Mrs. Worthington took another sip of her Chardonnay and mumbled something about it not being chilled enough. Then she said, “Your mother was a tramp. Eurotrash.”
She looked at Adi’s shocked face and continued, “Don’t look so surprised. The reason I didn’t like her was that she took my son from me. I tried everything to persuade him to drop your mother, even tried to pay her off. When Henry found out, he made quite a scene. Swore he’d never speak to me again.” Her voice grew colder and colder as she continued.
“And he never did. So you see, Adalwolfa, your mother stole my son and the heir to the Worthington estate. Of course I made sure he was cut off while he lived out his… his European adventure. It was quite a shock when we heard that he’d fathered a child.”
Adi swallowed down her anger. “But what made my mother so unsuitable? She was a student when she met my father, and they loved each other.”
“Love? You must be joking!” There was no mistaking the venom in her tone. “He didn’t love her, she bewitched him!”
“What?” Adi thought she’d misheard. “What do you mean?”
“Your maternal family is cursed,” the old woman hissed, her control slipping momentarily. “Your grandmother suffered from a mental illness, just like her granddaughter. She claimed she saw fairies, and from what Henry told me, she passed the illness on to you.”
Adi was stunned. Could it be true? She remembered overhearing her mom arguing with Oma-Adi when she was little. With trembling fingers, she followed the gold chain around her neck towards the amulet her beloved grandmother had given her before her death.
“Why would you say that? My mom was wonderful, and as sane as you and I!” Adi’s voice rose on the last few words. Her grandmother’s face was as immobile as marble, but Adi could just make out a spark of triumph in her pale blue eyes.
In this moment, Adi hated the old woman like she’d never hated before. Heat rushed to her cheeks, and her teeth ground so hard, her jaw muscles cramped. She managed to hold in her anger, but the effort made her feel dizzy. Breathe in. Honi had tried so hard to teach her meditation techniques. Hold it. Breathe out. Maybe she wasn’t a complete loss at this.
With every repetition, her muscles relaxed a little more. Her heartbeat slowed down, her breathing deepened. She lifted up her water glass and was proud that her hand barely shook. “How do you explain that nobody else ever noticed anything wrong with my grandmother?” Adi’s voice was quiet and ice-cold.
“I understand insanity is often well hidden behind a facade of idiosyncrasies, even artistry. Adalwolfa Gutseel was a painter, so her bizarre behavior wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows.”
As the old woman continued, Adi’s eyes were drawn to movement on her shoulder. She had never seen her grandmother’s spirit animal and was curious what it would be. Given the old woman’s calculating and always controlled demeanor, maybe a snake?
Definitely cold-blooded, Adi though bitterly. Then her eyes widened. Wow, this was different. She had never seen anything like it. It reminded her of a gargoyle, a weird twisted hybrid cat-dog thing with a forked tongue tasting the air. When it felt Adi looking at it, it turned its head towards her and bared a row of sharp crooked teeth.
She moved back a little, remembering that she could now be hurt. The barely healed sores on her body were a continuous reminder of how vulnerable she’d become. Mrs. Worthington carried on, oblivious to the staring contest between the creature and her granddaughter.
“So you see, when Henry let us know about your… mental state some years ago, we convinced him that it would be in your best interest to set up a trust fund for his only child. Of course, if you lose touch with reality again, that money will be used for your medical treatment. So either way, you’re looked after, as is fit for a member of the Worthington family.”
The old woman took a sip of her Chardonnay and regarded Adi with a speculative look. “You know of whom you remind me?”
Adi shook her head, still nervously watching the snarling creature.
“Rosemary Kennedy, the unfortunate child of our esteemed former president. She was an embarrassment to her family and underwent one of the first lobotomies at the time. It certainly cured her more… obvious problems.” She stared at Adi, and this time the girl paled as she held her relative’s gaze.
Adi knew the awful story of the oldest Kennedy daughter. Rosemary had been lobotomized at age twenty-three and had gone from a vibrant young woman to an invalid who had remained institutionalized for the rest of her pitiful life.
Adi tried to parse what the hell the old woman had meant by saying that. No matter how she turned the conversation in her mind, there was only one interpretation. Her own paternal grandmother had threatened to have her committed if she gave her an opening.
The old woman’s mouth lifted in a satisfied smirk as she observed the effect her words had on the young woman. At the same time, the ugly abomination on her shoulder hissed and chuckled. Their ugly smiles mirrored each other, melting together, and there was no doubt in Adi’s mind that Mrs. Worthington hated her.
Her grandmother arranged her cutlery on her plate and stood up. “Well, Adalwolfa, this little talk has been enlightening as always. I’ve been informed that your grades are beginning to slip. Your behavior has been a little erratic of late.”
And there went any benefit those deep breathing exercises had had on Adi. With a few words, that woman had pushed her yet again into a state of first disbelief, then panic. It seemed more and more clear that she had somebody on campus watching her. Diepger was the obvious suspect, and with all that had happened before, Adi was now convinced that her TA was a rat. Which put her in an awful situation. She had to pass his course to get her degree. There was no way around it.
For a moment, the weight of the situation she found herself in pressed down on her. Her head drooped, and she took another deep breath in to compose herself. Whatever. She’d gone through worse, losing her parents and starting over in a new country. She’d been pretty much all alone since her remaining family had made it crystal-clear that she couldn’t expect any help from them. It hadn’t been easy, but here she was, still fighting, still determined to be somebody who made a difference. She could get through this.
She looked again at the creature. There was something so twisted, so evil about it that it left her in no doubt who was sitting opposite her. She had no family, no matter how the old woman was related to her. The hateful glare the thing subjected her to was mirrored by the pale eyes of its host. Like stagnant puddle water, they hid the corruption underneath the surface. To the outside world, Mrs. Worthington was the elegant matriarch, the perfect senator’s wife, embodiment of the upper political classes. Adi knew better and suddenly couldn’t wait to get away.
She got up and pushed past the old woman, any pretense of manners or calm forgotten. She didn’t care how her exit looked to anybody watching. She needed fresh air, away from the miasma of hatred and disdain.
The contrast between the stale warm atmosphere inside and the freshness of the cool, crisp spring air was startling. Within a few breaths, her head cleared and the twinges of an impending headache disappeared. Still taking deep breaths, she quickly walked away, hands in pockets, head down.
Close by, she found herself near a stretch of green she had never noticed before. Her chest hurt from the intake of cold air, and she was thankful to see a bench at the other end of the park. It seemed clean enough, so she dropped onto the fake-wood bench seat.
For a blessed minute she sat there. Her chin lowered, she enjoyed the peace, the chirping of birds, the occasional squeal of kids playing nearby. Smiling, she looked in their direction. A mother lifted a little boy onto a swing, and his red face flew back at the sky when she pushed him high. Cries of “Again, again!” were echoed by the woman’s laughter, their obvious enjoyment of the moment a rare gift.
Her mom had taken Adi to the playground many times in Frankfurt. There was one near their house that Adi had loved as a
child. It was so different from American playgrounds she had seen since, with their metal swings and plastic slides.
In Germany, there was a giant snake made of tree trunks that the kids had painted themselves. The children could jump from segment to segment and climb up the snake’s head to slide down its tongue. It was so popular that sometimes they had to line up for their turn, but Adi had never minded that. She’d simply watched the animals jumping on their owners’ shoulders or twisting around their legs like cats starving for affection.
One little boy had fallen as he’d run to his mother. He’d burst into tears when she hadn’t noticed immediately. Young Adi had thought he was being silly. It wasn’t that bad a fall, after all. A little hamster with the same colored fur as the child’s shock of black hair nuzzled up to his cheeks and licked at his tears. By the time his mother turned around and rushed over to pick him up, he had already calmed down.
A feeling of unexpected peace descended on the girl reminiscing on the park bench. She could do this. Surely not every spirit animal was hostile to her. Adi looked back at the mother playing with her son, still pushing him as high as she could. Two meerkats were cuddled together between her legs, a little one and a slightly larger animal. They watched mother and son, unaware of Adi’s eyes on them.
Her exams were coming up soon. And after she was done, she never had to worry about all this bullshit again, not about her Grandm— Ms. Worthington, not about that rat Diepger, not about…
She swallowed. She didn’t want to give up Honi, but after the way she had treated him last time, she wasn’t sure he wanted to give her the time of day. She couldn’t blame him—she’d been a real bitch. He’d probably given up on her by now. She was on her own again.
Adi spat out her finger and grimaced. This was the reason why she couldn’t grow nice fingernails. Every time she thought hard about something or got distracted, she chewed her cuticles. Not one of her nicer traits, she thought. That and going off on people who were trying to help her. She sighed loudly.
So since she was now on her own, she would have to find a way to deal with her main problem. If she couldn’t sleep at night for fear of nightmares, she wouldn’t pass her exams, simple as that. She looked back at the two meerkats, who were still engrossed in their owners playing together.
Now that Adi thought about it, the worst attacks had always occurred when she was asleep. Maybe that was the solution. Maybe at night she was simply more vulnerable. So all she had to do was not sleep until her exams were finished. This time next week, it would all be over. She sat up straighter and thought harder.
How would she go about it? What was the best way of staying awake for a few days but still being alert enough to pass the exams? Then it came to her. She stood up and dug her phone from her back pocket. With flying fingers, she searched for Nathan’s number. He had flirted with her at a party months ago and insisted in programming his number into her phone. She had forgotten all about it, until now.
“Nathan? Hey, I don’t know if you remember me. We met at a party last fall at Becka’s house? No, Adi? Brown hair, brown eyes, you flirted with me?” Adi paced up and down in front of the bench. She needed to walk when making phone calls. Another habit she wanted to break but never managed to.
She resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. Nathan obviously had no idea who she was. At the time, he had offered her tablets that supposedly allowed her to party all night and then go back to lectures the next day.
Before the pause became awkward, she continued, “Never mind. You told me that you could get hold of pills to keep me awake?” Within minutes, they had agreed where and when she could pick them up.
When she’d tried to protest at the party that she wasn’t into doing drugs, he’d told her that the pills weren’t illegal, just not approved by the FDA yet. She wasn’t stupid. of course. Just because the tablets weren’t called acid or speed didn’t make them legal. She would still have to be careful not to be caught, but surely taking them for a few days and then never again couldn’t do too much damage to her body. No worse than getting chewed up by her nightmares.
Adi shook her head at her obvious attempt to justify taking drugs, but really, what other options did she have? She poked at one of the bruises on her arm and hissed. The whole world seemed to conspire against her. Her grandma—, dammit, that woman did not deserve the title! Ms. Worthington was trying to trip her up for whatever twisted reasons and had managed to buy off a member of staff. And without any proof, Adi couldn’t complain to the university administration.
So what was she supposed to do? She had tried to listen to Honi and learn from him but had failed completely. And now he wasn’t around anymore either. Screw this. She had made her decision, and now she had a chance to get through the next couple of days. Whatever happened, she was going to accept the challenge on her own terms.
10
The pills beckoned her like miniature chocolate M&Ms. They had the same dark-brown sheen to them and didn’t look like drugs at all. Maybe because Nathan had handed them over in a brown lunch bag instead of the archetypical little square Ziploc. If they’d been watched by anybody, his weasly behavior would have given them away, with or without the paper bag.
Adi had felt sick with nerves all the way to Nathan’s room. He had assured her again and again that the pills were perfectly safe, but the secrecy and the amount of money changing hands left no doubt in her mind that she had now become complicit in an illegal drug deal.
By the time she got back to her own place, her back was itchy with sweat. She heaved a big sigh of relief when she locked her door behind her. Adi leaned against the solid surface and shook her head. This had better be worth it, because there was no way she’d go back and do this again. She really wasn’t cut out for criminal stuff.
She sat on her chair with her chin in her hands and tried to gather the courage to go through with her plan. She had no way of knowing how the drugs would affect her. Nathan had promised that he’d taken them, and all his friends as well. None of them had stayed up longer than forty-eight hours though.
She exhaled slowly and closed her eyes for a brief moment. Unlike other dreams, her nightmares stayed with her vividly, and it didn’t take a lot of effort to remember sharp teeth tearing her flesh. She snapped her eyes open and shuddered. Decision made, she popped the first pill into her mouth. Adi swallowed, but the little round tablet stuck to the top of her mouth. When the sugar coating finally melted, she gagged and rushed to her fridge for some water. How could a small white substance be so bitter? Eyes scrunched up and her whole face distorted with disgust, she gulped several slugs of water before the damned thing finally budged. It still left a cloying bitterness behind that even cold water wouldn’t wash away.
The taste stayed with her all day. During lunch, she kept tasting the by-now-familiar bitter taste every time she took a bite of salad. She had a lot of catching up to do before her first finals at the end of next week. Lack of sleep, nightmares and the time spent with Honi had eaten into her schedule. She was behind, and the only way to get through the material was to work around the clock. When night fell, Adi took another pill and carried on writing an essay that was overdue. Thankfully not every instructor was an asshole like Diepger, and she managed to negotiate an extension for Monday.
When her stomach growled, Adi checked the clock. Two hours after midnight and she wasn’t a bit tired! She leaned back in her chair and stretched with a groan. The paper was pretty much done, and the library didn’t reopen until seven o’clock in the morning. Five hours to kill and nothing to do—that was new! Adi got up and winced as her leg muscles spasmed. A walk and a bit of fresh air might be a good idea.
She lifted her hand to flip down her laptop screen and frowned as her fingers trembled. Adi lifted both hands and turned them palm down. She fought to hold them steady against the tremor, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop shaking. This had to be a side effect. As long as it didn’t get any worse, no big deal. She
grabbed her coat and, after locking up, stuffed her hands into her pockets and marched off.
An hour later, her burst of energy was all but gone. She had trudged within the perimeters of the glowing spots of light dotted around her building. Hands bunched into fists to stop her fingers from twitching, she walked quickly and only occasionally lifted her head to appreciate the beauty of the nighttime campus.
A soft breeze carried the scent of spring getting ready to burst into full bloom. Some hyacinths already sent their fragrance into the world. Unadulterated by daily distractions, the smell attracted Adi at night like an insect seeking out the lilac blossoms during the day. For a brief moment, uneasy thoughts of spirit animals and her paternal grandmother were replaced by a feeling of deep serenity and gratefulness. It didn’t last long, and her inner restlessness forced her to move on too soon.
During the day, noise and bustle distracted her enough to keep her from concentrating too much on herself. At night, the quiet forced her to take stock of her state of mind. She felt jittery, unable to stand still and enjoy the moment more than a few seconds. Her skin crawled, and a steady snarl in her stomach reminded her that the last meal had been more than twelve hours ago. There seemed to be something wrong with her vision as well. Shadows shifted in the corners of her eyes, but when she spun around and looked, there was only light and shade on the pavement, nothing else. No creatures, no people, nothing.
On her way back to her room, the drugs really kicked in. She felt a little drunk, unsteady, skittish. Striding back as fast as she could, she found it hard to walk in a straight line. Giggles rose up like bubbles inside a champagne bottle. She clapped a hand over her mouth and balanced between hysteria and fear for a few seconds. For a moment she was outside her body, looking at herself. Her eyes wide open, drowning in a too-large coat hanging off her narrow shoulders, hand covering her mouth, she was glad that it was the middle of the night and no one saw her like this.
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