by Susan Harris
“That’s not what I meant—and you know it.” I couldn’t mask the frustration that had slipped its way into my tone. Alana’s eyes widened at it. “I am trying to help you remember, but it seems that you are more interested in participating in fights than trying to unlock what’s inside your head. Do you not want a chance to be proven innocent?”
She pushed herself off the floor and stood… hands on her hips. “And if I remember and am innocent, what then? I go back to the house where my family was murdered and live out my life as a recluse? I have no family, no career, no one to care about me.”
“I care about you.”
“Yeah, but you get paid to. I won’t see you if I’m free, and I don’t want to be alone. I’m better off dead.”
The pen I held almost snapped in half as anger flooded me. I wished I could shake some sense into her and ask her if I risked my life for nothing. Was my love for her as easy to dismiss as her belief that epic love simply didn’t exist? It did for me. She was it. Counting to ten in my head and closing my eyes, I breathed deeply to try and unleash something close to calm throughout my body. When I opened my eyes again, Alana had sprawled out on the couch, her small frame not even covering the whole seat. She had neatly tucked one foot over the other and her arms lay idly on her stomach. Her own eyes were closed and her breathing stilled and slow as if sleeping. I had an alarming vision of her in that exact position in a coffin and had to blink a few times to eliminate those thoughts from my mind.
“Daniel?” she asked without opening her eyes.
“Yes, Alana.”
“Would you read something to me? I’m not being weird or anything, but it’s been such a long time since someone read to me and I can’t remem—” Her words caught in her throat, and I had the strange feeling she might cry. I rose and stepped away from the desk and stood in front of my bookcase, suddenly at a loss as what to read.
“Would you like anything in particular?”
She shook her head. “No. Surprise me. I like to listen to you. Your voice, it’s as if it were made to tell stories. I just want to listen to you speak.” A blush reddened her cheeks again, and I took another few minutes to select the perfect choice. Truly, it seemed like the only choice. I pulled the armchair over so we were only inches apart.
Clearing my throat, I became nervous as if I were that same awkward boy who attracted the attention of the bright, bubbly girl. I was a smitten teen again. Alana waited patiently for me to begin, and I glanced up at the clock to see that we had almost an hour and a half left for the session.
“It began with the forging of the Great Rings,” I began and Alana smiled. “Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf-lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who above all else desire power. For within these rings was bound the strength and the will to govern each race. But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made. Deep in the land of Mordor, in the Fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged a master ring in secret, and into this ring he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One ring to rule them all.” (Tolkien 1954)
I paused and looked over the top of the book at Alana, whose smile did not fade even though she had fallen asleep. Her faint snores were a welcome and familiar sound to me. Many a night she had fallen asleep by my side after a long day’s training. I closed the book and returned it to the shelf. Pulling an old blanket over her, I noticed the time so she could sleep for at least an hour before I had to wake her.
Consciously being quiet, I sat at my desk and did some paperwork regarding her case. Soon I would be called to the warden’s office for a discussion of her progress and would have to provide some proof that her memory was returning.
I outlined her memory of Jayson and how I had a sense that she was conflicted because she was uncertain if her memories were real or fabricated. It was all the truth, but I was certain the warden would have some choice comments about it. A lot needed to be put in place before the Hail Mary plan I kept close to my chest could happen. A few pieces of the puzzle were coming along nicely: Alana was beginning to trust me, my dad had agreed to help, and Connors and Jayson watched out for Alana when I couldn’t.
I chewed the end of my pen and observed the sleeping girl while her eyes darted behind her eyelids and she tossed on the couch, fingers clutching the blanket for dear life.
She began to mutter in her sleep and I moved closer to her and knelt down beside the couch so I could hear what she said. “Blood, blood everywhere. I can hear the screams.”
“Where is the blood, Alana… who is screaming?”
“All over the place… my dad… he’s telling me to… oh god, there’s so much blood.”
“Think, Alana, think, babe… what is your dad telling you?”
“I can’t… I don’t want to… Daniel, there is so much blood… they’re coming.”
“Who is coming, Alana? Think hard, please.”
And then her mouth opened to a blood-curdling scream, and she bolted upright. Her eyes darted around the room like a frightened animal looking for an escape, and I saw the start of a panic attack building up as tears flowed from her eyes.
“It’s okay, Alana. It was just a dream.” The words were barely out of my mouth when she wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her damp face to my shoulder. I didn’t say anything, just put my arms around her and whispered, “Shh, it’s okay… it was only a dream.”
We stayed like that for a while longer, and then she untangled her arms from my neck. Looking down at my tear-stained shirt, she spoke in a cracked voice. “I’m sorry. I just ugly cried all over you.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about.”
She straightened herself up, taking the handkerchief I had just pulled from my pocket, and blew her nose before stuffing it into her pants pocket. Her brown eyes were equal parts scared and confused.
“Would you like to talk about the dream?”
A string on her pants suddenly became very interesting and she focused her attention on the ground. “I don’t really remember it, the dream, I mean. I was scared and alone and trapped. Did I say something?”
Now I had a dilemma. Should I tell her what she had spoken and frighten her more or tell her the truth in the hopes she could relay to me what her father was trying to tell her. I chose neither.
“Nothing that you need to stress about now. Have you had these nightmares before?”
“A few times,” she replied in a low voice. “Sometimes I have other dreams.”
“About what?”
Alana turned towards me for a second before shaking her head. “I’d rather not talk about it. Not today.”
“Okay, Alana, but it might help to talk to me about it.”
“Next time.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She forced a precious little smile, and I had to resist the urge to lean in and kiss her. A thought had flashed behind her eyes before I sat back, putting distance between us. The knock on the door startled us both and it slid open as Connors strode in.
“Time to go, McCarthy.”
She rose and joined Connors by the doorway. Without another word, I stood and watched them leave. Alana did not look back, and I was grateful because if she had, my face would probably have given away a million secrets. The door closed. I sighed in relief.
Sitting back down at my desk, I opened up the folder and sought out a fresh blank page. On it I pondered Alana’s dream as I wrote down my musings.
If Alana had killed her family then why would the sight of their blood freak her out so much?
What could her dad have possibly been trying to tell her?
And if she did not kill her family, then who did?
I had no answers to those questions, but I vowed to find some. Determination to set Alana free gave me a single-minded approach, and I would not rest until she knew exa
ctly what had happened and who I was.
Thinking along those lines reminded me of our earlier conversation about how she missed being outside in the fresh air. Other inmates were allowed time out in a small open air yard, but Alana and other death row inmates were considered dangerous and had not set foot outside in a long time. During our time together, we had spent many summer nights just walking around outside and trying to put the world right. Now that I was sure her mind was beginning to unlock its secrets, I would do anything in my power to move this along.
Heart pounding in my chest, I lifted the phone’s receiver and keyed in the extension number. The phone rang, once, twice, three times before I heard a click and a rather nasally voice.
“Warden Lane’s office.”
“This is Doctor Daniel Costello. I would like to make an appointment to speak with Warden Lane, please.”
A muffled click on the line aroused my suspicions that someone else was listening in or at least telling the secretary what to say.
“And may I ask about your business with Warden Lane that cannot wait until Monday’s staff meeting? She is rather busy this week.”
I inhaled and exhaled, calming myself so my voice did not tremble or give any indication of how nervous I actually was.
Instead, I spoke the words I needed to say. “I want to ask for permission to take a prisoner outside.”
13
Alana
“The fragile, the broken sit in circles and stay unspoken. We are powerless.”
(Bring me the Horizon: Hospital for souls)
For an insane moment back there, I thought Daniel had been about to kiss me, and for the first time in ages, I felt alive. I saw something different in his eyes—a longing—as if he had been waiting for me to lean in and place my lips on his. That was just being crazy, right?
I could listen to his voice all day. Something in the sound of his speech was soothing and melodic. I regretted falling asleep because I missed out hearing him read Tolkien as if he had memorized the words and did not need the book at all. He had watched me fall sleep, covering me with the blanket so I wouldn’t get cold. There was an intimacy in that too. Or maybe my mind was over-thinking things again… it tended to do that.
While Connors led the way back to the mess hall, I mulled it all over quietly to myself. Once inside, he gave me a quizzical look and opened his mouth to say something but closed it again without speaking. He backed away and returned to his post in the hall as if nothing had been on his mind. I was inclined to return to my cell, close my eyes and listen to Daniel reading to me again in my head. Had I just wasted two hours being angry and falling asleep? With so many questions to ask and precious little time to do it, I struggled with the ability to even do that right. Damn, I forgot to ask him about the Treatment! Rounding the outside of the tables and headed for the stairs, I held onto the banister. That’s when I spotted a hand frantically waving in the air from the corner of my peripheral vision.
“Hey, Alana, come sit with us,” Jayson shouted across the room, causing everyone to look in my direction. He sat with the rest of his group, and I shook my head, but he was already out of his chair and headed my way. As much as I would have loved to sit in my cell and daydream, I had enjoyed myself with that group the last time, despite Veronika’s antics.
I approached the table and took the chair that Jayson had dragged over. All in all, seven people were seated at the table, including me, Jayson, and Afsana, who flashed me a brief smile. Two of the inmates wore blue from head to toe, one was dressed in a green jumper, and the one I was most worried about wore red. Red meant dangerous offender… not bad enough to warrant a seat on death row, but other prisoners were wary, regardless.
Jayson must have sensed the uneasy tension in the atmosphere, so he took it upon himself to get the conversation rolling. Plonking himself down on the empty seat next to me, he beamed at those gathered around the table and simply said, “You guys all know Alana… and as you can tell from the dazzling shade of black she is wearing, Alana is in the same boat as me. She has a slight issue with forgetting things, but we won’t hold that against her now, will we? How about we do share time? You guys can introduce yourself so we can all be bestest friends.”
I snorted out a laugh, just couldn’t help myself, while the rest of the group remained shocked by Jayson’s flippant attitude. The two dressed in blue locked eyes with each other, the girl nudging the boy with her elbow. Slightly chubby, the boy had pale skin and grey-blue eyes. His hair was pulled back into a black tangled mess of a ponytail, and he had a thin line of hair under his nose as if he had tried to grow a moustache and failed. His caterpillar eyebrows wiggled as he thought, almost meeting in the middle when his gaze narrowed.
The girl seemed shy and kept glancing at her fingernails. Her strawberry-blonde hair was styled into a pixie cut with jagged edges at the end as if she had clipped the hair herself. She had a cluster of freckles on her cheeks, so I assumed that somewhere in her heritage was Irish blood. Didn’t we all? She nudged the boy again and he sighed, his chest puffing out in annoyance as he fidgeted with the collar of his jumper. Jayson cast him a stern look.
“Uh… Hi… I’m Darren and this is Emily,” he said. I made out a hint of an accent, although according to the United Parliament, due to the mass exodus from Ireland way back when, accents were dying out on the Island. Sometimes it might be picked up by a finely tuned ear. “As you can see, Emily and I are in for weapons charges. We have six months left on our sentence, and then we go home.”
I tended to be on the curious side, but did not want to be rude and blurt out the obvious question. What sort of weapons charges? I knew it could have been anything from carrying a concealed knife to owning a gun without a licence or not paying the gun tax. My parents had taught me manners, so I waited for someone else to ask. Again, it was Jayson who spoke out.
“You’re not telling the whole story… Emily, why don’t you tell Alana what happened?”
“Why? It’s not like she cares or anything. She’s just looking for a distraction from her own death.”
“Emily! Damn it, girl, why do you have to be such a bitch all the time?” Jayson growled. I put a hand on his shoulder to still him.
“It’s okay, Jay, the girl doesn’t have to tell me anything if she doesn’t want to. It’s her own business.”
Jayson glared at Emily, who edged closer to Darren, her momentary burst of rebellion quashed down by Jayson’s glare. Darren sighed again and said, “We raided a supply unit and got caught. Emily carried a knife. I had a gun. It was empty because I only wanted to scare them, but we got caught and sent here. We needed food for our families because where we lived was too far from any major town to make them send food or anything our way.”
I nodded, understanding the frustration they must have felt. Although the Island did not have any city lines or boundaries, small towns were needed in order to provide it with a bountiful supply of workers and villages to call home. In some parts of the Island, sporadic villages had popped up, catering to those who would not be deemed suitable for work in the prison or any other desirable job. So many tiny villages with starving people still remained. I couldn’t help but wonder if these two were better off in here.
Jayson nodded to the girl in green, and she smiled at me and proceeded to dart off into a conversation as if she were bursting to get her story out. “Hi! Alana. My name is Nikki. I’m here because I was selling my grandma’s meds at school. The headmaster of my very prestigious boarding school found me out and sent me here. Just another boarding school for me. Once I get out, I’ll be sent to another one and probably end up back here another time. No biggie.”
I must have looked flummoxed because she giggled, a light-hearted, childish giggle and swept a hand through the air. “I know, right? You must think I’m mad, but if you can’t get attention from your parents for doing good things, then bad is the way to go.”
“So you basically got arrested and sent here for attention?”
“Yup. My parents are American dignitaries. Having a daughter here just makes them look bad. Not ideal dinner party conversation, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they pretended to only have one child. My sister is the golden girl who is engaged to a member of the United Parliament and is poised for great things. I’ll be bounced around to various boarding schools until I’m twenty-one and then set loose on the world. Then I won’t have to see them again.”
Lost for words, I said nothing, but my eyes drifted to the boy dressed in red. He was a typical handsome jock, broad shoulders and defined arms from either sports or working out. His brown hair had some curl only on the left-hand side of his forehead. High cheekbones and a dimpled smile complemented his green eyes. Seeing him dressed head to toe in red made me extremely cautious.
The boy noticed my discomfort and smiled, my own frown deepening as he spoke. “Don’t worry. I get that a lot.”
Jayson nudged me, and my eyes averted from Red to him. “Do you really think I would associate with a sexual deviant? Well, other than myself, that is.”
For some reason, I trusted Jayson and felt a little guilty for judging him when I hadn’t heard his story. People were forever doing it to me. I held up my hands in apology and tried to soften my face. “Sorry.”
Red shook his head and sparkled another dazzling smile in my direction. “It’s okay. If I were in anybody else’s shoes, I’d do the same.” I didn’t say anything and he continued on with his story. “Yeah, you guessed that I am in for apparent dangerous offences, but I’m innocent.” I couldn’t help it as I raised an eyebrow. Red laughed. “Yeah, I know. Everyone says it, but I mean it. I have another year on my sentence and have been here since I was sixteen. My boyfriend’s parents caught us having sex. Rather than deal with the fact that their son likes guys, they accused me of rape. Jeremy didn’t deny or reinforce their accusations, but in some places being gay was still a big taboo. Because of our ages, I ended up here. He was fifteen, almost sixteen, at the time, and in our backwater town it seemed easier for them to send me here than deal with it themselves.