Ultraviolet

by R. J. Anderson

  Yet painful as it was to realize the extent of my own self-delusion, there was another thought that disturbed me even more. If I hadn’t disintegrated Tori . . . then who or what had?

  Faraday seemed to think there was an explanation that didn’t involve me, but I couldn’t think of any. And just because he believed in my innocence didn’t necessarily mean he was right. What if I had killed Tori after all, and then hallucinated her disappearance because I was just that crazy?

  I was still brooding over that question when the door opened and the cleaning staff came in. They pulled out the empty bed that had once been Cherie’s and took off the mattress, examining every corner and cranny of the frame. They inspected every inch of the room, and the bathroom as well. Then they made me get up so they could go over my bed, and last of all they searched my suitcase so they could make sure I wasn’t hiding any sharp objects. It was humiliating that they wouldn’t take my word for it, but I knew that protesting would only make them suspicious. So I stood back and watched as they tossed all my clothes into a pile and dumped my toiletries all over the floor.

  At last the two of them left and Simone returned, bringing Micheline with her. Her head was down and her black hair hung limp over her forehead, but her mouth was as sullen as ever.

  “Meet your new roommate,” Simone told her. “And you better get along with this one.” Then her mournful brown gaze swiveled to me, and she said, “You gonna stay here?”

  It was then that I realized why the staff had decided to move Micheline in with me. I’d established myself as a calm, responsible patient, unlikely to provoke Micheline or otherwise add to the nurses’ worries. In a way, it was a vote of confidence.

  That didn’t mean I had to like it, though. And judging by the glare she gave me, Micheline didn’t think much of the arrangement either.

  “I was just leaving,” I said.

  . . .

  “Alison, may I speak to you for a moment, please?”

  I turned at the sound of Dr. Minta’s voice—and my stomach flipped. Standing beside him was Constable Deckard.

  “I . . . I’m supposed to be in group therapy,” I said.

  “It’ll only take a few minutes,” said Dr. Minta. He beckoned me into his office, and I followed. We all sat down, and the constable took off his hat—as though that could make him any less intimidating.

  “Ms. Jeffries,” he said in his soft but unnerving voice, full of blue shadows and glints of hidden steel. “I’ve been hearing from Dr. Minta that you’ve made very good progress over the past few weeks. Since you’re starting to feel better, I’m wondering if you might have remembered anything that could help us in our investigation.”

  I swallowed. What was I going to say?

  “But before I go any further, Ms. Jeffries,” the policeman went on, taking out his notebook, “it’s my duty to let you know that you are under no obligation to make a statement, and that if you do make a statement it could be used against you in court. You have the right to ask that a lawyer be present, and to call a parent or guardian to be present as well, before you answer any questions. . . .”

  “Wait,” I said. “Are you arresting me?”

  “Not at this time,” said Deckard. “I’m just trying to make sure you’re fully aware of your rights before we talk any further.” He flipped a page in his notebook. “And I have about eight pages to go, so if you don’t mind . . .”

  The wry note in his voice disarmed me, and for a minute I almost liked him. But I had nothing to say that he would want to hear, especially not on the record. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but there’s no point. I don’t know what happened to Tori.”

  “You mean you still don’t remember?”

  “I can’t help you,” I said. That much at least was true.

  Constable Deckard regarded me narrowly a moment. Then he pushed back his chair and rose. “I’m sorry to hear that, Ms. Jeffries,” he said. “But perhaps it will help you to hear about a couple of things we’ve learned in the course of our investigation. One is that we’ve just received the DNA test results from the blood we found on your fingers and in your ring shortly after you came home on June seventh. I think you can guess what those results are. The second is that we have two witnesses who say they saw you and Ms. Beaugrand fighting just outside the northwest door of Champlain Secondary School, shortly before she was reported missing. And we also have part of that fight on videotape.”

  My muscles dissolved into water. I stared at him, too shaken to speak.

  “I’d advise you to think about this some more, Ms. Jeffries,” the constable said. “And the next time we talk, maybe you’ll have decided that you do remember something about what happened to Ms. Beaugrand, after all.” He closed his notebook, picked up his hat, and with a nod to Dr. Minta, walked out.

  I sat frozen in my chair. So the police had enough evidence now to confirm that I’d hurt Tori badly, if not killed her. For some reason they still weren’t ready to press charges against me yet, but that could change very quickly—all it might take is one more piece of evidence. And the bitter irony was that even though I now knew I was innocent, I was no closer to clearing my name than I had been before.

  “I apologize, Alison,” said Dr. Minta. “I didn’t expect him to speak to you quite so, er, strongly. Are you all right?”

  Anger flared inside me. I wanted to shout how dare you, to tell him that he had no excuse for springing Constable Deckard on me that way. But I couldn’t, because I needed him to believe that I wasn’t dangerous.

  So I pushed the bitterness down, into the black pit of my stomach along with my regret and my grief and my fear, and I said, “I’m fine. May I go now?”

  . . .

  I made it—just barely—through my Life Goals session and was in the gym trying to hold a yoga pose when Jennifer stuck her head in the gym door and said, “Alison, your mom’s here.”

  I lost my balance and thumped onto the mat. “My . . . are you sure?”

  Please let it be someone else. Anyone else.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she said testily. “Hurry up, please.”

  Which was how I ended up sweaty and disheveled in the visitors’ lounge, face to face with my mother for the first time since my appeal. I watched her delicate nostrils flare as she took in my unbrushed hair and sloppy appearance, and I knew I must look every bit as crazy as she thought I was.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, her French-Canadian accent as strong as I’d ever heard it. “I know you probably don’t want to see me, but—”

  If she’d made the effort to come here, it had to be important. Maybe even urgent. “Is something wrong with Dad?” I asked, my heart beating faster. “Or Chris?”

  My mother looked blank. “No . . . no, nothing like that. I just . . . I needed to talk to you about something. Could we . . . ?” She gestured to the chair across from her, and reluctantly I sat down.

  “I hear you’re doing well,” she said.

  That was more than I’d heard, but Constable Deckard had said much the same. Was there some reason Dr. Minta had been giving glowing accounts of my progress to everyone but me? “I hope so,” I said.

  “So the medication you’re on . . . it’s helping you? You’re not seeing or hearing . . . anything?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that, so I gave a weak smile. Fortunately that seemed to be enough, because the tailored line of her shoulders relaxed as she went on: “Melissa came by yesterday, looking for news about you.”

  “Oh,” I said, not really wanting to get into the subject. Thinking about what Mel might be doing, or who she was talking to, was more than I could take at the moment.

  My mother looked down at her hands, pale against the dark serge of her skirt. “I’m sorry, Alison. I haven’t been a very good mother to you.”

  Oh, no. Why did she have to do this to me now?

  “I should have taken you to a doctor earlier,” she said. “Before it came to this. I just thought . . . hoped . . . th
at you’d outgrown your . . . problem. You seemed to be doing so well . . . .” Her sniff stroked charcoal across my vision. “And when they took you to St. Luke’s, so frightened and angry, and in such pain . . . I realized what a mistake I’d made. Seeing you that way . . . it was unbearable.”

  “Mom, don’t.” My voice barely sounded human, it was so rough. But she didn’t even seem to hear it.

  “I couldn’t put Chris through that,” she went on. “It’s too much to ask of a boy his age. No one should have to live with that much uncertainty . . . that much fear.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Alison?” She reached out and put her cold, trembling hand on mine. That was when I knew that whatever she had come here to tell me, it couldn’t be good.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered again. “Please try to understand. I have to do what’s best for all of us.”

  I wanted to ask her what she was talking about, but my chest felt like it had filled up with cement. I couldn’t deal with this, not after everything else that had happened today. I bowed my head, the thin curtain of my hair sliding down to hide my face, and clenched my hands together.

  “Alison?” She touched me again, and when I didn’t answer, she got up and hurried across to the nurses’ station. She spoke too softly for me to see her words, but I knew what she must be telling them: Alison seems depressed. Isn’t there something you can do to help?

  Get me out of here, I wanted to scream at her. I wouldn’t be in this place if it weren’t for you. You always treated me as though I were on the verge of going crazy and hurting someone, until I almost believed it myself. And now you’ve finally got me locked up, all of a sudden you’re pretending to care how I feel?

  But I didn’t say any of those things. I just sat there, with my chin on my chest and my messy hair hanging down, until my mother left and an aide came to coax me back to my room.

  I didn’t go to the cafeteria for supper that night. I didn’t eat the food they brought me, or take the pills they offered. I didn’t move when Micheline came in and swore at me for leaving my stuff all over the floor, or pay any attention when she thumped onto her bed and started muttering to herself. I just lay there, facing the wall, as the sky went dark and the windows filled up with the cries of a million lonely stars.

  Because by then, I’d realized what my mother had been trying to tell me.

  . . .

  “Rough night?” said Dr. Minta sympathetically.

  I shrugged. My eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep, but I hadn’t washed my face, or brushed my hair, or changed my clothes. There seemed no reason to bother.

  “Would you like to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Your mother came to see you yesterday, I hear. How did that go?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Did she say anything you’d like to share with me?”

  “No.”

  Dr. Minta sighed. “Alison, I may as well tell you that I asked your mother to come. I felt it was important for her to take responsibility for her decision not to allow you to come home, and to tell you in her own words why she made it. I hoped that perhaps when she’d had a chance to see you and talk to you in person, she might change her mind, but . . .” He lifted his hands helplessly.

  “You’re going to release me,” I said. “Aren’t you.”

  “I am, yes. I may not be entirely satisfied with your emotional progress, Alison, and I would strongly encourage you to keep taking your medication. But you’ve expressed no suicidal or violent impulses since I began treating you, and you’ve had no conflicts with staff or fellow patients that would justify my keeping you here.”

  “So I could have gone home, except . . .”

  Except my mother doesn’t want me there, because she thinks I might hurt my little brother. And my father’s too weak to stand up and tell her she’s the one who’s crazy.

  “There are alternatives,” Dr. Minta assured me. “We have a transition house in New Sudbury, close to your old neighborhood. You’d be with other patients in recovery, receiving excellent care and much more freedom than we can give you here.”

  Close to your old neighborhood. So I could have all the negatives of going back there—the stares, the whispers, the tense encounters with Tori’s friends and family—and none of the comforts.

  “I know you’ve been wanting to go home for a long time now,” said Dr. Minta. “I’m sorry we weren’t able to make it happen. But it’s still good news, Alison. And once your mother sees how well you’re doing, she may change her mind. Don’t lose hope.”

  I was too tired to argue with him, so I just nodded. I was on my feet and halfway to the door when a thought came into my head, and for once I just turned around and said it.

  “Do you think I killed Tori Beaugrand?”

  Dr. Minta looked uncomfortable. “It’s really not my place to pass judgment on legal matters, Alison.”

  “I’m not asking for an official statement. I just want to know—from what you’ve seen of me—is there anything that makes you think—”

  No, I was not. I was not going to cry in front of Dr. Minta.

  “I think,” said my psychiatrist in a carefully beige tone, “that you are a reserved and cautious young woman who has suffered a great deal and is extremely lonely. And I think it would help you to talk openly about the trauma that provoked your mental-health crisis, whether that was committing a violent act—or merely witnessing one.”

  So at least he was willing to consider that I might not have killed Tori. But it was still a long way from Faraday’s not only sane, but innocent.

  “Thank you,” I said and shut the door behind me.

  . . .

  “Hey.”

  I looked up from the book in my hands to find Kirk standing over me. His eyes had lost some of yesterday’s fevered brilliance, but his grin remained a disturbing fraction of an inch too wide.

  “Did you miss me?” he asked as he kicked off his shoes, flung himself down on the other end of the library sofa, and dropped his feet into my lap.

  “Dirty socks and all,” I said, pushing his feet off again. “Where did you go?”

  The question came out more baldly than I’d intended, but Kirk didn’t hesitate. “With my mom and her fat loser boyfriend, to start. Then Porkface threw a party for his biker friends and the police came in and cleaned the place out. Mom went off to detox, and I got farmed out to some creepy born-again family who made me go to church with them. Seriously, acting crazy was the only way I could think of to get a break.”

  Judging by the taste, at least half that story was pure fabrication. I wondered which half, and why. “So you . . . what? Pretended to be possessed?”

  “No, I lit their dog on fire.”

  I stared at him.

  Kirk whooped with laughter. “You went for it! Oh, man, that’s beautiful.”

  “Ha,” I said dryly.

  “I love to hear the sizzle when it hits their skin,” he went on, widening his eyes like a demented scientist in an old sci-fi movie. “Yip yip yip yip yip—”

  “That’s disgusting,” I said, but only because I knew it was expected, and probably the only way to get him off the subject. “So how long are you back for?”

  “I dunno. Until they figure out I’m wasting the taxpayers’ money and kick me out again. What have you been up to? Still letting Dr. Fairly-Gay pick your brains?”

  “No, he’s been giving me fashion advice,” I said.

  “You like him, don’t you? You think he’s sexy.”

  I was speechless.

  “Sure you do. You and your kinky old guy thing.” Kirk snickered, then abruptly turned serious again. “So what about me, huh? I’m sexy too.”

  This was not a conversation I wanted to have. I cast an imploring glance at the library door, but although I caught a faint scent of voices in the hallway, there were no aides in sight. Why was it that when I wanted to be left alone the staff interrupted me every few minutes, but whe
n I could actually use some help, they were all busy?

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Kirk, sliding over and slinging his arm around my shoulders. I stiffened, but he only gripped me tighter as he went on, “You and me, we’re the only sane people in this place. We should get together.”

  Sandwiched between his wiry body and the end of the sofa, I couldn’t move. “Okay, I get it,” I said. “You’re hilarious. Do you mind? I’m getting squashed here.”

  “I’m not even joking.” He leaned closer, his breath scalding my cheek. “So what if I’m younger than you. I’m not a kid. I’ve done stuff you probably never even heard of.”

  A bubble of hysteria swelled in my chest. “I’m sure,” I said, squirming in a fruitless attempt to get free. “But—”

  “Yeah, I know, you’re all uptight. But you’ve gotta cut loose sometime.” His hand caressed my arm with nauseating familiarity. “Besides, I’ve got a plan. You write music, right? And I make videos, right? So when we get out of here, we get an apartment together and go into business. We can do commercials and promos and stuff, we’ll make lots of money, it’ll be great. What d’you say?”

  “Kirk, I can’t—”

  “Oh, right, the Tori Beaugrand thing. But even if they send you to jail, they can’t put you away forever, right?” He nuzzled my neck. “It’s okay, Ali. I’ll wait for you.”

  He knew. He knew about Tori.

  Terror jolted through me, giving me strength. I writhed out of his embrace, cracking both my knees on the table as I slid off the sofa and crashed to the floor.

  “What the—” For an instant Kirk looked startled, but then he broke into a grin. “Gonna make me work for it, eh?” he said gleefully, and before I could scramble to my feet he lunged, grabbed my shoulders, and mashed his lips against mine.

  I opened my mouth to scream and instantly regretted it. I pushed against his chest, beat his shoulders with my fists, but I couldn’t break his hold. Desperately I wrenched my head aside, gasping, “Stop, please, no—”