Fiona

by Meredith Moore

  He nods, disinterested. “Tell me a bit about your family history.”

  “My family history?” I repeat.

  “Yes,” he says, peering at me closely. “Do you have any family members who suffer from any illnesses? Specifically mental illness?”

  I eye the stack of files on his desk. Is one of them mine? Does he have access to my family’s medical history?

  I meet his eyes. “There’s nothing that I know of on my dad’s side. My aunt never mentioned anything.”

  “And your mother’s side?”

  If I lie, and he knows the truth, I’m guilty. Insane. But if I tell the truth, how on earth would I be able to convince him that I haven’t inherited my mother’s schizophrenia?

  “I don’t know of anything on her side either,” I whisper.

  He glances down at the sheet of paper in front of him, and I hold my breath.

  “Ms. Faraday informed me that, prior to her death, Lady Moffat told her that your mother was a paranoid schizophrenic who committed suicide.”

  I close my eyes and feel my entire world crumbling around me. Mabel knew? This whole time she knew about my mother?

  “I didn’t—I mean, what I meant by that was that I’m nothing like my mother. I won’t turn out like her.”

  Of course Mabel knew. Lily would have wanted her to know, so she could watch out for any signs that might affect Poppy. And now she thinks I’m the same.

  The doctor asks me a few more questions about my mother, but I’m barely paying attention anymore. It’s all over.

  Finally, Dr. Furnham stops asking questions and stands up. “Why don’t we rejoin Lord Moffat outside?” I stand up and follow him listlessly to the waiting room.

  Albert’s not there, but Charlie sits in a dingy plastic chair, his hair looking more tousled than usual. He’s worried. Is he worried about what will happen to me? Or about what a danger I’d posed to Poppy?

  “I think Miss Smith would benefit from an extended stay at the Twicken facility,” Dr. Furnham says, “especially considering her family history. We’ll keep her here overnight and take her there in the morning.”

  “Sorry, what family history?” Charlie asks.

  Both of them look at me. “My mother,” I say quietly. “My mother was schizophrenic.”

  Charlie doesn’t recoil. His eyes don’t fill with horror. He doesn’t look at me with a grimace of betrayal or disgust. Instead, he hugs me close to his side. “I’m so sorry, Fee. I didn’t know.”

  I sink into his hug, allow it to comfort me. But he’s still calling me Fee.

  I step out of his arms. “Watch over Poppy, okay?” I say, meeting his eyes finally to show him how serious I am. “Keep her safe?”

  “Of course,” he says. “She’ll be fine, Fee, I promise. And so will you.”

  I nod. “Then let’s see the padded room,” I say, trying to part on a somewhat lighthearted note.

  I turn around and let Dr. Furnham lead me. I don’t want to watch Charlie leave. I can’t. But I feel his presence leave just the same, and then, once again, I’m all alone in this life.

  CHAPTER 31

  The doctor leads me to what appears to be a standard hospital room, no padded walls to be seen.

  “I’ll need you to give us your permission to strap you to your bed with soft cuffs tonight. They won’t hurt, I promise. It’s just to keep you safe.”

  “Do I look like I’m having a psychotic episode?” I ask, my voice a defiant snap. “I absolutely don’t give my permission.”

  The thought of being chained to the bed, like a rabid animal, makes me queasy.

  He looks like he wants to say something more, but he stops himself. “A nurse will be in soon to check your vitals,” he says.

  I nod, sitting down on the bed and looking away from him.

  He leaves the room, and through the small window on top of my door, I see him standing at the nurses’ station across the hall, filling out paperwork. I walk to the window and flip the blinds closed.

  For a moment, I stand in the middle of the room and let all my doubts wash over me. What if all this is really happening? What if I’m spiraling into schizophrenia, the way I’ve always feared I would? I’m the right age; I’m experiencing my first period of great stress. It all makes sense.

  You’re not crazy, says my mother’s voice in my head. But it just makes me feel worse. I hear voices. I feel my mother’s presence everywhere. And this morning, I woke up with a bloody knife in my hands.

  I sink to my knees and finally, finally, I don’t push aside the thought I’ve been trying to avoid like hell for the past three months.

  What if I’m going crazy?

  It’s the simplest answer to so many things that haven’t made sense. Hearing whispers at night, my mom’s laughter, the voices in my head. The overwhelming, irrational fear I felt in the rain that day in the woods. Potentially killing Copperfield in some kind of fit of psychotic rage so intense that my body won’t let me remember it now. I’m breaking. It’s all me. There’s no evil girl with an intricate plot to get me. My fear of Blair is nothing but the product of a paranoid delusion. The idea that I’m the only one who can see through her? A delusion of grandeur. I really do need help.

  Time in a psychiatric institution can’t be that bad. These days, those kinds of places can be really nice. It will be clean and calm and filled with other people who understand what I’m going through. People who won’t judge me for suffering from a disease I can’t control. They’ll give me the medicine I need and teach me how to manage the symptoms. A place like that could have helped my mother—maybe it’ll help me, too.

  Maybe I should just stop fighting and accept this fate.

  But then I think of Blair, remembering all those times her careful control over her expression would slip, revealing a triumphant smile or a hateful glare.

  I stand up and wipe away the tears that have fallen down my cheeks.

  Maybe I am crazy. But with everything I’ve seen, all I know about Blair, I need to bet on myself now. I have to.

  Of course I can’t stay here. I can’t just offer myself up for the slaughter like this. Blair has that doctor in her pocket, I know it, and the two of them are going to lock me away somewhere I’ll never be able to leave. I won’t let her win that easily.

  But how do I get out of here? I forgot my cell phone at the castle, and I don’t have anyone to call anyway. The nurses’ station outside is continuously staffed. Everyone on duty knows exactly why I’m here, thinks I’m dangerous, and will be keeping a close eye on me.

  I go to the window on the other side of the room. I unlock the clasp and slide the pane up only to find a set of metal bars blocking my way.

  Past the nurses’ station it is.

  I have to act fast; someone will be in soon to take my vitals and force me into a hospital gown, at which point I’ll be even more trapped than I am now.

  I open the blinds and glance out into the hallway. I see two nurses sitting in front of computers, but the doctor is nowhere in sight. I suck a breath in and open the door as quietly as possible.

  The nurses don’t look up. The hospital rooms are arranged around the station, and I’ll have to go halfway across the circle to get to the hallway that hopefully leads to an elevator and the exit.

  There are a few patients and family members walking around the floor. I try to blend in with them, walking as casually as possible out of my room and around the station. The nurses never even glance at me, and I start breathing again.

  I reach the hall. There’s an elevator at the end of it. I’m heading toward it when I notice a nurse look up from a chart and spot me. She smiles politely, and I do my best to smile back through my almost paralyzing fear.

  Suddenly, though, the smile falls off her face and is replaced by a look of dawning recognition.

  “Wait,”
she says as I slip past her and into the elevator. I push the button for the first floor. “Wait!” she shouts, and I press down frantically on the door-close button. She’s running for the elevator when the door slides shut in her face with a satisfying snick.

  I bounce on the balls of my feet as the elevator sails down to the first floor, and when it opens, I abandon all attempts to act normal and start running. I sprint past a few bewildered nurses and families in the waiting room, and then I’m out the door and free.

  I just have no idea what to do now.

  I stand for a second in the dim lights of the hospital parking lot and try to figure out a plan.

  I didn’t pay enough attention during the drive here to know which direction to go. The village of Beasley is slightly larger than Almsley, but still nothing is open at this hour, and I don’t have any money.

  I have to set off into the wilderness if I want to have any hope of escaping.

  I bypass the main road and follow a side street until I’m out of the village. The one-lane road before me stretches out into the darkness. Am I really going to do this?

  I should keep to the road, I decide. I know that if I venture into the countryside, I’ll most likely become irrevocably lost.

  I hop over the low stone wall that runs alongside the pavement and head toward the tree line, about ten feet away from it. I’m close enough to the wall to follow it, but far enough that I won’t be seen.

  It’s a cold night, and while I’m grateful for the thick coat I’m wearing, I’m shivering before long. The rush of adrenaline I felt while escaping has faded away, and I’m more tired than I’ve been all day. And more frightened. I have no plan, no place to go. What am I going to do?

  The night is filled with all kinds of squeaking and scurrying animal sounds, and the wind has grown vicious and wild. The cold air sears my lungs. Each breath becomes a struggle, until it’s all I can focus on.

  Just as I’m wondering if I’m going to be able to survive the night, a yellow light flashes behind me.

  Headlights, approaching fast. Without thinking, I dart into some rough bushes beside me, crouch down, and hide, waiting for the car to pass.

  It’s warmer here, among the leaves and close to the ground. I must have been walking for only a couple of hours, but I’m so cold, so utterly exhausted, that I doubt I can get much farther. This will have to do. I curl up on the ground, hugging my coat around me. The ground is soft with bracken, and I thank whatever lucky stars I have that the snow has melted over the last few days. The ground is still damp, but I do my best to ignore it, and soon enough, I’m drifting off to sleep.

  CHAPTER 32

  I must wake every fifteen minutes or so during the night, curling closer and closer into myself to escape the cold. Finally, I decide I’ve slept enough, and I open my eyes to a foggy, freezing-cold morning. It feels as if my fingers and toes have frozen together, and I stretch them carefully as I stand. There’s no one in sight, no cars on the road, so I walk along it.

  Cars start to appear as the sun rises higher in the sky, around midmorning. I retreat into the edge of the woods and keep walking parallel to the lane. I imagine those cars are full of families heading to church or to Sunday lunch. That thought makes me feel even more alone.

  Right on cue, I hear my mother’s voice in my head. You’ll be fine, hen, she coos. You’ll find your way home soon.

  It does nothing to comfort me, and I do my best to ignore it.

  The road meanders through the hills. I pass fields of shaggy Highland cows, farmhouses and ruins of old churches and abandoned cabins, lakes so still that they reflect the cloudy sky and the mountains that rise above them as clearly as a mirror. It’s beautiful here.

  The sun disappears behind a blanket of clouds in late morning, taking the relatively mild temperature with it, and does not come out again. The wind grows wilder, more vengeful, and finally, the clouds give way and snow begins to flutter down. It falls harder and harder, until it begins sticking to the ground, and I’m crunching it underneath my boots. It pelts me, making me blink every few seconds as water drips from my eyelashes down my cheek. Soon I feel as if I’m trapped inside a frozen cocoon, as if the snow has captured me, is keeping me from the world outside.

  I try to keep my disoriented eyes on the road, as if it can reassure me. But I don’t know where I’m going. I barely know where I am. I need to get someplace warm soon, or I don’t even want to think about what could happen to me in these conditions.

  It must be late afternoon when I come upon a cluster of houses and stores. I see it a few hundred yards in the distance, and I speed up until my half-numb feet are nearly at a jog.

  I’ve figured out what to do: I’ll call Hex and ask her to get me a plane ticket home. I know she doesn’t have that kind of money on hand, but she’s Hex—she’ll figure out a way.

  As I draw closer to the village, I realize I recognize these shops. I’m in Perthton. The village near Dunraven Manor.

  Suddenly, an idea—a crazy idea—begins to form in my mind.

  My lips are on the verge of a smile when a voice calls out, making me stop in my tracks.

  “Fee!”

  I turn around to see Gareth walking toward me. I stare at him, hardly believing he’s really there. But it’s certainly him, in his heavy black coat and work boots, a concerned frown on his face.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask as he gets closer.

  He doesn’t answer. Instead, as soon as he reaches me, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me into a hug.

  I’m so surprised that, for a short moment, I don’t hug him back. But finally I reach my arms around his waist and let myself lean into him. I don’t realize how much I needed this until now.

  He steps back but keeps his hands on my shoulders. “Where have you been?” he asks, reaching up and plucking a leaf from the tangles of my hair.

  “I couldn’t—I had to run.” I don’t even know where to begin, and he must see the frantic confusion rising within me, because he squeezes my shoulders before I can continue on.

  “Here,” he says, looking around. “Let’s get inside.” He takes my hand and gently pulls me into the pub on the corner. He points me to a booth in the back, away from the crowd near the bar, and goes up to order us something.

  There’s a roaring fire a few feet away, and I can’t help but sigh as I start to thaw out a bit.

  I think of the fireplace in the pub I waited in the first day I arrived in the Highlands. Where I met the boy with firelit red-brown curls and pale green eyes for the first time.

  I shove that memory aside and look around to discover that most of the people in this tiny place are watching me. I don’t blame them. I must look frightful, with my red hair even messier than normal and my face streaked with dirt.

  Gareth walks over to me with two tumblers of whisky and a bowl of almonds, and I watch as the women in the pub shift their attention from me to him. Evidently, they like the way his muddy-brown hair glints in the firelight. Or maybe it’s his broad shoulders that catch their eyes.

  I remember what happened in front of the fire in his cottage and blush down at my drink.

  “Drink up,” Gareth says, nodding at my whisky. “It’ll warm you up a bit. And then why don’t you tell me everything that’s happened, from the beginning?”

  So I do. I tell him everything, from my suspicions about Blair to our strange argument that she denied ever having and on through the horrible events of the past few days.

  Gareth listens to it all without interrupting. I try to read his expression, but all I can see is attentiveness.

  When I’m finally done, I tell him, “Now it’s your turn. Why are you here? Were you out looking for me?”

  He takes a long sip of his drink before answering. “The whole house is out looking for you, in all the nearby villages,” he says. “Albert lent me a car, s
aid you might be here. He said he took you here once? Anyway, I’m supposed to call as soon as I find you.”

  “You can’t tell him,” I say quickly, but he holds his hands up.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to.”

  “Do you believe me? That Blair is orchestrating all this?”

  He opens his mouth, then closes it. He takes a deep breath before finally saying, “I don’t think you’re crazy, Fee.”

  I close my eyes, breathing a sigh of relief. Because everyone—Mabel, Albert, Charlie, the doctor—everyone has spent the last few days doubting me. I can’t stop thinking about that look in Charlie’s eyes, the pity as I told him about my mom’s schizophrenia, the sorrow as he ascribed that disease to me as well.

  But Gareth believes me.

  I reach across the table, and he takes my hand in his and squeezes it. “We’ll figure it out, Fee. We’ll figure something out.”

  I nod, too overwhelmed with emotion to speak. Finally, when I get myself under control, I have to ask him, “Why do you believe me?”

  He brushes his thumb back and forth across the back of my hand. “Because I know you. And the woman I saw running away that night from the stables—I don’t know if she was you. I mean, I don’t think she was you,” he says in a rush.

  “Who do you think she was?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m certain I would have recognized you.”

  “Do you think it could have been Blair?”

  “I don’t think so,” he says with a small frown, trying to remember.

  I pull my hand from his and bury my head in my arms. “She set it all up so perfectly,” I groan.

  “Why do you think she hates you so much?” he asks. There’s a careful tone to his voice that makes me look up, and when I do, I see that he can’t meet my eyes.

  “Because of Charlie,” I whisper, though I can tell he already knows.

  “You like him,” he says.