When Through Deep Waters

by Rachelle Dekker

  Victoria, can you hear us?

  The voices made her still. The entire room seemed to slow to a snail’s pace. Even her own heartbeat. And then their voices returned. Children’s voices.

  Victoria, can you see us?

  She opened her eyes; the nurses and doctors still surrounded Alicen’s bed, working feverishly. In the corner, standing in a row, were four children. A young boy, two smaller twins, and a little girl with pigtails. Their eyes sparkled with wonder, staring right at Victoria. The one with pigtails smiled.

  “Good,” she said with a wink. And then they vanished.

  Alicen’s eyes blinked hard to life. She inhaled harshly and struggled to get another breath. Unknown faces filled her view, their mouths moving, their eyes directed at her, but all she heard was silence. All she felt was pain.

  Then the world broke through, as if someone had yanked the cork from her brain, and the sounds of the room crashed in.

  “Alicen,” a strange man asked, “can you hear me?” His eyes danced across her face looking for signs of life, and she blinked in acknowledgment. He smiled, and another face came into view. Dr. Wells’s kind eyes filled with relief.

  “You had us worried,” he said, and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

  She didn’t understand, and she tried to grasp the memories of what had just happened as they drifted in and out. She moved her eyes back and forth, watching the nurses read her vitals and check her over. Her heart started to feel as though it was beating normally again, allowing her to inhale oxygen at a steady pace. She let her head fall softly to the right, keeping her eyes open, and took several deep breaths.

  A nurse moved out from her line of vision, and Alicen saw her. Victoria, standing in the corner of the room, her face ashen, eyes wide with wonder, tears streaming down her face. Her whole body frozen, but also shaking. She was being detained by security, questioned but not giving any response.

  Clarity of her situation blossomed peacefully in Alicen’s mind. Victoria had seen the water, and it had opened her soul. The demons she’d been taught to believe were having to contend with a powerful truth. Alicen knew the effect opening up one’s spirit had on a person. She imagined Victoria would never be the same again.

  Alicen wondered if Victoria would ever be able to forgive herself. If she’d be able to return to the waters and be transformed. If she could let go and accept grace.

  Victoria’s eyes shifted and met Alicen’s. The movement in the room slowed for them both, and for a brief moment they were connected. Two different women, both slaves to the way of the world, to the shadows they’d been taught defined them, to their shame. They were the same.

  Two police officers came into view then, stepping up to take Victoria from campus security and escorting her out of the room.

  Exhaustion fell over Alicen like a heavy wool blanket, and as she drifted away from consciousness, she thought of Victoria and prayed the woman would find freedom just as she had.

  28

  Alicen stood in her Clover Mountain Retreat Center room and looked across the beautiful front lawn that stretched out below her window. The grass seemed greener these days, the sky more blue. Would it fade, the light she saw everywhere in the world? Alicen smiled to herself. She hoped not.

  “You should be in bed, Alicen,” a warm voice called from across the room.

  Alicen turned to see Louise giving her a don’t-make-me-use-my-mom-voice look and rolled her eyes. “If I have to spend another afternoon in bed, you’ll have to just leave me here, because I’ll actually go crazy.”

  “You shouldn’t joke about those kinds of things,” Louise said.

  “What, too soon, you think?” Alicen teased.

  Now Louise rolled her eyes with a halfhearted sigh. A sharp rap sounded at the door, and it swung open. Betty stood in the doorway for a brief moment, as if she were contemplating whether or not she could catch Alicen’s crazy from just crossing the threshold, and then she stepped inside.

  “Hey, Mom,” Alicen said, surprised to see her. She threw a look at Louise, who just shrugged.

  “Alicen, shouldn’t you be in bed?” Betty said.

  “Good luck,” Louise warned.

  Betty’s eyes traced the outline of the room quickly and then landed back on Alicen. “It’s cute. Seems comfortable enough.”

  Alicen nodded. “It’s fine. I’m not going to be here too much longer, though.”

  “So that worked out then?” Betty asked Louise.

  “Yes,” Louise said. “I’m picking up her release papers this afternoon.”

  “Well, who would have thought it was so simple,” Betty said. Alicen recognized the disapproval in her voice, and she tried not to let it dampen her mood. It had been nearly a week since her interaction with Victoria. Though it felt like a lifetime.

  Victoria had admitted to injecting Alicen with enough ethylene glycol to kill a horse, yet after she had recovered from her seizure, not a single trace could be found in Alicen’s bloodstream. A medical miracle, they said. Enough so that a couple superstitious nurses wouldn’t visit her room anymore, while others couldn’t help but constantly peek in. The entire campus was talking about her.

  The woman who should be dead.

  And about Victoria. The woman who had tried to kill her.

  After her arrest, it didn’t take long for Victoria to admit to the crimes, including poisoning her uncle Donald. A full-scale investigation into Clover Mountain Retreat Center and its practices was thrown into action. Alicen had heard a couple nurses whisper about transferring all the patients to other facilities, along with staff, as it would be several months before this place was up and running again. If that ever happened at all.

  The hidden secrets of Donald Flowers had also come to light. A very strict, physically and verbally abusive uncle who had sexually assaulted Victoria for most of her teen years. Most incriminating was the child he’d impregnated Victoria with, a child she’d smothered only a couple weeks after giving birth.

  The whole situation sounded like something straight out of a crime novel, and people were generally shocked. Many of them had worked on campus through the entirety of the happenings, never having any clue what was going on in the modest cabin at the back of the property.

  There was guilt and sympathy toward Victoria from some, and Alicen overheard that she planned to plead insanity. She hoped the woman would be able to accept forgiveness one day. But the world would still expect her to pay for her crimes. She would likely spend the rest of her life in a facility just like this one. Getting help she actually needed.

  Betty was outraged. She wanted Alicen to sue. It was well within her rights to press charges, a suited lawyer she’d been required to talk with had told her, but Alicen had no interest in that. Why would she? Yes, Victoria had tried to kill her, but Alicen felt more alive now than she ever had. This only infuriated Betty more.

  Betty cleared her throat and moved over to Alicen’s side. She sent Louise an eyebrow raise, and Louise gave a corny grin.

  “You know,” Louise started, reading Betty’s signal, “I’m going to double-check with the nurses that I don’t need to do anything else. I’ll be right back.” She stood and left the room, pulling Alicen’s door closed behind her.

  The room fell quiet for a moment. Alicen could sense her mother’s discomfort. She was struggling to process how she felt about Alicen’s situation.

  “So you’re feeling better, then?” Betty asked.

  “Yeah, I cleared all my medical checks, and my strength is back, so I feel really good,” Alicen said.

  “And your—” Betty struggled for the right word—“mind?”

  Alicen smiled. “I’m not seeing little children anymore, if that’s what you’re asking.” And she wasn’t. Alicen hadn’t seen them since the pool. No Evie, Beck, or the twins. And no Jane. Alicen had spent hours sorting through all the events of the last few months, cataloging memories and conversations, organizing dreams.

  Had the waters b
een real?

  Had she actually drowned?

  Had she transported Victoria to a place of power and healing?

  Had the children been her ministering spirits all along?

  They were questions she knew her mind couldn’t answer. Some things the brain couldn’t completely understand. But a deep knowing was so ground into her bones that she always returned to the belief that it couldn’t have been anything other than real. The children had been her helpers, and they had brought her back to seeing what she couldn’t see with her eyes alone. She couldn’t explain it to herself, much less anyone else, but it had been real.

  It had all been real.

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” Alicen said with a smile. “My mind feels very clear.”

  Betty sighed. “I’m happy for you, really; I’m just having a hard time understanding it. Of course I get why you don’t want to be in this place—you should be burning it to the ground—but to go back to living with Louise . . . I mean, maybe you should come back with me, and we can get you checked in somewhere else.”

  Clover Mountain couldn’t legally keep her on campus after everything that had happened. But at the heartfelt request of Dr. Wells, Alicen had stayed the last few days for observation. He’d visited often, and they’d talked very openly about what had happened to her, about the way it had changed her. He’d listened, interested, without judgment, even though she was pretty certain he still believed it was all in her mind.

  Either way, he’d concluded that she seemed well enough to go back to living with Louise as long as she promised to continue speaking with someone. She’d been thrilled to hear that Dr. Wells was planning a sabbatical and would stay in Billings while he thought out his next move. Alicen had convinced him to see her once a week while he was around. She’d grown rather fond of him, and the idea of trying to start over with someone new was unappealing.

  “I really am okay, Mom. I’ve got Dr. Wells, and I’ll have the constant eye of Louise,” Alicen said.

  Alicen believed she was healed but understood that the world would still have reservations about her. She had, after all, still seen imaginary children. It didn’t bother Alicen anymore that the world would see her that way. She knew this “disease” had saved her. She knew now that it had never been about what she saw, but rather how she saw herself.

  A small shiver rippled across Betty’s shoulders. “Well, one good thing—I won’t have to come visit you here anymore.”

  “Because you did so much of that.”

  Alicen saw the way her words pricked at Betty, and she wished she could take them back. She hadn’t meant to cause her mother guilt. Or maybe she had, but she was trying to learn how not to. She was trying to let go of brokenness between them, trying to give her mother grace, trying to love her fiercely, just as her Grandma Joe had asked.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Betty said.

  “I didn’t mean—” Alicen started.

  “No, I should have come more. I should have done a lot of things differently with you.”

  Alicen reached out her hand and wrapped her fingers inside her mother’s. Betty turned to meet Alicen’s stare, and Alicen could see the forced control Betty was trying to mask. Behind years of pain and shame, she was a prisoner too. It broke Alicen’s heart.

  “Please don’t blame yourself for any of this,” Alicen said. “It was a journey I had to take. I was called here for a reason. I had to walk through these shadows to discover who I am. To find peace with the world and with myself.”

  Alicen saw her mother’s gaze flicker, and Betty swallowed to control her emotions.

  “And I am at peace, Mom,” Alicen said. “Real, authentic peace. So please don’t worry about me. I’m more ready for the world than I’ve ever been. I see it clearly now.”

  They held each other’s eyes for a long moment, a warm connection passing through their joined hands, before Betty sniffed and yanked back. She wasn’t ready to face her shadows yet, and that was fine. They were, after all, only shadows.

  Betty forced a smile and nodded. “I’m really happy for you,” she said. “Peace is hard to find.”

  Alicen returned her smile. “What’s next for you?”

  “Oh,” Betty said with a wave of her hand, “I’m going to head back to Santa Monica for a while. I have a flight first thing in the morning; it’ll be good to see the girls. Martha has a new friend who has a handsome brother, apparently.”

  Alicen laughed.

  “I mean, after all this I could use a nice man with a vacation home.”

  Alicen laughed even harder, and Betty joined. The two giggled together for a moment before the bedroom door opened and Louise walked in.

  “Well, I’m sad I missed whatever happened here,” Louise said. Alicen smiled at her and Betty shook her head.

  “Everything squared away?” Betty asked Louise.

  Louise nodded. “She’s all set to leave tomorrow afternoon.”

  Alicen watched another bout of anxiety quickly cross her mother’s expression, and she reached out to give Betty’s hand another gentle squeeze. Betty glanced to Alicen and shot her a soft half smile.

  Alicen wanted to give her mother peace but knew accepting peace was a step Betty would have to take on her own, just as Alicen had. She smiled at her mother and then at Louise, who had become her rock. The three of them had been through something that would uniquely hitch them together forever, and Alicen knew none of them would ever be the same.

  Alicen walked arm-in-arm with Louise across the long front lawn stretching toward the Clover Mountain parking lot. The night had passed peacefully, Louise only leaving when forced and then returning the next morning as early as was allowed. They’d finished packing up Alicen’s things and had them transported to Louise’s car while Alicen had attended a brief session with Dr. Wells.

  Now the sun was warm on their shoulders as the cool winds of the final days of spring were turning to summer. Sometimes when the breeze picked up, she felt like she was back in the forest, beside the lake. Even the memory of the water’s touch was strong enough to rouse the comfort of truth in her gut. She wondered if that would fade. She imagined the world would try to block it out, but Alicen knew it couldn’t change who she was, only trick her into believing differently.

  To be so certain of the truth was radical, Alicen thought—transformative, like the waters in which she had drowned. It was a singular battle everyone fought.

  Be free or be a captive.

  Abide in love or in fear.

  Be in light or be in shadow.

  “What are you thinking about?” Louise asked beside her.

  Alicen had slowed without realizing it, and now the two friends stood staring back at Clover Mountain Retreat Center. Alicen inhaled deeply and then exhaled with a smile. “I was thinking about how differently I see this place now.”

  “Well—” Louise shrugged—“you’re different.”

  Alicen looked at her friend and nodded. “Remind me of how I am now, if I ever start to go back to the way I was before?”

  Louise’s eyes gleamed with compassion as she smiled. “I still can’t believe all that happened to you in there. I mean, I want to, but . . .” Louise’s words trailed off.

  Alicen looked back toward the campus as a ray of sun shone behind the main building’s roof, casting brilliant light through the nearby treetops. The wind whirled across Alicen’s shoulders and neck, pulling her attention toward the trees. She turned her head and there, standing just across the tree line, she saw them. All four children. Alicen’s heart leapt, and a sense of wonder filled her chest.

  Alicen felt the still warmth rumble into flames, and she smiled. She turned back to Louise. “It’s okay, Lou; I just need to believe.”

  Louise pulled Alicen closer as they turned and continued down the path toward the parking lot. Alicen’s mind swirled in awe with the belief of what she had experienced.

  Her logic would question what her heart knew was true. Ministering spirits had been her
guides, and she’d followed them to the waters of salvation. And below the surface she’d discovered that she was the light of the world. Able to forgive herself because she was forgiven.

  And through that forgiveness, she was free.

  1

  Carrington felt as though she’d collided with a moving train.

  The room around her echoed with sweet laughter and flirtation. Handsome men softly led blushing young ladies around the dance floor while other girls looked on from corners, smiling with gleeful exuberance, all of them too consumed with their personal victories to notice the dread filling Carrington’s face.

  She should run. Maybe she could get away before they came for her. But how many girls had successfully escaped from the Authority? None.

  Her hands trembled at her sides as bits of reality began to crash against the inside of her skull.

  How could things have gone so wrong? This was not supposed to happen to her.

  Panic pricked at her legs, and that voice of self-preservation shouted at her to stop standing there like a corpse and move.

  Carrington turned toward the massive Capitol Building doors and saw the horde of CityWatch guards enter. Silently they spread out across the room and headed for Carrington and the other girls who stood in fearful recognition.

  The guards’ black uniforms fit their forms tightly enough to punctuate how impossible it would be to overpower them. Their faces were fixed in stern focus on the task of collecting the Unchosen and escorting them to the Exiting Room.

  Fear filled Carrington’s chest like a balloon. Sweat bled through the skin on her forehead. The room felt as if it were being pumped full of hot air that wilted her lungs. This wasn’t right; this wasn’t the plan. She should be looking on others with pity, not feeling it for herself. All the hours spent; all the learning and dreaming and wishing. Her entire childhood had been consumed by one singular thought, preparing for a single moment. This wasn’t right.

  Before Carrington could form another thought, a CityWatch guard was standing inches from her. He stretched out his arm in the direction he wanted her to move. Still dumbstruck by her situation, she hesitated. His brow folded, his soulless eyes narrowed to slits, and the corner of his mouth began to twitch. He thought she was being defiant.