Karl’s expression darkened and the hand poised on his face halted to hide his eyes from view.
“You ... don’t remember?” he asked. “I ... I ... Just remember, Enim, that what happened was my fault. I called him to get you because I was worried, and you – we all know that you didn’t mean for it to happen –”
I glanced around the room, half-expecting to find Beringer lying in wait in the bed beside me as my apprehension grew, and my heart pounded so violently that I was sure my ribcage would crack and break against the strike of it.
“Beringer – Erik – he – he –” Karl stopped himself again and made another attempt to compose himself, but there was no mistaking the uneasiness in his eyes. He ran a hand down the front of his usually-ironed shirt that had been unbuttoned at both the collar and sleeves and crumpled up on his arms. “Beringer – Beringer has died, Enim.”
The pounding in my chest stopped abruptly; the machine beside me made a high-pitched noise as it noted the sudden change.
“He’s ... dead?”
I shut my eyes in stunned relief. He had crashed against the rocks, breaking my fall, and succumbed to the death that he had inflicted upon all of those local girls. It could finally be over: I had figured the riddle out at last, and now that it was solved, Jack could come back and we would never have to think of it again.
“Yes,” Karl whispered. He seemed to be waiting for something more to escape my mouth, but the calmness that had overcome me had eased me into silence. “I ... I’m sorry, Enim.”
The door to the room opened again; the nurse had returned to check on me. Karl sank back into the shadow of the open door and pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes, looking wearier than ever.
“Don’t take this off,” the nurse instructed, replacing the oxygen mask over my mouth. She turned back to Karl. “Have you told him yet –?”
His quick shake of the head cut her off midsentence, and she closed her mouth into a tight-lipped smile as she adjusted the pillow beneath my head.
“Well, I’ll come back a little later, then, to see if you have any questions or concerns ...”
“Thank you,” Karl said, but the statement was an imploration for her to leave rather than a sincere note of appreciation. When the door shut behind her, I reached up to pull the mask off of my face once again.
“What ... does ... she ... mean?”
“Nothing, it’s nothing.” He gave me an odd look before continuing. “I’m not sure that you heard what I said before, Enim ... Dr. Beringer is dead.”
I blinked up at him. He was waiting for a reaction that wasn’t coming to my features, though I couldn’t think of what it could be. Beringer was a murderer – he had proven that when he tried to kill me. Perhaps Karl thought that I should be taking it more heavily, but my concerns were elsewhere.
“What ... about ... Jack?”
“I – what?” Karl spluttered. “Jack’s – Jack’s – they haven’t caught him yet.”
My relief was mixed with uncertainty at the word choice, and I turned my head questioningly as I tried to decipher why he hadn’t realized that Jack had done nothing wrong.
“But ... why ... not ...?”
“He’s run away, Enim. We don’t know how – they’ve searched the state for him, but he’s gone. But ... but don’t worry. I’m sure they’ll get him.”
“He ... should have ... come back ... by now.”
Karl paused as he took in the sight of me, and his frown deepened into a V-shape on his brow.
“Come back? Enim ... I don’t understand. Do you ... Are you sure you remember what happened?”
My breaths had reduced to wheezes again, and Karl reached over to replace the mask on my face. As I tried to steady the inhalations, the sudden image of Jack huddled somewhere cold and miserable came to mind. My throat scorched as I tried to swallow.
“Everyone ... thinks ... he killed ... Miss ...”
“Enim, Enim, keep the mask on,” Karl said, adjusting it again and glancing at the door. “We shouldn’t even be talking about this. You only just woke up ...”
“I ... need ... to find ... him ...”
“Enim, please, keep the mask on.” He held his hand over it to prevent me from pulling it away again. From so close, I could see every line creasing around his eyes. “Please, I don’t think you remember ... at least not fully. Jack ... he attacked one of the teachers a few months ago. You ... you couldn’t have known – I’ve already made sure that they know that, and they can’t question you about it anyhow. But ... they think ... they think that when the others found out, and you realized what he had done ... they think it caused some sort of break, maybe, and that you – given that you’d just lost your mother, and now your best friend – they think that’s what caused you to ... to go up to the cliffs ...”
I jolted and tried to push his hand away so that I could correct the horrible fault he had made of the story, but he wouldn’t allow it.
“And it’s like I said, Enim, they don’t blame you. They’re willing to put it down as an accident, because I know – we know – how you felt about Erik. We know you would have never tried to hurt him, only ... when you tried to kill yourself, and he tried to stop you, and you both fell, he – he just didn’t make it.”
The sound in the room crumpled out again as though plastic-wrap had filled up my ears. I stared at Karl in my wordless state for several moments as I tried to discern if I had heard him correctly, and only when I was certain that I had did I allow my hopefulness to deflate fully. They had gotten it wrong, just like always: they still thought that Jack was the killer, and that Beringer was innocent, and that I ...
“I ... didn’t ... try ... to kill ...”
It was even more difficult to speak with the suffocating realization. It pressed against my chest and crushed the air in my lungs until my eyes burned with dryness, and I blinked rapidly to moisten them again.
“Here, keep the mask on,” Karl said, replacing it once again. “And I know, Enim. I know you didn’t mean to kill him.”
“No ...” I pulled it off no sooner than it had laid over my mouth. “I didn’t ... try ... to kill ... myself.”
Karl looked down at me with a familiar expression behind his frown. It was one that he wore all too often when he looked upon me, knowing that I was lying to him and trying to decide whether or not he should confront me or let it go.
“Enim ...”
“No, Karl –” My breathing hitched and I allowed him to replace the mask again, taking several deep breaths of oxygen before my chest resumed a somewhat steady rhythm. “I didn’t ... try ... to kill ... myself.”
“Enim, you were up on the cliffs. You jumped.”
“I ... didn’t,” I breathed. “Beringer ... brought ... me up ... there ...”
“Enim, don’t. Don’t be ridiculous. Erik wouldn’t have done that.”
“But ... he ... did. He’s ... the ... one. He’s ... who ... killed ... Miss ... Mercier. Not ... Jack.”
Karl strapped the mask back over my mouth and turned away before I could say another word. From the way that he shook his head repeatedly and the drained light darkening his eyes, I knew that it was lost on him and that he couldn’t believe me.
“Don’t say that, Enim. Don’t. I don’t – I don’t want to hear it again.” He ran a hand through his hair and returned to stare out the window at the sunless sky. “They already think that you’re confused. Don’t give them another reason. Please.”
“But ... I’m ... not. I’m not ... confused.”
“Enim ...”
“He ... tried ... to kill me. He ... killed ... local ... girls ...”
“Enim ...”
“No, Karl ... listen. Beringer ... killed ... Miss ... Mercier. He’s ... been ... killing ... girls ... for ... months. Miss ... Mercier ... found out ... so ... he ... killed her. And Jack ... was trying ... to find out ... who did it ...”
Karl continued to shake his head, as though doing so would so
mehow keep the words from entering his ears.
“And then ... the others ... found the evidence ... we’d compiled. And they thought ... that Jack had done it. But ... he didn’t. It ... was ... Beringer.”
“Enim, stop. Stop right now. This is – you have to know how absurd this sounds. You have to realize that it’s not true.”
He stared firmly into my eyes in an attempt to see past them, but it was my turn to shake my head.
“But ... it ... is ... true.”
He looked at me fully for perhaps the first time. In the nothingness that passed between us, the only sounds in the room came from the deep, artificial breathing and the beeping and whirring of machines. If I closed my eyes and focused on it all, I could have very well been back in the guestroom at the room at the end of the hall, leaning up against my mother’s form as she pulled away from the last tormented moments of her life. I widened my eyes to keep myself away.
“Enim, who is Cabail Ibbot?”
The question took me off guard, and for a moment I didn’t understand him.
“He’s ... in ... my ...”
“No, Enim. Who is he really?”
My breath caught in my lungs and gurgled in the base of my throat. Karl was staring at me with eyes that twitched back and forth between my own.
“He’s ... a ... tenth-grader ... in my ...”
“Enim, cut it out!” Karl snapped suddenly. “Cut it out – tell me who he is, who he is really, right this instant!”
I shook my head and glanced at the door, half-hoping that his raised voice had alerted one of the nurses to come back and check on me, but the door was shut on the two of us.
“I ... don’t ... understand ...”
“Cabail Ibbot,” Karl repeated. “You told me he was a friend of yours over the holidays. Why?”
“Because ... you asked ...”
“But where did you get his name? Why did you tell it to me?”
“He was ... the only ... one ... I could think of.”
“So you made it up?”
“That we’re friends?” I shook my head again, unaware of why it mattered so greatly to him at that moment. “We’re ... on ... alright ... terms.”
Karl sank down to the mattress. From where he was perched on the edge, his profile looked jagged and unkempt beneath the unforgiving light. He stared at the window for a long while without speaking.
“What’s ... Cabail ... got ... to do ... with ... this?”
He didn’t look at me as he answered; his eyes were dark and unseeing as the sun sank lower outside.
“There’s no such person as Cabail Ibbot, Enim.”
“What?”
“There’s no one by that name in your physics class, or at Bickerby at all.”
“No ... that’s ... not ... true,” I said. He must not have realized that Cabail wasn’t in the same grade as me, or was spelling it incorrectly. “I’ll ... write ... it ... down ...”
“Enim, you don’t understand what I’m telling you,” Karl said. “There’s no Cabail Ibbot – you made him up.”
“No ... I ... didn’t ...”
“Yes, you did, Enim. You did. Maybe – maybe not on purpose, but –”
“I – didn’t – make – him – up!” My breath ripped in my throat as I expelled it, but it was not enough to keep me from speaking too quickly. What he was saying wasn’t true. “He’s – real. He’s – in – my – Physics –”
“He’s not, Enim – he’s not!” Karl said, struggling to keep his voice from rising again. “I called the school to inquire about him; I wanted to know what sort of people you were hanging around. And when I spoke to Barker, he said his secretary couldn’t find the name in her files –”
“His ... file ... is ... missing.” I had discovered the same thing when I had broken into Barker’s office; someone must have misplaced it. “But ... he’s ...”
“No, Enim, no. It’s not missing – it doesn’t exist! I spoke to Barker, I assured him that that was the name that you had said. We tried every spelling and every year – he finally called Volkov to his office to set the record straight: there’s no Cabail Ibbot. Not in Physics, not anywhere.”
He stared at me with an unruliness in his eyes, daring me to counter his claim again, before plowing on.
“Volkov told me that you sit in the back of his class, alone,” he said. “He said ... he said that he’s caught you muttering to yourself, and that sometimes you ... you act as though there’s someone back there with you.”
I wanted to shake my head, but I was too numb to move. My throat had tightened to such an extent that my voice couldn’t squeeze through it if I tried.
“Enim, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I had to tell you like this, it’s – it’s not what I wanted. But I – I just didn’t know how else ... You wouldn’t believe me. You weren’t getting it.”
“Weren’t ... getting ... what ...?”
“You’re schizophrenic, Enim.”
The gentleness in his voice was scattered with shakiness; it fell over me in pieces rather than wholeness.
“No.”
I pulled away from him as though he had struck me again, instinctively curling up to cover myself from his lies. The suggestion was unprecedented: I wasn’t insane. He was only saying so because he couldn’t find an answer to fit what he didn’t understand, just as the locals had concluded that the missing girls had run away and the other boys thought that Jack had killed Miss Mercier. None of them were willing to look past the murkiness of it all to find the real meaning, and so they had simply written it off as something unclean that they no longer wished to deal with.
But I knew the truth, and so did Beringer, and so did Jack. Yet even before the slightness of hopefulness could rise within me, it sank back down to the bottom of my stomach: Jack was gone, and Beringer was dead, and no one would ever believe me.
“Enim?” Karl said, quietly crouching down beside the bed in an attempt to see my turned-away face. “Enim, I know that this is difficult for you. I know that this has been a great ... shock, what with your mother dying and finding out about Jack, and what happened to Dr. Beringer. But I ... I want you to know that we’re going to get help for you. We’re going to fix this.”
I stared at the blank wall across the way unseeingly.
“I don’t need to be fixed.”
“Enim ... you’re ill. You’ve been ill for ... for a very long time.”
I shook my head again, this time with so much force that the contents seemed to rattle within the skull. The words pressed against me from every angle, and the lies dug beneath my skin before I could brush them away. I wasn’t confused, and I wasn’t insane: I was positive. It was the rest of them who were so intent to make me into another version of my mother who were ruining anything and everything that they had never understood about me.
But as I laid there on the cold sheets with the horrible sound of the incessant beeping and the wires running in lattices over my form, something began to trickle down from my certainty. And though I knew that I wasn’t the person who searched the ocean for the answer to an unsolvable puzzle, or who sought something comforting in the depths of an iced-over river, I also knew that there was something odd in the way that no one else knew who Cabail was, or that his name hadn’t appeared in the filing cabinet in Barker’s office, or by the sheer coincidence that he had only ever showed up to tell me as much as I already knew at the precise moment when I needed his help.
But if it was true – and if he wasn’t really real – that didn’t make me insane. Cabail’s existence in my head and lack thereof in the world meant nothing: he was just an extension of myself that I hadn’t been present-enough to see. It was the same as the music that floated to me from afar: it was a way of knowing when the world got too quiet and needed something back that was no longer there. It was a memory that only I could remember and a part of the world that would be lost if I let it go.
I made a sudden movement to get off the bed, but only half
of my body moved: my arms and torso half-flung over the edge of the mattress as my legs remained firmly positioned in their place.
“Enim –”
Karl hurried back to right me before I flopped fully to the floor. Heaving me up, he replaced me gently against the pillows before quickly checking that none of the wires or tubes had been dislodged from my actions.
“Try to stay still, Enim ... You’re already injured enough.”
I stared down at where my legs were lying uselessly beneath a stark-white sheet, and for a terrible moment I thought that the fall had rendered them paralyzed, but a sharp pain went through my chest and prevented me from voicing the fear aloud.
“You’ve suffered a serious fall,” Karl said. “When you fell, the bones in your legs ... shattered. They don’t know the extent of the damage. They’ve been more focused on ... other things. But considering everything, you were extremely lucky. It’s a wonder that you didn’t drown; somehow you were carried back to shore ...”
I reached down to pull the sheet off of my legs so that I could see them properly. They were lying as stilly as ever across the white bedcovering, seemingly undamaged and normal as ever but for the fact that I couldn’t move them. As I stared at them, a sudden wave of anger came over me: first at the ocean for tormenting my mother the way that it had, then at Beringer for doing this to me, and then at Karl for not believing me – for never believing me –
“Enim ...”
“Get out!” I shouted, thrashing at him as he reached out to me. “Get out! Get away from me! Get out!”
“Enim, please calm down – you don’t want them to think –”
“Get out!”
The noise ripped from my throat with such force that I was sure the vocal cords had been shredded to pieces, but it hardly mattered. I would never need to speak again.
Karl stared at me in incomprehension for a moment, slightly shaken from the sudden outburst, but then pulled himself away and retreated to the door. Only the beeping and whirring of machines remained with me in the room.
And it struck me that whether or not what he had said was true didn’t matter. Regardless of whether I had lost touch with reality wouldn’t change the way that they had always looked at me. They would have never believed the story about the local girls or Miss Mercier, or of what Jack and I had been trying to do. They had already convicted each of us to our states and nothing could change their minds.
None Shall Sleep (Damnatio Memoriae Book 1) Page 37