly duvet.

  These men were not hallucinations. They were real. He was real.

  They had been real all along. It had taken the shock to my brain—the ECT treatment—to make it possible for me to see them.

  If I didn’t have schizophrenia—what was happening?

  I ventured downstairs, humming McFly’s “Five Colours In Her Hair.” In the snippets of sleep I’d managed, I’d dreamt I was the girl in their video, living in a black and white world, reaching for their full-colour world. Instead of the band reaching for me, it had been the winged man outside my window.

  “You’re up early, Love,” Dad said. He stood at the front door, packed lunch in hand, ready to leave for work.

  I shrugged. “Aye, well, sure the Mater had me on a strict schedule, so they did. It’s habit now.”

  Dad flinched when I said ‘Mater’. It was an embarrassment to take sick time unless you were actually on your deathbed. To have to admit anyone he knew was in the hospital because they were touched in the head, well that was just mortifying. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it, but I’d said it to show I was committed to getting better.

  Though after last night, I wasn’t so sure I was improving, or even if I had anything to improve from.

  I wished I could talk to Dawn. Before I’d gone into the Mater, we’d told each other everything. If she thought I was mad from talking to invisible voices, she would think I’d lost it completely if I told her I’d seen winged men. Fay.

  “Good on you.” Dad kissed the top of my head. I knew, despite my tarnish, he wanted me to be well.

  The front door opened. Mum walked in, hanging her cardigan on the peg. “Morning, Melanie.”

  “Where were you?” I asked.

  “How is it out there?” Dad asked.

  “Happy it’s my last day, so I am,” Mum said, putting her bag down on the table by the door.

  “That bad?” Dad asked.

  “Aye. Be careful. Come home as early as is right.”

  Dad kissed Mum and left for work.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Where were you?”

  “Protesting,” Mum said, walking into the kitchen. “Dawn was with us.”

  That wasn’t like Dawn, to get involved. But then, I hadn’t thought she’d abandon me, either, and she’d basically done that. But protesting? I trailed after Mum. “Like what was happening on Tennant yesterday?”

  “No, no, just blocking traffic on Springfield during rush-hour to protest the re-routing of the parade.” Mum poured us each a bowl of Muslix. “Several of the ladies from the Lodge. We’ve been taking shifts blocking Springfield Road for the last few days. The riots are picking up now. We should get to Tesco today and stock up on groceries to get us through the weekend.”

  “Is it really that bad? Should Dad be going to work?”

  “Dad will be grand.�
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  I thought of the fay out on the street last night, and I wondered if any of their words, their poison, had touched Mum and Dad, or Dawn, in their sleep.

  “Anyway,” Mum continued. “How are you this morning? You look tired. Did you not sleep well?”

  “Sure, it’s just a bit strange being home, so it is,” I said brightly, hoping it wasn’t too obvious my smile was fake. “I’ll sleep better tonight. Do you mind if I go on the computer for a bit this morning?” I had to see what I could find on the winged men.

  “Let’s do our Tesco run first, then you can go on it as long as you like.”

  Tesco run. Being normal. “Sure.” Being normal was what I needed right now.

  After we finished breakfast, Mum and I walked up Workman Avenue and headed toward Woodvale Park. The moment I stepped out the door, I felt like someone was following me. I looked over my shoulder but there was no one, or, I guess in my case, nothing, there. Just the red- or brown-brick semi-detached houses. An ordinary, working-class street.

  The military was already moving their armoured vehicles into the fenced-in property of the old Mackies Foundry, lining the road through the lot where the Orange Order bands were to march.

  I shuddered, remembering how the fay boss said, “Authority must be destroyed.” It didn’t take much for me to imagine the parade turning into a slaughter-fest, killing the soldiers before they knew what was happening. Especially if the powerful words of the fay had any effect on the people sleeping behind those windows.

  “Them soldiers should be protecting us, not them’uns over the wall,” Mum said, jerking her chin in the general direction of the Peace Line and the Catholics on the other side.

  For half a second, I swore the young soldier nearest me had his throat slit. I wanted to warn him, but I couldn’t tell the soldiers winged men were compelling the neighbours to destroy them.

  It took a minute or two to get the image of slain soldiers out of my mind. By then, Mum and I had entered Woodvale Park. The sense of being followed was stronger now. More stuff I couldn’t tell Dawn, or anyone, about. She was better off without me as a friend.

  We walked along the shrub-lined pavement, passing the two bowling greens just inside the park entrance. Faint humming came from behind me, like wind through the bars of the park fence, but higher.

  Mum stopped, digging in her bag. “Where’s that list of mine?” she muttered, distracted.

  “Hiya,” a woman said coming around to stand in front of me. I drew in a short breath. It was the fay woman from last night. Was she manipulating Mum’s mind? Distracting her? “My name is Orla.”

  “What is it, Melanie?” Mum looked up, her forehead creased and her eyes narrowed. “Are you hearing them again?” she whispered.

  Be normal. Be normal. “What? Oh, no. I’m fine. I just realized I’ve missed the entire summer. Shocked me a bit, that’s all.” It was a pathetic excuse, but thankfully Mum bought it.

  “Och, Love. I am sorry about that. You do know we had to do what we did, don’t you?”

  Not even Mum could say they’d had me committed.

  “Oh, aye. I was thinking that the parade tomorrow is going to have to be my twelfth.” I tried to ignore the fay woman.

  “Sure, why don’t we have ourselves a wee bonfire in our back garden tonight?” She started walking.

  “That would be brilliant, Mum.”

  “My brother Eamon, the fella who spoke to you last night, he asked me to talk to you,” Orla persisted.

  I faltered in my steps. If I moved forward I would walk right into her.

  “Melanie?” Mum asked, stopping several paces ahead of me.

  “Tripped over my feet is all.” I scuffed my trainers on the path and pretended to straighten out my faded blue-jeans and pink sleeveless T-shirt. I never took my eyes off Orla. Please move. I willed the message to pass through the look I gave her.

  “Come on, Love,” Mum said.

  I tried to side-step Orla.

  “You don’t have anything to fear,” Orla said.

  Mum was watching me as I just stood there, frozen to the spot. I saw her expression. She was going to commit me indefinitely. I stepped forward, bumping into Orla. “I’m sorry,” I muttered.

  Mum grabbed my arm, spinning me around. “Clearly it is too soon for you to be up and out. I thought you were taking your tablets.”

  “You’re on tablets already?” Orla asked, like it was a bad thing, like I’d crossed some invisible barrier and it might be too late for me to get back.

  “I am, Mum.” I pulled my arm out of her grip. “I’m fine.” I had to get out of here. I had to act normal.

  Mum gave me a studied stare. “You’re not. I’m taking you home, and tonight, I’m watching you take your tablets.”

  I should have stayed in my bedroom this morning. Maybe if I took my tablets like I was supposed to, I might still hear the voices, but at least I might not see who they belonged to.

  “It’s all right,” Orla said. “We’re going to help you.”

  “Come on,” Mum said. We turned around and walked briskly back through the park. “If the tablets you’re taking aren’t the right ones, then we’ll keep trying until we find the right help for you.”

  Orla had no trouble keeping up with us. “They think you’re schizophrenic, don’t they?” Orla asked, though it wasn’t really a question.

  I gave a tiny nod. I hoped Mum thought it was for her.

  “You’re not,” Orla said. “Not exactly. To them, to humans, you are.”

  She wasn’t helping me. My heart raced, and I wanted desperately to burst out of my skin, to get home and lock myself in a dark closet forever.

  “For some—like you—” Orla continued, “what humans call hallucinations, are not in your head. I am very real. There are other liminal beings that are real. You’ve seen and heard them, haven’t you? Not just me and Eamon. Don’t respond. Think about it.”

  The fay—they were real.

  I wanted to believe it. God, I wanted to believe it. But . . .

  I counted out my breaths, trying to slow my heart. I wished her voice had the same soothing melody as Eamon’s had last night.

  “You are what we call a druid,” Orla said. “A human who can see and hear us. A bridge between our worlds.”

  I smothered a gasp. Druids were Irish mythology. Us Ulster-Scots Protestants didn’t go in for that kind of fairy-tale thinking.

  “Druids are our spiritual guides and teachers, as they’ve always been in Celtic tradition. It is in the blood-line. We used to find new druids all the time, but now there are too few of you. We’re losing so many to the mental hospitals.”

  No. No, this was too much. It would be better to be schizophrenic than whatever was happening to me. I would go back to the hospital and tell them the truth this time. Dr. Taylor would find the right treatment for me.

  I let my breath out slowly, as I’d been taught. This was the right decision. It had to be.

  But I could still see Orla’s worried face peering into mine. I wanted her gone. When we reached our house, I rushed to my room and slammed the door. I hoped walls could keep her out.

  “Melanie?” Mum had run up the stairs behind me, but stood outside my door.

  “Ring Dr. Taylor,” I called. “I want to go back. Take me back there. Now! Please!” I pulled my rucksack out of my wardrobe and started packing.

  Fingers tapped my window, like rain pelting it. I looked up. There was Orla, hovering like Eamon had last night. “Open up, please, Melanie.”

  I closed the curtains.

  Downstairs, the front door clicked open. “What’s going on?” Dad was home early.

  “She’s not well.” Mum’s words outside my door were low, muffled. “She wants to go back to the hospital.”

  Dad’s heavy footsteps thumped up the stairs. “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure,” Mum said. “We were walking to Tesco, through the park, and she stopped. She started talking to—nothing.�
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  Orla banged on my window.

  Dad swore. “Melanie, we’ll ring the hospital, but everything is shutting down. There are carjackings in the city centre. There are crowds gathering. I was sent home from work early today. We’re not going anywhere until after the parade tomorrow at the earliest. We might not get out until Monday. Are you listening?” Dad asked, knocking on my door.

  He was knocking and talking; Orla was knocking and talking. I pressed my hands over my ears and curled up on my bed. Druids and fay—real or not, I wanted them to leave me alone.

  “Melanie?” Mum’s voice, worried.

  My tablets were right there, on my bedside table. If only taking them shut my ears and eyes to the liminal world. They might, if I took enough. Maybe they could undo the effects of the ECT.

  I lowered my hands from my ears as Mum came in and sat on my bed, wrapping me in her arms.

  “It’s stuffy in here,” Dad said, coming in, too. “Let’s open the window, get some fresh air. You’ll feel better.”

  I know he thought he was helping me. He didn’t see Orla out there. “No! Don’t!”

  “It’s all right.” Mum held me close as Dad pushed aside the curtains and cranked open the window.

  “There is nothing outside.” He waved in the general direction of Orla. “No monsters. I promise you, you are safe,” he said, the way he used to when I was a kid and he had to check for monsters under my bed before I’d go to sleep.

  No monsters, just feckin’ fay! I curled up tighter in Mum’s arms as Orla flew in and landed beside my bed.

  “I’ll call Dr. Taylor.” Dad escaped down the stairs.

  “Have a wee lie down,” Mum said, stroking my hair off my forehead. “I’ll come get you when it’s time for your tea.” She pocketed my tablets and left the room with one last reassuring, pitying smile.

  Orla sat where Mum had just been. I scooted away from her.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you with talk of druids and liminals.” Her voice was soft and kind. “This must be so strange and a bit scary for you, especially if you’ve just been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Because most humans can’t see us, they don’t understand that you can.”