Stalking the Moon

by Angel Leigh McCoy

  I reversed my steps and climbed. I passed Corona peering at me through the crack in the door, gave her a nod, then continued upward, pausing to listen between each step. One hand clutched a butter knife and the other trailed along the handrail. I climbed back to the second floor, and nothing happened. I got to the third floor. Nada.

  The building had four stories. I looked up to where the ceiling capped the stairwell. I couldn’t see the door leading to the roof, but I could hear the wind beyond it, howling and beating against the door.

  I went up one more flight to the fourth floor, and I waited.

  Nothing.

  One more set of steps to the roof door, where I entered the security code and pushed it open. As soon as the latch released, the wind caught the door and jerked it from my grasp.

  It slammed against the wall with a loud crash.

  "Viv?" Simon called, his voice echoing and distant.

  "I'm okay! Stay there!"

  Out on the roof, the wind whipped around me, lifting my hair and flapping my pants legs. The roof was a grim platform. Beyond it was a sea of moving trees lit at their edges by the glow of dawn’s burgeoning light.

  I shouted, “Are you here?”

  The door slammed shut behind me, and there she was, a tornado of mist and hair, directly in front of me, baring her teeth at me, death in her eyes. Those eyes were too round. A slimy film swam across them whenever she blinked, and her irises were faded and hard, white, dead eyes that rejected all light. Despite my fear, or perhaps because of it, I was ready when she leapt. I swung the vase and hit her on the side of the head.

  Her claws raked my arm, but she fell to one side.

  I cradled my arm against my body, turned, and ran to the door. It wasn't locked from this side, and I grabbed the handle, smearing it with blood.

  Gravel crunched right behind me.

  I turned to face her, and she was on me. Her hands closed around my throat.

  I swung the vase at her head, but her arm was in the way. She pinned me back against the door. The vase fell from my hand.

  The keening had begun in my head, the sound that always accompanied the hag's attacks.

  Desperate, I fumbled for the squirt bottle and wrapped my fingers around the trigger. I got it turned to point toward her and squeezed. Water exploded between us and dampened my clothes. I squeezed again. Water ran down the front of my leg.

  She howled and cringed away from me. I pulled the bottle free and held it out like a gun. I squirted her again, forcing her back.

  She glared furiously at me.

  I fumbled for the doorknob, turned it, and pulled the door open. I hurried through and turned to pull the door shut behind me. I got one last glimpse of her.

  She was staring at me, lips black and angry, pulled back. Red welts had formed where the salt water had touched her belly, and her eyes had gone from dead white to blood red. I had pissed her off.

  I fled inside and was halfway down the first set of stairs when the roof door opened and then closed again. She was inside.

  "Simon!" I shouted. I tore down the stairs and made it to the third floor before she caught me.

  She grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked me back. My scalp was on fire.

  I shrieked in pain and latched onto the handrail to keep from falling. At the last moment, I swung around and aimed the spray bottle. I squirted, but she had learned.

  She released me and dodged aside, avoiding most of the water. She had some of my hair between her fingers.

  I shouted, “Fuck!” and sprayed at her again.

  She dodged, leapt past me, and dropped low to the stairs below, cutting off my descent. She slashed at my legs.

  I jumped back, half-stumbling up a step. I wasn’t fast enough.

  Her claws cut across my shin, tearing my pants and lacerating me. I screamed and fumbled, landing on my ass on the stairs. I kept squirting at her, but the bottle was running out of water.

  The hag launched herself at me and knocked the bottle to one side. It went flying, bounced off the wall, and fell down the stairs with a dull clatter.

  She grabbed me by the shoulders.

  I crab-crawled backwards, trying to get away from her, but she pushed me down, hard, onto my back, on the stairs, and I hit my head against the edge of a step.

  She knelt on top of me, her knees in my gut, clawed hands pinning my shoulders.

  This is it, I thought. This is how I die. I don’t want to die. Tears blurred my vision.

  The monster reared back, clawed hand raised high and tense.

  I cringed and squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on pulling out the syringes in my pockets. One in each hand, I stuck the syringes between the hag's ribs, and I pushed in the plungers.

  I opened my eyes. “Die!” I said, watching surprise spread across the hag's face. "Just die!"

  The monster's mouth and eyes opened wide. She leapt away from me. She dug at her sides, at the syringes still hanging there, at the pain.

  I ran past her, stumbling down the stairs in a panic. I felt her latch onto the back of my shirt, pulling me back just when I'd stepped off the next stair. Off-balance, I fell back toward her and banged my elbow hard on the railing.

  I twisted free, flailed and rolled, managed to get up onto one knee, facing her. I slid the silver butter knife out of my pocket. My mouth was dead dry. My nose was running.

  The hag and I were eye to eye.

  She tensed a clawed hand, ready to strike, and I reacted. I raised the butter knife up next to my ear.

  The hag saw it coming.

  I shoved the knife into her eye, then hit it with the palm of my other hand, driving it even deeper. I hit the hilt again and again, each time sending it further in.

  Simon said, “Viviane, you can stop now.”

  The hag's movements had stopped. She was dead. I’d killed her.

  I turned toward the sound of Simon's voice and shouted, “Where the fuck were you?”

  “I got here as soon as I could. You didn’t tell me you were heading upstairs. I thought you were still down below.”

  Corona came running up the stairs, panting.

  I leaned heavily against the wall and descended a couple stairs. My legs were shaking. My hands too. I sat down, bottom-heavy.

  A hiss sounded from the hag's body, startling me. I tensed, ready to move, but there was no need. The body was melting into mist, slowly at first, then more rapidly. She became a fog that rose upward, broke apart, and drifted into nothingness.

  Corona said, “I knew you’d do it.” She sat down beside me, wrapped her hands around my good arm, and bounced up and down.

  “Keep that up,” I told her, “and I’ll puke on you.” It wasn’t an idle threat.

  ♦♦♦

  CHAPTER 29

  After the fight, Corona and I cleaned my blood out of the stairwell and off the roof, then the three of us snuck back to the Women's Wing. No one noticed us. After gathering my pajamas, a robe, and my basket of soaps, I showered, the water stinging my wounds. Corona helped me cover the deepest one with a washcloth and affixed it to me with scotch tape. She retrieved my pajamas and a robe, then we returned to my room.

  We ate cookies in honor of Mrs. Dufour and dedicated the hag's death to Polly. We were giddy with triumph.

  ♦

  The next morning, awareness came gently. My mind led the way toward getting up, exploring memories of the night before. It seemed surreal in retrospect.

  Monsters. Magick. Salt and silver.

  I hadn't done anything right during the car accident. I hadn’t saved myself, and I hadn’t saved Colin. This was different. I felt powerful.

  I sat up on the edge of the bed with the growing belief that my work wasn’t done. I had momentum, and I had to follow through. The hag was gone, but there were so many other things wrong with my world, the most important of which was that Colin was out there somewhere, possibly being held against his will.

  I had to do something.

  My wounds
hadn’t been as bad as they’d felt. I looked them over more closely. I had scratches on my shin and puncture wounds in my shoulder where five clawed fingers had held me down, but the worst were the three parallel cuts on my upper arm. I’d be wearing long sleeves for awhile until they healed. I probably could have used a couple stitches, but I didn’t need anyone finding out there’d been another attack. Scotch tape would have to do.

  I dressed in jeans and an evergreen Henley t-shirt. It was a turning point. I wasn’t the same woman I’d been twenty-four hours earlier, though I wasn’t sure what I’d become.

  Simon had said I was a warrior. All I knew was that I wanted to be ready to defend myself, if necessary. I still didn’t feel safe.

  I laid out the papers I’d stolen from Richard and picked up the photo of Jaxon’s body. I looked at it more closely. Jaxon had been such a large and strong man, but in death, he seemed smaller.

  He could've been one who’d saved me from the lake. I remembered the hands on my body, turning me, swimming me up to the surface, the legs kicking hard at the back of my knees, the chest pressed to my shoulder. I remembered my savior's strength. Had it been him?

  On the morgue slab, he was anything but heroic. Had he gone back after Colin? Had he swum him to shore too? Did he have a moment of pride that he’d saved two lives, then a moment of horror when he realized they were going to kill him?

  “Here he comes,” I'd heard the woman say. “Do it.”

  Doc Bella. She'd given the order to kill Jaxon. The photocopied I.D. told me she'd known she was going to do it—premeditated murder. She needed a body for the police to find. Doc Bella had then misidentified the body.

  A quiet knock preceded Corona. She slid into the room and shuffled over to me, vibrating with barely contained excitement. “We did it, right? I didn’t dream it?”

  “No, you didn’t dream it. I’ve got the wounds to prove it.”

  Her expression changed briefly to worry, then back to pleasure. “You’re a hero.”

  “I got lucky.”

  The sound of patients moving around crescendoed. The breakfast hour was in full swing.

  I put my hands on top of my head and took a deep breath. “I need a plan. I have to do something. I have to get out of the Center and find Colin.”

  “Yeah!” answered Corona. “But the way I see it, you’ve got one major bandwidth blocker in Dr. Reuter. You know he’s writing a book about you, right?”

  “What?”

  “I heard him talking to one of the other doctors.”

  “Why would he write a book about me?”

  “Because you’re a faux schizo, and that makes you special. He doesn’t understand what it means, but he recognizes that there’s something different about you. He thinks he's discovered a new type of schizophrenia—our type.”

  “He never mentioned that to me.”

  “Your mom’s in the book too. He’s calling it 'The Rose Legacy.'”

  I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “I can’t believe he’d do that!”

  “Believe it. The good Dr. Reuter isn’t nearly as good as he pretends. He’s been writing articles about you since forever.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  Corona shrugged. “It never seemed important, besides I figured you knew. That was before you found out he was forging signatures.”

  A book. I remembered signing release forms back when Richard was still in grad school. He'd said he needed them for his dissertation and academic publications. Richard had my life—my entire being—recorded on tapes in his office. I suddenly wondered how much he'd been sharing.

  Corona said, “He’s afraid his entire career will be ruined if it turns out you’re not as delusional as he's claimed.”

  “Oh my god.”

  Corona suggested, “You could take everything you know to the police. The cops will be pissed that Dr. Reuter didn’t say anything.” Corona bounced happily on the bed where she was seated. “Maybe they’ll even start suspecting him.”

  “I need to think about it. Richard can be cunning. If I'm not careful, he'll convince everyone I'm a lost cause. I need to get out of here.”

  “We've got this!” cried Corona, raising her arms overhead. “Tell me how I can help.”

  “All right. We need to gather the troops. I’ll call Lettie. Simon, are you here?”

  “I’m here.”

  I shook my head. “Eavesdropping bastard.”

  “Hey,” said Simon. “It’s my job.”

  ♦

  Once Lettie, Corona, Simon, and I were in the same room, we came up with a plan. I'd already figured out most of it, and they helped me see and fix the weak spots. I spent the rest of the morning prepping, checking off each item on my To-Do list as I completed it. The first was “Send evidence to Hayward.” I captured pictures on my phone of the Jaxon morgue photo and another of Colin and me standing in front of the Center’s Christmas tree. I wrote a text message that said: “Man in picture with me is Colin. Get 2nd opinion on identity of dead man. Pls trust me.”

  I wished I could have been there to see the look on Detective Hayward’s face when he realized the truth.

  The second item on the list was: “Write Mom’s lawyers.” I took my time, rewriting an email several times—with much advice from Lettie, Corona, and Simon—so that I clearly expressed my wishes and the seriousness of the situation. Mom had hired the law firm of Bagley, Smart, and Cobb to handle her affairs just before she was committed to the Center. They were the ones who'd informed me she was still alive. I didn’t know if they still considered her a client or not, but I was hoping they would look in on her and care for her if it turned out that I couldn’t.

  I asked them to look into my involuntary commitment, and for good measure, I enclosed a picture of the form with Abram’s forged signature.

  I hit "Send" on both.

  Next, I packed a gym bag with things I'd need if I ran away. I took it with me when I went to the rec room to meet Richard for my afternoon session. I was there, bag in tow, when he came looking for me.

  He walked through shadow, light, and shadow again on the checkerboard of dim sunshine coming through the windows, and he was a stranger to me. The man I had trusted for twenty years had been using me. How many journal articles had he written about me?

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m ready when you are.”

  He glanced at the gym bag as he led me toward his office. “How are you feeling?” I smelled his cologne, a spicy blend that reminded me of fireplaces and snow.

  “Better,” I replied. “Clearer than I've been in a long time.”

  He shot me a sideways glance. “Good. I’m glad to hear that.” He didn’t sound glad. He sounded thoughtful. Along the way, he made a point of saying hello to several people we passed to avoid talking to me, and eventually, we arrived at his office.

  I had no idea how the confrontation would go down, and I didn’t know whether he had discovered the missing papers and photos or not.

  “I plan to do an extended regression today,” Richard said, “since you’re feeling better.”

  I scanned the room as I sat down on the couch, setting the bag beside me, and I found what I was looking for—the urn of ashes. The box containing it stood on a bureau of drawers near the door.

  Richard went to his chair.

  “Actually,” I replied, “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  Richard considered me for a moment, then sat back into shadow, letting it shield his dark eyes from me. He wove his fingers together, elbows on the arms of the chair.

  “Okay. What?”

  Phase Two of The Plan had three parts. In the first, I tried giving Richard a chance to do the right thing for the right reasons.

  “Richard, you and I have known each other a long time. You know me better than anyone. We’ve had a lot of history flow under our bridge.”

  He tipped his head. “That’s true. And I care about you.”

  “I know how har
d you’ve worked to keep me sane. I want to thank you for that. But—”

  “But?”

  “But I need you to release me from the Center. I want to go home. It’s time. I’ve been here long enough, and instead of making me better, this place is dragging me down. I’m not exaggerating. Please. Release me today.”

  Richard inhaled deeply. “I’m working on it. There are protocols and so much red tape it would make you cry. I can’t just decide overnight that you’re well enough to return home. My professional reputation is on the line. I have to follow procedure. I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t. I took an oath.”

  I was disappointed, but only because the conversation was going exactly as I’d expected it would. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees.

  “You said I wasn’t a prisoner, and I’m calling you on that. I want out of here, today. Now. I want you to sign the release papers. Please.”

  Richard sat forward too, pleading with his hands and eyes. “I can’t. You’re ill. You need help, and this is the best place for you to get it. I’m the best person to give it to you. You can’t see how all this trauma has affected you. You think you feel clear right now, but you’re still in shock over Polly. Your blue sky is an illusion. You’re seeing it through the window of your illness. Before you know it, the storm clouds will close in again.”

  I shook my head. In the second part of Phase Two, I tried to corner him.

  “Can I see the pictures of Colin’s body?”

  Richard couldn’t have been more shocked. He blinked wide, then turned away from me to hide his surprise. He must not have noticed that I’d taken one of them.

  He stood and went toward his desk. “I told you I’d think about it,” he said. “I haven’t made my decision yet.”

  “Detective Hayward told me he sent them to you. I demand to see them. It’s my right.”

  “Perhaps it is. But I have a responsibility, and I think the photos will upset you too much. They’re…gruesome.” He didn’t look at me.

  “Is it really Colin? In the photos?”