by Sophie Davis
CHAPTER FOUR
LARK
“Are you ready, Lark?”
“Yes,” I muttered, wishing we could just get on with it. This was necessary; something hidden within my mind was eating me alive. Time to find my monster.
“You may begin whenever you’re ready. Count backwards from one hundred.”
David started the metronome when I closed my eyes. After a dozen hypnosis sessions, his detailed instructions were superfluous. Tuning out his voice, I focused on relaxing each part of my body with slow inhales and exhales. Without the distractions, a dream-like state came with ease.
“Remember that day, Lark. The last time you saw Jonas.”
The disembodied voice paused as memories whipped past in the darkness of my mind. There were snippets from every conversation, glances at every face. All the while, the name echoed through my mind as whispered thoughts connected: Jonas. My previous hypnotherapy sessions had focused on organizing, filing, and plucking these fleeting glimpses at will. Except this one was staunchly stuck, lodged beneath the largest boulder in the darkest corner of my mind.
“Remember the day you met Lila,” David’s voice urged. As I reached again, hearing her name was enough to yank the recollection into the light. After being carefully hidden by my psyche over a decade ago—or so I was told—it was time to face the demon.
Slipping into the memory like an over-sized coat, wrapping it around myself and becoming engulfed, my lower lip began to quiver.
“Are you alright, Lark?” The question didn’t come from David but rather a female. And I was pretty sure she was speaking inside my head.
“Y-y-yes,” I whispered aloud. My voice sounded young but determined.
“Where are you, Lark?” David asked.
“Shh, not so loud,” I urged. “I don’t want to get in trouble today. Mother is very unhappy. I hate it when she’s like this.”
“Where are you?” he repeated.
“The couch in my father’s study,” I said. My voice grew defensive. “I’ve been a good girl, just reading my books. I’m not bothering anyone.”
“Of course you’re not, dear,” David soothed. “You’re always a good girl. Have you been there long?”
“I’ve read one and a half Madeline books,” my childlike voice replied. “Nanny bought me all ten. And Daddy promised he’d take me to Paris when I’m older. Can you imagine?”
“You’re a very lucky girl,” David pointed out. “Not all children get to go to Paris.”
“I know,” I whispered, my voice wavering. “Sometimes I think about the children in orphanages here in America. Is it as much fun for them as it is for Madeline and her friends? Do they walk in two lines? Do they…. Shh!”
My body curled into a tight ball, making myself as small as humanly possible. My father entered the room but didn’t notice me. The study’s soft leather couch faced the fireplace at the far end of the room, its back to the entrance and my father’s desk. I pressed against the cushions, hidden from view.
“It’s okay, Lark. It’s just a memory. No one and nothing can hurt you.” It was the female voice again. This time she sounded both inside my head and as though she was in the room with David and me, sort of like an echo.
“No one and nothing can hurt you—me. No one and nothing can hurt me,” I repeated the words aloud in my childlike voice.
“Lark? Are you alone? Or is someone there with you?” David pressed.
“Be quiet or you have to go,” I hissed. “Daddy just came in. He looks quite serious, which means he’ll make me leave if he finds out I’m here.”
A single tear rolled down my cheek, my hand swiping for it automatically. “Please,” I implored. “With Mother’s mood, she’ll just pick at me and complain. Nothing will make her happy today, I can tell. We can’t let Daddy know we’re in here, ‘kay?”
“Of course,” David soothed. “But will you tell me what’s happening?”
“Daddy is sitting at the desk.”
“You can see him? Can’t he see you, then?”
“No, silly.” The quietest of giggles escaped my mouth. Pride laced my voice as I continued, like I held a particularly clever secret. “When he stays at the desk and I curl up, he can’t tell at all.”
The television above the fireplace powered on, briefly showing my father. “Mister Billy,” I hissed.
“Mister Billy is in the office?” David hedged. “Who is Mister Billy?”
“No, no, no.” My voice sounded exasperated. “Daddy is calling him, there’s just a picture right now. Mister Billy is the Kingstown Architect.”
“Are you still on the couch?”
“Of course,” I insisted, my eyes rolling behind closed lids. There’s a screen over here, same as the big one by the desk. Everything was made special for Daddy. Neat, huh?”
Frowning, I twirled a lock of hair between my fingers. “’Cept, it’s not always neat. Sometimes Daddy has boring talks with people I don’t know. This one time I saw a bear with—”
“Lark, listen to me,” David coached. “Focus on my voice.”
For a long moment, the only sound was my own deep breathing.
“Step back,” he continued. “Observe the memory.”
“It’s just a memory. No one and nothing can hurt you,” the female voice reminded me.
“It’s just a memory. No one and nothing can hurt me,” I repeated.
“That’s right, Lark,” David said. “Relax and focus.”
I followed his instructions, concentrating on his voice to anchor me.
“Very good. Now, tell me what is happening,” David continued.
“My father is upset,” I said, slipping back to the study. “He looks…sad. Or angry?”
Daddy glared at Billy on the screen.
“You had no right,” my father spat, his voiced laced with cold desperation.
“This is my job, Phillip,” Billy answered, lips pursed. “I am protecting the people of this town, maintaining the order. One bad apple will poison the rest.”
As I peeked over the back of the couch, my father stood.
“He had a family,” he roared. “You denied their applications for Kingstown and you know it.”
“Stealing from the mine, from Kingstown, will not be tolerated.” Billy challenged my father’s icy glare.
“No, it won’t,” my father agreed. “But he paid for his crime. There was no need to take things this far.”
“We needed to make an example, Phillip,” Billy shot back. “The public spectacle is not enough of a deterrent.”
Daddy began pacing back and forth in front of his desk, hands on hips. I held my breath and waited for his response.
“Lark, tell me what you see,” David demanded.
I brought a finger to my lips to shush him. I’d answer his questions eventually, but I didn’t want to miss a word of my father’s conversation with Billy.
Finally, Daddy stopped pacing and turned cold eyes on the screen. “Don’t bother packing your things, they all belong to me. You were right that the company—my company—does not tolerate theft. Not from any employee.”
“You can’t fire me,” Billy scoffed. “I’m the Architect. I created this town, this mecca.”
“And I own it.” Dad’s tone left no room for questions. “You are finished, Billy.”
“Then so are you, Phillip,” Billy spat back just before my father disconnected the call.
A ping sounded when he hung up. My father squeezed his eyes shut and slumped into his seat. His expression twisted, as if warring emotions were fighting for dominance. Finally, he tapped his desk and an aerial shot of a wooded area replaced the picture of my father’s ex-right-hand man.
The long gray wall cutting through the forest was familiar: Kingstown. The shot zoomed forward, focusing on three jeeps streaking down a dirt path, headed for the furthest edges of my father’s kingdom. The scratching of my father’s nail on his desk provided the only soundtrack to the soundless video. When the
y reached the wall, Billy and his men stepped from the vehicles. The shot zoomed further, to a boy with his hands bound. Two members of the Kings Guard steered him by the elbows to the wall. The determined expression was familiar: Jonas.
A long gate slid open. The men shoved Jonas through it. Back rigid, he caught himself before falling. Jonas turned and squared off with Billy. Looking younger than his eighteen years, he glared defiantly at Kingstown’s Architect. Jonas opened his mouth to say something, but a red blossom appeared on his white t-shirt. The boy crumpled in slow-motion, his back arching before slumping on the blanket of pine needles.
Without a backward glance, Billy walked back to the jeeps. The screen flipped to black. A paperweight flew, smashing into the wall and shattering. I felt just like the flying shards of glass. My father’s quiet sobs enveloped me from across the room, and I tried to disappear into the red velvet of the couch.
CHAPTER FIVE
RAVEN
The scenes played over and over again, even once the video ended. I couldn’t un-see the blood and the carnage. But more importantly, I couldn’t un-feel the swell of emotion breaking inside of me like a wave on the beach with each breath I took.
“Is this…real?”
Blake’s question shattered the heavy silence in the apartment, and for a brief moment I didn’t hear the thwap, thwap of a helicopter’s propeller blades or see that red flower blossom on the boy’s chest.
“Yes,” Asher said softly.
“You’re sure?” Blake pressed.
Asher blew out a long breath. “The footage hasn’t been analyzed or authenticated, if that’s what you mean. But, it fits with what we know.”
Suddenly, my shirt felt too tight, and it was hard to catch my breath. Pulling at the collar, as though that would help, I closed my eyes. But the video replay in my mind was stuck on the three second clip when the bullet ripped into Jonas’ chest.
“You knew about this?” Blake sounded incredulous and slightly frazzled. “They murdered that guy!”
A murder? A murder. The boy, Jonas, was murdered. And Lark knew about it. Lark witnessed it.
Asher’s reply was patient. “We’ve always known that Lark suffered a severe trauma at a young age.”
She was in her father’s study during the conference call with the Architect, hiding behind the couch.
“We’ve never understood the extent of the trauma she experienced, though,” Asher continued.
Lark was present for the same video call I just watched.
The room started to spin. I didn’t realize I was on my feet until my knees buckled. Pain exploded inside my skull in tiny bursts of white-hot light. Cold hands were on my arms, guiding me back down to the couch. In my mind, I saw Jonas’ face up close, as though the video had zoomed in on his smattering of freckles. Instead of the lifeless eyes of a dying man, there was anger and humiliation and maybe even determination.
I shook my head as though that might dislodge the images. Instead, they came into sharper focus: Jonas bent at the waist, his head and arms shoved through holes in a wooden board. The stocks. He was in the stocks. But that was ridiculous. This was the twenty-first century not the middle ages.
“Raven, can you hear me? Listen to the sound of my voice, okay? Come toward the sound of my voice. Nod if you can hear me.”
Asher’s voice was soft and soothing and sounded like…safety. I felt my head bob up and down but couldn’t recall making the conscious decision to nod.
“Good. Very good, Raven. Let yourself become the passenger,” he coached.
“What are you doing?” demanded Blake, his voice sounding a lot closer than Asher’s had.
Asher’s next words were inaudible, just a soft hum somewhere in the back of my subconscious. My eyes were closed, and I felt the couch beneath me. Otherwise, my mind and body no longer seemed connected. A cold breeze came out of nowhere, ruffling my hair and stinging my cheeks. I glanced to my left and right. The town was beautiful, somehow both quaint and luxurious, like a Swiss skiing village. Then my gaze landed on him, and a dark cloud moved overhead and blocked out the bright sun.
Stealing is wrong, I thought as I watched the boy in the stocks. Thieves must be punished.
But I’d stolen from Phillip Kingsley, too.
Snippets of memories—of her memories—surfaced inside my mind, interrupting the one of Jonas serving his punishment. Lark’s bedroom was no longer just a description inside her journal. I knew the exact shade of blue of the carpet and that there was a tiny speck of silver nail polish on the bottom of the bathroom door and that the vent above her closet was loose. The bottom left post of the bed had a nick in the center…from a ring. A blue diamond ring, to be exact. It had been a present from my parents on my fourteenth birthday.
My parents? My fourteenth birthday?
“No, that’s not right. My parents gave me a cell phone for my fourteenth birthday.” I heard myself say the words aloud, but I wasn’t talking to Asher or Blake. I was talking to….
“Listen to my voice, Raven. It’s okay. Take a step back. Let one of the others take over. Become a passenger.”
I repeated Asher’s words back to him in a voice that even I didn’t recognize.
“Good. Now start at ten and count backwards,” he instructed.
“Ten, nine, eight….” With each number, my mind and pulse slowed. Blackness crept over the visions inside my head, starting in my periphery and crawling toward the center. Still, I felt more in control than I had a moment ago, as though that darkness equaled calm. “…. three, two…one.”
My chest rose and fell as the sound of my deep, even breaths filled my ears. Just minutes ago, I’d been oblivious to my physical surroundings—if I’d suddenly realized I’d been transported to Mars, I wouldn’t have been all that surprised. But now, I was acutely aware of the smooth leather against the backs of my legs and arms, the comparatively rough khaki of Blake’s shorts beneath my cheek, the fuzzy albeit slightly itchy blanket someone had used tucked around my body.
“Raven?”
I didn’t respond. I sat quietly in the darkness, blind but not deaf to the real world.
“Lark?”
I glanced over, sort of expecting to see Lark’s golden hair gleaming in the pitch-black.
“Ah, Lila. How are you?”
“I’ve been better.” My lips moved, but the voice wasn’t mine.
“You’ve been busy,” Asher replied.
My lips curved into a smile. “It wasn’t all me.”
“Lark helped?” he asked.
“Of course. We both understand she is the key. Unless she knows the truth, we’re all screwed.”
“What truth exactly, Lila?” Asher asked, his tone conversational as though we were discussing the carpet color.
“Don’t ask stupid questions. You watched the video call with the Architect. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” The edge in my voice was sharp, and Blake’s muscles tensed beneath my head.
Poor Blake. He must be so freaked out.
“So the event? That is the truth you and Lark wanted Raven to learn? Why?”
“You aren’t a detective, Asher. You’re a therapist, which means you should know better than to ask so many questions at once.” I shook my head and made clucking noises with my tongue. “Rookie move, Asher.”
He sighed, his patience obviously wearing thin with Lila and her snark. “Is the truth you wanted Raven to know what happened in Kingstown with Jonas?”
I folded my hands over my stomach and imagined Asher squirming as he waited for my answer. “One of them,” I conceded after several, long minutes.
“What else? What’s the point to all of this, Lila?”
I shot up like a dart. My eyes flew open and though I was staring straight at Asher, it was like I was seeing him through a telescope or binoculars. “You tell me, Asher,” I hissed, scared by the venom in my own voice. “After all, this little experiment was your idea, wasn’t it?”
CHAPTER SIX
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LARK
“Find the fire inside. It’s there, your anger, your hurt. Pass beneath your fragile facade. Lark is a layer, fracturing from the strain of the shadows within you. Go there, to the dark of a moonless night. Feel the fury. The shock. The agonizing ache of your heart when Jonas was shot. The bullet pierced your soul, find that wound. The helplessness of watching his life snuffed.”
Tears streaked down my cheeks. I felt like I was being suffocated.
“Now find your anger. That spark beneath it all, the anger at Jonas’ life being worth less than a stone. Feel the flame ignite. Why didn’t anyone ever protect Lark? They did not care. Lark was a showpiece for narcissistic parents who should have never brought life into the world. They have damaged her beyond repair. Ripped her apart until her bruised soul was struggling to stay together. Knit the pieces. Fan the flame. Feel the injustice and fury.”
My spine straightened ever so slightly.
“She needs you. You must take the hurt and use the anger. But your job is to keep it from Lark. Lighten her load, take the driver’s seat. You will protect her, and you will do whatever is necessary. Strengthen her weaknesses, keep her from breaking. Pack all of that darkness and carry the luggage.”
My eyes flew open and I swiped at my cheeks. “Do you really think I need this lecture? I have better shit to do.”
David’s joy was obvious. And pathetic. Was he aware we didn’t need him? We didn’t need anyone. We couldn’t trust anyone besides ourselves. It was funny, in a weird way. David and his lackeys made us this way: self-reliant. Did they realize that like any creation we would one day turn on our maker? If they hadn’t yet, they would soon.
“Hello, Lila.”
I sat up and smiled coyly, first at David and then the rest of the idiots in the room. “So, which one of you lucky peons want to explain the reason you all woke me this time?”