“Okay, Doctor.”
I was too tired and too numb to think about anything, but I felt vaguely sorry for Gia and wondered how she and the others were going to treat me now.
M'Lady One helped me to a bedroom. The mere sight of a real bed made me relax. I couldn't believe how wonderful it felt to lie down on a thick mattress. She gave me the pills and some water and brought me the ice pack.
“Keep it on your foot,” she said, pulling me up so I could hold it there myself.
“You put that scorpion into my shoe, didn't you?” I managed to ask her in a hoarse voice.
She smiled. “Now how could I do a terrible thing like that? Remember? I'm a different person now. I don't do mean things to people anymore,” she replied, and left.
I kept the ice pack on my foot, but the pain there was receding anyway. I was so tired, I couldn't stay upright and eventually just gave up on the ice pack and fell asleep. It was probably the best sleep I'd had since I'd arrived at this ranch. I didn't wake up feeling energetic, but I felt a great deal stronger. The nausea was gone and I didn't think I had a fever any longer either. I saw that the sun was low, falling behind the mountains in the west. I had slept through the day.
“Well,” I heard from the doorway, and looked up at Dr. Foreman. “You've woken just in time for dinner. That's good. I want you to eat well tonight, Phoebe. You have to get stronger, okay?”
“Yes, Dr. Foreman.”
“Good. Go on to the dining room then.”
I slipped my feet into my shoes cautiously. I couldn't help it. Memory of that sting was still so vivid, I thought my foot would rebel and refuse to go into the shoe. Dr. Foreman watched me and then stepped back as I started out of the room.
“It's a comfortable room, isn't it, Phoebe?”
“Yes.”
I hadn't looked at anything but the bed, but now I saw a dresser and a mirror, a small desk and chair, and a vanity table with another mirror. The floor was done in a blue-and-white tile with an oval, cream area rug next to the bed. Beside the bed was a pole lamp with a shade that looked to be made of seashells. There was even a radio on the nightstand.
'This could be your room, Phoebe.“ I glanced at her a little too hopefully. ”We'll see." She indicated I should walk ahead of her to the dining room.
The others were already there eating. They all looked up when I appeared, all except Gia. She kept her eyes on her food.
“As you all heard, Phoebe hasn't been well. She is therefore excused from any kitchen chores tonight,” Dr. Foreman announced.
Mindy smirked. Robin and Teal stared at me enviously.
Dr. Foreman put her hand on my shoulder. “Get something to eat and then return to your bunk and get some rest, Phoebe. You don't have to work on any school assignments either.”
The more favors and privileges she placed upon me, the more embarrassed and ashamed I felt. The others sensed it and were now all looking down at the food. I went to my place and began to fill my plate with food. I was hungry and thirsty. Dr. Foreman stood there watching for a few moments, then left.
No one spoke for a while.
Finally, Teal broke the silence. “You were in the Ice Room, weren't you?”
I nodded.
“What was it like? What happened? What did they do?” she asked, her eyes wide with expectation. “Robin won't tell me anything about her experience,” she added, glaring at her.
I just shook my head.
“Talking about something like that causes you to relive it,” Gia mumbled. “So shut up.”
“Don't keep giving me orders,” Teal shot back at her.
She looked at me again. “What did she mean you weren't well?” she asked, refusing to be quiet even though Robin and Mindy and not just Gia were now glaring at her so hard, anyone else would have been intimidated.
“I was stung like you, by a scorpion, and this was right after Dr. Foreman gave me the news that my mother died last week.”
“What?” Robin asked. “Your mother died?”
“Some drug she took affected her heart and she died in the clinic she was in.”
“Why did she wait so long to tell you?” Teal asked.
“I don't know.” I know I sounded like it, but I couldn't help it: I was searching for sympathy, and understanding.
“Oh. This is all so terrible,” Teal said. “And then to be stung by a scorpion. Where were you stung?”
“It was in my shoe.”
“How could it be in your shoe?” Robin asked, grimacing.
“Spiders can get into shoes when they're left outside. It's not a big deal,” Gia said dryly.
“Well, it got under my overalls, so I guess it could get into a shoe,” Teal added.
Robin smirked and stared at her. “You know, now that I think about it, Teal, how come you didn't get put in the Ice Room for trying to run off?”
“I don't know,” Teal said quickly. “I was too sick, I guess. They put me in one of the bedrooms here. Maybe she was afraid I would die and she would get investigated and then go to jail.”
“Phoebe's sitting here after one day. How come it took you so long to get well enough to be returned to the barracks?” Mindy questioned, her eyes now also full of suspicion.
“I had a worse reaction obviously. Maybe it was a bigger spider or a more poisonous one or something, and don't forget I had been out in the desert a long, long time walking. I was two miles past total exhaustion and my feet were sore and I was very dehydrated. I should have been sent to a hospital, not kept here,” Teal whined loud enough for someone outside the dining room to hear.
“The way we're being treated, we'll all end up in a hospital soon,” Robin offered.
“Exactly.” Teal nodded and turned to Gia. “Maybe that's where Posy is. In a hospital.”
Gia looked up sharply and glanced at me. Then she dropped her fork so hard, she almost cracked her dish. “Why don't you all shut up? All this whining and moaning, day in and day out. That's what she wants you to do. I'll tell you who's going to end up in a hospital here, me. I'm going to get sick as hell listening to all this groaning and crying.”
“Is that right?” Teal retorted, her eyes filling with indignation. “You never cry? You never moan or complain? You're little Miss Perfection.”
“Stop it!” I cried, slapping my hand on the table. “Gia's right. Just stop it. Everyone just shut up.”
Teal folded her arms under her breasts and turned to me.
“Please,” I added.
The rage drained out of her face. She looked at Mindy, Robin, and Gia and went back to her food.
We ate in funereal silence, all of us staring out as if our eyes had been turned around and we were looking in at our own dark thoughts. I was sure we resembled inmates on death row contemplating their end.
Afterward, I returned to barracks alone and went to bed. The others marched in slowly when they were finished with the kitchen chores. Teal announced that thanks to having to pick up my load, she was too tired to do any schoolwork. No one said anything different, even though the expectation was they would all receive a demerit for turning in the work late. Someone turned off the light before the buddies could.
The door opened and M'Lady Two looked in. “Tired girls?” She laughed. “I'll let everyone know you went to bed early. Maybe we'll get you up earlier.”
I heard the door close and then I heard Robin say, “And let them know you should drop dead, too.”
Teal laughed and Mindy giggled. Gia was quiet. Dr. Foreman's warnings about how volatile she could be returned. Was she planning some sort of revenge? Was it safe to fall asleep with her only a few feet away? I wanted to apologize, to explain, and to get her to see I had no choice, but I was afraid to do it. Instead, I lay awake for as long as I could. Finally, my eyelids refused to be open and sleep came sweeping over me like a cool breeze.
The way the morning began, I thought the silence that had fallen among us would continue all day. No one spoke. With little more than a grunt,
everyone rose, dressed, washed, and went to the bathroom. Reciting the morning chant was the most words any of us uttered for hours, even at breakfast. While the others milked the cows, picked chicken eggs, fed the pigs, and did some weeding in the garden, I was assigned to feed and brush down all four horses, as well as clean out the stalls. I worked almost mindlessly, moving as if I were a robot or someone in a drugged stupor.
Once in a while, I would pause and think about Mama. Had she died in her sleep or did she get an attack and panic and die while they were trying to help her? Was she sorry in the end? Did she think at all of me? Think of my daddy? I couldn't imagine anything more lonely than to die among strangers, to have no one around you who would shed tears over your passing, no one who was more than just professionally interested in what was happening to you. You would know that when it was over, they would shake their heads and most likely within the same hour, maybe the same minute, return to their normal daily lives. Some who witnessed your passing might not even remember to mention it to anyone afterward. You were, after all, just a statistic.
What did the doctor ask in that letter? What she should do with Mama's remains? How do you write such a question? Surely the doctor was thinking, we've got to get her out of here. She's one of our screwups. Come get her, sweep up this mess, remove it from our sight.
Did Mama deserve it? Was she so wicked that she was being punished?
Is that what was happening to all of us now? We were bad; we had all done illegal things, some of us worse than the others. Both Mindy and Gia were nearly responsible for killing another human being, and Teal and Robin were thieves. Should anyone feel sorry for us? Should we be upset at the cruelty of the buddies? Was Dr. Foreman right? Could she cure us of evil, turn us into good people? Should we resist? Should I blame myself for surrendering completely?
These questions circled in my brain like mayflies. The more I tried to swipe them away, the more they came. They were relentless. I had to stop working and hold on to something to keep myself from spinning and fainting. I caught my breath and started to brush down one of the horses; then I saw Gia in the doorway. She had a small garden spade in her hand. With the sunlight behind her, her face was in total darkness. She looked more like a ghost or a shadow coming to life as she slowly walked into the horse barn toward me.
I stepped to my right and took hold of the handle of the shovel we used to clean out the horse stalls. I wasn't going to let her hurt me. She stopped about halfway.
“You think you told her something about me that she didn't already know?” Gia began.
“She made me. She put me in the Ice Room and you know what she can do to you. You were the one who said you're not in the Ice Room. The Ice Room is in you. Now I know what you meant. That helmet thing . . . there were rats all over me and she knew how much I hated them.”
“She didn't have to do that to you to get information. She just wanted to break you, Phoebe. She already had Mindy tell her everything I said about Posy. Mindy denies it, but I know she did. She pretends to believe me, but she doesn't. Dr. Foreman has her thinking otherwise.”
“Is it true, Gia? Are you making up Posy?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you are,” I said, my eyes on the hand that held that spade like a switchblade.
She smiled coldly, her small mouth stretching and curling in the corners with disgust. “You're going to be a Foreman girl then, are you? You're going to stay here or come back here and become a buddy someday so you can torment and torture someone like you?”
“No.”
She crossed over to a bale of hay and sat, digging her spade into it.
“She told me what Mindy did with her baby,” I said.
“Did she?” Gia smiled and shook her head. “Dr. Foreman used the same technique on me, telling me what Posy had done. This was afterward, of course.”
“After what?”
“After the imaginary Posy disappeared, but that's what imaginary people do, don't they? They disappear.”
“What did she tell you Posy had done?” I asked.
“Why do you want to know if you don't believe there ever was a Posy?”
I didn't say anything and she looked at the horse behind her. “Posy liked the horses, too. She would have slept with them if they had let her. I told you Natani took a liking to her just as he has taken to you. He taught her many things, but the most valuable was how to escape.”
“Are you saying she escaped? I thought you believed she was put into the basement and might even still be there.”
“From time to time, Posy escaped, and maybe in the end, forever.”
“I don't understand, Gia.”
“Do you know anything about meditation?”
“No. I mean, it's a religion or something, isn't it?”
“It's not a religion, but it's part of some religions. It's part of what Natani believes.”
“What does that have to do with Posy?”
“He taught her how to meditate, to leave this world and enter some spiritual place, and when she was there, no one could touch her, hurt her. It got so she would rather be there than here all the time, and it wasn't long after that when she disappeared.” Gia looked like she was crying now. I thought I saw a tear glistening on her cheek.
I stepped closer to her. “It doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know what any of that means.”
“Maybe you can get Natani to show you.”
“I want to believe you, Gia. I really do, and I don't want to hurt you. I'm sorry I betrayed you in there.”
“You didn't betray me in there, but you are betraying me out here,” she said, standing. She took her spade out of the hay.
“What does that mean?”
“You don't believe me. That's more important to me.”
“I said I want to believe you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, we'll see. I'll give you the chance to prove that.” She started out.
“When?” I called after her.
She turned back. “Maybe tonight.”
“How?”
“We'll get into the basement.”
“I thought you said the door had a lock on it. How can we get in?”
“Leave it to me. We'll get in and then we'll see if Posy is there or if she was,” she said, and walked out of the horse barn.
Wind Song reached over the stall door and poked me in the back of my head.
I looked at him.
Was that meant to be a warning? Did he see something in Gia's actions?
Was 1 as crazy as Gia? Now I believed what Natani had told me... horses and people could talk to each other.
Meditation? Escape? What was she talking about? How was I supposed to understand any of this? More important, how had I fallen into this whirlpool of pain and confusion?
Every time Gia saw me the remainder of the day, she looked at me weirdly. She said nothing else to me about the basement and Posy, so I thought it was just something that had flown in and out of her mind as quickly as a hummingbird. However, just before we started to the house for dinner, she stepped up beside me and whispered, “Don't tell the others anything about this. It will just be you and me, understand?”
I nodded, but it all made me nervous. The one thing I didn't want to do was get into any more trouble here, but I didn't want to anger Gia any more than I already had either. I was so anxious about it all that I didn't eat well, and sure enough, before the dinner ended, Dr. Foreman came into the dining room.
“How are my girls doing tonight?” she asked, her eyes fixed mainly on me.
We all muttered all right and thank you.
“You should make sure you eat well, Phoebe. You have to keep up your strength for the challenges that lie ahead, and believe me,” she said, looking at everyone now, “there are challenges. I would like to speak with you before you return to the barracks to do your homework, Phoebe. Come to the office when you're finished with your kitchen d
uties.”
I nodded and returned to eating, but the other girls, especially Gia, looked at me and then each other.
“What's that about, I wonder?” Mindy asked.
“I don't know,” I said.
“What I don't know is why she is so worried about you eating and you getting stronger,” Teal said. “She didn't watch over me like that after my horrendous episode.”
“Well, then,” Mindy said, “maybe your episode wasn't as horrendous as you make it out to be.”
“What are you talking about? You were there when they brought me back. You saw.”
Mindy shrugged. “I know how to put it on, too.”
“Put it on? Listen to that. Phoebe, tell her what it's like to be stung by one of those .. . things.”
I looked up. “It's painful, makes you nauseous. I think I even had a fever.”
“See?” Teal jumped on the end of my words.
“That's Phoebe, not you,” Mindy said, barely looking at her.
“I wish it happens to you, that's all. Then we'll see how horrendous it is and isn't.”
“And I wish you get bitten by a rattlesnake in the bathroom in your you know what,” Mindy countered.
Teal flung a glob of her mashed potatoes at her, hitting her in the cheek.
“Bitch!” Mindy screamed. She was about to toss her glass of cranberry juice at her when M'Lady Three appeared in the doorway.
“Problem?” she asked.
“No,” Mindy said quickly.
“You're a bit of a messy eater, aren't you, Mindy? Why don't you do all the dishes, silverware, and clean off the table yourself tonight? Maybe that will make you neater. You have any problem with that?” she asked quickly.
“No,” Mindy said, shaking her head. Some of the mashed potato fell to her plate. She wiped her chin and looked away quickly.
“Good. The rest of you, except for Phoebe bird, return to the barracks. Let's go.”
Teal, Robin, and Gia rose. Mindy lowered her head, but I could see the tips of her ears were so red, they looked like tiny candle flames. She didn't lift her head until they were gone.
“She'll be sorry,” she muttered. “Just wait and see.”
“Don't get into a fight again, Mindy. They're just hoping you will,” I advised her. “And then you'll know what it's like in the Ice Room.”
Broken Wings 2 - Midnight Flight Page 18
