“A hundred already?” he asks.
My fist slams down on to the bed. I start to count.
“Oh, I can’t interrupt. Sorry, won’t happen again, but while you’re counting, let me add a few more questions, I do have other patients to doctor and all. Very important person. VIP, I am.” He checks over his shoulder to the door as if the patients might be watching. “When did you start getting your period? What size bra do you wear? Have you lost your virginity? Please remove your T-shirt for the mandatory breast exam.”
I really wish I could count faster.
“Vanet? Vanet!” Another man in a white lab coat enters.
Doctor Balder jumps up off the bed and holds up his hands. “I’ve got this one, doc,” he says. “Anxiety disorder. I’d prescribe her twenty-five milligrams of Zoloft. Nurses just got some free samples in of—”
“Vanet, go back to your room and I’ll talk to you later.”
My jaw hits the floor. The guy named Vanet—or is it Doctor Balder?—turns back to me. “Just wait, you’ll see I’m right. They’ll throw some drugs at you and observe what happens. First they clean out your mind with drugs and then they’ll fill it with their own thoughts.”
The other man takes Vanet by the shoulders and steers him toward the door. An impish smile spreads on Vanet’s face and, as Adriana steps to the doorway, he whips off his lab coat. She cries out as the half-naked boy writhes, running his hands over his body and fluttering his tongue at her. “Vanet,” Doctor Balder says, and then Nurse Stenson pushes past, grabs Vanet by the wrist and drags him out of the room. “Thank you,” the doctor calls after the nurse. Turning back, he gives a big smile.
What big teeth you have, Doctor.
“I’m Doctor Balder,” he says. “That was another patient and I’m very sorry.”
I feel a little like vomiting.
“What just happened?” Adriana demands.
Balder sits in the chair, leans over to tuck a corner of the sheet back into my mattress, and then smiles again. His teeth are big and blocky. Adriana probably likes the edge of silver at his temples, setting off a neatly coiffed black mane. His skin is dusky brown, eyes even darker. On his coat are painted small silver stars. “I am sorry,” Doctor Balder says.
“This is unacceptable,” Adriana replies.
The doctor’s lips pinch together, suggesting he’d like to move past this. Adriana folds her arms across her chest. He says, “Great. Welcome. Nurse Stenson tells me you’ve had the tour?”
I nod, still reeling from Vanet’s total invasion of my life. I even told him about the wolf. I recognize him now. He was part of the group discussion and, seeing fresh meat, must have rushed to shave and shower to disguise himself. Another wolf in sheep’s clothing. If my head weren’t quite so fuzzy, I probably would have figured it out sooner.
“Milly, can you tell me about what happened at school?” the doctor asks.
I lower my gaze and stare at the tiles.
“She collapsed,” Adriana answers for me. That’s fine. I’ve resolved not to talk while she’s here.
“Had she hit her head? Did she lose consciousness?”
“The class was preparing to play some ball game. Milly slumped to the floor as she entered the gym. The school called the ambulance and I met her here, that’s all I know.”
“So she might have hit her head?” He starts peering at my scalp and picking at it as if searching for fleas.
“No, you can see she’s underweight—she has an eating disorder.” I don’t have an eating disorder. Adriana flinches from my I-hate-you stare. “I just can’t help her anymore. She makes me count with her for everything. Doors, to speak, every bite she eats. Her grades have really slipped and she’s lost most of her friends.”
“Milly, do you need to count before eating?” he asks. “Do you feel you have to?”
I stare at his shiny black shoes.
“She says that if she doesn’t, bad things will happen. Terrible things. It’s a feeling.”
Balder makes a series of notes and nods. “And is there anything else she wants you to do other than counting?”
“Mostly the counting, counting to take a bite, to chew, to take another bite. Oh, and she has to see the ingredients laid out for the meal. I check everything ten times like she asks, but I just can’t do it anymore. It’s too much.”
More notes. “Well, then I would like to keep Milly a little longer. To clarify the diagnosis, to get her weight up. Sometimes compulsions like counting can be eliminated simply by nourishing the brain.” He taps his noggin. “Which doesn’t perform well without energy. How does that sound?”
Adriana looks like she’s won an award. That’s it? Five minutes and the jury’s back in? “Compulsions—you think she has OCD,” Adriana says.
“Possibly Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and if so, with a mild antidepressant and psychotherapy we can work toward reducing the frequency and severity of her OCD thoughts and related anxiety.”
I begin to swing my head back and forth. I don’t want to stay here. It’s not my fault, it’s hers. She can’t handle it. She brought me here. To all the doors. I wouldn’t have freaked out if there weren’t so many doors. At home I’d be texting Bill—how is staying here going to help me meet new friends? Or help my grades?
“Can you come back tomorrow, Mrs. Malone?” Balder asks.
Mrs. Malone was my mother.
“Milly will need a few things,” Adriana says. “Tomorrow after lunch.”
I might as well not even be here. My insides frost. The wolf skulks nearby. I twist the bedsheet in my fingers. I feel the wolf. It’s here. Nowhere is safe.
When I look back up, they’ve moved the conversation into the hall.
Chapter 5
Adriana disappears with a promise to return with a new toothbrush. Nurse Stenson brings me an assortment of books, but I don’t feel like reading. I zone out a bit. Maybe I am rotting inside. If that’s what it takes to turn the wolf away, maybe it’s not a bad thing.
Lunch arrives with another patient apparently included in the menu. The nurse who was leading the group session enters my room, pushing a gurney carrying a comatose blonde girl. With the food wedged near the legs of the girl, it’s like she’s part of my meal. All delicate and pale fleshed, a dessert rather than an appetizer, but still tasty for a dragon. The nurse is more of a main course, plump and roast brown.
Between the nurse’s wide bottom and the extra bed, she struggles to bring in an IV stand trailing behind them. Her shirt is swarming with black cats flashing hundreds of little claws and teeth.
The nurse smiles. “Lunchtime. I’m Nurse Abby. Sorry, space will be a bit tight, but we can’t spare two sitters.” I have no idea what she’s talking about. “Why don’t you try a bite,” she says, pointing at the girl—or the food, I’m not sure.
Nurse Abby slides the tray onto the desk, draws in a deep breath and shimmies on her tippy-toes to the end of the patient bed where she sets to connecting an IV line with a port in the girl’s wrist. Everyone’s eating. From beneath tinfoil the food smells of butter, chocolate, and gravy.
Feeling a little like Hansel being fattened for the witch’s ovens, I slip into the cold chair and start counting. The nurse sits and smiles at me while I whisper to the food. . . . “I want to make a phone call,” I say when I’m done.
“Okay, after your dinner I’ll set you up with the unit’s phone,” Nurse Abby replies.
The wolf would like nothing more than for me to be like the girl on my right. Poisoned and helpless. Counting cleans the food of the insidious shadows. It is part spell, part antidote. It keeps the light on. I remove the foil and steam billows from peas, thick gravy-covered meat, and mashed potatoes so buttery they’re golden. In the corner, a dollop of whipped cream tops pudding.
I take a small bite of potato and count to a hundred as I chew. Whenever I finish a count, the wolf veers away, only to creep back. I ask, “What’s wrong with her?”
Nurse Abby smi
les sweetly, but shakes her head. “I’m sorry, we can’t talk about the conditions of other patients.”
A half hour later the IV bag’s empty and the nurse clears my tray, stacking it on top of the patient before pushing her out. I ate a few bites of each item—a balanced meal. “Back in a minute for that phone call,” she says.
She returns with a can of Ensure, a meal replacement, and sets it on the desk. The message is clear. Finish the can, make your call.
Despite the chalky flavor, I can drink much faster, and ten minutes later she waits at the door for me to leave.
“All calls are taken outside the nursing station,” she says. “We don’t listen.”
Sure you don’t.
Under Nurse Abby’s dark, watchful eyes I hop into the hallway.
“Wait at the corner of the station, and I’ll hand you the phone,” the nurse explains.
I try to keep to the wall so that no one from down the other hall can see me. It’s mostly quiet. A door opens and closes, but it’s not one of the bedrooms; I can see those doors. I sense that I’m being hunted again and wonder who is in the second acute room. The one who howled.
“Dial nine out,” the nurse says.
I jump, but she’s holding the phone through an opening in the plate-glass window.
Snatching the phone, I count to a hundred, and then dial my dad’s hotel in Japan and ask for his room. It’s morning there.
“Mark Malone,” he answers. Leaning against the wall, I knock the receiver three times so he knows it’s me.
“Milly? Hurry, honey, I have to leave soon. I hear you’re having a rough time.”
. . . “Dad—Dad?” I keep my voice low and hushed. “Adriana’s imprisoned me on a psych ward. It’s not okay. You have to get me out of here. I’d be fine, if I were home and didn’t—”
“Milly, I know,” he interrupts. My knuckles whiten against the receiver. “I’ve spoken with Adriana and I want you to give this a try. She’s bent over backward to try to help you.”
One, two, three . . . Adriana told him. Liar. She didn’t wait for me to talk to my dad first.
She’s poisoned my own father against me. I start to cry, and I can’t count and cry. But I’ve already started counting so my stomach roils at the thought of miscounting, and I struggle to concentrate on that rather than listening to what my father’s saying. Nurse Stenson walks past with a straight face that says she’s trying her best to give me some degree of privacy.
Fifty-six . . . I catch the odd word he’s saying. Business. Work. Home soon. Help. Trial. Counting. Unhealthy.
A door clicks. It’s behind me, where Stenson went. Out of the door of the second acute room emerges a kid in a wheelchair. He wears a turban and, for a boy of no more than eighteen, he has a significant beard. His eyes are dead though. Cold splotches. I shudder and look away as he’s wheeled past.
. . . “Get me out of here, Dad. Please.” A tear dribbles down my cheek. “You should see these people.”
“I’m sorry, Milly, I have to trust Adriana. I’m sorry, but I must go now.”
This is how every fairy tale starts. With the storyteller explaining to the reader just how it is. There once was a girl named Milly who was the wolf’s coveted meal. Whose father left her in the clutches of an evil stepmother. Whose stepmother imprisoned her with monsters.
My dad doesn’t wait for me to count to say goodbye. I’ve never felt farther away. The phone bleats.
“Are you done, dear?” Nurse Abby asks and I nod. I can’t call Bill, not like this.
I’ve been trying to decide what to tell him. I mean, who wants to admit that they’re on a psych ward? I blacked out for a week. I have no recollection of anything. But my belly button’s a little sore and I wonder if I was probed . . . That won’t do, not alien abduction. I awakened to a giant fairy hovering over me, his name was Peter. He explained that he’d lost his wings and asked if I would quest with him. The poor fairy blubbered so terribly that I agreed, and soon we set off and found a little cottage in the woods where a young woman slept and would not wake. Sound familiar, Bill?
It’s important that I find the right story, because who the heck wants a crazy girlfriend? He’s been good to me. Understanding, while I count. Without him I’d never be invited anywhere.
Before I turn away, I sense someone watching—not the wolf, someone else. I risk a step beyond the nursing station and see the Goth boy from the ER, watching me from the end of the hall.
Rottengoth. His cloak of darkness is gone, but he’s sheathed in black. And he stares.
I slink back to my room and read for a few minutes. The nurse enters with a toothbrush and toothpaste and a message from Adriana that she’ll come back tomorrow with my bag. I don’t care that she doesn’t give me the toiletries herself. Before squeezing the toothpaste, I inspect the security seal. Satisfied that it hasn’t been tampered with, I brush my teeth and then read until my eyes close. Reading helps me to fall asleep, but the wolf shatters it, filling the night with terrors.
The sleek-furred wolf’s limbs can disjoint, allowing it to slip anywhere. And the dreams are always wherever I am. They follow me. Are dreams not meant to help the dreamer? Then why must mine consist of such torture? Tonight’s nightmare starts with me peering through the window into the second acute room and the hairy-faced boy lurching into view, his smile wild through the glass.
Then the wolf’s chewing his neck. Behind them flits a shadow. I squint, but miss it. I can’t tear myself from the boy’s blank, sightless eyes.
Chapter 6
I wake gritty-eyed with Nurse Stenson taking my pulse. She makes a mark on my chart.
“Good morning.” Doctor Balder looms in the door, stars on his coat and his smile overwhelming the yellow light above the bed.
He takes the chart from the nurse. “Romila, how was your night?”
One, two, three . . .
“She had some bad dreams,” Stenson says.
The nurses are always watching. Stenson the witch and Nurse Abby, her feline familiar.
. . . “I want to leave. Just let me leave. I’m being punished for nothing. Nothing I did. I’m not hurting anyone. This is Adriana’s fault.”
Balder taps the chart before speaking. “If Adriana’s the cause of your problems, then staying on the unit will make you feel better. If things continue as they are, you risk losing your friends, failing school, and maybe even death. We can help you here.”
Death? Did he say death? . . . “But, don’t you see? I don’t have a problem. When I’m home, I’m fine.”
At home I’m like a blind person who knows where the furniture is. At home the wolf can huff and puff all he wants, but the house is made of brick reinforced with the mortar of my counts. Despite Adriana’s invasion of our family, it’s still my mother’s home. My mother’s couch, drapes, table, cushions sewn by her hand. It’s where she died and her must permeates the air.
Stenson and Balder share a look and then the nurse leaves. Balder settles in, taking a seat on my bed. “Will you try something for me?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just plows on. “I want you to think back a few years.” I nod. “Did you play any sports? How many friends did you have? Did you have any hobbies or were you a part of any clubs at school?”
He means three years ago, before my mom died. I’m not stupid.
. . . “I remember playing soccer and basketball, but everyone went competitive and I wasn’t that into it. I had more friends, sure, but they all became stuck up and started caring about shopping and makeup, and I’m more into things like music. As for hobbies and clubs, I read. I still read. There was a debating team, but that grew sort of geeky.”
I redden at the memories.
“Okay, you were more actively involved, had more friends, and none of your compulsions were interfering back then.”
. . . “Yeah, but they don’t stop me now either.”
He grunts like I’m not saying what he wants me to. “I can appreciate that you’d rather
not be here.” His eyes widen and hands reach out, palms up in understanding. “I get it. No one likes to be sick. From what we know, you’re not eating enough because you require a hundred seconds to take a bite, another hundred to chew, and another hundred before you can take another bite again.”
I shake my head, and realize I’ve forgotten to start counting and begin. I can’t remember the last time I did that.
He keeps talking. “A hundred seconds to speak, and a hundred to pass through a doorway with a few other rituals.” He holds up his hand. “Don’t worry, today isn’t about figuring out why or changing anything—or throwing drugs at you. Today and tomorrow are just about getting to know you and helping to find ways that can make this stay here as easy on you as possible. Do you think you can do that?”
. . . “It’s a hundred count, not a hundred seconds, that’s a big difference. And as for these rituals—your word—lots of people need to do things before they eat. Half the world prays before they can eat, don’t you know?”
But Balder’s moving on. “Perhaps you can walk me through the morning you fainted, what happened, step by step.”
. . . “It was gym class.”
“And do you like gym?”
. . . “No, not really.”
“You seem fit and you used to play soccer and basketball, why don’t you like gym?”
. . . “Well, I have to pass through a whole bunch of doors to get in there, not to mention the change rooms. I’m always late, so the teacher makes me do push-ups. Then there are the lines on the floor, I guess I try to avoid them too, and there are lots of lines.”
He writes that down. “What happens when you’re faced with lines and doors?”
. . . “I . . . I get this feeling . . . like everything is about to rip in half, if I don’t count. Like it’s all up to me to stop the big bad wolf from clawing the door off the world.”
“Did you feel this way before you fainted?” I give him a thumbs-up. “How do you feel now that you’ve had some nourishment? Better?”
. . . “Yes, all better, now I’d like to go home.”
Counting Wolves Page 3
