I push past Bill and shove aside the scarecrow and Scream-mask who hold Vanet. I grab his hand and pull him toward the front of the school.
“You’re an idiot and you’re not my boyfriend,” I say to Bill.
I won’t say that it doesn’t hurt, but Bill’s made this a really easy breakup. I can’t believe I thought I was falling for him. I think I wanted to fall for anyone who thought I was girlfriend material. Something Balder said surfaces in my brain: Anxiety isn’t compatible with pleasure either. I don’t think I can have a real boyfriend—a good one—until I can control my anxiety.
“Crazy bitch,” Bill says to my back, and I raise my hand and give him the finger.
Wait. I can do more. I stop and turn. “Crazy bitch?” I realize that I spoke again without counting, and parts of the wood that I’d thought reclaimed send tendrils and suckers up from razed stumps to curl about my heart.
It’s my OCD. But I need to do this. Not for fear, not to protect Vanet, but for me this time.
Bill and his henchmen freeze. “Yeah,” Bill says.
“What’s the evidence for this?” I say. But I will not count.
Vanet barks a laugh.
“How about you in a lunatic asylum bringing another psycho-boyfriend to the dance?” Bill says.
“Are you looking at the whole picture?” I ask, to which I get a quizzical stare. “I mean, you didn’t want to come with me. Yet you showed up alone. And you never once saw us so much as kiss. What evidence do you have that I’m seeing him? That I’m the bitch when you’re a liar?”
“You’re still crazy,” he says, folding his arms.
Vanet winks at me.
“Yeah, well, we all are a bit,” I say.
“Thank God for that,” Vanet replies.
I turn away and snatch Vanet’s hand again.
“I could have taken them,” Vanet says as we fast-walk away. “I’m the intercontinental kickboxing champion.”
“We can go back,” I reply.
“Nah, wouldn’t want to ruin my shirt.” I laugh and he laughs too. “Hey! You’re not counting.”
“But I want to so bad,” I say.
“Nicely done.”
“I can’t believe I ever liked him.”
“Amazing what we can convince ourselves of.”
We’re quiet while we march beside the school. When we reach the front, the taxi’s waiting even though we never called, and we get inside. With the door shut, my body leaves attack mode and I sag. Vanet turns to me and says, “That was so totally worth it. Didn’t I say I can dance?”
“You can so dance, Vanet, so dance.” And I kiss him on the cheek.
Chapter 28
Stenson faces us as Vanet walks and I skip through the psych ward door. The first thing I notice is that the ward’s busy. It’s almost like daytime despite it being late. A police officer’s at the nursing station. The lights are on and blinding, rather than the usual dimmers used at night. A shout goes up as we enter, reminding me of the cheer at Vanet’s surprise flip on the dance floor, but the joy sours.
Behind the nursing station glass, Tink collapses into tears. Stenson doesn’t show any pleasure at our arrival, expression shifting from flat to volcanic in a flash.
“This them?” the police officer says and then scribbles a note on a pad, before shaking his head and leaving.
Stenson pulls us both into interview room one and erupts. “How could you?”
Despite her face being a twisted scowl, I don’t see a witch. I see an angry nurse. A betrayed nurse.
“No, don’t count, don’t speak—listen.” She pauses as if daring us to say something. “This ward is a place of healing. It is a place of trust. Break that trust and you break our ability to heal. You may be willing to ruin this for yourselves, but I will not let you ruin it for others. Wolfgang . . .” Her voice cracks, and she draws a deep breath. “After you pulled your stunt, Wolfgang required chemical restraints.” I swallow hard. This was me. It was all me. “What were you thinking?”
Vanet begins to say something, but I grab his arm and he quiets.
. . . “I’m sorry, Nurse Stenson,” I say. “I’m really sorry. The whole thing was my idea. I was upset with my boyfriend. With my stepmom. I wanted to prove to them I wasn’t crazy.”
The nurse shuts her eyes. “No one here is crazy,” she says. “You should have realized that by now. You have nothing to prove. You come here when you are sick. You leave when you are better.”
“I want her home tonight.” My father stands in the doorway. “She hasn’t been fair to the other patients.”
Beside him Adriana is barred entry by his arm. She’s got one leg into the room.
“I can appreciate that,” Stenson replies to my dad. “But I’d prefer to discharge her in the morning. To be honest, I’d like to get home and sleep, and having Milly pack up now would be highly disruptive to the other patients.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I say and tears well in my eyes.
“She can pack up tomorrow,” my dad says.
Stenson regards him and shakes her head. “It’s your choice, but I would prefer we let Milly sleep here tonight.”
My dad stares at me and finally nods.
Adriana ducks under my father’s arm to embrace me. “We were so worried,” she says.
. . . “Right,” I reply, prying her arms off of me. My tears turn from shame to anger. “So worried that what? I’d be allowed to come home tonight? That I’m well enough to go to the dance?”
I’m tired of her being so fake. She doesn’t care.
“That’s not fair, Milly,” my father says. “It’s about time that you start to realize what Adriana is to us.”
. . . “To you,” I shout.
Adriana starts crying.
“No, Milly, this whole business is on you, and the sooner you take responsibility, the sooner you can begin to realize that the people around you love you.”
“This is not the time.” Stenson holds up her hands, but it’s as though she isn’t even there.
. . . “She’s only being nice to me for you,” I say.
“You don’t know what being nice is! Do you remember your mother? Do you? Do you really, Milly?”
I shut up. Blood flees to my core and I grow cold. The walls bleed to gray.
I’m stunned and I think my father is too. No one else could understand what is passing between us. What my father means. What I know, but have been holding back these years. The truth does always come out, like the hunter’s bones by the river.
At the funeral, everyone spoke so well of my mom. Moral, a-good-person, with-so-much-potential, a-wonderful-mother, she-is-missed. But she wasn’t. She isn’t. I’ve been taught not to speak ill of the dead. But if my mom was so cruel, then why the dreams? Why is she always protecting me from the wolf?
“Milly and Vanet have been found safe and sound,” Nurse Stenson fills the silence. “And important to healing is a good night’s sleep. I’m afraid there’s small chance of that now, but we can do our best.”
Adriana steps forward to hug me again, and I push back up against the wall. Finally, she lets her arms drop and returns to my father. They leave.
“Clingy, that one,” Vanet says.
. . . “Yeah,” I whisper. “Like Saran Wrap.”
“Bed,” Stenson says. “We’ll finish this in the morning.”
With my anger spent and my head a confusion of thoughts, I need to count for the doorway. Stenson’s never shown impatience for my counting, but she does now. Air whistles heavily out of her nose as she taps her bicep. Maybe she thinks I should be over it. I figured I would be by the time I was being discharged, but all the staff seems to care about is that I’m up a few pounds and my meds aren’t giving me side effects.
When I’m halfway through my count, Stenson says to me, “Did you know that in the original fairy tales—not the ones told by Disney, the first versions recorded by the Grimm brothers—in Snow White and Hansel and Gretel, it wasn’t
an evil stepmother? It was an evil mother. They later changed them to an evil stepmother.” She doesn’t wait for a response. “No teeth brushing, just climb into bed,” she says after me and then shuts the door.
After the light in the hall, the bedroom’s pitch black. I stand waiting for my eyes to adjust. I pick out Sleeping Beauty’s snores. Red tosses and turns, but no more than usual, maybe less. Pig’s staring at the ceiling and gives a small wave. With the major objects in the room having taken shape, I navigate without bumping into anything, pull back my covers and slide into bed.
After the night’s events, I don’t expect to fall asleep quickly. But I do. And I regret it.
Stenson hasn’t gone home. She sits in the nursing station, waiting for the orderlies to disappear and for Tink to settle and leave. After everyone has departed, her mask comes away. I watch as she scratches at the edge of her hairline with her fingernails, catches an edge, and peels the skin from her skull.
Beneath the skin crawl tiny maggots. They drip from her face, puffing into wisps of urine-colored smoke as they hit the desk. Always there are more. Scraggly hair writhes. Scales drop from her eyes and they stare, iris-less, white orbs, seeing, but unseeing. She opens her mouth to utter a cackle, revealing a snaking tongue and a mouth filled with rows of red teeth. But more has changed. It’s not Stenson.
Now it’s my mother staring at the door to 3A. She wields a sword, and I know what it’s for. The thorny vine, the studded leather, the chain, nothing has stopped the wolf. The sword edge gleams with promised blood.
The wolf slides beneath Wolfgang’s door and coalesces. It growls and sniffs at the air.
I know I am sleeping. I know I am sleeping and I cannot get away. My mother pushes back from the desk and pauses before the door to my bedroom, sword held out and back, ready to strike. The wolf snarls and pads down the hallway. She swings, a test. It earns her a bark and flash of curved fangs.
Should I count? For what? To protect my mother? For her to die?
She leaps forward, thrusting the tip of the blade and inflicting a glancing blow on the shoulder of the wolf. It yelps. It hops back and then immediately forward again, evading a backhand to catch my mother’s wrist in its jaws. She screams and stumbles back to crack her skull against the nursing station glass. She crumples.
The wolf slinks back to 3A. It snuffles at the crack beneath my bedroom door, and then enters like steam. The giant head twists one way and then the next. It snarls back at the doorway, baring teeth. Then it whips around and launches at Pig, tearing at her blankets as she screams. It digs and digs until it finds whatever is buried there and chews it to splinters. It’s something I suspected was there, like my harbored guilt. Something we all should have guessed. But dreams aren’t real, and I’m too late.
I can’t move. I’m terrified to attract the wolf’s attention. But eventually it leaves the scattered fragments to sniff at my blankets. It rests its snout on my bed and peers at me, pink tongue rolling in and out of its mouth as if it can taste me on the air. The eyes are liquid and warm. Then a huge paw flops onto the bed, and another. With a delicate jump, it hops beside me, curling into my stomach like lovers spoon. I smell the fur’s musk. It smells a little like Adriana, but mostly of smoke.
It’s protecting me. It knows about my mother. Had the wolf ever attacked me in my dreams? . . . No. It had attacked Red and Pig, my book and Stenson, whenever I feared them, but never me. And my mother? She’d always been there to try to stop it. The wolf protects me.
Suddenly the wolf begins to growl. It digs at my chest, claws raising red welts. Its maw dips to my neck, jaws opening and closing over my throat.
So much for that theory.
Chapter 29
I wake beneath the wolf’s nibbling teeth.
Smoke roils across the ceiling, orange and black. I cough. The wolf’s gone. Why had it attacked? But now fully awake, I have bigger problems than dream interpretation. I’m on my knees, on my bed, breathing deeply of heavy fumes.
Fire lights the room. Pig’s bed blazes. Flames lick the ceiling. I cry out. The spine of my book of tales disappears in the furious heat.
She used it and all our homework for kindling.
“Red,” I scream. “Wake up!”
Red flips her blankets back. “What the hell?” she shouts and swings to the opposite side of her bed. “Fire!” she yells and then breaks into a coughing fit.
Someone must have tampered with the smoke detectors, because they should be blaring by now.
Heat tightens my skin and I feel my hair curl. Flames flow across the ceiling in waves. When Red flees through the door, the sudden blast of fresh air ignites a fireball. I drop to the floor as the hospital alarm sounds. All patients are directed to evacuate in an orderly fashion.
I shake Beauty, but she’s groggy and red from heat, or maybe that’s simply the glow of the flames on her skin.
. . . “Wake up!” Her eyes flutter. I pull her to the ground. We need to pass Pig’s bed to reach the doorway and it’s an inferno. Where is Pig now? I know why she did this. It all makes perfect sense and in some ways was predictable. Pig doesn’t want to leave. She’s safe here. So what does she need to do to stay? Light fires. Bring the police. Bring the fire department. Bring the full force of the law down upon herself. I wonder if I’m so predictable. I hear shouting in the hallway, Wolfgang versus the night nurse.
The door is so close to Pig’s bed that I worry I won’t be able to both haul Beauty behind me and count to cross the threshold before bursting into flames. But I must. Last night I’d been angry and pushed through without my count, but I’m not angry anymore. I’m terrified. And anxiety and fear are best friends.
I try to time my count. But each time I pull on Beauty I whine a little, so have to start counting again. The smoke itches at my throat and I choke. It’s no use even starting until I’m closer to the door. I maneuver behind Beauty’s head and hook arms beneath her armpits. Then with my legs I push myself backward, sliding my butt and Beauty across the floor. This is faster than pulling on her arm, but still I grunt with each push.
I’m roasting. My lungs are searing. The Dark Wood burns. Trunks tumble across the path. Tears dry on my cheeks. Then my back’s up against the door. I start my count. But I’m dying in here. My count isn’t saving anyone. Not me, not Sleeping Beauty. I reach back and twist the doorknob. The metal sears my fingers and I cry out, interrupting the count. The door opens.
My throat tightens, but that could be from the smoke, not my OCD. The pounding of my heart could be from the fire and the desire to live, not my OCD. This terror is rational. I slump across the threshold, pulling Beauty with me into the red-lit hall. Throat too raw to shout, I start toward the exit, which flies open. The night nurse kneels beside me. It’s Stenson. She stayed. She’s shouting something. I’ve started counting again, and I’m not done when a masked firefighter charges into the ward. What’s the worst that can happen? Hasn’t it happened? Isn’t it happening right now? Aren’t I handling it?
I think of something to get angry about, a ping-pong ball to squeeze—at first Adriana’s face appears, but soon it morphs into the tense, disappointed expression of my mother. It was an evil mother. I can tell you no more. What has my count ever done for me? I am angry. I’m angry with myself, angry that I left so much of my guilt and shame at Adriana’s feet, like some cat dropping a half-eaten rat on the doorstep.
I don’t struggle as I’m pulled across the blissfully cool hall. Wolfgang fights orderlies who try to pull him from his room.
. . . “It’s okay, Wolfgang,” I rasp, and then to the orderlies I shout, “Just leave him alone, he doesn’t like people touching him. Let him walk out on his own.”
I don’t know what happens, because I’m yanked over the psychiatric unit’s threshold. Strong hands take me into their arms and pass me back to another who carries me and runs me past one threshold after another, so many doors, too many to count. I cry the entire time, open to panic that never takes ho
ld. And then I land on a stretcher somewhere with air that’s at first wonderfully cooling, but a place that soon makes me quake as a crowd of white coats press to assess my condition. An oxygen mask slides over my face. Then Stenson’s back, watching. I’m Gretel and I’ve escaped the witch’s oven. I laugh into the mask at the ridiculous thought and she smiles.
The white coats thin and I can see Beauty on a stretcher beside me. She’s awake, similarly masked, and looking at me. Her eyes are so blue.
“The nurse says you saved me,” she says, the sound muffled.
. . . “Tried to,” I reply.
“Thank God.”
. . . “Yeah,” I say.
“You’re a brave girl.” Stenson looms closer. I turn my head, feeling my skin crackle like I have a bad sunburn.
. . . “Is Wolfgang okay?” I ask.
“He was well away from the fire,” Stenson replies. “It never spread.”
. . . “Pig?”
“The police have Pig.”
. . . “She’s safe then,” I say. She got her wish. And then I sit forward with a realization. “My stepmom, Adriana, the matches were hers. Pig bumped into her and I bet Pig pocketed the matches then. The whole birthday party was only for her to get the matches.”
Stenson’s lips tighten.
We sit for a while. People mill, waiting for the firefighters to give the all-clear. I already know there’s no going back for me and likely not for the whole unit. I scan for Vanet, but don’t see him. With relief I realize he’ll have made it, if the fire was confined to my room.
Stenson’s on her phone, calling other hospitals, searching for patient beds. At least on the gurney, I can try to sleep. When I roll back over, something digs into my hip. I slide fingers down into my pocket and come out with the ping-pong ball. Adriana’s head. I grin at it. It wasn’t Adriana I imagined, though, was it? It was my mother.
I try going to my relaxed place, the raft at my grandparents’. I clench my hands, then my forearms and biceps. I sink into the mattress, the frantic world sliding by, people slowly threading back into the hospital. What was it about my grandparents’ cottage that made it so peaceful? I could easily say it was the lake or the sun, but that wasn’t it. My mom wasn’t there. She set my teeth on edge. All this time my mother never had my back. Even in my dreams.
Counting Wolves Page 17
