I can’t wait to get out, but Helen has a tight grip on my right arm. I’m sure it’s supposed to look as if she’s supporting the grieving widow. But she and I know she’s afraid I’ll bolt out the door the moment she lets go.
“Don’t even think about it,” she hisses in my ear, although she doesn’t need to say anything. We know the drill. We wouldn’t try anything with dozens of people watching. Countless failed attempts to escape in the last five years have taught us to plan ahead. We are ready to give it another try but the time has to be right. We may be crazy, but we aren’t stupid. This time it has to work.
Has to.
The reception is over, and everyone leaves. Helen marches beside me until we are out of earshot. “How dare you embarrass me like that in front of all my friends?” She hisses like a viper and pushes me into the back seat of her car.
“What did I do?” Cross my heart, I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“Shut up. You know exactly what you did. Don’t play the innocent. That trick may have worked on Horace, it doesn’t work on me.”
She starts the motor and pulls away. I would love to find out what she meant. Did one of the kids pop out unnoticed? Perhaps I didn’t act numb enough?
She gave us a shovelful of pills earlier this morning to make sure we were leashed and muzzled for the day. The old girl has no idea we flushed the meds down the toilet. She has no idea that even if the meds would knock some of us out, someone is always watching everything. We don’t know yet how to keep all the things we see and hear in one place and we don’t always work well as a team, but we’ll get there.
Nowadays, we move in and out, shift a little to the side to let someone more qualified for the task at hand run the show. We are getting stronger. For Helen’s benefit, I slip into the role of a semi-comatose nitwit. All it takes is letting your jaw drop on one side and spit drool down the chin. Then you soften your gaze, focus on peripheral vision, and make your eyes roll up.
Easy.
The sound of the motor and the soft swaying of the car are making me sleepy. I’m drifting off. There is not much I can do about it. We haven’t yet found a way to control our coming and going. It’s hard for us to stay in the body for any length of time.
How singletons manage to be around all the time, day and night?
We simply get tired after a while. It’s as if someone lets the air out of a balloon and we deflate. I once saw a movie where an astronaut lost connection with his spaceship and drifted off into the endlessness of the universe. Silent and without a struggle he gave in to his fate.
That’s how we experience leaving and entering the body. In books, it’s often called switching. But that’s not how it is for us. Switching sounds much too purposeful and way too active.
Nope.
We drift off, and another part comes into focus. Sometimes, though not often, it’s like bursting onto the scene. Like when there is a dangerous situation. That’s when Amadeus comes breaking through all barriers. No prior announcement. No warning. He comes flying like Superman with supersonic speed.
In general, we haven’t got a violent bone in our body. The only time Amadeus became violent was when a man attacked Maddie. What is it with grown men, raping little girls for fun? I mean… really? Amadeus came along just in time to avoid the worst. The attack had thrown Maddie into a stupor and she was non-responsive. The guy was an NGYD man. Amadeus gave him a broken nose, a broken collarbone, and a super-sized shiner. Seeing him squirm and howl was a beautiful moment we’ll treasure forever.
We paid for it with a two-week stay in a mental respite clinic where they pumped us full of Valium and other stuff. Nobody wanted to know what happened. They called us liars when we accused an upstanding member of society of attacking us. After all, he was a well-known, local philanthropist and we had a mental health record, as long as from here to the moon.
Still, we all think Amadeus is cool. He’s strong like a bear and you don’t want to get on the wrong side of him. I don’t. I keep well out of his way. He scares me a little.
I feel Elise’s energy getting closer. About time too because I’m fading. My job was to do the funeral. Nothing more. She took off before we entered the church. I guess the funeral was too emotional for her. Elise doesn’t do strong emotions. That’s how she can stay around for the everyday activities, be the good girl, do the dishes and hang the washing on the clothesline.
Don’t ask me to do the cleaning, cooking, or making the beds. I’ve never done it, and I’m not interested in learning how to.
Chapter Two
Elise: 17 November 2015, Evening, Waitakere Flats
I must have fallen asleep because it’s dark outside and I don’t remember having had any dinner yet. If only the pounding in my head would stop. I could figure out what to say to Helen and could figure out what she wants or what I did wrong.
“Elizabeth, we’ve got to talk,” she’d said in the car in that frightening voice she uses when she’s displeased with me. It makes my stomach feel weightless as if I’m a bird flapping its wings in a desperate free fall from the sky.
I hate her calling me Elizabeth. It leaves me with a taste of blood in my mouth and a sense of dark, cold nothingness. Not even pain is present in that space. It’s just nothing. Hearing the name frightens me. I prefer Elise. It reminds me of Beethoven’s piano piece For Elise.
Sometimes, when I’m in a blue mood, I listen to it and imagine he wrote it for me. Now and again it helps me to climb out of the darkness and gives me hope. Hope that maybe someday somebody cares enough about me to do something so special for me; like writing a song. Perhaps Beethoven would have? Who knows?
I must have done something wrong at the funeral. But what? Helen was furious afterward. She always finds something. No matter how hard I try, I never get it right for her. The things she’s accused me of having done, or not done, would fill a book. I am just too forgetful and too featherbrained. She says I’m a disappointment.
She’s probably right. I’m disappointed in myself, too.
When I recall the events of the funeral, they are fuzzy. It’s as if I’m hiding behind a curtain of dense steam rising from a witch’s cauldron. I half-listen to speeches, half-watch people file by and half-shake countless hands. I’m not really there, but people don’t know that. They don’t know they can’t reach me, and I can’t reach them. Not that I mind much.
People scare me. Horace used to chide me about it and called me his “silly little wifey.” Perhaps he was right? It’s stupid to be afraid of people if everyone is nothing but nice.
The pounding in my head turns into monsters clawing at my head with talons sharp like razors.
Painkillers. I need painkillers.
I get up from my bed to find my pills. As soon as I turn on the wall lights, the scary shadows that lurk in the darkness give way to my warm, cozy room. I can’t find my pills anywhere. It’s probably a good idea to have something to eat first but my stomach rebels and roils at the mere thought of food.
Horace is dead. I still can’t fully grasp it. Even the funeral hasn’t made it more real for me. Ever since I remember, he’s been looking after me. How many years have I existed next to him like a family heirloom, too precious to throw away, but too damaged to love?
With him gone, I have no sense of where my future is taking me, no roadmap to follow. I must be sensible. But how can I be sensible when my mind is either numb from drugs or chaotic and noisy like a battlefield?
I still can’t find my pills and step into the half-light of the hallway. At the top of the stairs, I stop and listen to the angry voices coming from the downstairs living room. Yes, angry voices frighten me too.
“I want Elizabeth gone. We should’ve taken care of her ages ago, but Horace thought he could control her. I expect you to help me. The van from the clinic arrives tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t know if that’s wise, Helen.”
“Leave the thinking to me. All you have to do is prepare the
paperwork for that crazy woman.”
Nailed to the spot, I’m listening to my sister-in-law planning my death. Cause that’s what it’ll be. Death. Locking me up in a clinic? Soon nothing would be left of me. I might as well be dead. A tidal wave of fear rises inside me and sweeps me away until I’m just a floating bit of debris among the screaming voices in my head.
I’m fumbling for the handrail to hold on.
Don’t lock me up again.
With all this shouting, crying, and lamenting in my head, thinking becomes impossible. It’s like having a large choir in my head where everyone shouts from a different sheet. They gave me pills to get rid of the voices and make the chaos in my head go away. When did I last take them? I forgot.
Helen spoke of my future as if it meant nothing. She showed no compassion as if I am a tiresome chore that one must do, like cleaning the bathroom or putting out the trash. Perhaps that’s what I am, trash that needs to be gotten rid of. Weren’t there times when we got along or did, I get it all wrong? Didn’t I do all I could to be the person she wanted me to be?
I’ve been Elizabeth, the friend when she needed to rant about Horace. I’ve been Elizabeth, the maid when she needed help with the wardrobe, and I’ve been Elizabeth, the charwoman when her cleaner didn’t show up.
My future might not mean much to her, but it does to me. When Horace died, a door to freedom opened. I glimpsed possibilities I never dreamed of.
Horace always treated me as the ten-year-old orphan he took into his care. Our relationship never advanced from the guardian and ward mode to that of husband and wife. Now he’s dead and for the first time in my life, I’m free to make my own decisions.
I’m not fooling myself pretending it isn’t scary. It is. But, it’s also exciting.
Sounds from downstairs make me listen up. What are they talking about? I strain to listen but the more I hear, the more I’m getting mixed up.
“This might be the most dangerous thing you’ve done. Send her away? Have her locked up? The instructions were always to keep an eye on her. Have you already forgotten? What if…”
I recognize the voice. It screeches like fingernails on a blackboard. Without any melody, hollow, and barren of any emotions, it fills me with fear. I’ve seen the man a few times in our house. His pale, gray eyes look cold and hard, even if he puts on a smile. It’s Dr. Malcolm Storm.
“She’ll go to a place where we can trust the staff.”
“You are the boss.”
What are they talking about? I am confused. It doesn’t make sense. I know Helen often fought with Horace demanding better treatment for me—or was it a different treatment? Is that what she’s talking about? She always said she had my best interest at heart. But how can sending me to a mental hospital be in my best interest? I’m not that unwell? Or am I?
I’m probably ungrateful, doubting her. Yes, I’m ungrateful. She often told me so.
She’s never called me a crazy woman before.
Although she’s right. Doctors say I’m schizophrenic. I hate that label. It defines you as a second-rate human being. Like a line of sweaters with production faults they sell in outlet stores. Or a decaying apple that must be removed from an otherwise perfect display.
I don’t even know whether it’s the right diagnosis. I looked it up on the Internet. Some things fit, others don’t.
After going to doctor after doctor and hearing the same result, I gave up fighting. I couldn’t stand the condescending comments when I attempted to question their diagnosis. Doctors are like gods. Not the good ones; the mean powerful ones. They are always right, and the patient is always wrong, or ignorant, or non-compliant, or plain stupid.
Downstairs, they are silent now. I wish they were still talking. The silence is filled with dread and frightens me even more. My body is shaking like a leaf and my head feels light and vacuous. Images float through my mind of people at the funeral, their smiles turning into grotesque masks that melt off their faces like in a Dalian painting. They mock me and stretch out hands that look like barbed vices trying to capture me.
I feel myself slipping away to a dark, scary place filled with monsters I cannot fight. I can’t breathe. Ice-cold fear holds me in its clutches. My room. I have to escape. I have to… the floorboard creaks as I turn around. I freeze and swallow a desperate scream.
“Elizabeth, is that you?”
She heard me. My hand flies to my mouth as I try not to panic but my inside feels like the coast of Wessex when the Vikings first invaded. Panicked people are running around, screaming, howling, and leaving behind nothing but mayhem. Dead bodies and body parts are scattered everywhere and blood seeps into the earth.
Help.
I don’t know any more what’s real and what’s not.
“I’m looking for my pills. I’ve got a diabolical headache. Have you seen them?”
Where did that come from? Certainly not from my frozen brain. Sometimes I say these things that seem to come from nowhere like the surprise gift from the supermarket because you are the one-thousandth person going through the checkout. I hold my breath and wait for her response.
“I put them in the drawer in your bathroom. You should also take a sleeping pill, today was a hard day for you.” Her voice almost has a warm tone, but I’m not fooled. Not after what I overheard a moment ago.
“Thanks. I suppose I need it today.” Always nice, always obedient, always agreeable, always kind. The path of least resistance is my way of dealing with people. The other option would be open warfare, and that’s not me. I’m not a fighter. Anger frightens me. Besides all the things I hate about me, I like that I’m a kind person.
I believe in kindness. Often people think kindness is a weakness and an easy way out. They are wrong. It’s not an easy thing to be kind when the world around you is greedy and hostile.
Back in my room, I slide down the door until I sit on the floor, my head lodged between my shaking legs. Did Helen say she wanted to get rid of me? I must have misheard. Tears are running down my face. I wipe them off and look at my wet hands. I swear those tears are not mine.
Nothing makes sense anymore. Then, as if listening to a recording, I hear Helen’s words repeated in my head. “I want Elizabeth gone… The van from the clinic arrives tomorrow morning.”
A hysterical voice screeches in my head, “That’s not gonna happen.”
I gather myself and try to think. If only I could call Charlotte, but it’s too late in the evening. I wouldn’t dream of exploiting her kindness. Tomorrow is early enough. She’ll help. She always knows what to say to make me feel better. Like when she told me a few weeks ago, I’m not schizophrenic. That was a wonderful session.
She spoiled it by suggesting I might have multiple personalities. I looked it up on the Internet and I’m disappointed in her. Plenty of people don’t believe in multiple personalities, and I’m tempted to agree with them. It’s such a crazy notion. All I suffer from is a terrible memory. All I have to do is learn to pay attention and not be such a scatterbrain.
I go into my bathroom. The box with my pills is in the drawer, just as Helen said. I fill a water glass and take two painkillers. If Helen has arranged for people to pick me up tomorrow morning, then there is nothing I can do to stop her. It’s no use to fight the inevitable. It might even be in my best interest.
“No!”
The forcefulness of the voice in my head frightens me. I wouldn’t mind if the doctors in the clinic could help me to get rid of the voices in my head. That would be wonderful.
After a while, I get up and sit on my couch. Besides this room, I won’t miss this house. Helen and Horace always lived together. They bought the house after Horace became my guardian. Even when he married me eight years later, I felt like a boarder rather than a wife. Helen made all the important decisions for the house, like the furniture, wallpaper, and what goes where. First, I found that odd, but I spend a lot of time being unwell or in mental hospitals. I guess it was only natural for her to take over
instead of handing the reins over to me.
It never felt like my home. I couldn’t tell you how it would look if I had a say in choosing the interior. I heard on TV once, your home reflects your personality. I don’t even know what my personality is.
Once upon a time, the house was an elegant mansion on the outskirts of Auckland. They had allowed me to furnish my bedroom and living room the way I wanted. I could never decide on one style for my place. It’s a mixture of playful, elegant, bohemian, and cozy. Lots of oversized cushions lie scattered on the wooden floorboards and on my bed in a symphony of warm red, yellow, brown, and orange colors with sprinkles of purple and pink. I love warm colors. I can lay here for hours and get lost in my books.
A huge grandfather chair is standing in the corner of my room, covered in burgundy upholstery, surrounded by shelves filled with books. Lots and lots of books. They are my friends. There is a large table in the middle of my room. It’s home to my most treasured possessions like art projects, books, maps, pens, stacks of paper, and my computer.
This was a good place, a safe place I hate to leave. I wipe the tears with the back of my hand and sink into a pillow. If only I had someone to talk to. A friend. Someone who knows the real me, not the person I portray to the world. The real me with warts and all.
I reach for the old family bible in the bookshelf hoping to find something. What? I don’t know. Maybe a friend? Don’t people feel comforted finding a connection to God? The Bible is not the first place I would usually go to in search of a friend or kind words.
People in my life wielded God like a sword, threatening me with damnation and hellfire every step of the way. But maybe there’s more to find? Millions of Christians can’t be wrong, can they?
I read through the familiar pages at the front of the three-inch-thick leather volume. It chronicles the history of my great-grandmother’s family from the time they left Germany in 1874 and landed in Hawkes Bay together with a group of Swedish settlers. My great grandmother passed the Bible on to her daughter, Clara Douglas, who passed it on to my mother, Sarah Wright.
Girl From the Tree House Page 2
