Dreaming Darkly

by Caitlin Kittredge

  I jumped when Simone’s hand clamped on my knee, her leaning into me, staring like she’d just seen a ghost. “You’re not Myra,” she rasped. “Who are you?”

  I shut the book carefully.

  “I’m Ivy,” I said. “Myra’s daughter.”

  She looked at me and it was like somebody had pulled back the curtains in a dark room—suddenly she was as mentally sharp as I was, all the fog and helplessness gone from her face.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” I said. “I was under the impression that you were . . . um . . .”

  “Ivy,” she rasped, pulling me into a violent hug. For a skinny old woman she was strong as a steel cable. “I am so sorry,” she whispered in my ear. “It’s the damn drugs—starts with the muscles twitching, then your mind goes soft, and pretty soon you’re like a rotted-out beam, just mold and dust that crumbles if you touch it.”

  An orderly was watching us, and I gently extricated myself from her grip.

  “Where’s Myra?” my grandmother said, her face lighting. “Is she here? Did she finally come back for me?”

  “No,” I said softly. “No, I . . .” I took a deep breath. “My mom is dead, Simone. I came back to Darkhaven because of that. I didn’t know I had a grandmother still living until two weeks ago.”

  Simone sank back in her chair. She didn’t move, but tears worked their way down her face. “Poor girl,” she said. “She was always a butterfly’s wing. Beautiful. Fragile.” She blinked the tears away and sat up straight. “You live here, you said? On Darkhaven?”

  “Yes,” I said. “With Simon.”

  Before I could ask her why the hell Simon would claim she was dead all this time, she lunged at me, and this time it wasn’t friendly. She grabbed my wrist, pulling my hand close to hers, her nails digging half-moons out of my skin. “Leave,” she rasped. “Leave and never go back.”

  “Hey! Simone, let’s calm down,” the orderly called, starting for us. I turned back to my grandmother, who was holding on to me like I was a lifeboat.

  “Why?” I said. “Why do I need to leave?”

  “Before the devil finds you!” my grandmother said, starting to shake all over, her muscle twitches practically contorting her face. “Bloodgoods always die badly,” she cried as the orderly tried to pry us apart. “We tried! We took Benjamin in, we made him one of us, we even changed his name so he’d feel like family, but nothing worked! The devil found him, and he’s got his eye on you now!”

  She let out an enraged howl as the orderly flipped the cap off a syringe and plunged it into her upper arm.

  I flopped back in my chair, shaking, until the friendly nurse from before touched me, and I jumped.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “It’s probably better if you give her a week or so before you come back.”

  “She was . . .” I swallowed and got hold of myself, standing up. My wrist was bruised and covered in bloody nail marks. “For a minute there she was lucid. We were talking.”

  “Dementia comes and goes,” the nurse said. “She’s best this time of day. The delusions, though, those are harder to control. Even with antipsychotics, your grandmother is very ill.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said as she let me out the locked door. “I didn’t mean to upset her.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, sweetie.” She patted me on the arm. “I just hope this won’t keep you from visiting again.”

  I could still hear Simone screaming from the hallway. Suddenly I had to get out of this plush, overly clean and bright parody of a hospital before I vomited all over their tasteful carpet. I speed-walked as far as the lobby and broke into a run across the parking lot, jumping back in the Jeep and startling Doyle.

  “Ivy,” he said. “What happened?”

  “Drive,” I said, pressing my hands over my face, trying to get control. I did not want to break down in front of Doyle, not now. Not before I’d had time to process what Simone had said.

  Doyle stayed quiet for about ten miles before he pulled over at a chain coffee place, disappearing inside and returning with a bottle of water and a bag of doughnuts. “Here,” he said. “Hydrate. Eat some sugar.”

  The doughnuts tasted sickly sweet, but I forced one down, and after a few swigs of water I did start to feel better. “Thanks,” I said quietly.

  “I take it you didn’t get what you wanted,” he said.

  “She’s really far gone,” I said, but I didn’t elaborate. I had learned something. Not anything I wanted to hear, but that didn’t make it less true. I understood the photo and the birth certificate now. Why Peter Ross had been convinced my grandmother couldn’t have any more kids after my mom. Not why the certificate and photo had been hidden after someone tried to burn them, but why they existed in the first place, how Simon existed after my grandmother had been so sick giving birth to my mother she’d had to stay in bed for almost a year.

  Simon was Benjamin. My uncle was adopted. And for some reason, my grandmother was convinced the devil—or whoever Mary Anne and my grandmother used the word to represent—was coming for us both.

  The rest of the weekend felt like a year, and I still felt like I was underwater when I went back to school on Monday. Valerie confronted me at lunch. “Did somebody you love die or something? You look like you haven’t slept in a month and you’re about to cry.”

  “Just my mom,” I said. “And love is debatable.”

  Valerie flinched, and I reminded myself that Valerie was normal, and normal people felt bad when you said you hated your dead mother. “Sorry,” I muttered.

  Valerie let the silence stretch until she pointed at my open backpack. “Tarot cards!” she said. “Cool.”

  I shrugged. “They’re bullshit.”

  “Then why do you have them?” She reached over and took the cloth-wrapped deck, turning a few over. “Wow, these are really old, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I said, setting down my fork. My lasagna wasn’t getting any less inedible. “How can you tell?”

  “I’m into this stuff,” she said. “I know it’s a little weird, but it’s fun too.”

  I took the cards back from Valerie, laying out a simple five-card reading. I’d been playing with them ever since I went back to the island, thinking about my mom, and all the stuff she’d said to me that hadn’t made any sense at the time. About the fact when I got home from school that afternoon Simon would be back from New York and I had no clue in hell how I was going to act, what I was going to say.

  Plus, the doctor had left a message on the house phone confirming my psych appointment later in the week. I’d seen what my actual chances were in the genetic lottery when I’d met my grandmother. Who knew if it was really schizophrenia, or just a label the shrinks had slapped on whatever was wrong with all three of us—her, my mom, and me.

  I could ignore that for now, as I flipped the cards down on the sticky cafeteria table. In my old life, Valerie would have been a prime mark—rich, young, and credulous. Just the way Mom liked them.

  Maybe it was spite at her memory, maybe just a desire to prove I was nothing like her now more than ever, but I decided to do the decent thing for Valerie.

  “I didn’t know you liked new age stuff,” I said.

  “Maybe because you don’t let anyone know anything about you and you close yourself off from them just as much,” Valerie said, cocking one ginger eyebrow.

  “Okay, smart-ass,” I said, flipping over the cards in succession. “Here’s how tarot readers work. They start vague—like ‘I see here a relationship just ended.’”

  “Yeah, Doyle,” Valerie said. “Duh.”

  “And this has left you wondering what’s next, in more than love. You’re worried about a big decision.”

  “College,” said Valerie. “Again, duh.”

  “A female figure in your life is pushing you one way, but you feel like another path is your true calling,” I said. Valerie raised a hand.

  “Okay, whoa. That is freaky. My mother is totally pressuring me to apply to
a bunch of state schools, and what I really want is to move to New York.”

  I swept the cards back into a pile and tapped them. “That layout didn’t say any of that.”

  Valerie frowned. “Then what the hell, Ivy? You were so spot-on.”

  “Cold reading,” I said. “You’re almost college age but your biggest concern is your ex-boyfriend, not college or family problems, so it’s a good bet you come from a relatively stable home. You’re wearing expensive clothes and carrying a bag that costs more than a used car, so your parents are probably professionals and overachievers who push you. The rest is just watching your face and steering the conversation in whichever direction is right.”

  Valerie sighed. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a fun-killer, Ivy?”

  “Hey,” I said, “the more people I can save from being defrauded by people like my mother, the better.”

  Valerie pushed back her chair as the bell rang, and I shoved the cards into my backpack. “You never did explain why you’re so grumpy today.”

  I sighed as we walked to world literature. “I found out my uncle was adopted.”

  “Does it matter? That he was adopted?” Valerie said.

  I shrugged. “I guess not. It’s just a really big thing nobody ever told me.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know,” Valerie said. “He’s what, like in his thirties? A lot of adoptions in the eighties were closed, and the prevailing parenting wisdom was to keep it secret from the kids.”

  I stared at her for a beat too long, and she flipped a hand. “My mom is in family law,” she said. “You weren’t wrong about the pushy overachiever thing, by the way. Because of her I know wayyyy more about adoption law than any nonlawyer should.”

  “Simon isn’t exactly the type of person I can just ask,” I said. “And I guess . . . I just want to know why he kept that from me. I kinda feel like I can’t trust him now.” Ironic, I knew, but something about the enormity of Simon’s two lies sat in my stomach like a boulder. They weren’t small lies like mine. They had shifted the earth under me, and I’d felt off-balance ever since I’d walked out of the psych hospital.

  “If you really want to know, your best bet is to find the local branch of social services that handled the adoption,” Valerie said. “If it’s a closed adoption, that’ll be a dead end, but if not, it’s way quicker than requesting records from the state.”

  “I have his original birth certificate,” I said, not exactly sure why I’d let that slip. “Well, what’s left of it.”

  “Perfect,” Valerie said. “If you know the town he was born in, that helps narrow it way down.”

  “Ladies!” Mr. Armitage snapped from the front of the room. “If it’s not too much to ask, could you attempt to let me educate you for the next forty-five minutes?”

  I turned my eyes to the front, but all I could think about was maybe, finally, getting some answers.

  Chapter 22

  I’d been worrying all day about how Simon and I would interact when he was back from New York, but after all my fretting he barely spoke to me. We ate supper in near silence beyond a few pleasantries about New York and how school had been. Simon was clearing the plates when he finally said something more than five words long. “Do you want me to come with you to the doctor on Friday?”

  I looked up, surprised. I’d kind of figured he would—he was my legal guardian and all, and it was a big deal. “I don’t know. Do you . . . want to?”

  “I don’t think anyone wants to spend time with a psychiatrist poking around, but if I must,” he said. I actually felt hurt. Never mind the lies and the weirdness after he’d screamed at me, wasn’t he supposed to engage in the stuff a normal adult would do with their teenager?

  “I think you have to,” I said, standing up and putting my plate in the soapy water in the sink basin. “There’s probably forms to sign and stuff. And you know our family medical history. If there’s anything else that’s genetic?” I waited to see if I picked up anything from his expression, but he was bland as ever.

  “I’ll pick you up after school then,” he said.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. I started for the stairs. “I have homework.”

  “Very well,” he said, picking up a sponge and turning on the water. The pipes groaned under our feet and the tap shot out gobbets of rust. “Damn thing,” Simon cursed as it spattered his shirt.

  “And I have a late practice tomorrow,” I said. “Regional qualifiers are coming up. I know you’re mad at me about last time, but I thought I should stay with Valerie tomorrow to save Julia a late trip.”

  “Fine,” Simon said. “Call me after practice and the next morning, and you are not allowed to go out anywhere. This friend of yours has parents?”

  “I assume so,” I said.

  “I’ll expect their contact information as well,” Simon said.

  “Fine,” I said, and headed upstairs. Suddenly I didn’t feel guilty at all about what I was going to do.

  The rest of the night and the next day passed agonizingly slowly—all I could think about was what I’d find when I went after Simon’s birth records. I had more awful nightmares. By the time school let out I was struggling to keep my eyes open.

  Valerie and I drove to the northeast of Portland, and after working our way through three levels of managers at the social services office, determined that my uncle might have been adopted from an orphanage near the hospital listed on his birth certificate.

  I was sure Valerie would want to give up, but she just started her car and punched the orphanage address into her GPS. “We really don’t have to . . . ,” I started.

  “Are you kidding me? I’ve spent the last five weekends running and doing SAT prep. This is the most fun I’ve had in months,” she said. So I guessed we were definitely just not talking about the bitchy stuff she’d spouted in the parking lot right after she and Doyle broke up. Fine by me—I didn’t like holding grudges. They just complicated everything.

  I felt hopeful right up until we got to the orphanage and found it mostly boarded up. It was an ugly industrial building that looked more like a factory than a place where kids had ever lived. One corner of the parking lot was still full of cars, though, and the door was open. From inside, I heard the whine of power tools.

  Valerie and I stepped in, plastic draped everywhere wafting in the draft from the door. The power tools cut off, and a guy in a plaid shirt and dusty jeans appeared from around a corner. “You can’t be back here,” he said. “If you’re looking for the records archive, go around to the front and ring the bell.”

  We followed the overgrown, cracked concrete path to the front of the building, rang the bell, got buzzed in, and after a few judicious lies on my part, the clerk in charge of the records archive now housed in the orphanage let us have the run of the records room for our fake genealogy project.

  I went right for the boxes from 1986, the year I’d seen on Simon’s birth certificate. Valerie pretended to look through the older records our made-up project was based on in case the clerk came back, but judging from the sound of a Patriots game coming from speakers in the office, I doubted we’d be disturbed.

  It took a couple of hours—there were a lot of children born in 1986. I found a certificate for a live birth from the same date as Simon, but the info wasn’t the same. The next certificate was the jackpot. A copy of Benjamin’s full certificate, attached to a yellowed, typed adoption form that had been mimeographed. The ink had bled and run together, so I could barely make out the chicken scratch, but I managed to parse a few lines.

  Benjamin Jones has completed his trial placement with the Bloodgood family and formal adoption proceedings have begun.

  “Got it,” I said to Valerie, shoving the entire file inside my jacket. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Thank God,” she said. “I’m never going to stop sneezing.”

  We got back in the car and were driving when I opened the file and read the rest of the social worker’s notes. I froze, feeling all the b
lood in me rush to my feet.

  “Ivy?” Valerie said, glancing at me as she drove. “You look pale. What’s wrong?”

  I stared at the scribbled sentence, reading it over and over to be sure I wasn’t imagining it.

  Benjamin Jones has completed his trial placement with the Bloodgood family and formal adoption proceedings have begun. His twin brother, Brian Jones, remains at the North Portland care facility.

  Valerie pulled into a coffee shop and made me come inside and get a drink. I sat at one of the little tables, staring at the line over and over. “Why would they adopt one kid and not the other?” I said.

  Valerie shrugged. “They split siblings up a lot more back then,” she said. “Nobody cared about how messed-up that makes you.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t believe this,” I said. “I have another uncle out there somewhere. Well, adopted uncle.”

  “Really sucks for him,” Valerie said, sucking on her frozen drink. “Your uncle got adopted into one of the richest families in Maine, and Brian got to stay in a crappy orphanage.”

  I tried to drink my coffee, but it turned my stomach. I didn’t feel better now that I knew the truth about Simon. I felt worse.

  “He has to know about this,” I said, tapping the page. “Simon. It says here he was adopted when he was four years old. You remember that if you’re four.”

  “Ivy, not to be a total devil’s advocate, but he might have his reasons,” Valerie said. “Look, if you go back to when they got placed in state custody, it says they were found abandoned outside a gas station in Portland. That’s not a happy beginning.”

  “It’s not that he didn’t spill all his secrets,” I said. “It’s that he acted like he didn’t have any. There’s something weird about letting me think I’m his biological niece, you have to admit.”

  “Yeah, it’s super weird,” Valerie agreed. “But maybe talk to him before you go nuclear?”