Silent Treatment

by David James

  Just for a few brief moments all felt normal. They looked like any normal family out to see the sights. Gary came and stood next to Sarah.

  'It's certainly worth the trip,' he said. 'Hope the children like it.'

  And at that moment, to a casual observer it looked to the world as if two proud parents were watching their children play. And the children seemed to respond by acting as normal children.

  Helen walked up and stood beside Sarah. Maybe she could be the sister, come for a family day out.

  Sarah actually felt herself relax. They stood there for a few moments before Helen broke the spell.

  'There are some great walks around the abbey. I can show you if you like?'

  'I'll bow to your local knowledge then Helen,' replied Sarah.

  Sarah and Gary, fulfilling their newly acquired parental roles, gathered the children up and they all began to follow Helen.

  The light was fading quite noticeably as they made their way along the path. Sarah had wanted the trip to be later when there were less people around at the institute, but she hadn't reckoned on the gathering gloom. The ruins of the abbey towered above them.

  Sarah looked across at Nathan, his usual demeanour had been replaced by something approaching a more normal expression. She watched him as they walked slowly along, his eyes were darting all around him. Emily appeared almost giddy with excitement, she was skipping along, stopping briefly to gather up something that had taken her fancy. She would run up to Sarah with some flower and thrust it towards her until Sarah had told her how nice it was. She would then wander off looking for something else that delighted her.

  Sarah had the feeling that being away from the institute was already having a beneficial effect on them. It was even having a good effect on Sarah as she felt her mood lift as she tried to remember the last time she had done something non-work related. She had a sudden flashback to when Sarah and her father used to go on long walks together. As Emily continued to run around, she may as well have been Sarah with her father. She always thought that her father used their walks to think deeply about some problem or other. But to a young Sarah it was just nice to have his uninterrupted attention.

  Perhaps slightly giddy herself, she wandered across to Emily and said 'Have you been here before?'

  Emily looked at Sarah and shook her head and opened her mouth.

  Emily held her mouth open for a few seconds more, before letting it slowly settle into a smile.

  Sarah felt deflated. Had Emily been teasing her? The smile looked as innocent as ever. If she had meant to be cruel then she had certainly succeeded.

  Emily had been gathering various flowers as she had walked along.

  'What flower is the pink one?' said Sarah casually.

  Emily handed the flower to Sarah.

  Sarah looked at it briefly. 'Is it a pansy Emily?' Even Sarah knew that it wasn't anything like a pansy.

  Emily shook her head disapprovingly.

  'A tulip then?' Sarah was aware that her answers were getting more ridiculous. But she was also aware that children loved to correct their parents and she hoped that Emily would be unable to resist the opportunity.

  Emily shook her head vigorously, clearly a little exasperated by Sarah’s poor answers.

  'You can whisper it to me if you like, the others aren't around,' Sarah said as she leaned closer to Emily.

  Emily cupped her hand and brought it closer to Sarah's ear. Sarah tensed.

  But no sound was made, and Sarah watched as Emily ran off in another direction.

  Helen had stopped ahead of them to wait for them to catch up.

  'There's a path down there that will take us to somewhere that I hope you'll all like,' said Helen as everybody gathered around her.

  'We're in your hands,' said Sarah.

  Helen smiled faintly and set off down the path.

  Sarah allowed the children to walk past her and then brought up the rear of their little party.

  'Going okay?' said Gary, making Sarah jump slightly.

  'Yes, fine, I think,' replied Sarah. 'It's just nice to get out you know.'

  'True, it can get a bit stuffy in the institute I suppose.'

  As Sarah looked up she could just see the last of the children disappearing around a bend in the path. She suddenly had an uneasy feeling. She wasn't sure why, but she felt the urge to quicken her pace and catch up with Helen.

  'What's the rush?' said Gary, panting slightly as he caught up with Sarah.

  'Oh, you know, I want to see where Helen is leading us,' said Sarah. And truthfully she really did.

  As they turned the corner, she could see them all no more than fifty feet ahead. She felt an immediate feeling of relief. As they approached the group, she was still wondering why she had such a reaction. It had triggered something that had left her feeling uneasy. And then she realised what it was. It was from her dream. She suddenly remembered that she had seen Helen leading the children away. Away from Sarah and there was nothing she could do about it. Just a dream she reassured herself. But it still had the power to make her feel uneasy.

  'There's something you might like to see just around this bend,' said Helen, and before Sarah could say anything the children began to follow and Sarah quickened her pace to follow them.

  She soon caught up with Helen.

  As she walked alongside Helen she noticed that she kept looking around her, as if she was looking for something. It was subtle and Sarah calculated that it wasn't meant to be noticed, but she had noticed it.

  'You remember the way okay Helen?' said Sarah.

  'Um, oh yes,' replied Helen, clearly distracted.

  'It's just that you keep looking around you, I just wondered if you had forgotten the way?'

  'No, no, it's all okay. Just admiring all the trees and flowers you know,' replied Helen.

  They continued to walk along the path.

  The path bent round a corner just as Helen had said it would and opened out slightly.

  Nathan was stood there looking back at her and then he moved around the corner of the path and disappeared.

  She suddenly began to feel light headed.

  Gary reached across to her and said 'Perhaps you should sit down for a few moments.' He then guided her to a nearby bench.

  She felt more than a little embarrassed, 'I'm okay, I'll be fine in a couple of minutes.'

  'Course you will. I can wait with you if you like.'

  'What about the children?'

  'Oh. They're with Helen, they aren't far away.'

  Sarah started to panic. The light headed feeling was making her thought processes muddled. She had an awful feeling of foreboding. But as she slumped down onto the seat, she realised that she would need to rest for a few minutes. She started to take deep, slow breaths. Her mind was out of control as she closed her eyes and images of the children and images from her dream were mixed together. At the centre of them was an image of Helen. She managed to slow her breathing and could feel her heart rate begin to slow. As she opened her eyes, she managed a weak smile.

  'I think I'm feeling a little better now thanks.

  'Maybe you forgot to eat or something?'

  Sarah thought for a moment and she couldn't remember eating, maybe that was it. For a fleeting moment she wondered if she had been drugged. But she dismissed this, who on earth would want to drug her?

  She took a last deep breath and started to stand up.

  She only had one thought in her mind now, she needed to catch up with Helen and the children.

  Sarah set off along the path, stumbling a little at first, but as she felt the adrenalin begin to kick in, she managed to break into a modest run. She could feel the blood pumping in her head now. Her mind was still a confused mixture of dream and reality, she wasn't entirely clear what she was remembering and what had been in her dream.

  As she half stumbled around the corner her grip on reality came crashing down.

  She was confronted with the sight of Helen leading the child
ren away. To where Sarah didn't know. She had never managed to reach the end of her dream.

  She felt as if she was running now, but no matter how fast she was running, her legs almost buckling under her, she could still see Helen the same distance away.

  'Helen,' she shouted, but even to her the sound that came out seemed feeble and distant.

  She turned in desperation to see if Gary was close.

  Ahead of Sarah, Helen was not entirely sure what was happening. She had done as she had been asked. The children were here. She had even managed to separate them from Sarah. The rest had never been explained to her. But she felt that something should have happened by now. She looked around nervously. They were now approaching the ruined buildings that she had been told to head for. But she couldn't keep the children separated for much longer. She looked over her shoulder and could see Sarah still some way back. But just ahead of her Helen could see another figure coming towards her. And this figure was moving much quicker than Sarah was.

  'This way,' she said to the children as she tried to coral them together.

  And then she spotted something.

  At last, she thought, and felt an immediate feeling of relief. As she looked hard at the buildings, she was sure she had seen someone. They were here and everything would make sense now.

  It was someone who clearly didn't want to be seen.

  Then another figure came into her view. She began to feel more relaxed. They were no more than twenty feet from the buildings now. It wouldn't be long. They would know what to do.

  She ushered the children towards the buildings.

  And then she thought she recognised one of the figures. And nothing made sense anymore.

  She stopped walking and stared into the half gloom. The children continued walking seemingly oblivious to what was happening around them.

  'John!' she said, half to herself. If she had meant to sound a warning, she was too late.

  A battle raged inside Helen. On the one hand she had been perfectly happy to lead the children to this spot. Though it had never been spelt out to her what would happen when she did; she had surmised that the intention was that they wouldn't leave this place and return to the institute.

  Helen started running towards the buildings with absolutely no idea what she would do when she got there. After all, she had only spoken to them on the phone, she had no idea what they looked like. As she dived into the first building she could see Emily and Nathan a few feet away. Even in the dark Helen could see that Emily was upset, almost sobbing.

  Helen moved towards the children, but just as she got close to her, Emily's body was suddenly thrust up into the air. Helen stood still in shock as in front of her eyes her small body was disappearing over the wall. And then Emily's body stopped still and was now hovering half over the wall. A shadow shot across in front of her and Helen could see Nathan, who appeared to be fighting with thin air as he attempted to get her back.

  This didn’t feel right. She hadn’t expected it to be like this. The children looked in real danger to Helen.

  She forced herself to break out of her trance and she lunged towards Nathan and Emily. Suddenly Emily's body dropped as if she had been released from the strings that were holding her upright. Nathan caught her before she reached the ground.

  Around them Helen could hear the sounds of a scuffle; she could see indistinct figures moving around. In the dim light it was impossible to see who they were as they all seemed to be dressed in black.

  It was then that Helen caught a glimpse of the figure that had been trying to drag Emily over the wall.

  A few feet away from her was John. He stopped and looked straight at her for a few brief seconds. His expression in the gloom was one she had never seen on his face before. Gone was the natural laid back charm that he normally exuded. It was replaced by a stony, icy stare which she couldn't tear herself away from.

  He started to move towards her. She was frozen to the spot.

  He was no more than two feet away from her when she felt a violent yank of her shoulder. It was followed by someone pulling her along by her arm. She turned away from John and found herself looking into Nathan's face.

  He seemed to be about to open his mouth and even amongst all the chaos around them Helen felt a thrill at the prospect of his first words to her.

  'Helen are you okay?'

  It was Sarah.

  Over her shoulder she could see Gary fly past her and scoop up Emily.

  'Yes, I think so,' replied Helen. But she really wasn’t sure anymore.

  Sarah was puzzled by Helen's expression, but she quickly gathered her wits and said 'We need to get away from here and back to the van.'

  The sound of the mayhem was if anything growing louder as they gathered together and ran back down the path.

  No one dared to look back.

  Sarah was now running on adrenalin, the sight of the children in danger had produced levels of energy that she didn't realise she had.

  It must have been several minutes before she dared to slow her pace down. The others followed suit until they were walking at an almost normal pace. Sarah finally plucked up the courage to stop and look back at where they had run from. It all seemed quiet and dark and for a moment she wondered if she had dreamt it all.

  But she looked around at the strange band of people around her and she knew it had been real.

  They turned around and walked back to the van and clambered quickly inside.

  The journey back to the institute was conducted in silence, in the front of the cab as well as in the back, where Sarah had taken up her duties again.

  As the van rumbled along, occasionally tipping her forward as it went round a corner, Sarah was deep in thought. At moments this evening she had really thought that the children, especially Emily, had been about to speak to her. She had been so close. And the expression on Helen's face had suggested to her that Helen had felt the same way. Unless of course they had already talked to Helen? It was with a mixture of elation and resentment that Sarah considered this possibility. If they had spoken to Helen, then this would be a huge breakthrough. Sarah's mind swirled with the possibilities of what they might begin to say.

  As her heart rate was returning to normal and her mind was clearing, she realised that she couldn’t risk doing anything like this with the children again.

  She was exhausted and out of ideas.

  Sarah felt the van beginning to slow as she assumed it was approaching the institute, she thought about Ben.

  She was now desperate to see him again and she began to think there may be only one way to manage that.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Sarah found herself checking in her mirror nervously as she drove home, the feelings from the trip refused to leave her. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself that she was being stupid – she was after all just a psychologist at an institute and hardly worthy of being followed – she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched.

  She pulled up the car at home and virtually fled inside the house and only relaxed as she felt the solid feeling of the door against her back from within the house.

  She walked past her father's study as she made her way to the front room. She slowed, but didn’t stop.

  After a few moments, the sound of the microwave told her that her rather sad dinner was ready and she ate it with little enthusiasm. She took a drink of wine and slumped into the sofa.

  She needed something to occupy her mind, some form of a distraction.

  She pressed the off button for the television, picked up her glass and headed towards the door to her father’s study. She kept it locked, her father had and for some reason she felt that she should as well.

  The lock turned easily and she slowly pushed the door of her father's study open. She headed for the pile of books in the corner. Maybe organising her father’s books would help distract her.

  It was hard to know what to keep. A part of her wanted to keep them all, to preserve the who
le room in aspic, to preserve his memory. But she had decided early on that this would just be too strange. So she had decided to at least organise what should stay.

  Some of the books were quite old. Some of their titles detailed types of treatment that would make a modern psychologist blush with embarrassment. She smiled as she realised how much progress had been made.

  So some books were easily discarded.

  But she decided to keep all the little notes that he had left. They appeared in quite odd locations – poking out of unrelated books; stuck to the bottom of items on his desk and even stuck under the desk where he had sat. At first, each time she saw his rather odd handwriting she had felt her heart surge a little. But now as she collected them all together she could be a bit more dispassionate. She didn’t expect to find many more as the study now resembled a relatively tidy room. She half wished that she hadn’t nearly finished. The chore had performed the twin tasks of keeping her mind busy and keeping her attached to her father’s memory. And now it was drawing to a close and she couldn’t imagine what to replace it with.

  Her body reminded her that she had been crouched over for too long and she stood up, stretched her back and left the room. She already felt more relaxed and she made her way up to bed.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Sarah awoke after strange, indistinct dreams. She tried to remember them, but she couldn't focus on them, it was like grabbing at smoke.

  She hurried through her morning routines and set off to work. The nervousness that seemed to be her normal state now followed with her. She checked in the mirror so often it was as if she was on her driving test. But she saw nothing. Nothing except the usual miserable and exhausted faces of her fellow commuters.

  As she climbed out of her car at the institute she found herself looking around to see if anything had changed. Looking for glances from people, any change in how people were treating her; any hint that they knew what had happened yesterday. But as she walked up to her desk she hadn't seen any change. Which could just mean that everyone was really good at covering up what they were thinking.