by Hunt, Angela
I settle into a nest of pillows on my bed as Jack Nicholson appears on the splash screen for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Within a few minutes, I am involved in the movie, wrapped up in the triumphs and challenges of Randle Patrick McMurphy as he faces the despotic Nurse Ratched.
As the familiar plot unfolds, however, for the first time certain aspects of Randle’s environment strike me as familiar. The hallways of his insane asylum are wide and empty. Guards patrol the halls of his home. A thin-lipped woman in white rules his world. Nurse Ratched gives every indication of being friendly until pushed, then she pushes back with unyielding force…just like someone I know.
On a whim, I minimize the movie player and open the program that allows me to cycle through the security cameras—obvious and hidden—throughout the facility. Within five clicks, I am watching Aunt Renee’s first floor room; another click brings me into her bathroom. Aunt Renee is standing in front of the sink, her hands lathered, her eyes closed as she splashes her face with water.
I prop my elbows on the desk and lower my head into my hands as I study the screen. She is wearing a T-shirt and a pair of baggy pajama bottoms, not at all what I would have imagined for her. Her short hair has been pushed back from her forehead, and the bangs are damp from the water she’s splashing over her face and neck.
She grabs a towel and gently pats—not rubs—her face dry. I blink as she hangs the damp towel on a rack. She leans toward the mirror and peers at her reflection, her eyes wide as she tilts her head and checks her face for…what? Imperfections? Signs of age?
Apparently satisfied with what she’s seen, she pulls a bottle from a little zippered bag and squirts some sort of lotion or cream into her palm. The bottle goes back into the bag, then she touches her hands together and begins to rub the lotion into her face and throat. After smoothing the liquid over her cheeks, she uses her pinky finger to delicately pat the area under her eyes. She smoothes lotion over her brows, then grimaces into the mirror and checks her teeth. Finally, she wipes her hands on the towel and gives herself a smile before turning out the light.
I lean back in my chair and bring my own fingertips to touch my neglected cheek. Does my aunt perform this loving ritual every night?
The thought brings back a memory of Dr. Mewton dropping onto the edge of my bed with a tube in her hand. I was young, probably no more than four or five, and she said the ointment would help my skin heal after surgery. I still remember the astringent smell of the cream, the pressure of her hand on my ragged skin, and the sharp tone of her voice. “This is about as useful as rubbing skin softener on a crocodile,” she said, her words slicing through the haze of pain surrounding me. “Still, one has to follow procedures.”
At a sudden sound in the hall, I bring Cuckoo’s Nest back up on my screen. And later, as Chief Bromden breaks through the bars and escapes through the open window of the asylum, I find myself wondering what it might mean to live free. How would it feel to walk down a street and stop to look at anything I pleased? What would it mean if I could make plans for a trip to Alaska…or decide to have lunch at a mall?
I punch my pillow and rest my chin on my fist. Is Disney World really a magical kingdom? Is the Lincoln Memorial as majestic as it looks? What does a McDonald’s hamburger taste like? If they’ve sold billions worldwide, they must be the best things on earth.
“Cuckoo’s Nest again?” Judson rolls into my apartment as the closing credits scroll. “Don’t you ever get tired of watching the same movies?”
“No.” I sit up to greet him. “It’s late. Can’t you sleep?”
“Wanted to talk to you about our guest before I turn in. So…what’d you think?”
I pick up the remote and power off the monitor. “You certainly seemed to like her.”
He laughs. “Hey, I’ve always gotten along with the ladies. But you…do you think you’ll end up living with her?”
“What?”
He grins. “Don’t play innocent with me, kid—these walls aren’t as thick as you think.”
I drop back onto my pillows. “I’m not living anywhere else.”
“Why not? How many times have I told you this isn’t the right place for a girl of your age.”
“And I’ve told you that you don’t understand. I don’t fit out there.”
“And why don’t you fit?”
“Because I’m a freak.”
Judson snorts. “Every kid feels that way at one point or another. I used to think I was a freak because I wore size fourteen sneakers. Now I know I’m a freak because I have two fourteen-inch stumps. But life is flowing by out there, kid, and you need to jump in.”
I pound my pillow. “I can’t swim.”
“It’s never too late to learn.”
“Oh, yeah? Then why don’t you dive back into the real world?”
“I told you, I can’t.”
“I can’t go, either. I can’t leave my work.”
“Are you kidding? You’re not the only techno-genius on the payroll. Within a week, Mr. Traut will be assigning impossible tasks to someone else.”
“How can I leave Dr. M? She depends on me.”
“Mewton depends on this place. As long as it’s here, she’ll be fine.”
I glare at him, hoping he can feel the heat from my stare. He may never understand. And I may never hear the end of his blustering.
Fortunately, I have a remedy for it.
“I’m going to bed,” I tell him, punching my pillow again.
He laughs. “You think that’s going to shut me up? Darkness means nothing to me, kid.”
“I’m taking off my processor,” I say, pulling the mechanism from my ear. “So talk all you want, Jud, but know that I can’t hear you anymore. Good night.”
Silence swallows up his ranting as I switch off the device and set it on the nightstand. Then I close my tired eyes and lie on my left side until unconsciousness claims me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Renee
A note slipped under my door during the night informs me that breakfast will be served at eight o’clock in the dining room. I’m grateful for the relatively late hour. Jet lag and the shock of meeting Sarah have left me feeling a bit unbalanced.
I begin my first full day in this top secret institution by walking in the wrong direction as I look for the dining room. When I reach the chapel and realize that Shelba isn’t likely to be serving pancakes on the altar, I turn and make my way to the vestibule. I thank the guard on duty there for not shooting me on sight and smile as he points me down another hallway. The dining room, he reminds me, is the last room on the left.
I lift a brow as I examine the young man, who’s probably only a few years older than Sarah. “Have you already had your breakfast?”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he answers, a reluctant grin tugging at his mouth. “But we don’t eat with the residents.”
“Too bad,” I murmur, thinking about Sarah.
I enter the room in time to see Shelba setting trays before my niece and her friend Judson. Sarah is eating a bowl filled with something mushy.
“Good morning.” I take the empty chair at the head of the table. “Did everyone sleep well?”
Judson grins. “Like the proverbial log. You?”
“Very well. I was so tired I could have slept standing in the closet.” I glance at Sarah, who is silently putting butter on the mush in her bowl. “How about you, Sarah?”
“Good.” She offers me the butter, but I wave it away as Shelba brings me a tray of toast, scrambled eggs, and sliced melon.
After thanking the cook, I spread my napkin in my lap and smile at my niece. “What shall we do today? Would you like to walk through the gardens? Maybe take a ride around the island? I’ve never driven a boat, but I’ll bet we could convince one of the guards to take us for a spin.”
A palpable silence falls over the table, and even Shelba’s cart stops rattling in the hallway. Sarah’s expression remains inscrutable, but Judson gapes as if I’ve jus
t suggested we jump off the cliff for a little bodysurfing.
“We don’t do pleasure boating,” he says in an exaggerated whisper. “We don’t roam around the island, either. It’s not safe.”
Not safe from what? I’d ask, but the answer to my question is probably classified.
“What Jud means,” Sarah says, “is it’s not nunly. All kinds of fishing boats pass the island during daylight hours, so we don’t do anything a group of nuns wouldn’t do.”
“Well, then—” I pick up my fork “—I suppose we could have a time of prayer and then go for a boat ride.”
Again, my attempt at humor falls flat. Sarah regards me with a perplexed expression, as if she were wondering whether or not it’d be rude to ask if I just fell off a turnip truck.
“I had planned on working today,” she says, stirring the buttered mush in her bowl. “But if you really want to do something together, we could watch a movie.”
I wave her idea away. “I love movies, but I don’t think that’d give us much of a chance to get to know each other. It’s hard to carry on a conversation when you’re trying to concentrate on a plot.”
When Sarah falls silent and keeps stirring her hot cereal, I realize I’ve made her uncomfortable. Dr. Mewton may have taught her about international espionage and computers, but apparently she’s spent little time learning the social skills necessary to entertain guests.
“Don’t you worry about me.” I pat Sarah’s hand. “You go ahead and tackle your work. I’ll find a way to keep myself busy until lunch, then maybe we can catch up some more. I think I’ll take some time this morning to chat with Dr. Mewton.”
If Sarah is curious about what the director and I might discuss, she doesn’t show it.
The guard in the vestibule directs me to Dr. Mewton’s second floor office, and another guard stops me at the door. The director of this CIA pseudo convent has no secretary or assistant, but I don’t suppose the administrator of a top secret facility in the middle of the ocean gets many drop-in visitors.
“I’d like to see Dr. Mewton when she has a moment,” I tell the unsmiling young man outside her door. “I’ll be in my room, so she can let me know when she’s available.”
I have barely entered the nearby stairwell when I hear a door open behind me. “Dr. Carey,” Mewton calls, her voice bright. “Come in, please. If we don’t take this opportunity to meet, I’m not sure when I’ll be free again.”
I turn, tempted to ask what could possibly keep her busy in a place this remote, but what do I know of spy operations? For all I know, I could be standing atop a nuclear weapons cache or some other hazardous national secret.
“Please, come in and have a seat.”
She gestures to a white leather chair with steel legs—a chair as sleek and modern as the woman who sits behind a leather-and-chrome desk. I take the seat she offers and lean toward her, determined not to waste her time. “Dr. Mewton, while I appreciate everything you have done for Sarah, I need to know if there’s any reason why I couldn’t take her away from this place.”
The woman’s forehead crinkles. “Sarah would never leave. This is her home.”
“But if she were convinced to go—if she wanted to go—is there any reason she couldn’t?”
“Of course. Quite simply, Sarah can’t function on the outside.”
“How do you know? She’s never had the opportunity to try.”
She smiles a grim little grin. “One needn’t try stepping on a land mine in order to know the experience would be lethal.”
From somewhere deep within, I summon a measure of polite patience. “Surely you exaggerate. Sarah has come a long way from those photographs you showed me, but I know she could go further. Plastic surgeons are doing amazing things with facial reconstruction.”
“Dr. Carey, you don’t have to tell me about the marvels of plastic surgery. I work with doctors who are on the field’s bleeding edge.”
“Then you know Sarah could benefit—”
“Sarah is content the way she is. She had a rough childhood, a painful childhood, and at one point she decided she’d had enough surgery. I respect her decision, and I will continue to honor it.”
“You respect—” I blink in dazed exasperation. “How old was she when she made this decision? Seven? Eight? You can’t mean to honor the wish of an exhausted child who had no idea what she’d be missing.”
“What is she missing, Dr. Carey? A society where beauty is prized above intelligence or virtue? A world where she’d be ostracized because she doesn’t look or sound or think like everyone else?”
“Sarah could adapt. It would have been easier if you’d let her adjust while she was young, but there’s no reason she has to remain here. I’m sure you’ve heard about the partial face transplant performed by French surgeons. Sarah’s condition could be markedly improved—”
“Of course I’ve read about it. But the changes you’re suggesting are merely physical. Even if she looked as normal as you or me, she would have a terrible time adjusting.”
“Why?”
“Because she is as vulnerable as she is brilliant. I have done my best to challenge Sarah intellectually while protecting her socially. You can’t possibly mean to suggest that I toss her to the wolves.”
“But if she wanted to try…Tell me you wouldn’t stand in her way. If she wanted to leave, she could go, right?”
Dr. Mewton lifts her chin and meets my gaze straight on. “Sarah Sims is an adult. She can do whatever she likes.”
I clasp my hands. “Good. Tonight I’d like to take her to dinner in La Coruña.”
Mewton laughs. “The devil you say. She won’t go.”
“I think she will. I think I know how to convince her, but I’ll need your help.”
Dr. Mewton regards me with a narrowed gaze, then dips her chin in an impersonal nod. “I think you are asking for trouble, Dr. Carey. But if I can help you, I certainly will.”
Grateful for this reluctant promise of support, I leave her office and trot down the stairs. A question strikes me, though, when I turn at the landing—who are the “wolves” Dr. Mewton is so intent on keeping from Sarah?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sarah
I am analyzing an anomaly in Judson’s latest brainprint readouts—apparently he spent several minutes clicking his tongue, a movement that dramatically skewed the results—when I hear a knock on the open door. Dr. Carey stands in the hallway. She’s smiling.
“I spoke to Dr. Mewton,” she says, entering the operations room, “and she’s agreed to arrange transportation for us.”
I lower the printout. “Transportation? To where?”
“I thought it might be nice for the two of us to have dinner tonight in La Coruña.”
A dozen objections surface in my mind—it’s impossible, it’s a security breach, we don’t speak the native language, we’d have to mind the tides, we don’t have a boat or an escort—but all I say is “I can’t go.”
“Why not?”
I decide to spell out the obvious. “Look, Dr. Carey, you’re not a fool. Can’t you tell why it’s impossible for me to go anywhere?”
She comes closer and leans on the edge of my desk. “Call me ‘Aunt Renee,’ please. You’re not my patient; you’re my brother’s daughter. We’re family and I love you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I’m beginning to. And I want to know you better.”
I don’t have an answer for that.
“I understand that you’re frightened,” she says, running her hand through her hair. “I’d be terrified at the thought of leaving if I had never traveled outside a place like this. In fact, you should have seen me trembling when I got off the boat to come here. But you won’t be alone like I was. I’ll be with you.”
“Dr. Mewton would never allow—”
“Dr. Mewton has agreed to help us. I think she is eager for you to spread your wings.”
Ripples of astonishment swell from an epicente
r deep in my stomach, sending shock waves to the tips of my fingers and toes. “She wants me to leave the island?”
My aunt releases a short laugh. “It took me a while to convince her, and she says you’ll have to travel ‘in alias,’ but yes, she wants you to go.”
My mind clicks like a metronome, shifting from terror to delight with every heartbeat. I am terrified at the thought of leaving, but what a thrill it would be to walk free like other people. Most of the time I feel as though I’m living at the center of the planet, but I would love to experience whatever lies beyond these stone walls and rocky cliffs.
“What sort of alias did she have in mind?”
My aunt smiles again. “Since Spain has so many Muslims, she suggested that you wear a burka. You’ll be covered from head to toe.”
“A Muslim woman leaving the convent? I don’t think so.”
“We’ll wait until there are no boats in the vicinity. That shouldn’t be too difficult.”
This information brings relief…and sends a tremor rippling up the back of my neck. Dr. M really does mean to allow it, then.
“We’ll go ashore, find a nice restaurant, and have a quiet dinner,” my aunt continues. “Then we’ll walk around and see some of the town. Don’t worry, though—like a good fairy godmother, I promise to have you back before nightfall.”
I glance up, almost afraid to speak the words that have bubbled up from someplace deep within me: “Do we have to come back so soon?”
Just before lunch, I step down the hall, nod at the guard on duty—it’s Mitch—and feel the back of my neck burn when he smiles.
“Hey, Sarah,” he says, relaxing his rigid pose. “How’s everything today?”
He shouldn’t be so familiar with me, at least not outside Dr. Mewton’s office, but his smile sparks an electric tingle at the base of my spine.
“I’m fine.” I lower my head and knock on the door.
“Enter.”
Dr. M is sitting at her desk, her hands folded atop a stack of documents.
