Milrose decided to investigate. First he set out to determine precisely what was glowing. The light came from the drawers themselves. Each had a tiny bulb above the drawer’s metal-framed label, and these bulbs all seemed on the verge of winking out completely. Some were a touch closer to death than others, but all were unhealthy. The feeble lights were, however, more than sufficient for him to make out what was written on the labels.
“Take a look at this, Arabella …”
The labels were not comforting. Oh no. They purveyed the opposite of comfort, which in this case was a heady mixture of confusion, nausea, angst, and that mysterious impulse which makes hunters want to kill moose.
“Helped: Jan. 1–Mar. 31, 1972.”
“Helped: Apr. 1–Jun. 31, 1972.”
“Helped: Jul. 1–Sep. 31, 1972.”
Etc.
Milrose had no doubt that the Help to which these labels referred was of the Professional variety.
Arabella was squinting at another group of labels, and had come to a similar conclusion. “Milrose, I think we’re in some kind of archive.”
“Yes … the collected documents relating to decades of horror inspired by Professional Help.”
“Try to be a little less pessimistic, Milrose.”
“Does this look like a jolly archive to you?”
“Appearances can be deceiving.”
“Yeah, well, while we’re throwing about hackneyed phrases, sometimes what you see is what you get.”
“Let’s not argue, shall we. If something terrible happens, then I’ll grant your argument.”
“Great. I hope something really slitheringly horrible happens. So I win.”
Although he wasn’t entirely keen to, Milrose opened one of the drawers. In fact, he opened the very last drawer: in the bottom corner on his right. Why this drawer? Well, it helped that as he was trying to decide which to open, the light above this drawer’s label began to flicker, then grew bright, then flickered, then went out. As he approached, it flickered again. The drawer was clearly teasing him. It was behaving like a coy firefly. None of the other drawers was going to nearly so much trouble to catch his attention. Moreover, it had a different designation than the others: instead of “Helped” and a date, the label read “Pending.”
“What’s in there?”
“I don’t know … it’s slithering and it’s horrible …”
“Is it?”
“Just kidding. It’s a bunch of file folders.”
One of these file folders seemed most anxious to be consulted, as it kept bobbing up and down, flirtatiously. Milrose began to reach for this folder, and it obliged by sliding—of its own accord—up and out from between the others and finding its way into his hand.
“Hm,” said Milrose. “Slithering file folders.”
“But not horrible …”
“No, not yet.”
Arabella stood cautiously at his shoulder as Milrose examined the eager file. The folder was of the usual bland manila, with a tab on the top left to identify the contents. On this tab was printed a name, in handwriting that seemed to Milrose not entirely under control—as if the writer were in the midst of a psychotic break, or perhaps a fierce battle with armed opponents: “Milrose Bysshe Munce.”
“Your middle name is Bysshe?”
Milrose blushed so deeply that he glowed like a palmprint. “Er, I don’t use it much.”
“It’s lovely.”
“It’s appalling. But thank you.”
Milrose opened his folder with hands that shook only slightly, but enough to ensure that the papers within fell onto the floor in a complex mess. Arabella calmly sat on the floor and collected the pages. Milrose got down on his knees beside her, less calmly, and together they began to examine the file. The light was not good, but their eyes were becoming accustomed to it, and they found themselves capable of reading if they squinted.
Much documentation had been devoted to the case of Milrose Bysshe Munce. Dozens of sheets of closely lined paper had been entirely filled, by hand, with observations. Milrose recognized the same jittery—actually, mad—handwriting that had scrawled the name on the folder.
Because they had a limited amount of time before they were entombed, Milrose and Arabella skipped randomly through the pages, intending in this way to arrive quickly at a deep understanding concerning the case of Milrose Bysshe Munce.
And because random skipping is not the best path to wisdom, they did not quite succeed. Also, the notes were not entirely coherent. It was easy to imagine the author, in fact, foaming at the mouth and howling at his pen while writing. But they did glean a few crucial points. Milrose discovered that he was—according to this report—a student widely revered by the student population, and widely feared by the staff. He was a “natural-born leader,” according to one note, which made him a “danger to the educational harmony of the school.” He was also, according to one loony note, a “sarcastic hero.” Most of this was news to Milrose. But then, the person who had written these notes was clearly insane.
The crazed author had also made one very sane and somewhat disconcerting observation. He/she/it knew, quite clearly, that Milrose Munce was conversant with the dead.
An hour later, Milrose and Arabella were still sitting on the damp floor of the archive, and were now surrounded by a messy heap of file folders. They had frantically searched each of the drawers, looking for information that might prove useful. Arabella’s file had been right behind Milrose Munce’s, and had been approximately as informative. Again, however, one salient fact stood out: the mad author knew, ominously, that Arabella was on friendly terms with the dead.
They had immediately wondered whether seeing ghosts was an attribute shared by any of the other students on file. They had opened drawers and searched randomly through different folders and found—to their excitement and dismay—that in fact all of the students they looked into seemed to have this in common. Admittedly, they had not had time to go through more than a portion of the cases, but it was eerie to note this common theme. Both Milrose and Arabella strongly suspected that were they to go through every folder, they would probably find that every one of these Helped individuals had been intimate with the world of the dead.
All of the folders they examined said much the same thing. A student had been deemed a candidate for Help. He or she had been admitted to the Den. The daily reports regarding the weeks following this were mostly dull and uninformative, consisting of statements like: “Today patient made no substantial progress towards socialization. On the Wickter Scale of Normalcy, patient has still barely progressed beyond 6.2, which is unacceptable.” The last page of every file (except their own) ended abruptly with: “Patient cured.”
This cure was always abrupt. In fact, the cure always seemed to take place precisely forty-two days after the patient had been admitted into Help. Generally the patient had made little or no progress on the Wickter scale—and had often worsened—yet six weeks after commencement, each patient was suddenly “cured,” and the file terminated.
“I don’t like this curing business,” said Milrose.
“Neither do I,” said Arabella.
“It doesn’t seem … positive.”
“No.”
“I mean, nobody ever gets actually Helped all that much, do they? Not according to the Wickter Scale.”
“I do not like that scale.”
“And then they’re suddenly cured.”
Both were thinking much the same thing. And that thing was close enough to the word entombed that it made them suddenly anxious to return to the Den before the wall deploded.
Deeply Damaged Dave had indeed provided for their return. It was difficult to lose their way, given Dave’s helpful (if somewhat extreme) navigational aids. He had arranged a series of (probably temporary) explosions, which occurred, one after another, every few minutes, to guide them in the proper direction. Just as they were becoming perplexed—as stumbling in the dark so often renders one—a bright flash
and matching bang would ignite in the near distance, indicating where they ought to go next. (Dave counted on Milrose being one of those few people who make their way towards explosions.)
In this intermittently dramatic manner—every explosion caused them to flinch, if not jump—they at last found their way back to the hole in the floor, beneath which could be glimpsed the tower of beds.
The rope ladder had disappeared: could Dave have neglected this one detail, after being so careful with his pyrotechnics? But the topmost bed was not very far below, so they counted to three and jumped.
They landed with a soft sproing. A mere second later they heard a noise that can only be called the opposite of an explosion (if you’ve never heard this noise, then you can’t really grasp how strange it is), and the ceiling deploded. Which is to say, all the bits of plaster lying on the bed beside them shot through the air to find their former places in the former ceiling; the plaster dust whooshed back into the places between those places; and the ceiling quickly became solid and whole and unexploded. It was impressive, if a touch unsettling—had they taken a second more to find their way back, or had counted to four before jumping, then they would never have been able to return to the den.
“I suppose we made it back in the nick of time.” Milrose stopped to ponder this. “What do they mean by ‘the nick,’ anyway?”
As breakfast was fast approaching, there seemed no point in going back to bed. Milrose and Arabella sat upon the bunk and tried to make sense of the evening’s adventure.
“I think this evening has been helpful,” said Arabella.
“You’re right: we learned helpful stuff. Dave will be pleased with our research.”
“What precisely have we learned, do you think?”
“Um …” Milrose turned this over in his mind. “Well … I guess we know that people get sentenced to Help for seeing ghosts.”
“We do not really know that. All we know is that everyone sentenced to Help does see ghosts. We have no proof that this is why they are sent here. And we can’t really speak for everyone. We didn’t read all the files.”
“You’re nitpicking.”
“One of us has to.”
“Why? And what’s a nit?”
“I think it’s a small bug.”
“Well,” said Milrose, “you keep picking small bugs. (What does that mean?) And I’ll continue to assume that everyone is sent here precisely because they see ghosts. In fact, I bet they do this to everyone who shows that ability. I mean, you and I are the only people I know who are aware of our dead friends, and guess what: we’re in Help.”
“I’ll grant you that.”
“And I think it’s safe to say that Help is designed to cure this condition. Not simply the hearing of supposedly non-existent voices. The actual seeing of ghosts.”
“Okay. That is in fact borne out by the files.”
“And, furthermore, it’s pretty clear that Help is completely useless in that respect. All the files seemed to suggest that patients kept up their conversations with the dead, no matter what was done to them.”
“Until they got … cured.”
“Yes.”
They both shuddered.
“Let’s see,” said Milrose, veering away from that gruesome subject. “We also know a bit more about why they’re concerned about us, in particular.”
“I don’t think we know anything useful.”
“Well, apparently I’m a born leader. That’s something. Whoever wrote my file seemed particularly annoyed by that.”
“True. Frightened, even. You’re a ‘danger.’”
“Who knew,” said Milrose. “Of course, I’ve never led anyone anywhere in my life.”
“If you were born to lead, you have lots of time to start. I’m sure many people start leading later in life.”
“Thank you. And I like to think of myself as a danger.”
“Of course.”
“I bet we’re both dangers.”
“Do you think so?”
They stopped speaking in order to briefly enjoy that thought.
“Um, Arabella? Speaking of … well, danger … how many days have we been in Help?”
She started counting on her fingers. “About thirty-six.”
“About? I suspect we want an exact number.”
“I’m not good with numbers.”
“Because the files are kind of unwavering when it comes to the date of the cure. Forty-two days and you’re done.”
“I’m almost sure it’s thirty-six.”
“Then I’m almost sure we’re gonna be cured six days from now.”
They lapsed into an unhappy silence, as neither could think of anything much to say. Among the many things in the world they did not desire, this was now chief: they did not want to be cured.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
ONE DISTRESSING ASPECT OF MASSIMO NATICA’S DECLINE WAS THE GROWING INCOHERENCE OF HIS THERAPEUTIC STRATEGIES. WHILE ONCE MERELY SILLY AND INEFFECTIVE, WHAT MASSIMO WAS HAVING THEM DO NOW WAS MORE IN THE LINE OF DANGEROUS AND UNPRINCIPLED.
“I sense that you do not trust me,” said Massimo Natica over breakfast. This was perhaps his first truly accurate observation.
“Aw, Massimo. How could you possibly come to such a depressing conclusion?”
Natica ignored Milrose, as if that last remark were somehow not sincere. “This is not normal. Normal children trust adults in positions of authority. So, we are going to work on this. Trust.” He smiled one of his least appetizing smiles. “Now, before you trust me, you must learn to trust each other.”
“But we already do,” said Milrose.
“We shall see,” said Massimo Natica.
In order to ensure that Milrose and Arabella were not abnormally suspicious of each other, they were now to engage in exercises devoted to “interpersonal trust.” Milrose had heard of such exercises, which were popular in drama classes: a blindfolded actor would tilt forward, so that—if not caught by a fellow student—he would plant his face fully and painfully in the floor. This was meant to instill trust between students. You simply expected your fellow actor to catch you before you crushed your nose. Sometimes these experiments could become fraught with something less than trust: if, for instance, the guy who was supposed to catch you was also competing with you for the lead in the next play. Or, worse, the catcher had an eye on your girlfriend, and considered you the major obstacle to his romantic ambitions. Still, incidents of serious nasal impact were rare.
What Massimo was proposing, however, involved a considerable element of luck on top of the usual trust. Arabella was made to stand blindfolded against the one blank wall, while Milrose—also blindfolded—was made to rush at the wall, as if jousting, with the pitchfork held in front of him like a lance. Arabella was to trust that Milrose would plant the pitchfork into the wall instead of into her.
Milrose did his very best not to impale Arabella on the end of his pitchfork, and Arabella did her very best not to be run through like a kebab, but neither could guarantee that this would not happen, no matter how deeply went their trust.
Of course, they did in fact trust each other deeply. And one positive consequence of this exercise—the only positive aspect—was that they seemed to bond further as they courted Arabella’s inadvertent murder. It was, in a truly sick and beautiful way, romantic.
Now you might of course wonder why Milrose and Arabella would allow themselves to be caught up in such an exercise. Unfortunately, Massimo’s powers of persuasion had not left him entirely, and when he truly wished for them to undergo a certain technique, they really had no choice in the matter. Massimo Natica could no longer pull this off consistently, but when manic obsession entered the picture, his talents returned. And he really, really wanted to witness this exercise in trust.
It became, to be precise, more of an exercise in prayer and strategy. Prayer for obvious reasons. Milrose Munce had never considered himself particularly religious, but he found himself praying with ast
onishing sincerity that he not be the cause of Arabella’s violent demise. Her death under any circumstances would have driven him to an eternity of grief. Her death at his hands, however, would be infinitely worse. Truly bad, with no redeeming features whatsoever. Hence he prayed.
Her prayers were surprisingly different. You’d imagine that she’d focus mostly upon being run through like a quail on a spit—that her prayers would run along the lines of, “Please, Lord, let me not be skewered by a pitchfork.” Arabella’s prayers, however, were far more complex. For she cared mostly that her ghosthood not come at the hand and fork of Milrose Munce, simply because of the wilderness of eternal anguish it would cause him. If prayers are answered, even in the Den of Professional Help, it may well be for this strange reason: there was very little selfish in Arabella’s sincere wish to remain unpierced.
Strategy was the other main deterrent to the addition of yet one more kebab to this world. Milrose Munce would always indicate that he was about to set himself into motion by pawing the floor loudly with his foot, like a bull about to charge. Arabella, upon hearing this sound, would emit a subtle “eep,” which set in motion a sort of echolocation, so that Milrose might triangulate like a bat and aim in any other direction than eep-ward. This was the soundtrack to that operatic exercise in trust: paw, eep, gallop, thud. Perhaps more “thoock” than “thud,” as the tines of the pitchfork would penetrate an inch or so into the wall.
Massimo watched with satisfaction.
That night, both had an inordinately difficult time getting to sleep—a consequence of terror—but once they succeeded, Arabella had a clarifying dream. It was about time. Unfortunately, upon waking, she could not remember it.
Arabella had a technique to deal with this, however. She closed her eyes and pretended that she was in fact asleep, and this, predictably, tricked the dream into coming back, like an abandoned dog, to nuzzle her eyeball.
And there she was again, vividly, in a full-length faux-ermine robe and a magnificent tiara (adornments she had barely noticed in the dream, as this was hardly unusual clothing); she was making a stately progress down the corridor of the dank, mushroomous basement. To either side were athletes, awed by her presence in their midst—they had briefly stopped giving each other wedgies; their bleating had diminished to a low snuffling murmur—and at the end of the corridor was a creature in a cage.
Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help Page 10
