by J. Thorn
Except inside Starlene’s head, the man was wet and left footprints that stopped in the middle of the floor.
And then Kracowski was at the door, saying “Excuse me, Miss Rogers, this room is off limits to unauthorized staff,” and someone released the straps and Freeman sat up on the bed and then he was inside Bondurant’s head, and Bondurant wasn’t anywhere near the room. Bondurant’s head was foggy, his thoughts not completing themselves before stumbling on to the next garbled batch. By that time, Starlene and the doctor were arguing and Freeman was wondering just how far and into how many minds at a time he could triptrap, and Paula and Randy showed up—
Something landed in his lap and pulled him back to the present, by the lakeside. He looked down and saw a shiny penny.
“For your thoughts,” Vicky said.
“You couldn’t afford them.”
“Try me.” She was pale in the sunlight, almost ethereal in her thinness. Her eyes were black storms in the calm of her face.
“Okay.” Freeman looked across the water. Could he read the minds of fish?
“Of course you can’t, silly. There’s nothing there to read.”
Freeman drew back as if she had drenched him with a bucket of the frigid lakewater.
“I mean, do you think they dream of worms or something? It’s just ‘swim, swim, swim.’” Vicky crossed her arms.
“You’re not in here. Because I’m thinking that I want to see what you’re thinking, but I can’t.”
“Because you think you’re so freaking special. That you’re the only one with problems, or with gifts.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.”
“I wouldn’t even have to read your mind to know that. It’s written right across your face. ‘Don’t mess with big bad Freeman Mills, or there’ll be hell to pay.’ And this macho Clint Eastwood fixation is really pathetic.”
“Why don’t you dry up and blow away?” Freeman focused on the water until his tears made the surface appear to shimmer.
“Why don’t you quit lying to yourself for a change?” Vicky turned and walked away, had reached the large rocks and was about to slip down the path between them when at last Freeman broke through her mental shield. At least a little.
“Keep moving, lard-ass,” he shouted after her.
She froze, turned, and lowered her head.
“Your father called you ‘lard-ass,’ didn’t he? When you were a little girl.”
She knelt. Her shoulders trembled. Freeman wiped his own tears away, guilty at the jab yet pleased he’d been able to penetrate her shield. He thought if this were a movie, he would go to her now, hug her, show her he was strong and kind and understanding, like George Clooney in practically anything. Instead, he picked up the penny and held it to the sun.
“I’d almost forgotten that,” Vicky said. “I think my first shrink got me to remember it, but the best things get buried deep. I guess you win.”
One of the staff members passed by, Allen, the mousy guy, and waved at them from under the shade of the willow tree, letting them know they were safely under watch. No funny stuff. If Allen only knew.
“When did you quit eating?” Freeman asked. “Was it a gradual thing, or did you just wake up one morning and discover that oatmeal tasted like the sole of a tennis shoe?”
“I haven’t quit eating. I still eat way too much.”
“Yeah. You’re, what, seventy pounds soaking wet?”
“Sixty-eight pounds and probably eleven-sixteenths of an ounce, if the two tablespoons of lunch have digested properly.”
“A girl as tall as you ought to weigh at least ninety, maybe a hundred.”
“If you believe the charts. But who cares about the charts? All I know is what I see in the mirror. A big fat buttery tub of lard.”
“You’re nothing but a sheet of skin stretched around a stack of bones.”
“Bet you say that to all the girls.”
“No, really. You’re way too skinny.”
“I’m a total lard-ass.”
“Don’t believe everything Daddy says. Daddies have been known to be wrong. Or psycho, in some cases.”
Freeman stood, found a flat stone, and skimmed it across the water. It bounced six times before sinking. He walked over to Vicky and knelt beside her. He tried to concentrate, but he could smell her hair again.
“I’m sorry I was mean to you,” he said. “I just get a little jumpy. When it kicks in like this, and I can read too many people at the same time—”
“Wendover causes it. Kracowski’s little treatments. I used to read books with titles like Mysteries of the Mind, Secrets of the Unknown, parapsychology and ghosts, that kind of thing. I even practiced ESP every night, scrunching my face until I thought my eyeballs would pop. But I never got any good at it. Then I come here and, boom, I’m practically Miss Cleo overnight.”
“Did Paula and Randy take you to the little room with the table and chairs?”
“And the deck of cards? Yeah.”
“And Paula held up one at a time, showing the back of the card, and you had to guess what symbol was on it?”
“Yeah. A circle, a square, a plus sign, a five-pointed star, and a set of three wavy lines. Pretty corny. I mean, the Rhine Research Center was using that eighty years ago. Most parapsychologists use machines these days.”
“Machines make it harder to cheat.” Freeman flipped the penny and caught it, peeked, and held it flat inside his fist.
“Tails,” Vicky said.
Freeman opened his palm. Tails.
“How many cards did you get right?” she asked.
“Twenty-two out of twenty-five.”
“I got three.”
“Three? You can do better than that by guessing.”
“You think I want those nuts to know I can read minds? Are you crazy or something?”
“‘Crazy’ doesn’t exist in the Twenty-First Century,” Freeman said. “Only science and blame. This place is just a cover for whatever Kracowski is up to. Have you seen the Wendover fundraising brochures yet? ‘Give From The Heart To Society’s Child.’ We’re the products of everybody’s collective guilt.”
“Then what are you acting so guilty about?”
Jesus Henry Christ. Don’t let her get into that secret little spot in my head. The one where I’ve hidden you-know-what. The big troll.
“I’m not guilty,” Freeman said, quickly, before his thoughts ran away to those shadowy cracks. “And I’ve done much better on the card reading. I used to get twenty-five out of twenty-five, back when I was six.”
“Six? You could read minds when you were that young? Before Kracowski?”
“My Dad was into it.”
“Whoa. When you said ‘Dad,’ I felt some bad vibes. What’s up with that?”
“Nothing. You think too much for a girl.”
“You haven’t known many girls, have you?”
“Well, sort of.”
“Don’t bother lying to somebody who can see inside your skull, Freeman.”
“Okay, okay. I’ve never kissed one, if that’s what you want to know.”
Vicky sighed with dramatic flair and shook her head. “I meant being empathetic with a girl. Caring about one. Having a friend.”
“Don’t need any damned friends.” Beyond the lake, beneath the stone face of Wendover, the other children played. Freeman tried to learn the score of the soccer match in progress, but whatever juice had allowed him to jump his mind across the grass was now drained. Maybe he’d used it all up trying to sneak past Vicky’s defenses.
“Sorry I called you a lard-ass,” he said.
“That’s okay. I’m sorry I jumped into your head without permission. Or, what do you call it, ‘triptrap’?”
“My Dad’s name for it. Did you have a treatment recently?”
“Yesterday. Those mirrors creep me out. And the humming, like a hive of metal bees in the walls.”
“That’s what causes it. The mind-reading, I mean.”
�
��Yeah,” Vicky said. “I could read real good yesterday. Like in the lunchroom. I believe that if I had concentrated, I could have read every mind in the room. Or maybe not by concentrating, but its opposite. Shutting down, meditating, going blank.”
“Letting the thoughts in.” Freeman flipped the penny again, glanced at it. Heads. “Sometimes when you chase them, they get all mixed up with your own thoughts, and that’s a good way to go crazy.”
“Remember what I said about ‘crazy.’”
“My power’s going away already. I can feel it fading, sort of like a car radio going to static.”
“It usually lasts a day or two for me. I’ve had four of Kracowksi’s treatments. I don’t know what he’s up to, but I can feel the tingling.”
Freeman rubbed his scalp at the memory of the seizure. “It’s not too bad, though. Not like my Dad’s experiments. But I’m not going to talk about him.”
“Yeah, right. They say it only hurts for a little while. I’ve heard that all my life, and it hasn’t stopped hurting yet.”
“You ever heard of the Trust?”
“The Trust? No.”
“Good.”
“What’s the Trust?”
“Never mind.”
“I can’t never mind. I have to always mind.”
“Forget it.”
“Listen, I know exactly what you’re thinking,” Vicky said. “I’m Jane Fonda and you’re Robert De Niro in ‘Stanley & Iris,’ and you expect me to take you on and teach you and open up a whole new world. Rescue you from yourself.”
“No. I wasn’t thinking that at all. That sounds like a dumb movie.”
“I’ve seen worse, but not lately.”
Freeman flipped the penny again, caught it, and held up his closed fist.
“Heads,” Vicky said.
Freeman glanced at the coin, shielding it from her. Heads again. “No, tails,” he said, putting the penny in his pocket.
The sun was sinking now, just touching the ridges in the west. Freeman looked across the lake, expecting one of the house parents to wave them inside. From here, they wouldn’t be able to hear the bell that signaled dinner.
He saw somebody under the trees and thought at first it was Randy, the muscle jock. He tried for a quick triptrap but the person was too far away, and the power really was on the blink. Then the figure came out into the muted light of sundown. It was the old man in the robe.
“You see him, too,” Vicky said.
“The geezer in gray. I’ve seen him twice.”
“What’s he doing down there?
“Maybe he decided it was time for a bath.”
Vicky stifled a laugh. “That’s mean, Freeman. He might be the nicest person here, for all you know.”
“I thought he worked at the home, like a janitor or something. Figured he must have been here so long they didn’t give him a hard time about the way he dressed. Saved on uniform expenses.”
The man moved closer to the water’s edge, then paused and seemed to sniff the air. He looked toward Wendover on the rise of lawn above the lake, then at Vicky and Freeman. Freeman couldn’t tell whether the man was smiling or grimacing as he approached the water, back stooped with the effort of descending the bank.
“The stupid old coot’s going for a swim,” Freeman said. He and Vicky stood so they could see better. “He’ll freeze to death.”
The old man put a foot into the water. Then he took another step. He must have been standing on a rock, because he put another foot forward without sinking.
Four more of his shuffling steps, and still he kept on. He wasn’t swimming, he wasn’t bathing, he wasn’t sinking.
The old man was walking on water.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The kids were all accounted for, even Deke and his buddies. Starlene knew they liked to sneak off and smoke cigarettes in the laurels, but she didn’t think cracking down on them would do any good, at least until she established rapport. She needed to earn their trust to be a good therapist. And at least it wasn’t marijuana they were smoking. Probably.
Down by the lake, Vicky and Freeman were talking. That was a good sign for both of them, because Freeman had acted like a sassy loner and Vicky had been aloof ever since Starlene had taken the job at Wendover. The poor girl was a classic anorexic-bulimic, and maybe having a friend would help her self-esteem, which in turn might boost her appetite. She sighed. Sounded like a “Dr. Phil Get Real” platitude.
Starlene looked at her watch. Dinner was fifteen minutes away. House parents rotated shifts on a weekly basis, and her week off was coming up. After eating, she would make the long drive down to Laurel Valley, where her cat awaited in her cold mobile home. A good book and a prayer would get her to midnight, when sleep would probably come.
A restless sleep, as they all were these days. First it was Randy who had intruded on her dreams, with his big arms and strong smile and his irritating overprotectiveness. Guys these days thought just because you kissed them meant you were obligated to roll back the sheets and let them wallow like hogs in the slop of your skin. Randy didn’t understand the meaning of patience, especially that business about waiting for marriage. Chastity didn’t seem to be a treasured virtue outside her Baptist church, and virginity was more a burden than a prized possession these days.
And Randy was so secretive, with his “Don’t ask questions” attitude. She needed an ally on the inside. This job was tough enough without having to wing it alone. How could she have a lasting relationship with someone who believed in keeping things from her?
Now she had other worries to lose sleep over. This strange business with the disappearing man in the gown, for example. She hadn’t hallucinated, no matter what Randy and Mr. Bondurant and Dr. Kracowski thought. And she believed religious visions were confined to the Old Testament, not let loose in the modern waking world. Though, Lord knows, the truth often came cloaked in the weirdest of disguises.
And the boy, Freeman, who had left Room Thirteen dazed and trembling. He was another puzzle in this stone house of mysteries.
“The boy’s doing fine now,” came Dr. Kracowski’s voice from behind her.
Kracowski stood under an oak tree with Dr. Swenson. Paula, the doctor liked to be called, especially by the men. She batted her eyelashes every time she introduced herself by her first name, and doubly enjoyed it after some man had peered at the nameplate on her breast a full five seconds too long. Starlene wasn’t jealous, though she wondered what strategy the woman had employed to get through medical school.
Kracowski waited, looking at Starlene like a cat that had swallowed cream. Pleased with his playmate or smug in his therapeutic genius?
“I don’t know,” Starlene said. “He looked awful shaky when he left that treatment room.”
“You don’t trust me at all, do you?” Dr. Kracowski turned to Dr. Swenson. “She doesn’t trust me.”
“That’s not really my place, sir,” Starlene said. “My main responsibility is for the welfare of the kids.”
“As is mine, Miss Rogers. We’re all part of the Wendover team. And victory is measured by happy hearts and contented souls. One child at a time.”
“What was that business with the electricity? I didn’t think the home was authorized to administer electroconvulsive therapy. And I’m pretty sure that neither Freeman nor his legal guardian authorized it.”
“Wendover is Freeman’s guardian now,” Kracowski said.
“And the treatment must have done his heart good,” Dr. Swenson said, in her cheerleader voice. “He’s well enough to be flirting with the Vomit Queen.”
Starlene wanted to choke the woman for her use of the nickname, but Kracowski’s grin stopped her cold.
“Now, Paula, just because the children can’t hear us doesn’t mean we can let down our guard,” he said. “After all, if you name a puppy ‘Butt-Ugly,’ it will suffer from poor self-esteem and the resultant depression. Even though the puppy doesn’t know the meaning of the words. It’s all project
ion and perception, setting up expectations.”
Starlene looked at her watch again. Three more minutes. She could put up with this insufferable pair that much longer, surely. This was nothing compared to the trials of Job or the rigors of a church bake sale.
“Tell me, Miss Rogers,” Kracowski said, waving his hand to indicate the children playing and shouting on the grounds. “What do you see when you look at our young charges?”
“I see hearts in need of hope. And I think we ought to do more than just shock them senseless.”
Swenson glowered. “Richard’s treatments affect positive change at the atomic level. He heals the whole person, from the inside out.”
Kracowski laughed. “I don’t need another advocate, dear. The results will speak for themselves once I collate my data and get my articles written.”
“That’s what it’s all about with you, isn’t it?” Starlene knew she was risking her job, but she’d had enough of Kracowski’s subterfuge and pompousness. “As long as you get credit in the psychological community, you could care less about the kids.”
“I care more than you can imagine, Miss Rogers. Those kids out there, the ones who receive Synaptic Synergy Therapy, they are me. Or, rather, the way I was when I was young. Lost, confused, unsure of my place in the world. I had so much anger inside.”
“Did you plug yourself into a wall socket, or did you find somebody to talk to?”
“We’re really not so different, Miss Rogers. I believe in optimism. That’s a version of harmony, no matter if the harmony is induced by SST or through the attention of someone who pretends to care.”
“I care,” Starlene said. She watched Vicky and Freeman on the rocks by the lake. They seemed to be arguing about something. She hadn’t seen Vicky so animated in weeks.
“I’m sure you do care,” said Swenson. “You’re brainwashed by the twin systems of religion and social sciences.”
“Paula, don’t rush to judgment,” Kracowski said. “We all need faith.”
“Faith,” Starlene said. “I’ll remember that tonight when I’m saying my prayers.”
The sun was lower now, touching the cut of the mountains, and shadows reached like fingers toward Wendover Home.
