The Shadow Bird

by Ann Gosslin

  ‘Is there something wrong? You’re terribly pale.’ Mrs Deptford peered at her with concern.

  ‘No, I’m all right. Thank you.’ Erin passed her hand over her eyes. Her knees had turned to jelly. ‘Just a bit tired, is all.’ She tucked the envelope into her bag and hurried through the door.

  Outside in the freezing air, she shuffled along the icy path to the entrance of her flat, fighting to keep her unease from ballooning into panic. Had she given Julian her home address? Anyone in London? She didn’t think so. But you could find everything on the internet these days. Privacy was a thing of the past, all boundaries dissolved. Like living in a fish bowl. Or, worse, a bell jar, gasping for air.

  As soon as she entered the flat, Erin hurried to close the curtains, shutting out the darkness and the vacant windows across the street. Her mind somersaulted as she switched on the lights. Who would send her something? After she’d fled America, her few contacts had dwindled, fading to nothing as the years went on. Even her dear friend Hannah didn’t have her home address. They kept in touch by email.

  She sloshed wine into a glass and drank it down before retrieving the blue envelope from her bag. The handwriting on the front gave nothing away. Block letters, black biro. She tore open the envelope and pulled out the card. A cartoon drawing of a cake decorated with burning candles. Chunky gold letters spelled out Happy Birthday. Birthday? Her knees gave out and she sank to the floor. Her birthday was a week ago. A day she always allowed to pass without notice.

  She picked up the card and flipped it over. But there was no note, no signature. The thought that her presence back in the country had been discovered made her feel ill.

  Working fast, she stuffed newspaper into the fireplace and struck a match. As the flames leapt higher, she tossed in the card and watched it burn. Greedy for fuel, the fire roared, and in seconds the card was reduced to ash.

  Go back to your room!

  That voice, long quiescent, hissed in her ear.

  12

  Belle River, Maine

  May 1977

  He squints into the sky above the treeline, wishing he’d worn his baseball cap to shade his eyes from the sun. But Jeremy says it makes him look like a dork.

  Clouds of golden dust from the trees billow in the air. He sneezes and rubs his eyes. On the playing field, the girls flash and shimmer like a flock of jays, scrambling after a little white ball, their striped skirts swishing around their thighs. When the team captain thwacks the ball into the opponent’s net, it sets off a frenzy of jumping and screaming. Way to go, Jilly! High five over here.

  He hates sports. Wouldn’t have cut his last class and be out here at all if it wasn’t for Angela, the new girl in his American History class. Dark eyes and dimples. Hair that smells like raspberries. He hasn’t pictured her as one of the girl jocks, but there she is, gliding and swerving with the rest of them. He used to snooze through Mr Vinelli’s class, lulled by the teacher’s droning voice, but with Angela six feet away, his nerves are fired up for the full fifty minutes, a chorus line of dancing bees. Heart beating out of his chest, ba-boom, like a cartoon character, the second she walks in the room.

  If he could just work up the courage to talk to her. School’s out in two weeks, so he doesn’t have much time to get her attention.

  Fat chance. His father’s voice booms in his ears.

  But he’s not a loser. Just last week he won second prize for a sketch of a great blue heron he drew for art class. Not that his father would ever see it. Or care.

  The light shifts and he turns his head. Three guys are ambling across the open field, heading towards the woods, probably to smoke weed or smirk at porn mags.

  ‘Hey, pervert. I’m talking to you. Watchya doing, getting an eyeful? Scat, scram.’

  The tallest of the three boys, that idiot from out of town with the wavy blond hair, curls his lip. ‘You guys smell that?’

  His two lackeys, Fat and Slim, smirk and bob their heads like puppets. The skinny boy from biology class, in frayed jeans and a lime-green polyester shirt, theatrically holds his nose. ‘You stink.’

  ‘Get along little doggie.’ The blond guy takes a step towards him, his hands curled into fists. ‘You’re stinking up our air.’

  He shoves his hands in his pockets and slinks away, ashamed of his cowardice, but what can he do? One wrong move and those three will beat the crap out of him.

  He sneaks a last look at the girls on the field. Angela stands apart from her teammates, her eye on the three boys hanging on the metal fence. They make a big show of lighting their cigarettes. Too cool for school. He can see the blush rise to her hairline. She giggles and scurries back to her friends.

  A hard knot calcifies in his ribcage. If Mister Golden Hair has his sights on Angela, there’s no hope for him. A pain stabs his left eye and the world shimmers. He squeezes his head between his palms, riding a wave of nausea before it rights itself again.

  When he looks up, Angela is smiling at him. But before he can smile back, she flits away in a flash of green to join the other girls, a shimmer of hummingbirds in the golden light.

  13

  Greenlake Psychiatric Facility

  Atherton, New York

  March, Present Day

  Seated near the window in the dayroom, his shoulders hunched protectively over his Sudoku, Tim chewed on a pencil stub as he drummed his fingers on the table. A skeletal man with a shaved head stood like a sentinel in the back corner, his arms flung out, dark eyes fixed on the water stains on the ceiling.

  A male attendant with a pockmarked face strolled over to the table, repeating himself twice before Tim closed his book and reluctantly stood. In response to Erin’s greeting, he mumbled something indistinct and turned away. Wearing the stained green sweatshirt and baggy jeans from the week before, his unfortunate aroma reminded her of an overripe Camembert.

  They followed the attendant, single file, down the corridor to the visitors’ room, with its tube lighting and smeary window. Tim dropped heavily into the chair and stared at his shoes. A carbon copy of their first visit, though he seemed more withdrawn this time, less willing to engage. Had something happened since their last meeting?

  ‘So, Tim. How are you today?’

  ‘My name’s Timothy.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She tried again. ‘Timothy. Did you sleep well?’

  Collapsed inside his body, Tim was a picture of dejection. He stared at the wall behind her, his mood even flatter than last week. Was it a side effect of his meds? A poor night’s sleep? Or had his personality been erased by years of living in what amounted to a rat cage. He was a cipher. Anything was possible.

  ‘Can you tell me how your thoughts are this morning?’

  His chin lifted a fraction of an inch. ‘Thoughts?’ He patted the side of his head. ‘You mean in here?’

  ‘Yes, in your head. Are they quiet, or do you have racing thoughts?’

  ‘Racing? Like cars?’ She nodded. ‘They don’t race like cars.’

  ‘Have you been hearing voices since we last met?’

  He stood and moved to the window, pressing his hands against the glass.

  Outside, a flock of starlings squabbled on the frozen ground. Tim tapped the window as if trying to get their attention.

  Erin removed the workbook for the MMPI-2 from her bag. The standard amongst personality assessments, this would be her first formal evaluation of Tim’s mental state.

  ‘Okay, Timothy.’ Perched on the edge of the straight-backed chair, she balanced a clipboard on her lap. ‘We’re going to play a kind of game, now. I’ll say a series of statements out loud, and for each statement, you’ll answer true or false. For example, if I say the sky is blue, you’ll say…’

  He peered through the window. ‘False.’

  The sky was indeed a sullen grey. Bad example. ‘Excellent.’ She smiled. ‘Just like that. If you feel tired, or need a break, just let me know and we’ll stop. Okay?’

  With more than five hundred items,
the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory could take up to four hours to complete. Her plan was to administer the assessment over the course of two days, in four short sessions, with a break in between.

  She asked Tim to take a seat, noted the time and launched into it. He was surprisingly cooperative, and she marked his answers as they progressed. Twice before, he’d undergone an earlier version of the same assessment. The first time, soon after his arrest, and the second, five years later. It would be interesting to compare his score with the previous results. As she worked her way through the items, she spoke in a neutral voice, and kept her face as expressionless as possible, so as not to bias the result.

  ‘Most people are liars.’

  He shifted in the chair. ‘True.’

  ‘Sometimes the top of your skull feels painful.’

  A shuffling of feet. ‘True.’

  ‘All food tastes the same.’

  ‘True. No, false. True.’

  ‘Your sleep is fitful and disturbed.’

  His eyes flicked about the room. ‘I don’t know. Sometimes.’

  The five hundred items and ten different scales were designed to prevent faking. Deliberately false answers would show up like red poppies on a field of green. And a whole section was dedicated to teasing out psychopathic traits. Any time Tim hesitated or changed his answer, she made a note.

  After he completed a hundred and twenty-five items, Erin marked the time and closed the booklet. ‘Great work, Timothy. We’re done for now. Would you like a glass of water?’

  He held his watch, a chunky octagon of cheap plastic, close to his face. ‘It’s almost time for lunch. Nineteen minutes.’

  She studied his face. ‘Did Dr Harrison mention that I’m taking you out for lunch today?

  Tim’s head jerked up. His hands twitched. ‘You mean, go outside?’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t he tell you?’ That was odd. How could Harrison have forgotten? Though it might be deliberate, to see how Tim would manage outside Greenlake’s walls without mentally preparing beforehand.

  ‘You’ve been given a day pass for the afternoon,’ she said, in the bright voice of a camp counsellor. ‘I thought we could have lunch in town, and maybe go for a drive afterwards, depending on the weather. The countryside is pretty up here.’

  Tim tugged at the frayed edge of his sweatshirt. She could practically see the words ‘lunch’ and ‘countryside’ scuttle through his brain. He clenched his hands in his lap, his face slick with sweat. As the minutes ticked by, her doubts about the wisdom of this arrangement grew. Like a runway train, his anxiety could derail at any point. Harrison had provided her with a pager in case of trouble, but with neither an attendant nor an emergency sedative on hand, what could she realistically do if he decided to bolt?

  She smiled broadly, hoping to put him at ease. ‘So, lunch for two it is then.’ With a matter-of-fact air, she stood and busied herself with her papers. ‘I’ll meet you in the dayroom in ten minutes. Is that all right? You’ll want to put a jacket on. It’s chilly out.’

  Tim examined his watch. ‘11:43. What time do you have?’

  ‘My watch isn’t digital like yours,’ Erin said, holding out her wrist, ‘but it looks like 11:43 to me. So, we’re all set. I’ll see you in ten minutes.’

  14

  At five to twelve, Tim was standing in the doorway of the dayroom, holding his wrist close to his face. ‘Two minutes late.’ He tapped his watch.

  ‘Sorry,’ Erin said, as she pulled on her coat. ‘I was held up. I wanted to speak to Dr Harrison before we left.’

  A shadow clouded his eyes. ‘Why?’

  ‘No special reason.’ She smiled again, though her jaw was starting to hurt from all the smiling. Perhaps she should try a different tack. Less cheerful air hostess, more white-coated professional with a medical degree. Detached, clinical, poised. She buttoned her coat. ‘Shall we go?’

  Tim had changed out of his stained sweatshirt and into a dark maroon jumper, only marginally frayed at the collar and cuffs. He’d also swapped his trainers for a pair of heavily scuffed leather Oxfords, as if some distant memory had triggered the appropriate dress code for lunch in a restaurant.

  An attendant in a white smock led them through the series of locked steel doors to the front entrance. Buzz. Screech. Crash. As each door swung open and clanged shut behind them, Tim flinched.

  The attendant, a squat man with a barrel chest, reached out and patted Tim on the arm. ‘Going out on the town, huh, Timmy? Lookin’ pretty spiffy. Give my regards to Broadway and all that.’

  Tim refused to engage, not even to remind the man to call him Timothy. His face gleamed with sweat, and his panicky look shifted from the walls to the floor. With his feet rooted in place, he turned his head to look back down the corridor from which they’d come.

  Another ear-splitting buzzer, a flashing red light, and the final barricade between the ward and freedom swung open. Erin stepped into the fresh air and motioned for Tim to follow. But he hung back, squinting against the light. Outside, his skin was an even whiter shade of pale, nearly bloodless. Strands of hair hung over his eyes. Sluggish as a lizard in the cold, he tilted his face towards the sun, mouth slack, eyes closed.

  ‘We’re outside.’ He opened his eyes and turned in a slow circle.

  Such a simple boundary to cross, Erin thought. Inside, outside. And yet a minefield for the incarcerated.

  She tightened her scarf around her neck. ‘Take a deep breath. Doesn’t the air feel good?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Don’t you ever go outside?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘What about the courtyard, or out on the grounds? Aren’t you allowed to walk there?’

  He shivered in the corduroy jacket, too thin for the cold. ‘I like to be inside.’ Tim remained rooted to the front step. Out in the daylight, the sorry state of his fingernails, bitten and raw, was clearly visible. Under his breath, he began to count. ‘Thirty-seven,’ he said, breathing out. ‘That’s a good number.’

  Erin was mystified by the number’s significance until it came to her. He had counted the cars in the car park.

  She started down the front steps. Tim followed behind, obedient as a child. He was showing more evidence of obsessive-compulsive disorder than reported in his file. Though the symptoms might be aggravated when he was nervous.

  A stiff breeze chased dead leaves across the ground. Mounds of dirty snow from a recent storm were piled up along the crumbling asphalt. As they passed through the gate, a wild thought spun through her head. What if she revved the engine and raced to the border? Set Tim up in a flat in a village in Ontario with a job flipping burgers. The idea was so absurd, she nearly laughed. One glance at Tim’s clenched jaw and wide-eyed terror was enough to set her straight. Leaving the confines of the ward for the great outdoors was not a cause for celebration.

  *

  It took her three attempts to find Summer Street and the Adirondack Café, the lunchroom Harrison recommended. Conveniently located two blocks from the local police, should anything go wrong.

  The minute she parked and cut the engine, Tim consulted his watch. ‘12.23,’ he announced, ‘and 17 seconds.’

  Was that a good number, a favourable moment in the space-time continuum? Or would they have to wait in the car for the clock to reach a more auspicious time? But he unbuckled his seat belt and folded his hands in his lap.

  Erin gathered up her things. ‘You can open your door now.’

  A group of young people, students from the local college by the looks of it, in jeans and bright parkas, crossed the street in a burst of chatter.

  Tim lumbered out and stood fixed to the square of pavement next to the car. He looked so ill at ease, she was tempted to suggest they skip lunch and go for a drive instead, pick up a bag of burgers and fries at a drive-through and hit the open road.

  But he moved in the direction of the restaurant, careful to avoid stepping on any cracks in the pavement. At the door to the café
, he turned his head, his jaw working, eyes unfocused. Was he thinking of making a break for it? Twice her weight, if not more, he could knock her flat and be halfway across town before she picked herself off the ground.

  ‘Number 11. That’s a pretty good number.’ He traced it with his fingers.

  Thirty-seven cars. Number 11 Summer Street? Was there a pattern or connection? None she could discern. But it seemed to fit with his counting behaviours.

  A girl with purple-tipped blonde hair pointed to their table. The place was only half full. Students. A couple of stressed-out mothers and their fretful children. Tim glanced nervously at the other diners, a rabbit in a field of hounds, before dropping into the chair that faced the exit.

  ‘This is a good table,’ he said. ‘Close to the door. Five steps.’

  The waitress slapped two laminated menus in front of them and rattled off the specials in a bored voice, before walking away to clear another table.

  Tim held the menu close to his face. ‘What’s a… Cobb salad?’

  ‘Chopped apples, raisins and walnuts mixed together with mayonnaise.’

  He placed the menu in the corner of the table, adjusting it with his finger and thumb, a little bit here, a smidge there, until the edges were perfectly aligned.

  ‘I’m going to have the lasagne,’ Erin said. ‘Do you know what you want?’

  He turned his head in her general direction. ‘Turkey.’

  She scanned the menu. ‘You’re in luck.’ A turkey sandwich was on the list. Best not mention the selection of white bread or brown, mustard or mayo. Too many choices.