by E. E. Holmes
“Who’s this?” I asked, leaning closer to her so that I could scan the paper.
“His name is Jeffrey Stone. He was the first patient assigned to that room when New Beginnings first opened in the ’70s. Of course, it wasn’t called New Beginnings back then. It was a private psychiatric hospital called The Fielding Youth Rehabilitation Center. It was a place that rich people could send their kids to secretly. They paid absurd amounts of money for the ‘experimental’ treatments and ‘innovative’ therapies they offered, not to mention the privacy and discretion of the staff. At least,” she said, rolling her eyes, “that’s what the pamphlets advertised. There was a stack of them filed in the same box where I found this.”
“Sounds horrifying,” I said, looking at the face frowning up at me from the photograph. He had close-set dark eyes and a pair of eyebrows that were dangerously close to meeting in the middle. “So what does this kid have to do with… anything? I mean, he’s gotta be, like, a senior citizen now.”
“He would be, if he were still alive. Which he’s not. Say hello to the kid who threw your lamp.”
A long silence stretched between us. My mouth went dry. I swallowed hard and cleared my throat before I dared to break it. “I don’t get it.”
Hannah looked me in the eye, and again I could not move or look away. “Your room used to be Jeffrey Stone’s room. That’s where he stayed when he came here. That’s where one of his “innovative therapies” went wrong and he died in 1976. See?”
She pointed to a date at the bottom of the sheet, next to the typed word, “DECEASED.”
I stared at the place she was referencing, but couldn’t force the word to make sense; it just looked like a random grouping of letters. “I still don’t…”
“Wow, you’re really gonna make me come right out and say it, aren’t you?” Hannah said, with a slightly exasperated laugh. “Okay, then. He’s a ghost. There’s a ghost haunting your room, and he wants you out of there.”
I blinked. She held my gaze unflinchingly. I swallowed again, maybe just a bit convulsively, but I definitely kept my voice calm as I said, “And you know this because…”
“I can see him. Well, not just him. I can see ghosts in general. I see them almost everywhere I go. I have ever since I can remember, and I can’t do anything to stop it.”
Two things smacked me in the face at the same time. The first one was pretty obvious. This girl was telling me she saw ghosts, which in generally accepted reality, did not actually even exist. It was ridiculous. It was the very Fox-iest confession that could have come out of her mouth. In just about any other circumstance, I would have smiled politely, backed away slowly, and booked it the hell out of the room. There may have even been some screaming and hand-flapping involved. But the second smack stunned me where I sat, and I felt no desire to flee. This smack came from the realization that I actually believed her. I didn’t doubt a single word of what she was telling me.
I opened my mouth, not sure of what was going to come out of it, and heard myself say, “So, what am I supposed to do about a hostile, dead roommate who won’t leave?”
For a second, she looked as stunned as I felt. Then, her face split into a huge smile, and she let out a peal of laughter that made the nurses look up from their magazines for the first time.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, starting to wonder if I should have done the whole running and hand-flapping thing.
“It’s just… that’s it?”
“What’s it?”
“No staring? No questions? No running away screaming?” She shook her head, still smiling. “I’m not used to people believing me at all, let alone without a moment’s hesitation.”
“Well, I’m not used to crazy bitches telling me they see dead people, but we all have to adapt, I guess.”
She laughed again, and this time I joined in. We laughed more and more until the nurses were staring and we had to compose ourselves, dropping our heads and snorting silently over our work. We didn’t want to look like we were actually having fun, or they might decide to separate us and give us some other mind-numbing drudgery instead.
Finally, the laughter played out and we were both left staring down at the dour face of Jeffrey Stone. His expression leeched the rest of the humor from the situation.
“Seriously, though,” I said, pointing to him. “You see them all the time? Like, right now in this room?”
Hannah shook her head. “Not all the time. I mean, it’s not constant, but it’s pretty close. They have a tendency to find me when I move to a new place. I’ve gotten good at ignoring them, but sometimes I get one like Jeffrey that makes it difficult.”
“How many are there at New Beginnings?”
“Seven in the building. A few more on the grounds.”
“So, the doctors call them hallucinations and you just have to go along with it?”
“What’s the alternative?”
“I don’t know. Proving it? Showing them evidence, or whatever?”
Hannah laughed again, but it was a bitter little sound. “It’s a lot harder than you think, even with people who’ve seen something strange, like you have. Sometimes I would get fed up with pretending and try it. It only ever ended one way: a severe psych eval and stronger meds. Trust me, if you saw some of the places they wanted to put me, you’d stop trying, too.”
“Yeah, I guess I can see that,” I said. “Sometimes it’s just easier to pretend, isn’t it? Just go along with it.”
“I’m guessing you’ve got some experience with that, too,” she said quietly. I could feel that penetrating, analyzing gaze on me again, but I didn’t mind, somehow. After all, she’d just trusted me with her biggest secret in the world, and I was practically a complete stranger.
“Well, not like you,” I said. “I mean, I can’t imagine hiding what you have to hide. But, yeah, I’ve done my fair share of capitulation, just to survive.”
“Like what?”
“Well, there’s all kinds of euphemisms for why I’m here, but it all boils down to the same problem. I’m gay and my dad can’t handle it.”
She just looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to go on.
I put up my hands in a gesture of surrender. “I know, I know. It comes as a real shock. After all, I’m so masculine. I mean, can’t you just feel the testosterone rolling off me in waves?”
She giggled. “Oh, is that what that is? I thought I felt something.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty hard to ignore. Anyway, I realized early on that he thought there was something wrong with me, even before I could have put into words what it was. It was the way he looked at me, with this little wrinkle between his eyes, like I was doing something distasteful just by being there. I hated it when he looked at me like that, so I started doing the things he seemed to want me to do. I tried really hard, but generally failed miserably at whatever it was, usually one sport or another. Actually, I discovered I was a pretty good long-distance runner, and I got really excited that at last I’d found the thing that was going to satisfy him. But after watching me run one race, he told me I needed to quit track. He never told me why exactly, but it must have been the way I looked when I ran; instead of making me look like the other guys, I think it just made me stand out even more by contrast.”
“That’s awful,” Hannah said.
“It’s no legion of ghost stalkers, but it sucks, no lie,” I said, trying to keep it light. “That’s not the worst of it, though. I was so desperate to get out of the last place he sent me that I wrote home and told him I had found a girlfriend, and that I couldn’t wait to introduce her to them when I got home.”
“You… invented a girlfriend?” Hannah asked, making an obvious effort to keep the judgment out of her voice.
“Worse than that,” I said. “I actually asked some poor girl out. Her name was Haley, and she was so desperate for male attention that she would have thrown herself at a serial killer on death row if he’d so much as winked at her. I knew how vulnerable she wa
s, knew I would damage her somehow, but I asked her out anyway. It’s probably the shittiest thing I’ve ever done in my whole life.”
“But he gave you no choice,” Hannah said, and placed her tiny hand on my arm. It was cold and stiff, like it was made of porcelain. It only added to the aura of fragility.
“I don’t know if that’s true, but it felt true,” I allowed. I didn’t shy away from her hand. There was something comforting about it. I focused on its cool pressure while I finished my story. “Haley must have known on some level that I was using her, but she ignored it, just like I did. Haley was released a couple of weeks after me, and we put on this hideous performance of a relationship for like, six months. I brought her over for dinner, held her hand, kissed her good night, used couple-y nicknames that make you want to vomit, all of it. But everyone kept demanding more of me; she wanted more, my dad wanted more, and soon I couldn’t pretend any longer. It all cracked and fell to pieces under the pressure and the scrutiny. Haley wound up on suicide watch, and I, after a series of unfortunate life choices I won’t get into, wound up here.”
Hannah pressed her little hand into mine, and I took it as easily as if it had been Phoebe’s. We sat for a few minutes in the silence, not looking at each other.
“Wow, you’re a real downer, huh?” she said at last, her face utterly serious.
I burst out laughing. “Yeah, sorry, that was a real ray of fucking sunshine. I should save that kind of thing for group sessions. I bet I’d get a therapy gold star.”
“Thank you for telling me. I think it’s good for me to remember that other people have to pretend, too.”
“See?” I clapped her on the back. “Doesn’t it make you feel better to know that you’re just one of the freaks?”
“I fit right in,” she said, smiling. “What a relief!”
“Just another one of the unloveables. Congratulations.”
“You know,” she said, her expression brightening, “that would be a great name for a band.”
I considered this. “You’re right, sweetness, it certainly would. A really hipster one that only did covers of underground girl grunge bands from the ’90s. We could write some incredibly deep lyrics, what with all our teen angst. Do you play any instruments?”
“Nope, not even a little. You?”
“Not since my mandatory piano lessons during elementary school. I’ve completely blocked all memory of the wretched thing. I guess we’re shit out of luck.”
“I guess so.”
“So, in the meantime, what do we do about this stud?” I asked, tapping a finger on the scowling face of Jeffrey Stone.
Hannah sighed. “I don’t know. He’s been in that room since he died, and he’s really adamant about staying. I’m not sure I’ll be able to convince him to leave, even if I do get the chance to go back in there.”
“Maybe I can just request another room?”
“I don’t think the staff members are going to be very accommodating of your requests, now that you’ve been identified as ‘behavioral.’ Unless…” her voice trailed away and her eyes glazed over in thought.
I let the silence spiral as long as I could tolerate before I finally burst out, “What? What is it?”
“I was just thinking,” she mumbled vaguely.
I rolled my eyes. “I can see that. Care to let me in on it?”
“Right, sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, like I said, Jeffrey will be really angry if you go back in there, now that he thinks he’s got his room back. I don’t think he’ll be quiet about it, especially if we provoke him.”
“And why in the name of Vogue would we want to provoke him?” I asked warily.
“We wouldn’t if it were just us, but if the nurses were all there, it might just be the perfect solution to both of our problems.”
“Okay, I’m intrigued. Elaborate,” I said.
“If we get him really angry, angry enough to cause some more stuff to fly around the room—then what choice will the staff have but to believe us?”
I thought about it for a moment, and then my face split into a grin that may or may not have qualified as evil—I’m not at liberty to say at this time.
“Do you think we could provoke him into throwing something blunt directly at Coffee-breath’s head?”
§
It took two more days of pointless manual labor and sucking-up on my part before it was decided that I could rejoin the general population. Amidst other usual indignities, I’d been made to write an excessively long and flowery apology letter to Coffee-breath, which I then had to read out loud to her while she mugged and scowled at me. It was laced with sarcasm that went right over her head, which was the only way I could secretly salvage my pride. I’d been sure I couldn’t take another minute of it, but now, as I stood facing the open door of that room again, I seriously considered walking in there and breaking something just so they would send me back to solitary.
“Well, here you are again. Home sweet home,” Coffee-breath said.
“Yup. Feels just like old times,” I said quietly, staring around the room. Nothing looked out of place. Not a single clue as to what was probably lurking invisibly in the corners, tucked in the shadows. I took a deep breath.
I stepped over the threshold, still holding that deep breath in. I wished suddenly for Hannah’s little porcelain hand in mine, the cold, fragile, reassuring pressure of it. She’d told me what to do, and what to say. I just didn’t want to do it without her. After all, ghosts were her specialty, not mine. Damn her repeat offender status, or she might have been able to come with me.
Okay, I told myself. Here goes nothing. And possibly everything.
“Margaret, could I just ask you a question?”
Coffee-breath turned back to me, clearly aggravated. “You could. Doesn’t mean that I’ll answer it.”
“Lovely, thanks. I was just wondering what kinds of alternative therapies you all have here for… you know, difficult cases.”
She frowned at me. “What do you mean, difficult?”
“Don’t you ever have cases that need even more than a trip to the behavioral ward? Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting I’m about to get difficult,” I said, as she gave me the stink-eye. “But there must be some kids who just don’t cooperate with that. So, what do you do with them?”
The light closest to the window began to flicker ever so slightly. I felt my pulse quicken.
“We have alternative treatment plans to fit many different scenarios,” Coffee-breath replied, her tone still suspicious of why our conversation was headed down this road. “We assess the patient and the situation and create an individualized plan to fit that patient’s needs.”
“But you must have, like, extreme measures, right? Like for emergencies or really crazy outbursts,” I pressed, as the light flickered just a bit faster. “Come on, you can tell me. You must have seen some really intense stuff since you’ve been here, right? I’m sure they save all the really difficult stuff for the most experienced staff.”
She drew herself up a bit with pride. “I’ve dealt with some very challenging patients, yes.”
“Of course you have,” I said, shamelessly stroking her ego. “So, what’s the really juicy stuff? Electroshock therapy? Hydrotherapy? Lobotomy?”
She looked shocked. “We don’t do those kinds of things here. That would be illegal!”
The light was really flickering now. It caught her eye for the first time, and she watched it curiously.
“Oh, come on,” I said waving her off with my hand. “The suits don’t know the reality of what you all deal with here. Come on, spill. Do you use surgical measures? Sensory deprivation? There must be a back room, a secret ward down in the basement.”
“No, of course not!” Coffee-breath said, trying to give me an indignant look, but the light, flashing madly now, had completely captured her attention. She walked over to it and tapped on the shade, peeking into the top and adjusting the bulb as she said, “I don’t know what ga
ve you that idea, but we’ve never condoned practices like that here.”
“Oh sure, not on the record,” I said, raising my voice to make sure Jeffrey was paying attention. “I’m talking off the record.”
“Milo, that’s quite enough!” she said sternly, reaching down and unplugging the light from the wall. It continued to flash and blink like a strobe light. “What is going on with this light?” she muttered.
An energy was building in the room, a sort of static electricity. I could feel it raising the hairs on my arms and tingling across my skin. Jeffrey was going to make himself known at any moment, I just knew it.
Just a little bit more…
“Just between us girls, Margaret, come on! What do you do to the really screwed up ones?” I cried.
She opened her mouth to answer me but screamed instead. Every light, inside the room and out of it, exploded at once. The lamp in her hand flew from her grip and smashed into the ceiling before falling to the ground. I heard the shouts of the nurse out at the desk as all of the recessed bulbs in the hallway popped and went out at the same moment.
In the darkness, silhouetted by the only light left, the glow of the streetlamp outside the window, her crouched and shaking form rose to a standing position.
“What… the hell… was that?” she whispered between terrified gasps.
“That was what happened to that lamp a few days ago,” I said. “I told you I didn’t throw it. It’s also the reason I’d like another room, please.”
She looked at me. Her expression was hard to decipher in the newly minted darkness, but then she said, in a tremulous voice, “I’ll go make the arrangements now. Make sure you don’t leave any of your things.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t.”
§
Three days later, after settling into a new room and acclimating back into the general population of Foxes, Look-At-Mes, Periodics, and Fixer-Uppers, I walked into the cafeteria for breakfast to find Hannah sitting at a table in the corner. No one was sitting within two tables of her; it was as though someone had drawn an invisible line that they all knew not to cross, lest her special flavor of crazy be somehow contagious. I got my tray of food and walked over to her table.