by Lani Lenore
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.
Adele was of the sort that needed constant attention, and when she’d chosen a target, she would not relent until she got the ackn
owledgment she desired. She often added the other patients’ problems to her own just for sport, and was an annoyance to most who dealt with her.
Seeing that she was being focused on, Wren tried to appease the girl with a short smile before averting her eyes, but she had known it would not work to send Adele away.
“You talk to the fairies,” Adele said, chirping as happily as the birds. “I saw a fairy.”
Wren didn’t respond, unsure how she felt about the comment. She had already talked about this once today for the sake of appearances, and she didn’t want to go into it again, yet Adele kept staring at her relentlessly with large, hollow eyes.
“It was in my room, the fairy was,” Adele went on, nodding furiously to confirm her tale. “It was black like a shadow, but it wasn’t. It moved on its own. It was a boy!”
She giggled deliriously at that, covering her mouth and looking about to see if a nurse had heard her, but Wren only wanted to tell her that it wasn’t a fairy she had seen. She wanted to turn her face away and ignore the other girl, annoyed that she was being mocked.
But wait… A shadow? A boy? Could Adele’s conversation be more than a cry for attention? If she did see what she claimed, then…
“What did it look like exactly?” Wren asked lowly. Adele seemed nearly overwhelmed to have gotten a reaction. She was positively quivering with excitement.
“It was a boy,” Adele confirmed again, sticking a finger in her ear absently. “He was hovering over my bed. I watched him for a long time, but he didn’t move much. Eventually, he went away.”
Wren rose up, interested now. She moved closer to Adele, lowering her voice to a whisper in hopes that the nurses would not hear their conversation.
“And it was like a shadow?” Wren asked quietly, her heart beating faster. “Did he say anything to you – this fairy?”
“No,” Adele said hesitantly, ashamed that she had to admit it, but she perked up again directly after, “but it did remind me of my dream!”
Wren felt her face grow hot, wondering what had brought on the flare until she realized that she was feeling the heat of jealousy. Did this girl deserve to dream more than she did? Was it possible that Adele had seen Nevermor when Wren could not find it?
“What dream?” she asked firmly, trying to keep her focus on the girl’s darting eyes.
Adele’s face lit with pleasure. “I saw an ocean – it was a black ocean! – and I was walking along the shore. I was alone, but then I saw someone and I went toward him…”
Adele hesitated, looking past Wren as a distant look came into her eyes. Her chest began to heave with short, rapid breaths as she recalled it.
“He looked at me,” she said, shuddering. “His eyes were on fire! They were on fire!”
The girl had become irate, a look of horror in her eyes as she professed this truth. Before Wren could step away, Adele had gripped her arms, shaking her as if to punish her lack of understanding.
“Burning!” she screamed, her eyes like deep pools. “They were burning!”
Wren tried to push Adele away from her, but the girl’s grip was viselike, her jagged nails scraping her flesh. She did not find relief until a nurse and orderly came forward, taking the girl by the arms, talking her down. Their voices managed to soothe her enough that Adele simply reverted to a state of bewilderment, as if she’d not remembered her outburst. Wren, however, wanted no part of it.
She slipped away behind the cage, waiting for her heart to slow as Adele was led back to her cell. What the girl had said troubled Wren more than the violent outburst. Had she truly seen a shadow that was not attached to anything? Was it the truth, or could she cast it off as the ranting of a lunatic? Sadly, there was no way to know. There never was here, but today Wren was left with a feeling that she’d never been willing to accommodate before.
Is that what I sound like to them? she wondered.
Everything she thought she had known about her life came back to her now and settled in her stomach, making her feel sick. Around her, the birds continued to chirp, their lives undisturbed by the incident. They were without care or concern. Wren envied them.
2
The hours passed, and another day had managed to age her. Wren lay in the asylum bed, eyes closed but not asleep, yet to anyone who might pass by, not awake. She was covered up to her chin with the thin, dingy blankets, but she was far from restful. This day had opened up a familiar door in her mind, and she had foolishly stepped through it. Her head was flooded with memories of the past – of Nevermor.
The ocean and the beach; the way the forest had smelled in the morning; the dreams that formed the land and the nightmares that threatened it. She thought of dances by firelight as the boys ran wild, drunk off their kills, their faces painted with blood. They had all seemed so happy with that life. Wren had been disapproving of some of their behaviors – the cursing and the blood rituals – but she would give anything to have that back now.
Rifter realized that there was more to life than being young and reckless forever. He was ready to change. But how much can I expect? Will he think I’ve outgrown him? It’s been four years…
“Are you awake?” The ghostly whisper slipped to her through the dark, clenching her heart and making her shiver. Wren came back to herself to see a deep shadow treading over the stone floor, moving closer to her bed.
Who’s there?
She was startled, uncertain for a moment before she recognized the voice coming from within the dark shape.
“I saw the fairy again.”
Adele. Wren could not see the girl’s features in the darkness, but her height and outline revealed her identity. Even knowing who it was, Wren could think of a few things less unsettling than waking up to another inmate standing over her bed.
“How did you get into my room?” she asked cautiously.
“I stole the nurse’s key,” Adele said happily, holding up the dangling piece of metal on a chain. “Come on! It’ll get away!”
Adele darted back toward the hallway where the door was standing open, unlocked, and by the time Wren was able to rise up after her, the girl had already slipped out.
“Wait!” Wren hissed, stepping into her slippers. Though she had an opportunity to leave her cell unrestricted, her fear of being caught was very real. While here, she had tried her best to stay in line, but she was not oblivious to the punishments that might have awaited her. She knew what happened to girls who were unruly.
But the shadow. I have to know. That was all the persuasion she needed to follow Adele out.
By the time she had gotten into the hallway, the other girl had already slipped out of sight. Wren did not have much time to be cautious. She moved swiftly into the darkened hall.
The unmapped corridors of the female ward were frightening in the dark, the bowels of a beast that had swallowed her. Wren had never been out alone and the cage which housed her was suddenly much too big. Her breathing quickened. She felt faint.
Just take a deep breath. She followed her own direction. Be calm and do what you must do.
At that, she was able to take a few steps forward. She needed to see what Adele had to show her – to judge it for what it was. Perhaps it was a figment of the girl’s imagination, but there was a possibility that it might have been more.
“This way!” Adele’s whispery voice drifted to her from around the corner, sounding like an omen, but Wren could not turn away.
She crouched low, hoping that she wouldn’t be seen by any of the other patients as she passed. There were small windows in the doors, and some of the girls were very much like her: they never slept. Even now she could hear some of them groaning, muttering to themselves as they paced. Wren was unsure of her performance, but she kept herself down and moved forward, her pale gown clinging to her legs.
Following after Adele, Wren left the ward and passed into another part of the building, where she began to feel even more nervous. There were voices ahead that made Wren want to turn around, but they mana
ged to find a clear path around a pair of orderlies who were busy making lewd jokes and laughing heartily. Her heart thudded until the voices slipped behind her.
Edging around the corner, she saw Adele moving forward. Wren knew these hallways well, and she knew where they led, for she was guided along this way several times a week.
Witherspoon’s office…
“Are you certain that the fairy went this way?” Wren asked, using terms Adele had related. “I’m not sure if this is a good idea.”
Wren began to suspect that this was not about the shadow any longer, but merely Adele’s private excursion. She did not want any part of that, but her neurotic companion would not back down.
“Do you want to see it or not?”
Adele disregarded her then, moving to the door – behind which Wren had emptied most of her secrets and memories – turning the key in the lock. The hinges groaned as it opened to reveal the smallest glow from a gaslight, lit and waiting for someone to come in and give it more life. Wren took in a shaky sigh and followed Adele inside, preferring that to being caught in the hallway when a watchman came by.
The office was just as she had seen earlier, only darker, with the windows hidden by curtains, but it seemed unforgiving now, like a funeral parlor. The walls of this box did not care about her fears or her crimes. This was the end of the line.
“Do you see it anywhere?” Adele whispered. Wren had already been looking tentatively around the room, searching for any sign of dark movement, but nothing seemed out of place.
“I’ve never been in this office at night,” Adele said rapidly, rubbing her feet along the carpet in long strides. She was clearly thrilled beyond measure. “Do you think he’s handsome? Dr. Witherspoon, I mean. I told him once that he had a nice smile, and he ignored me! I wonder if he’s married…”
Adele went on, but Wren was no longer listening. She had not seen any suspicious shadows, and she had begun to suspect that this was all a waste of time. She would be happier back in her cell, reconsidering her misfortune.