by Alice Ayden
He hit her. She woke to his fierce grip around her neck. She drifted. He revived and strangled and hit and threatened until she lost consciousness again and again.
When she woke, the tightened rope burned her wrists. Blood streamed from her nose and mouth. Her left eye swelled a bit which made everything off center. “Cellar?” As Natalie’s eyes adjusted, she realized it wasn’t the cellar. “Where?” It didn’t matter, she thought. He told her his plan. She shook her head, but it made her nose bleed more. “I can’t.”
He wiped blood from her nose and mouth and cleaned her face. “Then you can be with Grace.”
Natalie relaxed a little. He never spoke to those he planned to kill. He preferred unrelenting torture. ‘Words disguise. Pain illuminates,’ he’d told her years ago.
He showed her his phone with a picture of Natalie’s mother and Grace time stamped and dated yesterday. “They won’t look like this if you refuse.”
Chapter 35: Control
In the hospital, Maines watched Johnston sleep. He only had a few minutes because Mags and her minions could descend. He kicked Johnston’s bed.
The metallic vibration woke Johnston. He stared at Maines. Johnston reached for the call button, but Maines tossed it aside, grabbed both of Johnston’s hands, and held them down. Johnston took a deep breath to call for help. Maines slowly shook his head, and Johnston relaxed. “What do you want?”
Maines stared deep into Johnston’s eyes. “I just want you to understand something.”
“And what’s that?” Johnston arrogantly asked.
Maines inched closer. “I know what you are.”
Johnston flashed a sickening smirk.
Maines had to steady himself. He wanted so badly to head butt the smirk from Johnston’s face. “What the hell are you smiling for?”
Johnston started laughing like a giddy hyena. “You’ll never save your precious daughter in time.”
Maines shifted positions and tightened his grip until Johnston grimaced. “Listen to me you little corpse. I know what you did to them and to Cora. I don’t give a shit about procedure because you’re never making it to trial.”
Johnston took a deep breath as fear flashed over his face, but that quickly gave way as his smile broadened. “Do your worst, detective, because I’m not the only one.”
Maines released his grip.
“Maybe you’ll luck out and Cora will remember in time to save the others.”
Maines wanted him to keep talking, but he had to resist the urge to pummel him.
“It’s a game,” Johnston continued, wincing as he grabbed his side. He looked at the nurse’s call button.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Johnston sighed. “When Cora remembers, the game’s over, and then we…” Johnston grinned.
Maines had to clench the side of the bed to prevent himself from grabbing Johnston.
“Let’s just say we make her forget again. Then the game resets. You know about her amnesia, right?”
Maines slowly nodded his head trying to keep control of himself.
Johnston smiled again. “Helping her forget is what makes me get up in the morning.”
With the quickness of a rattlesnake, Maines grabbed Johnston’s throat. He weighed his options. All he had to do was squeeze.
Johnston quickly hit the call button. “Have you ever looked into the eyes of evil?”
“Aren’t I doing that right now?”
Johnston shook his head. “I’m not the one you have to worry about. You’re not smart enough to figure out what you’re really dealing with.”
Chapter 36: Aftermath
Cora opened her eyes, and shapes appeared in focus. Sounds lumbered in as if someone gradually increased the volume: the overworked nurses sighed, and machines beeped obscenities. She wasn’t at Ausmor. The dark blue patterned curtain hanging from rings in the ceiling, cream colored walls, and blue assless gown meant one thing: hospital. Oh, and quick deducing Cora also got a clue from the IV and blood pressure cuff attached to her arm.
“You’re okay.” Lillia poised on the edge of the bed clasping Cora’s hand. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
Shoes eeeked across shiny linoleum floors, and some form of liquid quickly lurched to the ground. Cora hoped it came from a drink, but continuous retching rarely indicated a casual spill. The sharp pungency of just out of the oven puke drenched the air.
“I’m okay.” Cora repeated Lillia’s mantra as her own stomach tingled.
“Please remember me,” Lillia whispered. “Please remember who I am.”
“Lillia Morgan. Silly Lillia to some. Bad ass to others.”
Mrs. Kiness smirked. “She’s fine.”
“Do you remember what happened?” Lillia asked as if in desperate need of the newest plot twists to her favorite show.
Mrs. Kiness frowned at Lillia. “We must allow Cora to take it slow. The important thing is that she and Mr. Stonston are going to be alright.”
“Johnston?” Cora struggled with the images. “He grabbed me.” She reached for her arm now wrapped in gauze.
Mrs. Kiness hesitated. “I suppose it instinct to grab onto something that would prevent one from falling. Unfortunately, that something was you.”
Cora remembered Johnston. His grin. Her fear. Then, she noticed the brown checkerboard wallpaper border at the top of each wall. It left about a foot of wall between the border and the ceiling. Cora imagined tons of blue painter’s tape, rulers, or maybe that chalky line. “Wait. Didn’t they just use that chalky string to make a line in the dirt? Would they also use it on walls?”
“You have a concussion,” Lillia said. “That’s why everything’s outta whack. Luckily, you fell on top of that little rodent haired slack jawed—”
“Miss Morgan!”
“The guy’s a total di...”
Mrs. Kiness shot Lillia a glare that would have made a rattlesnake weep.
Lillia sighed. “I’ll let everyone know you’re okay.” She jumped up and twirled away.
****
The blood pressure cuff attached to her arm hummed, tightened, and woke Cora. Still in the hospital, her room had shrunk. The other must have been the ER. Lillia sat in a chair swinging her leg higher and higher as she fidgeted with her pink phone. Mrs. Kiness tidied up pillows and arranged flowers. Evan moved his head this way and that staring at something out the window. Bitty studied a piece of paper and sighed.
A quick smiling nurse jammed a thermometer in Cora’s mouth and trapped Cora’s finger in some kind of a white clip with a tail that reached to a machine. “It’s to check your pulse.” After a few seconds, a beeping noise prompted the nurse to remove the thermometer and write something in her notes. “Do you remember how you got here?”
“I remembered my mother.”
Mrs. Kiness handed Cora a plastic cup of water as she exchanged a worried look with Evan.
The nurse nodded as if Cora mentioned she didn’t like the donuts. “Let me know if you need anything.” The nurse flashed a quick, comforting smile and fled.
“How long?” Cora asked.
“Two days,” Mrs. Kiness said.
Lillia jumped up. “You’re awake! Cool! You didn’t lose a chunk of your hair this time. One time, I fell asleep chewing gum, and Mrs. Kiness had to hack out a huge hair wad the size of my ass.” She lunged at Cora and fluffed the pillows. “And don’t worry about the brain jumble. Concussions smash your brain into your skull, and your brain’s all twisted like clothes in a really pissed off washing machine.”
“Why don’t you just get your own wing here?” Bitty said without taking her eyes from the paper she read. “And what’s with this menu? There’s nothing on here I would make.”
“Relief on line two,” Lillia said.
“You have a good view of a Turdus migratorius nest. Three little robins that I can tell.” Evan motioned to the window. “That reminds me I have to fill up that feeder that emptied too fast yesterday.” He stared at the gro
und lost in thought. “Perhaps something else is taking advantage.”
Bitty slammed the paper down. “Who gives a shit?”
“Miss Elizabeth Austen!” Mrs. Kiness grasped her cross.
Evan walked over to Bitty. “Having compassion for others is the cornerstone of an empathetic—”
“I’m outta here.” Bitty stomped out of the room.
Lillia rolled her eyes. “Should have done that earlier, Evan.”
Evan shrugged and returned to his nest watching. “She must be in a great deal of pain to act like that.”
“I wish,” Lillia whispered. “Maybe with a two by four.”
Cora’s mind slugged along the speed of a lazy turtle full from lunch but still making a decent effort for the last piece of lettuce. Her memory’s jagged edges didn’t fit neatly together. “My mother stabbed herself in front of me.” Cora waited until more of the images fell into place. “She trapped me in a blanket.”
Mrs. Kiness gasped.
“She drew the knife across her throat.” Cora stared down at her hands as she waited for the images. “She was bleeding so much. She lied down beside me and held her hand over my mouth. I choked on her blood until I couldn’t breathe. She wanted me to come with her. She said she loved me. What would she have done if she hated me?” Cora looked up to see her audience with wide open mouths. She hadn’t realized the impact of her words.
Mrs. Kiness clutched her cross. “Of all the saints.”
Lillia held her hands over her mouth. Cora didn’t know if it prevented her from screaming or crying. “The gossip said you slept in the corner when your mom...” She placed her hands over her eyes and swayed.
Evan sat down at the edge of Cora’s bed. “Consensus agreed you were unconscious the whole time. That she merely lied down beside you. We thought. We hoped. We had no idea what she intended.” Evan tightened his arms across his chest so rigidly Cora hoped it wouldn’t restrict his breathing. Evan, only fourteen at the time of her mother’s death, wasn’t to blame, but Cora assumed he would find a way to blame himself. As a child, Evan burdened himself with the sins of the Austens and Morgans. He believed he alone could rectify past wrongs and apologize for slights.
“That was what we hoped.” Mrs. Kiness gently pushed Cora’s hair away from her face. “To know that she actually attempted… I suppose hoping didn’t alter reality.”
“The source!” Lillia screamed flustering Mrs. Kiness. “That’s the trauma that started the dissociative amnesia.”
“That has to be it.” Evan nodded. “You saw and were aware that your mother... that would explain...how traumatic for a six...she wasn’t malevolent. She suffered. I am so—”
“Stop,” Cora raised her hand. “I saw my mother kill herself, and she tried to kill me. I don’t need hand wringing or downcast eyes or shadowy whispers. I’ve had enough of that. I survived. She was sick. It’s no one’s fault, and no one will feel guilty.”
Evan’s eyes met Cora’s; he reluctantly nodded in agreement.
After a few moments, Grand Maeve entered the room and sneered. “What a dreadful little room.” She glared from one corner to the next at the ocean blue paint, the ornate armoire housing the TV, the barely brown matching recliners for overnight guests, and the floor to ceiling windows which overlooked the trees and yellow roses in the courtyard below. For 99.9% of the planet, the room screamed luxury, but little impressed Grand Maeve.
A doctor arrived and shined a tiny light into Cora’s eyes. Cora’s main focus: the doctor’s shiny fingernails. She wanted to ask him which nail polish he used but decided it wasn’t such a good time. Cora noticed his name tag said Dr. Devonup or Devil’s Lump. She wasn’t sure which.
“Pupils: fine. She’s awake. Let us follow the tip of the pen with our eyes but without moving our head,” the doctor said, as if Cora had regressed to a five year old.
Cora tried to follow Devil’s Lump as he circled the pen in the air like a jet plane.
“Can we tell us our name?”
So, the nail polish wearing Devil’s Lump is one of those dreaded ‘we’ people. “Cora Eva Austen.”
“Named after her favorite grandmother: Maeve Cora Austen.” Grand Maeve smiled as she always did at the sound of her own name.
The doctor didn’t hesitate. “And do we know where we are?”
“Hospital.”
“And what day is this today? Do we know?” He fiddled with his pager.
“A day later than yesterday.” In that moment, Cora would have said whatever would have forced Devil’s Lump away. He had little interest in his patient, and his breath mint could not suppress his garlic lunch.
Devil’s Lump sneezed. He snatched a tissue from the box beside Cora’s bed, blew his nose, and tossed the tissue somewhat near the trashcan. “She’s out of the woods.”
“Well, I would assume she was never in the woods,” Grand Maeve said. “So it makes sense she would not have to get out of them. It was a concussion. Easily recovered from.”
“About the cause.” Devil’s Lump motioned for Grand Maeve and Evan to walk with him the grand total of three extra feet thinking that distance alone would give them privacy.
Lillia and Mrs. Kiness stayed with Cora.
“I know she has a history of this,” Devil’s Lump whispered. His whisper: louder than a car horn. “It might be prudent to discuss the psychological reasons which would have—”
“There’s nothing wrong with Cora.” Evan said.
“Indeed.” Grand Maeve proclaimed. “I, for one, do not appreciate the insinuations. There was no suicide attempt. If that is what you are so inadequately suggesting.” She sighed loudly. “We’re Austens. We do what we set out to do. If Cora was going to kill herself, she would be dead. You can ask her own mother, but, oh yes, she’s dead. Why? Because my daughter committed suicide.”
“Oopsie.” The doctor quickly looked at his pager. “Gotta go.” He shuffled out of the room.
“Wretched little man.” Grand Maeve pulled a chair up to Cora’s bed then studied the chair. She decided against touching it further. “Never trust ugly.”
****
Cora woke up and looked around.
Mrs. Kiness fixed a bouquet of pink tulips beside the bed. “Must be satisfied with the pink ones. Mr. Argen confirmed the red ones have been a bit shy as of late.”
Cora recognized her room at Ausmor. The ceiling fan slowly turned. The alien mobile pranced. Darcie spied from the corner. “How long have I been home?”
“A few days, dear.”
Cora didn’t know whether to be worried or—
“It’s all very normal, dear. That is what the doctor said.” Mrs. Kiness sat down on the edge of the bed and touched Cora’s forehead.
“You’d trust Devil’s Lump?”
“Yes, and I for one do not find it odd that a man has shiny fingernails.”
Cora winced. “Maybe if he just went full on purple. I bet black cherry would go with his lab coat.”
“There is probably a rational explanation as to why he chooses the clear.”
“It would go with more things. Less need to reapply with each outfit.”
Mrs. Kiness smirked. “You are going to be fine.” She threw the covers off.
Cora slowly crawled out of bed. She stood up half expecting woozy, but her head didn’t ache. Steady on her feet, Cora staggered a few steps towards Darcie. “I’m okay, Darcie. I’m good.”
Upon hearing the news, the cat spit out the toy she’d been chewing and fled to the balcony.
“Miss Darcie Austen is of uneven temper when you are ill. Look, she has presented you a gift.”
Cora didn’t lean down to pick up the toy wet with cat saliva. “Thanks, Darcie.”
Mrs. Kiness glanced quickly at her watch. Most wouldn’t have seen the subtle gesture.
“It’s okay. Go and see your sister.” Mrs. Kiness visited with Mrs. Hodghes every evening. Since Mrs. Kiness was one of the only people Mrs. Hodghes relented to see, it was import
ant to keep the ritual – that and Mrs. Hodghes was Cora’s chocolate supplier. Cora couldn’t allow anything to happen to her routine.
Mrs. Kiness hesitated. “She’ll understand.”
“Go. I’ll be fine.”
Mrs. Kiness nodded. “I will be quick about it. Perhaps only one game of Mexican Train Dominoes instead of the usual three.” She scurried out of the room.
As soon as the door handle clinked into place, Cora locked the door, put her boots on, and grabbed her jacket. She fluffed up pillows enough to make it look like she slept. She studied the effect and wondered if anyone ever believed it.
“Where can I go?” Maybe a walk in the gardens would jog something. She ran into the bathroom, flipped on the light and quickly flipped it off again. “Haggard must be the new look.” Cora believed newspapers would describe her as haggard’s idiot cousin.
Cora tried to smooth out her hair, but, not a fan of lost causes, she surrendered. She listened at her door but couldn’t hear anything. She grabbed the door knob hoping to avoid the click it usually made whenever she desperately needed silence. Something moved behind her; Cora jumped when she saw Natalie standing beside the bed.
Tears streamed down Natalie’s face, and dried blood clumped in her hair. With dirt marks and bruises on her cheeks, she paced. Natalie stopped, stared at something beyond Cora and ran to the corner. “It’s him.”
Cora caught movement and glanced beside her just in time to see Johnston slither from her bathroom.
He winced and grabbed his side. “You made me break three ribs.”
Cora jumped back. She wouldn’t let him touch her. “I told them everything. The police.” Cora hoped Johnston would believe her lie.
Unfamiliar with confrontation, Johnston hesitated. “You did what? You wouldn’t have. You couldn’t have.” His eyes widened as if he’d seen the monster under the bed. “They’ll crucify me.” Then he noticed Natalie in the corner. Johnston’s face shook as his anger intensified. His gaze narrowed as he contemplated what to do. “You.”