Stalking the Moon

by Angel Leigh McCoy

  Contents

  Introduction

  Stalking the Moon

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Appendix

  Thanks

  Sneak Preview

  About the Author

  Mental Health Resources

  Copyright

  Wyrdwood Welcome Series

  Copyright ©2020 Angel Leigh McCoy

  CONTENT WARNING

  This novel contains discussions about suicide and descriptions of graphic violence,

  psychiatric treatment, and self-harm that may be triggering to some readers.

  What is the Wyrdwood Project? Learn more.

  (http://wyrdwoodangel.com/about/)

  DEDICATION

  I’d like to dedicate this novel to two important Geminis in my life. This novel, being the first I will publish, is especially important to me considering I’ve wanted to be a novelist since childhood. I undertook writing my first novel in sixth grade, and I have a huge stack of unfinished manuscripts. Life, as we all know, gets in the way of our dreams. My mother was the first to encourage me to write. She instilled in me the belief that I could be a writer. And so, this book is dedicated to her memory, to the boundless love she gave, and the lessons she taught. Miss you, Mom.

  I also dedicate it to Fran Friel, a Gemini like my mother, who is an amazing creative and old soul who has influenced me in ways she will never know. Her friendship, the intellectual discussions, the tools she introduced me to, and just the general light of her being have inspired me to finally follow through on that childhood dream. Thank you, Fran.

  INTRODUCTION

  Briefly, I’d like to say a little something about mental illness. I use it in this book as a vehicle to carry the story, but I’ve attempted to do so with great respect toward those who deal with it in real life. It is not my intention to make light of it.

  Mental illness can and does destroy lives. If you feel that you’re ill, I encourage you to seek help. No shame, no blame.

  I’ve included some links to excellent organizations at the end of the book.

  Sincerely, Angel…

  ♦

  Wyrdwood Welcome #1

  Stalking the Moon

  by Angel Leigh McCoy

  ♦

  CHAPTER 1

  “Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realized

  that the imagery in my mind wasn't insanity.

  Surrealism to me is reality.”

  —John Lennon—

  Driving my yellow Fiesta, singing at the top of my lungs with Pink, I cut through the city then turned off the highway onto the rural roads that would take me back to my workplace—the Vince Malum Residential Living Center, home of Peoria’s non-violent socio- and psychopaths.

  Once a week, I had an appointment with my psychiatrist—Dr. Richard Reuter. Richard was my head shrinker. I’d been seeing him regularly for twenty years. At times, it felt like we’d grown up together, although the age difference (more than fifteen years) made that a silly fantasy.

  Richard kept an office in the Center’s main building, where my mom, Gisèle Rose, had been a resident for more than twenty-five years. Mental illness was the Rose legacy. Being her daughter, I hadn't fallen far from the tree. In Mom's absence, I'd been raised by my grandfather, Abraham "Abram" Rose.

  Along the field-lined road, the Center appeared in the distance. The roof on the original Victorian stone house and the top two floors of the twin residential wings peeked over the treetops. A German immigrant named Vince Malum had built it for his schizophrenic wife in 1927 and named it the Morning Glory Institution, "a home for people in discord with the world."

  Before long, there were more patients than rooms, so Malum built an addition at the back of the main house. Everyone called it the Tower. The patients lived in the Tower—men in the west wing, women in the east—and the doctors, such as Richard, had their offices in the main house. When Malum died, his grandchildren renamed the place in his honor.

  I guided the car down the paved drive between the apple, cherry, and pear trees in Malum’s Orchard. At harvest-time each year, when the trees were heavy with fruit, people came from all over and were free to pick as much as they wanted, so long as they gave ten percent of their harvest to the Center. The people got free fruit, and the Center got free pickers. Sometimes, whole families descended upon the orchard. They looked happy and normal with their ladders and baskets.

  Abram and I had climbed up into those trees every summer, back when we were still trying to look happy and normal, back before I learned that my mother was locked away inside an institution. I remembered looking over at the Center’s dark windows, glimpsing movement, and wondering who was inside. Sometimes a pane of glass would catch a ray of sunlight and reflect it with a wink. It chilled me even on the warmest summer days.

  The main gate was an enormous iron monstrosity. People said Malum shipped it over from Germany and that it had once been the gate on a concentration camp, although no one had ever proved that.

  The fence around the Center’s land was not designed to keep anyone out—or even in. It was a mental blockade, intended primarily to discourage restless patients from wandering. An able-bodied patient determined to run away could scale the fence with relative ease. The Center relied instead on the vast acres of farmland surrounding it to keep escapees from succeeding, and it was rare that they had to send out search parties. Out there in the middle of nowhere, there wasn’t much traffic and nowhere to go but into the corn fields.

  I pulled up to the security box and swiped my employee badge across it. The gate opened, and I drove through the moment it was wide enough.

  The main house had climbing ivy, gables, manicured shrubs, and a circular drive. It was a wannabe English manor. Some days, I appreciated the sight of it. Others, it repulsed me. As I approached, I found my feeling sentimental about the old place. It was, after all, my second home.

  The staff entrance was on the women’s wing, near the employee parking lot. Out of habit, I entered there. Nurses, orderlies, and doctors all greeted me as I made my way to Richard’s office.

  Richard was seated at his desk. "Hey, Vivi. Come on in." He rebuttoned the collar of his white, custom-fitted dress shirt.

  "Howdy." I shut the door behind me and went to the leather couch. It was overstuffed with a high back and deep seat. I felt small on it, but that was part of Richard’s evil plot. Plus, it would have been impossible to fall off it while under hypnosis. It cradled me.

  "What part of my psyche are we going to poke today?"

  Richard folded his arms on the desk, a pen flapping in one hand as he looked me over. "I want to revisit your early days," he said. "I’ve been going through the transcripts of our sessions, compiling
them, and there are a couple things I’d like to revisit."

  "Let’s get to it then."

  The first time I met Richard, back in the early days, he was finishing his last year as a graduate student in the Psychology Department at the University of Illinois. He was in Peoria doing an internship at the counseling center, and Abram had dragged me there to get my head fixed—at the junior high principal’s request.

  Back then, Richard had a long ponytail and was every teenage girl’s dream of the older college boy. I was only thirteen, and he was taller than me, though that changed when I had my growth spurt a few years later.

  Thirteen-year-old Me had gone into his office with a chip on my shoulder, hating Abram, hating my illness, and hating Dr. Richard Reuter before I’d even met him.

  He'd appeared in the waiting room and asked, "Viviane? Right? Would you come with me?"

  "I don’t got a choice."

  Abram hissed, "Hey," at me, and said "Be nice."

  "Yeah, sure."

  I walked into the office and went straight to a chair, flopped there, and crossed my arms on my chest. The first thing I noticed that interested me was the plate of cookies on the coffee table. They were chocolate chip and appeared homemade. I pretended not to see them. I didn’t want him to think I was going to stay all that long, and besides, my stomach didn’t feel too good.

  Richard sat in the chair opposite me and watched me for a full minute. Finally, he asked, "How old are you?"

  "Fifteen." It was a bold-faced lie.

  "I know you’re lying."

  I asked, "How old are you?"

  "Twenty-nine."

  "Are you a fag?" I said with vehemence, calculating his possible reactions.

  He didn’t even flinch. "Viviane, do you know why your grandfather brought you here?"

  "Because he’s a sociopath afraid of being noticed. I draw attention to him, and he wants me to stop."

  He smiled at that, and for the first time, but not the last, I thought how handsome he was.

  In that first session, he didn't hypnotize me, though later, it became a regular part of our therapy sessions. Richard felt it was the best way to track down the source of my hallucinations. He would take me back to the time before my first hallucination, and we'd go over the events of a day or two in each session, gradually working forward through my memories. It was my own personal reality-TV show.

  One time, I had what can only be described as a past-life memory, or maybe a dream. Both Richard and I waved it off as an aberration, though I never forgot it. The dream had been wonderful, about a place with emerald hills, crystal streams, and a palace that felt like home. Whenever I thought about it, I could still imagine the smell of honeysuckle on the breeze.

  Twenty years later, I was thirty-three, and our regressions were catching up to the conscious flow of time. In the hypnosis sessions, he recorded my soul in bits and pieces, saved forever as audio recordings, transcribed to digital documents, and printed out on paper. He kept the files in his cabinets.

  I’d often wondered what would happen when we finally caught up to the present moment. Maybe I’d die. Maybe he’d die. Maybe the entire world would end as the Ouroboros swallowed its own tail.

  "All right." Richard got up from his desk. "I’m ready, if you are." He sat in the chair opposite me and leaned forward to turn on the metronome.

  I said, "Take me to a happy day."

  "You know the drill. Close your eyes, relax, and remember."

  Not every tick and tock of the metronome sounded the same. The differences were subtle, but they were there if I listened for them. It was a song without rhyme or reason.

  It started small and distant: tick.

  The cuckoo clock on the wall at Abram’s house had to be wound. I loved pulling the chains that raised the heavy, metal pine cones. Tock. It had been my job, every morning, when I was a kid. My body rocked to the beat: tick tock. Time ebbed, and space flowed. My spine relaxed. Tick. Gravity released me. Tock. The metronome sang its song in my belly. Tick tock. I was energy, and I radiated.

  "We’re going to continue our journey back in time," Richard said. The waves of his voice rippled through me, and the present faded into the background.

  I followed the metronome down into a trance. We had a signal. I raised a finger to indicate that I was ready to begin.

  "Go back," Richard suggested, "to the moment when you first met Simon, when you were thirteen."

  The scene formed around me, inside me, throughout me.

  "Describe it to me."

  I’m home, and I’m taking a shower. There’s blood running down my leg. It’s swirling in the water and spinning down the drain. I know what it is. Lettie’s had hers since last year, and she took me to buy the stuff I’d need. I’m really glad I didn’t have to do that with my grandpa.

  Lettie and me, we read the little instruction book that came in the box and made fun of the pictures. She warned me how it would be, the cramps and mess, but it’s worse when it’s actually happening. It’s scary and weird. I keep thinking that my blood is supposed to stay in my body.

  So, I’m standing there in the shower, watching my blood drain away, and I’m trying not to cry, wondering if I’m going to die, and that’s when I hear a man. He sounds like James Bond. "You’re probably not going to die."

  I scream and cover my private parts with my hands, but no one’s there.

  The voice says, "What I mean is, you are going to be just fine." But nobody’s there. I’m freaking out. I jump out of the shower and run through the house. I’m screaming.

  The voice is following me. "Oh, lass, it’s okay."

  I streak into the kitchen, and my grandpa is there, trying to calm me down.

  I’m crying, naked and wet, shaking all over, blood staining my leg, and Grandpa thinks I’m upset because of my period, but that isn’t it. It’s the man talking to me right next to my ear, when there’s nobody there.

  He says his name is Simon.

  The metronome sang. Tick. Tock.

  "When you return to your waking state," Richard said, "you’ll remember all the events you described to me, clearly and in detail."

  Tick.

  "Feel the couch supporting you. It’s solid and real. Feel the air as it passes through your nostrils. You’re here with me, now, in the present." Tock.

  I opened my eyes and looked across at Richard’s familiar face.

  He turned off the metronome. "How do you feel?"

  I answered with a nod. When I wake up and remember everything even more clearly than before, I'm reminded of my own life again, as if I've been looking through an album of old pictures.

  "Are you hungry? Want to grab dinner?"

  "Not tonight. I want to spend some time with Colin before I go see Mom. Rain check?"

  "Yeah, some other time." Richard got up and went to his desk. "How's Colin doing?"

  "Best fiancé ever."

  "Great. See you next week."

  I’d been dismissed.

  ♦

  After my appointment, I went straight back home to our one-story, two-bedroom, three-mortgage house and found my grandfather cooking lunch in the kitchen.

  "Want some eggs?" Dressed in jeans and a mustard-stained Chicago Cubs t-shirt, Abram loomed over the stove.

  "Love some."

  "Did you take your medicine?"

  I sighed. "Jesus. Here we go again. Not yet. I’ll take them with lunch."

  "Good." Abram waved his hand at the coffee pot. "There’s coffee." He served up the eggs. "So how’s that crazy young man of yours?"

  "Fantastic in bed."

  Abram grunted. "It only gets worse from here, you know."

  "Do we have to have this conversation again? It’s as outdated as your flat-top. I love Colin, and that’s the end of it."

  Abram set a plate of eggs in front of me. "Okay. How was your session with Richard?"

  "Fine." I dashed hot sauce onto my eggs. And that was the extent of the conversation. Most of
them were some variation on that theme, the questions and answers in different orders. By then, Abram and I weren't exactly close.

  ♦♦♦

  CHAPTER 2

  Several hours later, I got a call from Colin's doctor, Bella Rosenblum, asking me to come back to the Center. An orderly had found Colin out on the roof, a dangerous place for a man suffering from delusions and hallucinations. He'd been confined to his room and put on suicide watch.

  I climbed to the Center’s roof, four stories up, and looked out at the manicured lawn and down at the concrete patio. An eager wind blew from the northwest, sweeping in off the Illinois plains and pushing cumulus clouds ahead of it. It whipped my loose hair into a frenzied halo and dried my tears.

  I wanted to understand—to see what he'd seen when he'd been standing there.

  Two years earlier, I'd met Colin at the Center. We were in the garden, me with my mother and a book, and Colin with his ghosts. He’d been diagnosed with retrograde amnesia. He had forgotten his name and his history—everything from before he woke up in the hospital.

  Our relationship started when my bookmark went dancing across the lawn on a gust of wind, and Colin retrieved it for me. We started talking, and that led to walks, then picnics, and eventually we kissed beneath an old oak. We built dreams and plans around a future when his memories would return, when we could get married and have children.

  As time had progressed, Colin’s past remained elusive, haunting him. He presented with hallucinations and delusions that led the Center's doctors to believe he'd been ill even before the event that had caused his amnesia.

  The grounds of Vince Malum Residential Living Center surrounded me on all sides. From my vantage point on the roof, it seemed so sane—the lush grass, the old oaks, and the paths with their strategically placed benches. In the distance, the employee parking lot was a patchwork of columns and rows, cars tidily arranged.

  Inside the building, patients were tidily arranged as well, in rooms designed to suit their needs. Nurses and doctors went about their duties, distributing meds and accompanying patients to their sessions. Tick. Tock. By the clock, security guards patrolled the building on choreographed paths, their steps metered, their dialogue repetitive. This patina of order hid an inner world of chaos where no one and no thing was either predictable or reliable.