Mr Wicker

by Maria Alexander

  But did he really just want to observe her for professional purposes?

  Come on, James. Are you really attracted to such a broken soul?

  A commotion swelled behind him: voices, clattering of footsteps. He slipped into the observation room, closed the door, and settled into one of the padded folding chairs. Adrenaline flushed his system as the patients filed inside: withering specimens drained of hope, some laughing nervously, shuffling over the spotless white tile as if it were littered with balloons. It was one o’clock in the afternoon. Time to start. Dr. Ellen Gorman entered—a petite woman with short red hair and narrow reading glasses chained to her neck, carrying a clipboard for notes. She glanced back through the open door, checked her watch, and closed the door as everyone took seats in the circle of folding chairs.

  Dr. Farron despaired; Alicia did not show. This meant that either something medically had happened that prevented her from attending (bad) or she was being uncooperative (also bad). He could tell she was very strong-willed, like Gina was. Strong-willed, imaginative, and highly expressive.

  The door cracked open and Alicia appeared in the doorway with a guarded look. Dr. Gorman waved her inside. “Welcome! Have a seat,” she sang with nauseating enthusiasm.

  Alicia wore the lavender sweater over gray sweats and a loose T-shirt. She took a chair to the left of the circle. Dr. Farron could see her facial profile, but another patient partially blocked her body movements. He noted that her hair appeared freshly brushed; that was a good sign. When she’d entered his office earlier in the day, she’d looked like a wild thing with unkempt hair, blue-grey eyes gleaming with pain and suspicion. One of the nurses in ER had dry-washed Alicia’s hair as she slept, but Alicia herself had shown no interest in grooming while under medical observation. That was normal. She now smoothed down the sweater sleeves as if to hide the white bandages on her wrists that protected her sutures. She had undoubtedly learned the humiliating routine of going to the nurses’ station to ask for her clothing.

  “Hi everyone. I’m Dr. Gorman. And I want to thank everyone for participating in this session. I think you’ll find that, as you talk about what’s happened in your lives, you have a lot in common. Maybe not with everybody, but sometimes knowing you’re not alone and hearing that others have similar experiences to yours is very healing in itself. That way, you won’t feel so isolated, which is where a lot of problems begin.” She paused, gauging her patients’ reactions. “And, please, as we talk, let’s be courteous to others and not address what another person says. That’s called crosstalk. Okay?” Several people nodded. “Let’s start by talking about loss. Is there something you’ve lost in your life recently?”

  A slight man in his sixties with a silver shimmer of jaw stubble spoke of losing friends in Vietnam and, a few months ago, losing his thirty-six-year-old son to a car accident. A young Hispanic woman in her early twenties described a loss of self-respect and family when her affair with her sister’s husband was uncovered. Dr. Farron watched Alicia’s face as she listened. She tended to look down at the floor with consternation, her mind working on an unseen puzzle as her toes wriggled in scarlet slippers. She looked weary. She probably didn’t sleep well in the medical unit; it wouldn’t be any better here. Watching these wounded, lethargic adults reminded him of why he had chosen to work with children in the first place. Children were a joy to watch unfold no matter how badly hurt they were. They still had a chance to build a life of happiness and wholeness. And, for a short while, they would shine with innocence that gave adults hope. As he had experienced with Jesse’s mother, the adults were often the difficult ones to deal with, not the kids.

  Mockery and boredom danced a sluggish tango in Alicia’s expression as an overweight man named Charles described how he didn’t belong in that room, that it was his wife—the bitch—who belonged in the “nut house.” All he had ever wanted to do was to play his online computer game. She would not shut the fuck up about his games and how he never spent time with their kid. Shit, man, he’d forgive her if she ever got back in the sack, but she never wanted sex.

  Dr. Gorman interrupted him. “So, what I’m hearing is that you’ve lost your wife’s affections?”

  “Yeah,” he said at last. “I guess so.”

  Dr. Gorman lifted an eyebrow and looked around the room. She turned to Alicia.

  “Alicia, is there something you’d like to share? Would you like to tell us about something you’ve lost?”

  Alicia’s lips parted—Dr. Farron inhaled and held his breath—but before she could speak, Charles spoke up.

  “Fuck me! You’re Alicia Baum!” he laughed, pleased with himself for his discovery. He leaned forward with a sneer. “Or is that bomb—B-O-M-B? Heh heh. I want my money back for that last book. Hoo-weee!” he said, pinching his nose.

  Pele awoke.

  With a screech of the chair legs scraping the tile, Alicia stood. Dr. Gorman started to lift a hand of caution as the angry woman walked around behind her chair. Now Dr. Farron could see her body as rage lathered her skin, scouring her cheeks scarlet. Her mouth held hard, she placed a hand on the back of the chair and looked around the room at each patient.

  Hold on. He’s just baiting you to feel better about himself.

  Alicia then spoke with a controlled hostility that any Cold War leader would have envied. “I have lost a great deal. It’s not what I have lost, however, but rather what I wish to lose—and that would be this obese fuckhole—”

  Dr. Gorman raised a hand: “Alicia!”

  “—who is so fucking stupid, he couldn’t kill himself in a firing squad!” She shoved the chair at him. It spun into the circle, narrowly missing Charles’s feet. “ANY LAST REQUESTS, YOU PORCINE PRICK?”

  Dr. Farron leapt from his chair, but he couldn’t leave. She would feel betrayed if she knew he was watching her in secret.

  Dr. Gorman stood, voice even. “Calm down now or you’ll be restrained.” She leveled Dr. Farron a look through the one-way mirror.

  Alicia streaked out of the room. Dr. Farron burst out of the observation room after her, dodging the chaos that ensued. In the hallway, he watched her disappear down the long corridor, past the nurses’ station. A housekeeper, overburdened with a mobile laundry hamper, lingered at the threshold of the open white door with the glass window, security card in hand. She gawked at Alicia.

  “It’s okay!” he called to the housekeeper. He put out a hand to the orderlies chasing after him.

  Alicia blanched at the sight of him, but then hardened her look. As Dr. Farron followed her to the elevator and stepped inside, Dr. Gorman came after him. He indicated everything was under control. The doors closed. Dr. Farron slid his card in the security latch and pressed the number to the children’s ward.

  “Wanna talk?” he said, leaning against the elevator wall. He reached into his pocket and pulled out some gum. He offered it to her. She gritted her teeth as she stared ahead. He sighed, slipping a piece in his mouth, and kept his eyes fixed on the elevator doors. In his peripheral vision, he noticed her watching him. He smiled despite himself.

  “What are you smiling about?” she asked.

  He just shook his head and let his smile grow bigger. There was something about her that made him feel like his heart was bouncing on a pogo stick. When the doors opened, she plowed out into the hallway as if escaping the plague. Dr. Farron followed Alicia, BlackBerry vibrating on his belt. He didn’t dare take his eyes off her as she strode purposefully down a corridor into the ward where they brought children after ICU. He worried that she would see something too intense for her present state. Then again, perhaps she’d see something that would change her life.

  Chapter 8

  Huginn longed for Asgard. There, the sun shone eternally and she could soar above Valhalla itself. In the hall, she enjoyed the smell of blood when warriors arrived after dying in battle.

  But no longer. When the other gods had abandoned Mr. Wicker, Odin pitied the librarian, giving Huginn and Muninn to him des
pite their cries. They hated their singed master, and keened so fiercely for Odin that they did not recover their voices for a generation.

  Hundreds of years have passed since then. While she no longer hated Mr. Wicker, Huginn despised the shadowy repository with its blazing candles that threatened her wings. And she was beyond weary of the nasty-tempered ravens made by her master’s foul magic. Although many of its visitors had died violently, the pain and suffering that entered the Library was not nearly as satisfying as battle blood.

  She yearned for it.

  She soared down the tunnel through the mists, wings dusted by the cosmos, until she found the glimmer of light that waxed to bursting and she dove in. The winds of the cosmos blinded her as they carried her into the mortal world. She emerged in an explosion of sparks somewhere above a large building. Invalids made their way through the front doors as shrieking red animals fled into an underground cave. Huginn reveled in the freedom, stretching her wings further as she glided under the delicious warmth of the earthly sun. Oh, to live! The flood of sensations! The fragrance of prey and tree pulp, spoiled only by the stink of humanity.

  Find Alicia.

  War drums rumbled in Huginn’s chest as she was drawn to the white building. A noisy murder of crows jockeyed for the morsels that people dropped as they ate in the adjacent park. The crows bawled at her to mark their territory, but Huginn ignored them as she veered toward the glass. Perhaps she would find Alicia dead. Then she could perhaps savor a juicy morsel of flesh. It had been forever since Huginn had tasted that sort of earthly delicacy—the thing these beasts took for granted. Like her master, she never needed to eat due to her divinity, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the pleasures of the world when offered.

  A crow dove at her, beak open, talons raking her wing. Surprised and hot with anger, Huginn swept away but not far enough before she found herself in a raging storm of dive-bombing crows. Huginn felt the sting of her feathers being ripped from her body. The blackened cloud of wings hovered between her and that sprawling, guarded place where Alicia was. If she hadn’t been compelled to follow her master’s orders, she would soar up into the sun as far away as she could, enjoying the warmth on her back and the air in her lungs. But she couldn’t veer from her order and the malicious crows doubled their fury, swarming in a dense cloud around her.

  The pain ricocheted in her head and the sun dimmed. She would have to do something to preserve herself. Something unlawful.

  The raven pulled her wings against her body and soared just above the murder. Drawing on her divinity, she focused until she found deep within her heart the thunderous voice of Odin, the strike of his hammer and the wailing of dying warriors. She then unleashed a cry that pierced the sky. A thousand needles of lightning scrawled from her mouth and through the air, striking each crow around her, felling them to the grasses below. In the shower of black corpses, humans pointed. Humans screamed. Humans ran.

  But Huginn paid the carnage no mind. She collected herself and let her quest draw her toward the white towers. Toward the middle floors where both life and mind hung in the balance.

  Toward Alicia Baum.

  Chapter 9

  Alicia’s head pounded like a timpani as she passed each room in the hospital corridor. The maze of doorways and hallways swallowed her and she could not navigate quickly enough to escape Dr. Farron. Of course, this was his terrain. He knew it better than anyone. Jerk. What the hell was he doing? Was he just going to stalk her until she told him everything she knew about Mr. Wicker?

  The stitches itched like crazy and the bland breakfast left her queasy. Alicia grew angrier as she walked, folding her arms in a protective sulk as she obsessed over the group therapy session. As a midlist author, she’d been nice to everyone. She’d stayed late at book signings to make sure everyone got a signed book. She’d answered fan mail. She’d been attentive to her fans at conventions, drinking with them, going to parties. She’d tried not to ever show any annoyance with them, letting her assistant or agent be the bad guy when she needed to say no to invitations and the like. At her core, she’d loved people, was grateful for her readers, and hated saying no to anything.

  Now? Not so much. In fact, she hated everybody. And everything. She admitted to herself that maybe her reaction had been a bit over the top, but it was because for the first time in ages she’d let her anger turn from herself and God out to the world. The infinite damned world not only didn’t give a shit about her, but it bred fuckholes like that guy back there. She hated everything with the burning of a thousand suns. Maybe even a thousand, thousand suns. Of course, the guy didn’t know she’d been suffering horrific depression when she wrote that book, that she’d been contractually obligated to finish it, and that the publisher nearly didn’t let sunlight touch the pages. He didn’t know that, nor would he care. And that’s why Alicia hated him.

  Rurr-rurr-rurr.

  A clattering and loud voices overtook the hallway behind her just over the rurring of heavy rubber wheels. She glanced back for the first time since she’d tried to ditch Dr. Farron and moved against the wall to allow a team of nurses to wheel a gurney past her. On the gurney slept a child, her head partially shaved and sutured. Her nostrils were caked with blood, lips cracked, face bruised, and long black eyelashes crusted with sleep. Something about the shattered innocence left Alicia standing there holding a monstrous bag of humility. They wheeled the child into a room just beyond. Alicia waited in the hallway as they worked. Eventually they cleared out, leaving an R.N. to take care of the last bits of business.

  Cautiously, Alicia approached the room and peeked inside at the busy nurse who tucked and fluffed to ensure the child was as comfortable as possible. The nurse was short and lithe, light brown hair cropped above her ears. Her eyes brightened as she glanced toward the doorway. “Good afternoon, Doctor. How are you today?”

  Alicia started, alarmed that she had not detected anyone behind her. It was Dr. Farron to whom the nurse spoke. And Alicia sensed more than professional courtesy in the woman’s voice. Oh, this guy must totally clean up around here. A not-bad-looking dude who works with children. He must draw women in sticky swarms. Another reason not to trust him. Alicia hung out of sight in the hallway, pretending not to listen.

  “I’m fine, thank you.” A lackluster response with a polite smile. Not what Alicia had expected. Odd. “What’s her story?” Dr. Farron asked, reading the chart.

  They then exchanged unintelligible medical phrases.

  He motioned toward the wall bracket. “May I?”

  The nurse said, “Oh! You want to put up one of your recorders? Sure!” She then left the room but leaned back in. “Maybe we’ll see you Saturday night at Bill’s thing?”

  “Maybe,” he replied.

  The nurse left, hustling down the hallway. Alicia entered. Dr. Farron’s face softened when he saw her. “Are you all right? How do you feel?”

  Alicia folded her arms again in a defensive posture. “I feel perfectly loony, thanks.”

  “Loony, huh?” Unfazed, he continued reading whatever was scribbled in doctor talk in the chart pages. “I’d say that was a pretty normal reaction. You’re a bit raw, understandably.” Alicia watched him suspiciously at first, but could no longer harbor negative thoughts about him as his eyes flitted compassionately between the child and the chart. He then placed it on the bed and withdrew a hand-held tape recorder from the pocket of his doctor’s smock.

  Curious, Alicia poked her head out of her rabbit hole of self-involvement. She padded over to the bed as Dr. Farron fingered a metal bracket that had been fastened to the wall over the bed, checking it for loose screws. The smell of antiseptic and thrush overwhelmed her as she suddenly realized she had never been in the hospital room of someone who was severely injured. She rounded the bedside opposite Dr. Farron.

  “What’s her name?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t tell you anything. It would be a HIPAA violation.”

  “Is she going to be okay?�
��

  “Time will tell,” he said, although he did not look remotely hopeful.

  The little girl’s injuries seemed significant. Black sutures like spiky caterpillars were stitched on the scalp above her ear. An I.V. fed her uninjured arm as she slept, while another tube snaked up into her nose. She was breathing on her own, at least. Her long dark lashes were as lush as what remained of her hair. A thread of maternal instinct wormed its way into Alicia’s heart.

  Dr. Farron placed the tape recorder into the wall bracket. It fit perfectly, with the “REC” and “Play” buttons facing up. “It’s highly unlikely that she’ll talk. But just in case.”

  “What’s it for?” she asked.

  “It’s a voice-activated tape recorder. I turn them on at night,” he said.

  Overcome by a sense of protectiveness, Alicia reached out and took the child’s fever-warm hand. The child’s hand muscles immediately responded, gripping her fingers harder. Alicia inhaled sharply. “I thought she was unconscious.”

  “She is,” Dr. Farron said. “It’s just a reflex.”

  “Do you always do this?” She indicated the recorder.

  “I try. I don’t want to miss what they say,” he answered.

  “Does it work?”

  “Not often enough.”

  As the fog of her own anger and embarrassment burned away, Alicia could now see the immense load this man was carrying. She felt sorry for him. She’d been swimming in self-absorption for so long, this felt like a new shore. As Alicia paused for the right words, the child stirred with a moan. Then, in a whisper:

  “Mr. Wicker, who’s Alicia?”

  Dr. Farron’s eyes widened as Alicia’s heart did an Irish dance. She was certain they had not mentioned each other’s names. This little girl must be in the Library! She must be speaking to him. Alicia wasn’t quite ready to have her dream step into this world so concretely, but it thrilled her that she was not crazy after all. Or maybe she was extremely crazy and this was a hallucination, but she doubted that.