Ascendant: Chronicles of the Red Lion

by F. C. Reed

  “Why in the universe would you ignore the voice?” Dr. Gadot sounded perplexed more than not.

  “Because psychiatry has taught me that the voice should not be there. Schizophrenia, remember?” She growled the words as she tapped a knuckle against her temple. “The voice in my head is validating, believe me. But unlike other people I interact with in actual reality, that voice confirms my existence. It lets me know I am alive. It’s more real to me than you are.” A defiance welled in her as she fixed her gaze on the old psychiatrist. “So can I finish?”

  Dr. Gadot motioned for her to continue with a wave of his hand. “Sometimes I think you’re too smart for your own good.” He studied her further, then sighed. “I’m afraid that’s mostly my fault.”

  “Even the great and powerful Lord of the Underhell, Dr. Marchand Gadot refused to acknowledge me when I arrived here—not so much as a glance. My insane, twisted, schizophrenic mind was that much of an unspeakable horror. Being a seventeen-year-old nutcase is not a crime. I later found out I was guilty of aspiring to be a normal teenage girl, while failing miserably. What an absurdity,” Amalia said.

  “Absurdity?” Dr. Gadot frowned. “Well, that’s new,” he said to himself. “A little too highbrow, I think.”

  “I am beyond irritation,” she replied through clenched teeth. “I am beyond frustration. Imprisonment in the Underhell leaves me few options.” She studied the psychiatrist for a moment, her lips tight. “Have you ever stayed in here overnight?”

  “No. Can’t say that I have.”

  “I am forced to concentrate on not losing my mind. And in that process, I recognized just how powerful your influences are. You inspired me to,” she performed a set of air quotes. “Grasp the hatred and furious anger that has formed inside of me and use it to disembowel the shadow of my former self.”

  “Definitely too much sophistication,” he muttered through an irritated frown.

  “And that, kind doctor, is a direct quote from your lips,” she said, pointing at him. “Two days ago.”

  “Poetic, to be sure.” Dr. Gadot glanced at his watch. “If I said it, then it’s very likely to be sound counsel.”

  “I should thank you. Because without your guidance and callousness and wisdom and horse pills,” she took a breath. “And surprise needles to my butt cheeks filled with sleepy time medication, I may never have been able to understand the darker half of things. Over the many years, hatred and I have become familiar. It is now my ally.”

  “And here you sit,” said Dr. Gadot. “Scheming. Dreaming. Planning your attack.”

  Amalia sat up and frowned at his words and then frowned at the paper she was holding. “How did you know what I—

  “You won’t remember, but it’s not the first time you’ve read that passage to me,” Dr. Gadot shrugged. “And although you experience uncommon abnormalities with seeing and hearing things and remembering a past and present not likely to exist, the entire ordeal is hardly as crippling as you describe. You have been here for three days. Three. Days.” He emphasized the words by holding up three knobby, knot knuckled fingers. “An uncomfortable observation period at most. I needed the time to analyze your most recent collection of dreams and complaints of visual anomalies. You can kill the melodrama long enough for me to let you know that your parents are here to pick you up.” Dr. Gadot nodded and looked at his watch again. “Pack up your belongings and get out of my ward before I change my mind.”

  “Even you have to admit that was a pretty outstanding performance,” Amalia said as she squatted under the bed to retrieve her suitcase.

  “You will come by Monday afternoon. Four o’clock. My office.”

  “Fine. So long as I don’t have to come back here,” Amalia said with a grimace. “Everything tastes like mashed potatoes.”

  Chapter Four

  The hallways swarmed with angsty, excitable teenagers rushing to classes. Given the size of John C. Morris High School, five minutes between the ending bell of one period and the tardy bell for the next period made for a sense of urgency and mild trepidation. The chaos intensified as other students chose instead to congregate in clusters against the walls, turning the hallway into a maze of books, tote bags, and sharp elbows to navigate.

  Amalia rustled around inside her locker for the correct textbook as the warning bell for third period clanged incessantly overhead. Hers was the locker positioned directly under the red metal bell fixture which now vibrated and emitted the annoying, woodpecker-like barrage of tink-a-links. She had three minutes.

  Third period was advanced placement calculus. Most days she might have elected for a root canal over third period. AP chemistry and AP biology were a breeze in comparison. The infamous Dr. Ortimus Neville made sure a sound comprehension of calculus remained just out of reach. His impossibly unsolvable calculus homework, and his soul crushing pop quizzes earned him the nickname Neville the Devil. Every activity, homework set, and lecture drove the healthy mind to consider jamming a rusty fork into one’s own eye socket.

  A sharp elbow connected with Amalia’s shoulder, driving her into the locker. Books clattered to the floor as they slid out of the metal box, one by one. “Get out of the way,” came a gruff voice.

  Amalia turned. Her eyes locked on Christina Cross, who was already drilling into her with a challenging stare. Nearby students turned in their direction. Some hurried off to their classes upon encountering the tension. Others eagerly looked on, hands inching toward cell phones just in case things got exciting.

  “You have more than enough room,” Amalia said, her defiance only overshadowed by the intimidation of staring down a girl who stood a head taller than she.

  “You’re still in my way,” Christina growled, poking Amalia in the shoulder with a fat sausage-like finger.

  Amalia frowned at the sound of the harsh, threatening tone as Christina closed to within inches of her. Garlic-y clouds of stink-breath puffed against her face. She glanced a little too long at the tufts of black hair budding just over Christina’s top lip, hoping somehow that would be enough to send the crazed monster girl on her way. After a moment where nothing seemed to change, Amalia’s gaze hardened behind narrowed eyes. “What do you want, Christina?” she said. “Why don’t you go find a bear to wrestle?”

  Christina stepped even closer, pinning her against the locker with barely a finger’s width between them. “Because I don’t like you.”

  “You’d rather hate on me than wrestle a bear? Well, I’m sorry you feel that way,” Amalia said, shrugging. She struggled against the impulse to squeeze out of the restricted space created by the towering girl, hot and awkward as it was.

  They paused for a moment, their eyes still locked. The tardy bell pierced the tense silence, but neither of them so much as moved.

  “Anything else?” Amalia asked as indifferently as she could manage. Over the last couple of years, she had landed in detention after several similar encounters with Christina. She wanted to avoid that.

  “Get away from her,” a smooth, feminine voice, accented and unfamiliar, broke through the tension but added tension of its own.

  Christina frowned and snapped her head around to face the owner of that voice. “What did you say?” She bristled at the newcomer, looking over her petite frame, which did nothing to intimidate the much bigger and much stronger Christina.

  “I won’t repeat myself,” the girl said, lowering her gaze.

  Christina raised an eyebrow, assessing her. “Really?” she said, smiling at the petite girl. “You’re like, what? Fifty pounds?”

  If the newcomer was trying to look intimidating, she was failing miserably. Even Amalia had her doubts about the petite girl in a crisp white shirt and plaid skirt over leather loafers.

  “Is there a problem?” Mr. Foster, the vice dean, paused at the corridor intersection. His words cut the tension like a knife slicing through a taut length of rope. He sipped at his coffee and glanced at them one by one. Students dashed down the hall away from him and on to
their classes as if he were a leper taking a stroll down Main Street.

  “James Dean, Karena Stockton, Donovan Romin, and Fred Burch,” he said without glancing around at the students shuffling quickly down the hall, his focus fixed on the three girls. “You’re all tardy. Report to the office and pick up a tardy slip for third period.”

  Doors flung out into the hall, the bangs echoing up the corridor as students threw themselves into their classrooms, shielding their faces to avoid being recognized and in turn, escape the would-be wrath of Mr. Foster.

  “Now. Someone please explain to me why you young ladies are in my hallway right now instead of in third period,” he said.

  The three girls glanced about, then glanced at their shoes, and finally at one another.

  “I don’t see any of you bleeding, crying, or frantically searching for an inhaler, so someone had better have a creative, yet hastily absurd concoction of an excuse to be in my hall past the bell. And that excuse had better whistle a tune and dance a jig on top of a table, because I am looking to be entertained right now.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ve got thirty seconds.”

  Amalia glanced at Christina, wondering if she should respond, but Christina met her gaze with a cold, silent promise of pain and suffering at any mention of their conversation.

  “Well?” Mr. Foster approached them, his balding pate agleam with perspiration. The assortment of brown sweater vests were a persistent part of his attire, be it hot or cold outside. He pushed damp strands of hair away from his forehead and tucked them behind his ear. “What is it that supersedes your class attendance and finds you in my hallway?”

  The unfamiliar girl spoke up first. “There’s no problem, sir.”

  Mr. Foster harrumphed, unconvinced. “You’re in my hall after the bell. That’s a problem.” He clicked his tongue several times, glancing between the three of them. “I’m in a generous mood today. I don’t want to give out detention for loitering.” He then eyed each of them. “Or instigating a fight. Or participating in a fight.” Mr. Foster then took a moment to study the twitching faces and averted gazes. “You’re late to third period. That’s slip-worthy. But seeing that my generosity extends beyond detention, I will allow you to be on your way. I wouldn’t be this generous if I wasn’t so sure the two of you would end up in detention later anyway. You love to fight one another, don’t you?”

  Christina turned, making a snorting sound, and lumbered down the hallway, her size eleven shoes thudding on the tile.

  “You too,” he nodded to the unfamiliar girl who still stood next to Amalia, watching Christina walk away. His brow furrowed. “Wait. I don’t recognize you.”

  “I’m new. Just transferred,” the girl said.

  “And your name?”

  “Zerosa Valinne.”

  “Well, nice to meet you and welcome to John C. Morris High School. This is not a good first impression on you, Ms. Valinne. What is that? Italian? No wait. Lie to me. Tell me it’s timbuk-toodlian.” He snickered into his coffee. “I heard that one last week.”

  She quickly glanced over his shoulder at a mural of the world painted on the wall behind him. “Australian, sir.”

  “Quite the transfer,” he sniffed. “Born and raised there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You like vegemite?”

  His question was met with a blank stare followed by a set of rapid eye blinks. She had to consciously resist the urge to ask what vegemite was. It seemed like a trap.

  A grin split Mr Foster’s face. “No accent. Straight black hair. Very fair skinned. Intriguing.” He glanced directly into her eyes, completing his mental dossier with external images, while prattling on. “Calloused knuckles, both inside and out. You’re a fighter. Your manner of dress is clearly designed to steer simpler minds away from that fact. Very clever. Left pinkie slightly canted away from the palm at an atypical angle would suggest a recent fracture. From what, I wonder?” His grin stretched into a smile. He was enjoying this. “Scar tissue and healed lacerations at the base of the neck and collarbone. Another break, perhaps? You can stop me any time.”

  The two girls stood stunned, not quite sure what to make of his deductions.

  “I was in an accident,” Zerosa said, an astonished expression frozen on her face.

  Mr. Foster laughed at that, the stiff, barking chuckles laced with sarcasm. “I’m sure you were, Ms. Zerosa Valinne from Australia. I will remember this. Now remove yourselves from my hallway before I tardy slip the both of you.”

  Amalia turned to leave, rolling her eyes at his hollow threats and his use of ‘tardy slip’ as a verb. Zerosa picked up and followed.

  “Thanks for the assist,” Amalia said as Zerosa walked with her down the hall. “But you should be careful. Christina is hardcore.”

  “Classic bully,” Zerosa said with a shrug. “She needs standing up to, and you stood up to her.”

  “Somebody has to,” Amalia said. “I just wish it didn’t have to be me.”

  “Not much of a choice when you’re the one she’s bullying. I’m Zerosa.”

  “Yeah. I caught that. Welcome to school,” Amalia droned with no enthusiasm. “You probably shouldn’t have lied to Foster. He’s onto you now. Wasn’t hard to figure out you’re not Australian. Where are you really from?”

  “Oz. So what’s your third period?” Zerosa asked.

  “Oz? Also not original, Dorothy. AP calculus. Neville. Pain.” She followed up with a grunt like someone had punched her in the gut.

  “Oh cool. Mine too. Mind if I walk with?”

  “Sure. But if you want friends, don’t tell them you’re from Oz.”

  “Fair enough,” Zerosa conceded.

  They made it to their classroom long after the bell sounded, but Dr. Neville didn’t even notice through his frantic scribblings about second derivatives. Amalia relaxed into her hard plastic chair, at ease with how smooth the rest of her day would go.

  Most of her curriculum bristled with advanced placement classes, and the prospect of Christina enrolling in an AP class was slim. Honestly, she didn’t know if Christina was an intellectual prodigy or if she had the IQ of a box of thumbtacks, but they had no classes together. Amalia was more than grateful for that.

  They crossed paths at least once a day, usually in the hallway before third period. They also crossed paths during lacrosse practice. Christina looked for and found every opportunity to knock her around the field like a rag doll. Until then, Amalia had advanced placement calculus to endure. In a nutshell, Neville the Devil’s AP calculus was a repetitive, overwhelming pain akin to someone dropping bricks on her temple.

  Chapter Five

  The rear entrance to the cottage bathed in the tiny light of a single lamp, but at late afternoon, the lamp was hardly needed. The fire inside bloomed from the two windows on the bottom floor, blazing away at whatever cold remained of the year’s winter. To the right of the door hung a modest gold placard half choked with vines that sported leaves resembling tiny green umbrellas. It read, ‘Dr. M. Gadot, M.D., PhD.’

  Creaking on its hinges, the old door gave way and the purity of the surroundings assaulted her senses. She drew in as much serenity as she could before it slipped past her into its inevitable demise at the honks and barks and bustle of life outside.

  Her seat sat perched where it always was, waiting and impatient for her presence in that odd and inexplicable way. Its plush and velvet covering crushed at her when she took a seat, wide enough to accommodate her broad shoulders. A groan of relief escaped her lips as she closed her eyes.

  “Miss Anders. I was beginning to worry,” a familiar voice called from within the wooden walls.

  Amalia remained poised, eyes closed, wishing no longer to envision the world of shadows and nightmares that plagued her. It was her deepest hope that once she opened her eyes, there might be something different. Something spectacular with more excitement and fewer bullies and no psychosis. Another life would have been a glorious start. Instead, she had to sit
across from Dr. Marchand Gadot once a week, every week in hopes of sorting the unsortable.

  “It is Miss Anders, is it not?” Dr. Gadot chuckled. “Four-oh-two, post meridians, as they say in Latin. You’re late.”

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Gadot.” Amalia’s face soured. She was not quite in the mood for his arrogant, impatient attitude.

  “Good,” Dr. Gadot said. “Wouldn’t want to be going on with the wrong person, now would I?”

  Amalia took a deep breath as her brow burrowed further into her forehead. She attuned herself to the creak of the floorboards under the old man’s shuffle, mentally guesstimating at his location based on the auditory cues. A sharp, tangy odor of medicinal ointments and the sweeter, smoother scent of cherry-flavored pipe tobacco wafted about the room.

  Dr. Gadot entered and took his seat directly across from her, groaning as he comforted himself into it, as though sitting was a massive burden. He squinted his ancient eyes, glancing over the whole of her.

  Amalia’s face soured.

  “Ah yes. I’m being silly. Wasting time, is it? You needn’t tell me, child. I know full well I waste time. I have enough of it to do so. And your agitation is scrawled across that face of yours.” The haughty scratch of a match’s head against sandpaper pierced the silence in a miniature explosion that was distinctly audible over the crackling fire, if only just a pop. “So you are undoubtedly here for whatever reason, I gather.”

  “I’m here because it’s my time to be here,” Amalia grumbled.

  “That’s right,” Dr. Gadot said, glancing up in thought. “Time for me to shrink your head, as it were.” He held the burning match for several moments before waiving it out, never touching the flame to his pipe. It helped him to spark his brain, the motions and actions having been a comfortable habit, but he gave up smoking many years prior. The intense scent of cherry tobacco still hung about the room in a thick, invisible curtain, having long ago permeated the compact space and everything in it. The burning match began the sequence which signaled her to begin, as it had done in countless other head shrinking sessions previous to this one.