Mr Wicker

by Maria Alexander

  Even as a child, he’d excelled at obsession. Tonight he rehearsed this life skill by ruminating over the conversation with Alicia. What the hell? She knew who that was. Why wouldn’t she tell him? This whole goddamned adventure was trying him on every level. He would have to commit countless acts of onanism in her name to escape the deadly undertow of attraction to her, just as he did today when he returned to the office.

  As the runt of the family, he’d spent his childhood in books and sketchpads in the lengthy shadow of two older sisters—Amelia and Simone—who’d toured Europe by puberty as violin prodigies. The benefit was that he understood women better than most of his friends by the time he hit high school. The detriment? He might as well have been a haunt in the hallways. Despite his prodigious talents with ink and charcoal, as well as his relentless intellect, he never had the courage to pursue any of his female interests. A string of crushes kept him inspired but lonely throughout the early years as he trailed his sisters’ reputations. Teachers compared his serious and sensitive nature to his sisters’ unfavorably, even though the eldest was obsessive-compulsive and could not suffer anyone to crease a sheet of her music without throwing a tantrum. She subsequently memorized her music, including huge volumes of Paganini, memorializing herself with teachers and students alike. At the arts magnet school they attended, his four-point-five GPA meant nothing to anyone.

  Then something changed his senior year. A scholarship. To Cal State Berkeley.

  He packed up and left his stunned parents in Sacramento, the quiet capital of California. The day before he drove away from the house, his mother had taken him by the shoulders and exclaimed “You’re leaving!” as if he had just announced his departure. What she’d really meant was: you’re leaving me. He had always been her Rock of Gibraltar in the ocean of neurotic talent and marital discord.

  “I’ll just be two hours away, Mom. Don’t worry.” The truth was, she never did worry. Not about him, anyway. He kissed her, hugged his tall, withdrawn father, and climbed into the car with the secrets of his father’s debts, his mother’s resentment, and a thousand bruises in his ears from his sisters’ neurotic banter.

  In college, James Farron felt like an old soul in the midst of reckless freedom seekers, annoyed by the raucous parties and vapid conversations of his peers. He despised his dreadlocked dorm mate who donned a halo of pot smoke at breakfast and belched fine clouds of beer foam at night. He’d done the drinking thing in the middle of high school while his parents obsessed over his sisters’ graduations and college admissions. It seemed childish to immerse oneself in it now, when one had to pay to be here. How stupid was that? Eventually he befriended the same kind of crowd he ultimately did in high school—the hyper-intellectual social outcasts. Not hard to find at Cal.

  But when he started dating a redheaded rocket scientist with an Irish Catholic family, he not only rediscovered his roots but found that he loved the hoards of wee ones that drooled and wiggled around the grandparents’ house during the holidays. In the endless hours of cartoons, play, crying, Cheetos, nap, rinse, repeat, he found the childhood he’d lost when managing the demanding emotions of his crazy but brilliant older sisters. Although he and the redhead broke up after two years, he was already diving into psychology books to understand the children. Child Psychology shouldered its way into a double major, as he was unwilling to give up his art. After graduation, he nearly killed himself and his social life getting through medical school.

  He was still doing his supervised training when he met Gina, the woman he would marry. And with her he’d have the only supernatural experience he could ever recall—if that was what it was.

  On a trip to Chicago for his friend Albert’s wedding, he and several of the guys were celebrating at the Red Lion Pub. That’s when he met the strawberry blond with marcasite eyes, apple red lips, and a mischievous look that reminded him of Maleficent, the bad fairy in Sleeping Beauty. She smelled like a field of orange blossoms. A very talented pianist, she had just recorded her first album of original jazz and mood pieces. She was to perform the next night at Blues, “the best blues bar in town,” where Rosey the bartender would pour her free shots of Tennessee bourbon.

  Thoroughly smashed, they entangled themselves for quite some time in one corner of the murky Red Lion. The low ceilings descended on the patrons’ heads like the hands of a father blessing their debauchery. On every wall was a London Underground poster or an RAF aircraft—the British Empire proudly planted a single flag in the midst of Lincoln Avenue.

  She grabbed his hand. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  James dove in for a kiss. “Why?” His hand slid down under her soft round ass. She wore lambskin leather and a tight t-shirt torn across the cleavage. A large safety pin held the gaping hole somewhat closed just above the words “Fuck Fashion.”

  “Why? Because we’re not supposed to, that’s why.”

  “Do you often do things you’re not supposed to do?”

  “Whenever I can.” She kissed him, her breath sweetened with raspberry Stoli. She then pulled back, her eyes indicating the darkened staircase on the other side of the English phone booth. She watched the bar for a moment until Mike the talkative bartender had turned his back to continue another patron discussion.

  “Go!”

  They scurried to the staircase.

  A wave of insobriety crashed against his legs when they reached the top, and he reached for the wall to steady himself. Gina seemed to know where she was going and crested the stairwell, landing beside a murky bar. She strode past and flipped on a light in a room far to the right, past where the bar ended. Somewhere a door was open to the outside, and those infamous winds flung a frosty hatchet across the room, slicing through his sweater. Putting a hand on the slick wooden bar, James willed his eyes to sculpt some sense from the darkness. A number of black and unshaped things defied definition. The far left end of the room appeared to be a balcony closed off by a sliding glass door. Moonlight cast an almost imperceptible haze over a corner booth and an empty music stand. Gina leaned from the room.

  “Bathroom! I’ll be right out!”

  The bathroom door swung shut with a metallic complaint, leaving James in the dark—and cold—once more.

  From inside the bathroom, Gina continued to comment. “Ugh! Smells like cheap lavender perfume!”

  He found a stool beneath the bar beside him and sat down. The hands of Padre Patron warmed his cheeks, but the heavy dew of insobriety was rapidly evaporating from his brow.

  James.

  He did not recognize the slight voice. Maybe one of his buddies was calling him from downstairs? It reminded him of stirring the ashes in the fireplace. And how the hell did that girl find the bathroom in the dark? His night vision had always been poor, but damn! He pulled the stool out farther to get a better seat.

  Jaaaaamesssss.

  Something stood up just beyond the lunar haze to the right.

  Every vein in his flesh tried to uproot itself and flee downstairs, but he couldn’t move. He stopped breathing, clutching the bar top. A child’s hand raised in the moonlight, wriggling fingers that barely brushed the faded luminance.

  THUMP!

  The sound knocked James off his stool. His hands flailed for the bar and missed. The child thing lowered its hand and pointed at him.

  THUMP! THUMP!

  “James!” Gina cried. “The door is stuck!”

  Stumbling, he found himself turned backward. He lunged for the wall to his left, hands searching desperately for a light switch. He dove for the other side of the doorway. He was rewarded. A hanging light bulb flared in the center of the room.

  Frozen again, James watched the empty room carefully for signs of life. Nothing but empty tables scattered the space. Cherry wood booths lined the left wall. The balcony’s bare trellis was planted against the far wall, past the closed glass doors.

  There were no open windows. Or doors. The room was warm.

  Gina continued to beat on the bathroom door.


  “Coming! I had to find a light!” he called. He approached the ladies’ room door and yanked hard before the door came loose. The bathroom gasped with a ghastly cloud of flowery perfume when it released Gina. By then, Mike the bartender was banging his way up the staircase.

  “Hey! What are you doing up here?” he bellowed.

  “Nothing!” James returned, indicating the bathroom. “The door was stuck.”

  “Aaaahh, so you got trapped by Sharon,” he said. “You’re lucky you got out at all, the way she’s been acting lately.”

  “Who’s Sharon?” Gina asked as they followed him to the stairway.

  “A retarded girl who used to live here,” he replied.

  “I didn’t see anyone,” Gina replied.

  “Well, that’s good,” Mike said, shutting off the light. “Because she’s dead.”

  She’s dead.

  Chapter 22

  Alicia lay in bed with nothing but a thin blanket to hide the rebellion fomenting in her belly. Hypervigilant, she monitored every sound in the ward as she awaited the changing of the guard at eleven p.m. Before she left, Rachelle shuffled toward her room and looked in on her. Alicia feigned sleep. It was a trick she’d learned when she was a teen, how to imitate the subtle rhythms of unconscious breathing in order to fool her grandmother so that she could sneak out. She’d fooled her boyfriends and ex-husband many times into thinking she was asleep when she didn’t want them to think she had been up waiting for them. Hell no! Those bastards would never have the benefit of believing she worried about their absence. If they were so oblivious as to stay out late and not call, they didn’t deserve to know it upset her. She was especially pleased with the notion when she walked out on them. She woke up one of them mid snore to say goodbye specifically because she knew he would hate it.

  Rachelle shifted in place, and then turned to leave. “Sleep well, Angel,” she said out loud. Alicia opened one eye. Rachelle winked, hefted her workbag over a stiff shoulder, and left Alicia to the glaring light and her dastardly plans.

  She would escape this damned place. Even if she had to wander like a homeless person, she would get herself out. Maybe hitch a ride. Rachelle let her call her grandmother twice this afternoon, but her cell phone had been turned off and the voicemail box was full. Thoroughly bizarre.

  “Rachelle, what’s happened to my grandma?” Alicia had asked. “I thought she was going to visit me.”

  “Dunno, Angel. Maybe she got some business to take care of. Or maybe she went home. Don’t you have anyone else?”

  Alicia shook her head. No one else she wanted to call, anyway. She hated admitting she needed help. How could she start now?

  Goodnights and farewells were exchanged at the nurses’ station down the hall. Rachelle mentioned nothing about her being awake to Brian, the wannabe Jock Doc. He was alone tonight with just Dean the orderly, as they were short-handed once again. Three new patients arrived today: two more suicide attempts in worse medical shape than Alicia had been, as well as a woman who’d smoked pot until she turned herself schizophrenic. (That’s what Dean said, anyway.) She had hovered in the hallways earlier that day, moving her hands around as if washing invisible windows. Brian would be making the rounds again shortly to the suicide watch with his Jedi Maglite. Alicia didn’t have the reason or presence of mind to observe the timing of his rounds the previous night. She would just have to hope that her chance would come.

  Voices down the hallway. A muffled discussion that might have been a bit heated. Footsteps going away toward the activity center. A door in the distance opened and shut with a delayed bang.

  Another half-hour passed before Brian’s high-tech high-tops squeak-squeaked in the hallway as they approached her room. Strange. He was never alone. The doorframe creaked as he laid a hand on it and leaned inward. Alicia’s arm lay over the blanket top, the hospital gown covering her shoulder. Underneath she still wore the T-shirt from earlier that day with the yoga sweats. Icy clots of excitement pumped through her chest and arms as she tried to calm herself; it nearly wrecked her pretenses of sleeping as Brian stepped into the room. He stood there for a while, his presence radiating toward her with sweat and blood. Then it occurred to her that he could do anything he wanted to her. She was in a locked ward with a nurse who had shoulders like a quarterback and hands like a sawhorse vice. Sure, there was a technician, but where was he? What did Brian say to him?

  He placed the flashlight on her nightstand. A scream crouched in the back of her throat like a runner waiting for the pistol shot. His clothing rustled ominously. Ropes of muscle in her already tense neck and arms tightened as she waited for him to move closer. More rustling, clicking...a strange squish. Then, the rustling stopped and he sighed with a low moan. For several moments, his breathing thickened and rough stroking movements accelerated steadily. She knew this sound from mornings when Eric thought she was sleeping. For months before he finally left, he flaunted his lack of interest in her. She punched him in the kidney under the covers one morning when she caught him doing it, and after that he must have taken his morning release into the shower. But now Alicia worried that this man was merely getting hard before he tore back the bedclothes and raped her. She would give this asshole the fight of his life.

  A guttural gasping flapped in his sinuses as he came. Much to Alicia’s relief he plucked some tissues from the box next to her bed. There was more rustling as his breathing thinned and he sniffed hard. When he finally trundled out of the room and down the hallway, Alicia wanted to fall apart right there, to sink into the very springs of the bed, piece by piece, and soak it with her bile. She wanted to be nothing at all.

  Then, she heard a door open in the distance. Water running.

  GO!

  She heaved every bit of herself from the mattress and slipped from the bed sheets, the cool air of the hospital hallway stinging her eyes. The staff restroom stood between her room and the nurses’ station. Unconvinced that she could make it to the egregiously slow elevator before Brian finished washing his hands, she raced past him to another patient’s room. It was dark except for the nightlight. He wasn’t due back for at least another ten minutes, which meant she could hide here for a few. Plus, the obese woman who slept here snored aplenty, hiding Alicia’s nervous breathing. The only danger was if the orderly returned. Alicia pressed her back to the wall on the same side as the doorway opening, sliding as far as she could into the darkness. The round white clock hanging on the opposite wall read just after midnight.

  When the water stopped running, the restroom door shussed open and Alicia held her breath. He lingered at the nurses’ station for another epoch, pawing through meds and paperwork. To her complete humiliation, she realized he was whistling the old J. Geils Band song, Angel is a Centerfold. She balled her fists and swore she’d strangle him for terrorizing her if she got half the chance. Another five minutes passed as he whistled to himself.

  Leave, you stupid bastard! Goddammit! Leave!

  Brian walked away from the nurses’ station, down the hallway to the men’s beds with his flashlight. She held her breath again as he passed her room, listening for any signs that he noticed her vacancy. Alicia had not secured the bed sheets in any way so that the bed would look occupied. Silently she condemned her lack of presence of mind and felt the stab of panic until he moved past her room. Now, she just had to wait for her break—

  “A LIGHT TO THE GENTILES!”

  I love you, Jesus! Or, rather, Mr. Stern.

  “COME TO ME, BRETHREN! TOUCH MY HEM AND BE HEALED!”

  Alicia wrenched herself from hiding and fled to the white door. She kicked off the slipper to retrieve the sweaty card. Clenching her teeth against the pain, she swiped the card and grabbed the knob. But as she labored to twist it open, a pixie voice whispered behind her:

  “Alicia?”

  Alicia froze, turning to face Geri who stood in the hallway, watching the escape in progress with her doe eyes. Placing a finger to her lips, Alicia threw Geri
a beseeching look.

  Geri’s eyes misted with what appeared to be disappointment.

  Footsteps coming. Brian. Geri turned to face the sound. The young woman seemed torn between Alicia and Brian for a beat. She then ran down the hallway toward him.

  “Brian! Brian!” she cried.

  Alicia died inside.

  “My roommate is peeing the floor! Please stop her!” Geri yelled, glancing back at Alicia as she rounded the corner.

  “What the hell are you doing out of bed?” he bellowed.

  And that was the last thing Alicia heard.

  She bore down on the door and slipped in front of the elevator doors, punching the down button repeatedly until the metallic slats lumbered open. Ducking inside, she swiped the card and tapped the Lobby button. The hospital gown dropped to the corner of the elevator.

  But the elevator was going up.

  Chapter 23

  “In a time and out of time, in time the ink shall sing.”

  Mr. Wicker stood before the arching lavender window, arms spread wide. The Library sat under the hand of darkness, all candles extinguished save the candelabra he held. On one shoulder sat Munnin.

  “Blood and trust, they turn to dust, each secret that they bring.”

  A swarm of black feathers drifted over book stacks east, west, north, south, as ravens landed on tables, shelves, gargoyle fixtures. Solemnly Mr. Wicker watched the smoke swirl outside the glass as the ravens huddled, clawing nervously at their perches. Sea green eyes narrowed to lucent slits.

  And he sang.

  “Brooders weep and brooders keep their misery at hand.”

  Flames swelled ominously behind the rattling glass of the arching window. Mr. Wicker turned his back to the window and brought the candelabra to his lips.

  “Let Mr. Wicker wash your sicker memories with sand.”

  He blew out the candle flames.

  Like a cannon’s blast, the window exploded with blazing bits of glass. Mr. Wicker felt the heat at his back from the eruption. This inferno could not dissolve him. Besides, this was no mundane conflagration. A thousand grains of molten light inundated a wall between two prominent book stacks, obliterating the iron gargoyle sconce that scowled betwixt.