by Kylie Brant
Turning toward the table again, she eyed the bowls of frosting critically. “The yellow needs to be brighter.”
Mary Jane sent her a hard look. “How would you like it if I stood over you when you were drawing and told you how to do it?”
Eryn wanted to say Mary Jane didn’t know anything about drawing and Eryn did know something about colors. She kept the words to herself. She didn’t want to spoil her birthday by arguing. No one ever won an argument with Mary Jane, anyway, including Mama. Not even when she screamed and yelled and slammed doors. Uncle Bill said the older woman was solid steel, and about as warm. But he never argued with Mary Jane. Sometimes he’d say, “Remember who signs your paycheck.” And then she’d snap back, “Remember who changed your diapers.” And he’d shake his head and lock himself in the office for the rest of the day.
Imagining Uncle Bill in diapers made Eryn smile. “I get to pick where we’re eating dinner. Mama’s going to take me wherever I want to go.” Eryn turned and trailed her hand over the edge of the counters and then over the front of the oven. It was still warm. The cake had just come out a bit ago. “I’m going to ask to eat at Renatta’s in Waynesville. I’m going to order lobster.” She’d never had lobster before, but she’d seen shows in which the people ate it in fancy restaurants. Mama said it tasted like heaven.
Mary Jane sniffed. “If you ask me, birthday celebrations should be for kids who deserve them. Not for a girl who burned down the boathouse last week, because she’s too foolish to not play with matches. Lucky you didn’t die of smoke inhalation.”
What do you know? Eryn clamped her lips down hard to avoid having the thought turn to words and slip off her tongue. “It was an accident.”
“Was it now?” The stare Mary Jane aimed her way had Eryn thinking for a moment she could see right inside her head. But she couldn’t. Good thing. “The boathouse and stables are off limits. Have been as long as you’ve lived here.”
It wouldn’t do to tell her she had been inside the boathouse lots of times. She liked to balance along the boards of the dock, and sometimes she’d even take off her shoes and dip her toes in the water. It was cool and shadowy inside the structure, and no one ever came to tell her not to play in the boat. No one ever knew she was there.
She’d been in the stables too. Once. She shivered a little thinking of it. It had smelled like old hay and animal sweat and maybe hints of leather. The cobblestone floor had been cold and damp, and she’d gotten splinters from the wood in the stalls.
She’d probably been five the only time she’d been inside. Her cousin Henry had been twelve, and he’d convinced her fairies lived there. But after they’d been inside for a while, he’d locked her in a cold, dark room in back stinking of horses and moldy leather. There were bats swooping low in the shadows, but they weren’t what scared her. She’d screamed and screamed until Henry had finally come back and let her out.
Mary Jane took out some table knives and plopped one into each bowl of frosting. “We can’t be watching you every minute. You have to start listening and following directions.”
Eryn didn’t tell the woman that most of the time she’d only gone to the boathouse when the voices had told her to. But she wouldn’t be going again. And they wouldn’t be telling her what to do anymore, would they?
Feeling smug, she waited until Mary Jane went to put away the food coloring before sticking her finger in the nearest bowl of frosting and licking it up with lightning speed. When the older woman turned around again, she smiled brightly. “Do you want me to bring you some lobster from the restaurant?”
Mary Jane snorted. “Most likely thing you’ll be bringing from the restaurant is a bellyache. Don’t be saying I didn’t warn you. Lobster’s too rich for kids. You’ll probably get sick in the middle of the night, and I already know who’ll be called to clean it up.”
You should shut the bitch up. Shut her up, once and for all.
Eryn stilled, a sick fear washing over her. Be quiet, she thought. Quiet quiet quiet!
She’s the one who needs to be quiet. See the big knife over there in the block? Just pull it out and ram it right into her chest. That would shut her up right and good.
“You’re dead,” she whispered, panicked. The voices had been silent ever since the fire. Because she’d killed them there.
At least she thought she had.
“Do I look dead to you, Missy?” Mary Jane said archly. “Standing right here decorating the cake you don’t deserve, aren’t I?”
But it wasn’t Mary Jane’s voice she was listening to. It was the ones in her head. The ones she’d thought died in the fire. They said to go to the boathouse, so she’d taken them there. And she’d also taken the matches she’d snuck from the barbecue out back. She hadn’t thought the wood would catch fire quite so quickly. Hadn’t expected the flames to chase from plank to plank. To lick up the wooden walls and sear across the arched ceiling. Get out! That’s what the voices had said then. Save us, Eryn! Save us!
But she hadn’t wanted to save them. With the voices gone, she’d be normal. She wouldn’t get the dark moods Mama worried so much about. She wouldn’t do bad things, things she knew better than to do. The kind that made the doctor frown and look at her over the top of his glasses. She wouldn’t have to take the medicine that made her feel dreamy and not quite awake, even when she was up and walking around.
Eryn had stayed in the boathouse until the fire had gotten too hot. The smoke had been thick enough to suffocate the voices in her head. Thick enough to kill them. She’d run as fast as she could then, leaving them behind to burn up. She’d had to go to the hospital, because her lungs and throat got hurt.
And when she’d come home the next day, the boathouse was still smoking from the black mass of rubble. And the voices were silent. For good, she had thought.
Until now.
You could creep into her room at night. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push the sneaky words away. Put a pillow over her face while she sleeps.
A wave of desolation swept through Eryn, followed by fury. You’re dead, she thought, rage racing up her spine. Her grip on the table tightened and before she even considered the action, she upended it. The cake slid off and the bowls of frosting shattered against the floor, the sound ricocheting and echoing in her head.
Why can’t you just stay dead?
Eryn: Now
She came awake at the same time every night, three hours after slipping into bed. Two o’clock. Eryn hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since she’d arrived home. She wondered if she’d ever sleep normally again.
It was the sounds that were different. Even quiet had its own unique feel. At Rolling Acres Resort, there had always been the soft squeak of the night nurses’ thick-soled shoes on the hallway tile. The slight swish of their scrubs as they moved by. The gentle hiss and burp of the aquarium in Linda’s room next door.
The noises here felt familiar and foreign at once. The creak of floorboards, as the old house shifted and settled. The whisper of the wind outside the ancient panes of glass in the windows. An occasional bark from the foxes who nested in the arbor every year, despite Uncle Bill’s best efforts to run them off.
She could try to lay in bed until she went back to sleep. But Eryn was restless. Wide awake. Slumber wouldn’t be revisiting anytime soon.
Rolling to the opposite side of the mattress, she snapped on the bedside table lamp before getting up. The room didn’t look anything like it had when she was a child. Rosalyn’s renovation was complete. Eryn couldn’t fault the woman’s taste. The color scheme ran to soft greens and blues with splashes of dull gold. It was tasteful and relaxing. But it felt as alien as her room at Rolling Acres had been the first night, all those years ago.
She opened the curtains. She selected a canvas from the stack in the corner of the room and set it on the easel in front of one of the windows. She might need to move the lamp, she mused, to provide the necessary backlight to illuminate the scene outside. There was ju
st a glimmer of moon, peeping beneath the hem of cloud cover. It was enough to provide a smudged outline to the landscape below. Darkness had always called to her. It shrouded even familiar objects, making them appear indistinct. Otherworldly. Maybe she felt at home in it because it had always been reflected inside her. Therapy had helped Eryn better understand the shadowy corners of her mind. The right medication had assisted in banishing them, at least to a large degree.
She went to the desk and selected brushes to carry back to the easel, already planning on the colors she’d mix to capture the elongated shadows, the skeletal trees arching their fingers skyward, and the . . .
Eryn stilled, then leaned closer to the window. The dull glow didn’t belong on the dusky expanse of lawn stretching between the sprawling home and the pond. Perhaps it could be explained in the summer months, when the fireflies danced and flitted across the yard. Occasionally one would land between blades of grass, its light still visible, though disguised. But it was November. Too cold for fireflies. And this glow, while muffled by the ground, was much too big to be caused by a bug.
Curious now, she watched for several minutes, but the light didn’t move. Nor did it dim. With a shake of her head, Eryn crossed the room and eased her door open, moving quietly through the dark house, into the kitchen, and to the back entry beyond it. A room that may have once been a large pantry had been converted to a closet, where the family’s outerwear was kept. She shivered in her thin pajamas as she turned on the closet light. Eryn pulled on a coat and jammed her feet into a pair of tennis shoes. Then she went back to the entry and turned on the outside light before opening the door, careful to leave it a little ajar before stepping outside.
Immediately the bite in the air nearly sent her scurrying inside again. Her curiosity about the dim glow in the lawn withered. The wind cut through her thin pajama bottoms and the band of skin bared above the shoes. She could be painting, she mentally castigated herself. But she was here now, so, picking her way carefully, Eryn headed toward the source of the light still visible on the lawn.
The dried near-winter grass crunched beneath her feet. Every few minutes she stopped to get her bearings. She hadn’t been out on the property for years. But the gardeners would have put away any lawn ornaments or chairs when autumn had descended. Unless she slid on the frost that slicked the ground in spots, there was nothing to impede her progress.
As she drew closer she could make out a large, dark shape just beyond the light. And almost simultaneously she heard a pitiful whimper. She stopped again, uncertain. “Who’s there?”
Silence for long moments. Then came a thready whisper. “Eryn?”
“Jaxson?” She hurried forward. “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”
“I slipped in the grass. My ankle hurts.”
As she drew closer she could see the glow came from a small flashlight he must have dropped when he fell. Sinking down beside the boy, Eryn ran her hands along the leg outstretched in front of him. She couldn’t find any swelling around the ankle, but his indrawn hiss of pain when she pressed on it was enough to convince her.
“I don’t want Dad to see me out here.” There was a note of fear in the boy’s voice. “Can you help me into the house before he comes back?”
“Back? From where? Pick up your sore foot.” She slipped her hands beneath his arms. “When I lift you, don’t put your weight on it.” With some difficulty, she raised him upright and supported him when he was standing.
“I saw him leaving the house and heading toward the boathouse. I thought maybe he was going for a boat ride. I’ve never been in the boat at night. Ouch!”
“Don’t let your foot touch the ground.”
She had him put his hand on her shoulder for balance while she scooped up the flashlight he’d dropped. “Okay, slip your arm around my waist to hang on to me.”
“Can’t you pick me up?” A whine had entered his voice.
She doubted it. Jax was only seven or eight, but he was sturdy, built more like Bill than Rosalyn. And at a hundred and ten pounds, Eryn didn’t trust herself not to drop him, even if she could lift him. “This way is better. Just use me as a crutch and hop on your good foot.”
They didn’t make fast progress, but it was steady enough. She could feel him shivering next to her. “How long were you out here?”
“I don’t know. A long time. I got up to pee, and then when I went back to bed I saw a light outside. That’s when I saw Dad.”
His pajamas were damp, but his coat wasn’t soaked through. Eryn didn’t think he’d been outside more than an hour. It would have seemed plenty long to a little kid, trapped and helpless in the dark. She remembered the time her cousin Henry had locked her in the tack room in the old stable. Eryn had been younger than Jax, and it had been daylight outside. But it’d been dark, shadowy, and damp in the room with its cold stone floor and walls. It had seemed an eternity, although she realized now it had probably been only a half hour or so. She felt a stab of sympathy for the boy.
They were close enough to the house now to switch off the flashlight. The outside light she’d turned on illuminated their way. “Eryn? Do you have to tell my mom about this?”
She mentally shied away at the thought of the upcoming drama. And it would be dramatic, because Rosalyn could make a fuss over a hangnail. “How are you going to explain your injury?”
“I’ll tell her I slipped going to the bathroom.”
They were at the back entry. She reached out to open the door. “Whatever you tell her is your business.” He wasn’t in the clear yet. They still had to get inside and back to his room undetected.
His arm around her waist tightened. “Thanks, Eryn. I can kind of walk on the tiptoes of my bad foot now. Maybe it’s going to be all right.”
“Let’s hope so.” This was the longest conversation she’d ever had with the kid, she realized. She wasn’t one for small talk. And Eryn wasn’t well versed in topics of interest to a little boy. Easing the door shut behind them, she locked it and shut off the outside light before helping him out of his coat. “Wait here.” She left him holding on to the doorjamb for support while she hung up their coats and toed off the shoes she’d worn.
“See, Dad’s parka is gone. He’s still at the boathouse, I guess.” Wistfully, Jax added, “I’ll bet he is taking a boat ride. A long one.”
Eryn glanced around the closet. Only a few of the garments were familiar, but she didn’t see a parka. That didn’t prove the boy was correct. She couldn’t imagine why anyone would be outside in the cold or at the boathouse in the middle of the night in November.
She helped the boy back to his room, both of them moving quietly, as his bedroom was next to his parents’. Eryn turned on a lamp and had him sit on the edge of the bed while she set his flashlight on his dresser and rummaged through his drawers for a fresh pair of pajamas.
“I can do the rest by myself.”
In the light Eryn could recognize the lines of pain in his face. She squatted down to look at his ankle. There were no signs of bruising or swelling yet. Rising, she nodded. “Does it hurt when you’re not standing on it?”
He shook his head. “I’ll just kick my other pajamas under the bed. If it starts hurting in the night, I’ll call for my mom.”
It was clear he was ready for her to go. Eryn was just as anxious to leave. She peeked out his bedroom door and—seeing no one—slipped out of his room and padded silently across the large living room. The huge space split the suites of bedrooms, with Uncle Bill’s family occupying those on one side while Eryn’s, Mama’s, and the guest rooms had lined the other. There was another wing that had been closed off for years.
When she was back in her room, she was more awake than ever. Plucking a newspaper from a small stash she’d been collecting since her return, she spread it over the top of her dresser. There was no other space available to mix paints. She got water from the attached bathroom and brought it back in a cup already flecked with dried paint. Sometime in th
e near future she’d need to scout a better place to use as a studio. But for now, the desire to create was calling. She mixed the colors she wanted on a palette and carried it back to her easel, with brushes in her free hand. She studied the scene outside her windows again. The sky wasn’t quite as dark as it’d been when she’d first awakened. Eryn worked quickly, losing herself in her art. It wasn’t until the scene changed that she was pulled from her reverie.
There was a light bobbing in the distance, approaching the home. It was coming from the direction of the boathouse.
She stood frozen, her gaze fixed on the shadowy figure as it drew closer and closer to the house. Up until then, Eryn hadn’t totally believed Jaxson’s story about following his dad to the boathouse. She couldn’t distinguish Uncle Bill’s face in the darkness.
But she could make out the oversize hood and long lines of a parka.
Ryder
The Fristol Forensic Center property was lit up like an outdoor stadium on game night. Uniformed personnel swarmed the area. All four county police departments had sent personnel to join the Haywood County deputies. Someone had thought to set up a coffee station on a folding table with large insulated beverage coolers. Ryder stood in front of the table, sipping from the cup he’d filled. The coffee was strong, black, and bitter, but it was hot. Dr. Tom Isaacson, the director of the facility, stood next to him, tilting his Styrofoam cup under one of the cooler’s spigots. The man’s hand trembled slightly. Ryder was fairly certain tonight registered as one of the worst of Isaacson’s life. And the longer Samuel Aldeen remained on the loose, the further the director’s day would deteriorate.
Isaacson turned toward him, his gloved hands clenched around the cup. “We’re the most secure forensic psychiatric facility in the region.” He was repeating himself, as if the fact negated tonight’s escape. “It’s impossible. I mean . . . I still don’t understand. How’d he get through all this?”
He waved his hand toward the property. He’d already given Ryder its history. The structure was only fifteen years old. It’d replaced the three-story building that had been erected at the beginning of the last century as an insane asylum. An attractive brick wall ran in a low arc around the structure, hemming in the outdoor recreation areas, walking trails, gardens, and small pond. The wall was more decoration than barrier. Whereas the old asylum had looked like a prison, its replacement resembled a hospital. But a quarter mile from where they stood was the first of two perimeters consisting of twelve-foot fences strung with razor wire and secured with motion sensors. A gated guard station adorned each of the perimeters.
