by Ivy Carter
He is telling her that I am having a fit. That I have been going slowly insane since my father’s death. The voices in his head are laughing with happiness. He doesn’t have to kill me now. He can send me away. If I am insane he gets all my daddy’s money. Nothing will be left for me. Just how he wants it.
At first I am happy about this. Maybe I won’t have to be scared anymore. But then I hear that he wants to send me to a crazy house. Where they send those people that talk to themselves. He is telling Maria that I hear voices. Maria already knows this. I told her once. She already thought I was a little crazy. I heard her say it in her head. But she also thinks I am a sweet girl and will grow out of it. She is looking at me differently now.
All of a sudden I feel a sting in my neck and I do scream then. Right before I fall asleep I hear my uncle tell Maria that it is just a sedative to help calm me so I don’t hurt myself. He is taking me to the hospital for treatment. I try to fight. He is taking me to the crazy house! I don’t want to go. Just kill me, I want to scream at my mean uncle. I would rather be with Mamma and Daddy!
I don’t know how much time has passed. But I can’t seem to get my eyes to open all the way. I try to move my arms up to my face so that I can rub the sleep from them. But I can’t move. Someone has tied my arms! My eyes pop open really fast since I am scared. I look around a white room with shiny walls. There isn’t anything in this room but a metal table, chair, and the bed I am tied to. I am about to open my mouth and scream for help when a nice-looking nurse walks into the room.
“Now none of that Mena.” She shakes her head at me. I can feel the tears on my face falling to my chin. “Just let nurse Stacey give you something to make you sleep.” I feel something stick my arm and I whimper. Then everything in me starts to feel fuzzy again. Like when Uncle hurt my neck. My eyes are heavy and I can’t see very well. Where am I? What is wrong with me? Why does everyone hate me?
Chapter 1.
I have never been a normal girl. I always just wished I were. My dad was always in the spotlight. I am sure you have heard of him. He is... I mean he was the Senator of New York State. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that he is gone. Even though it’s been a long time now. Almost eight years. My dad was always so full of life. I never thought he would leave me like my mom did. She died of cancer when I was three years old. From what my family has told me through letters and such, it about destroyed my father when she passed. But now he is gone too. He left me and now I am stuck here. Locked away until someone finds a better use for me and what he left behind. That was supposed to be mine.
I look around the blank, shiny, white walls and remember how I got here. I am only eighteen years old and I am already locked away. I have been for a very long time. Some people want me to be locked away for the rest of my life. No one tells me anything. Just that I am crazy. They call the disorder I have Schizophrenia. No, I didn’t kill someone. Nor did I do anything wrong at all. Someone that was supposed to love me put me here. So he could have what my dad wanted for me. Money. Isn’t that always the motivator to wrong those small and weaker than yourself?
When I was younger I made the mistake of telling people that I trusted my secret. I can read people’s minds. Hear their innermost secrets and what they are thinking at any given moment. My doctor says that the voices are inside my head. But I know different. I am a Telepath. Just like my mother was. It runs in our family. I remember my father once told me never to tell anyone my secret. Now I know why he warned me. People like to hurt people that are weak. I was once weak. But I am getting stronger every day.
Today is my birthday. I am legally an adult. Soon I will have the choice of leaving this hated place. I have been faking for a long time now. No one thinks I can hear them anymore. I lie. I am good at lying and pretending that I am normal. As of today my inheritance is mine. What is left of it. What my uncle hasn’t stolen for himself. There is one thing that I know for sure. When I do get out I will continue to pretend that everything is alright. That everything is peachy in the world. Until I get my chance for revenge.
There is one secret that I have kept for years. That I have never told another living soul. The night my uncle tried to kill me. The night that he locked me away. I heard his thoughts. He was remembering how much he enjoyed planning my father’s car accident. He stole everything from me. But one day soon he will get what is coming to him. I have waited a long time. Planned everything well. His day is coming. He just doesn’t know it yet. I smile to myself at the thought.
I hear the bolted lock on the door click open. In comes old nurse Stacey. She was the first person I met here. Well, met isn’t really the right word. She is the first person I remember from my first horrid night here. She is wearing the same kind of uniform she wore that first night; a white button-down top with a pair of stark-white pants. Let’s not forget to mention the hideous nursing shoes. They squeak wherever they go.
“It is time for your session Mena. Child, you have no idea how happy I am that you are almost all better now,” she tells me with a smile crinkling the skin around her mouth. She has always been pleasant. But I don’t have any kind feelings for any of my jailers here.
“You are seeing that handsome new doctor today, child.” She smacks her lips in thought. “My oh my! If only I was thirty years younger.” She laughs like she is letting me in on a joke.
I keep my face blank and nod in the positive. I never show much emotion. Not since the first year of my stay here. But that’s a story for another time. Not every hospital or institution has doctors that want to help you. Some of them prey on the weak as well. Especially pretty little girls that no one gives a shit about. I haven’t been a victim for a very long time. I won’t ever be one again.
“It’s time for your meds now Hun. Try and be a good girl and don’t put up a fuss.” Like I ever put up a fuss. I always just cheek the shit and get rid of it later. But the less she knows about that the better off I am. I don’t say a word in answer to her ramblings. I just watch as she bustles around the room, tidying the blankets I always leave strewn about.
Nurse Stacy hands me my robe to don over the ever-present pajamas that they make us wear in this place. I don’t think I have seen or felt denim in close to eight years. She unlocks my door from the inside. Yes, I am locked up unless otherwise supervised. Freedom is foreign for me.
I follow my nurse out the door and down the long corridor. The walls are just as stark as they are in my room. The floors are so slick from the wax they used yesterday I have to keep my hand on the wall so my slipper-covered feet don’t slip on the tiles. We get to the common room where all the other crazies, or patients as the doctors call us, gather to play board games or watch the television.
I get in line behind a girl that has drool running down her chin. I feel sorry for her. I was once that girl before I stopped ingesting everything they doled out to me. The line to the counter of the nurses’ station is long and slow moving. So I slip into the thoughts of others. Which is the norm for me. I can do it at will now. I have stayed up long nights these past eight years and honed my gift. I can close out the noise of others and pinpoint my focus now. I have built my walls high so that no one can penetrate my mind. But I can easily slip past even the strongest resistance. I can even change a person’s perception of the reality around them. Make them think and feel things that aren’t there. That talent came in handy during late night visits from…Well that’s another matter altogether. One that will be rectified soon.
Most of the girls in line ahead of me are in their own little imaginary worlds, where they have created their own realities and are living out their lives there. Not in this hell hole. I understand this temptation. I have been tempted to live there myself. I would have slipped past this reality long ago if I didn’t have my own plans driving me. The ever present need to get revenge for my family. Christina is the girl in front of me. We were friends once. The only friend I ever made in this place. The doctor that my uncle had been paying to keep me here
made sure we didn’t stay friends long. He upped her medication until she is the walking, drooling on herself, zombie that I see standing in front of me. She doesn’t even recognize me now. Hell, she doesn’t even know her own name.
“Ms. Mena?” I hear a sweet-faced LPN at the counter calling my name. It snaps me out of others’ minds and back to the present. “Here are your anxiety meds for the day. Take them with this glass of water then open your mouth for me.” She hands me a glass of water which I take. Then I take the little blue, pink, and white pills she hands me and slyly slip them into the sleeve of my robe and tuck them into the cuff. I put the tiny white cup that the pills were in to my mouth and pretend to swallow them quickly with a swallow of water. Sometimes they catch on to the slip I just preformed. But today I am lucky and they don’t catch on. The sweet-faced nurse smiles at me like I am four and I move on.
“Come along Mena.” Nurse Stacy grabs ahold of my arm and starts to lead me out another door. This door leads toward the doctors’ offices and group meeting rooms. “It is time for your group therapy session.” She giggles like the school girl that she clearly isn’t. “That new doctor is fiiiiiine,” she sings out the last word. Like I am supposed to be grateful to meet yet another person to observe me and then come to the wrong conclusion. “Girl, if you weren’t in here and one of his new patients I am sure the new doc would fall head over heels for you!” I don’t know why she is always going on about my looks. I haven’t looked in the mirror since I was ten years old. So I don’t know what I look like. When I was younger everyone said I looked just like my mother. She was said to be the most beautiful woman in all of the world. With long blonde wavy hair, striking green eyes, rosy cream colored skin. At least that is what the tabloids said. I am tall like my father. I do know that. My mother was petite, just hitting my dad’s shoulders when she wore her tall heels. I remember her laying her head on his shoulder when she laughed.
We continue down the hall as if nothing has changed. But I suppose it hasn’t. I am still locked up here. I still have to go to this infernal group session. This one won’t be any different. I will sit quietly. Speak only when spoken to. While trying to act as if I don’t hear every thought in the new doctor’s head. But in the back of my head I am wondering if Nurse Stacy is right. Am I pretty? If I am, I hope I look just like my mother.
Magic Borne:
To be released December 2013
Ivy Carter
I want to thank you for taking this journey with me. I know it was a long time coming. I would like to apologize for the long wait. Life sometimes gets in the way of things you would rather be doing.
If you enjoyed traversing this adventure with Ella and her gang, please feel free to share this book with your friends, and please leave a review. I would really like to hear your thoughts and views. Reviews are an author’s life blood. I look forward to hearing from you.
Happy Reading,
Ivy Carter
