Chapter 2
KATARINA
“And what do you get if you mix red and blue?” I asked.
Tatiana wrinkled her little button nose. “Green?” she guessed.
“Let’s see, shall we?” I said, and watched as her chubby six-year-old fingers closed around the paintbrush eagerly. She dipped the end into the two colors before carefully swirling them onto the last blank corner of my notebook page.
She gasped. “Purple!” She sounded enraptured, making me smile.
“Yes, purple. Green is yellow and blue. You want to try it?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “But there isn’t any paper left.”
With a shrug, I reached for my journal and tore out another page. Yes, it was my most prized possession, and journals were hard to come by at Hallow Hall, but Tatiana deserved to paint as much as she wanted.
“Here, let’s use this one next. Let’s finish the picture of Hallow Hall.”
Hallow Hall. Home. Hell.
Tatiana smiled and nodded, happily going on to try different colors.
I sat back and glanced around the rec room.
It was morning, and the common space was filled with the usual suspects.
Nurses walking briskly to and fro, orderlies making sure no one caused any kind of trouble.
The odd nun, their stark black robes somber compared to the riots of color of the medical staff’s scrubs.
Dr. Blackwood, the resident physician, was talking with Sister Vera, head nun, in the doorway to the dining hall. Their gazes moved toward me, and I turned away.
“Who is Myra?”
Tatiana’s voice jerked me from my reverie.
“Who?” I asked.
She stared down at the journal lying open on the table in front of me.
“My-ra,” she sounded out slowly. “Myra.”
I peered down.
Mira
It was written in scrolling cursive text in my book, over and over again.
“I don’t know.” I sighed. “Maybe it’s just a nice name.”
I should have known the answer. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t quite grab onto it. Most things were like that nowadays.
Tatiana giggled. “Did you forget things again?”
“I think so!” I smiled back, but it felt strained.
“You’re always forgetting things.”
“You know what I told you. My brain likes to act like a block of Swiss cheese . . . full of holes!”
Tatiana laughed merrily and then glanced shyly down at her paper.
“Can I see?” I asked her.
She put her brush down. Teaching Tatiana here in Hallow Hall was the highlight of my days. It was the only thing I had to look forward to.
Tatiana pushed her drawing toward me. She had drawn Hallow Hall as a long rectangular building with a spiky roof. Turrets on top of the childlike Gothic structure. Green grounds surrounded the building, and then a black line. The perimeter fence.
“What about outside the fence?” I prompted her. “The world doesn’t end beyond the gates of Hallow Hall.” I smiled at her gently.
She slow-blinked at me. “What is it like?”
I turned to gaze out the window at the grounds outside. Snow had fallen during the night, and everything was white. The black fence was still visible, though, holding up the edges of our world. I tried to picture outside. I tried to imagine walking out of the gates. What would I see there?
I’m starting to forget.
I turned back to Tatiana and her sweet, innocent curiosity and shrugged.
“It’s more beautiful than you can even imagine. One day, you’ll see it.” I wrapped my hand over hers. “One day, it will all be yours.”
The schedule at Hallow Hall wasn’t hard to follow. Breakfast and exercise in the gymnasium, followed by group therapy. After lunch it was individual therapy for some and rec time for others. Since coming here, I’d done more shitty crafts than anyone should be subjected to.
Oh, so you actually remember yesterday?
Not really, I mentally snapped back at the voice in my head.
So, I couldn’t remember doing crafts yesterday, but as I sat at the rec room trestle table and tried to feign enthusiasm for winding pipe cleaners around popsicle sticks, I just had a feeling I was sick of it.
Still, today, I felt reasonably aware and less tired than usual.
That meant that I’d somehow managed to avoid taking my medication yesterday.
It took about three days for the effects to really wear off.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d managed to make it that long.
It could have been last week or last year.
“Katarina Dmitrova.” Sister Vera, perching like a crow in the doorway, all black robes and pointed beak. “Father Benedict is ready for you.”
I tightened my hands hard around the popsicle stick in my hand, and before I realized it, I’d snapped it in two. Oops, there goes an hour’s work.
“Katarina, don’t keep the father waiting,” the nun barked, her pretense of empathy disappearing like smoke.
I stood, dropping the two ends of the popsicle stick on the table. As I followed Sister Vera in the direction of the private offices where the heads of the institution spent their time, I found my hands were shaking.
I squinted down at them, perplexed.
I couldn’t make them stop.
Scaredy-cat. The voice in my head was mocking and sad at the same time.
“Scaredy-cat,” I repeated. Was it fear making my hands shake?
“What do you have to be scared of?” the nun in front of me asked.
“You should be thanking God that you found your way into this place and are able to be helped by men like Father Benedict. His heart is so true and pure, he doesn’t mind treating even the lowest of filthy sinners.
” She shot me a glare that made it clear she was referring to me.
I just followed her without comment. After all, my mind was still foggy and would be for a good bit longer . . . unless I took my medication, in which case, I’d start all over again.
The nun ushered me into Father Benedict’s office, shaking hands and all, and shut the door behind me.
“Katarina. Sit down.” Father Benedict stared at me from across the room.
I slowly approached his desk and sat in the chair opposite him.
The leather squeaked faintly, and I knew I’d been there before.
I couldn’t always remember specific things, but sometimes the details were crystal clear.
I also knew I’d sat in this chair before, many times, I was willing to bet, by how familiar the creak of the leather sounded.
“How are you doing?” Father Benedict asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m okay, I guess. The same, anyway.”
The priest sighed. “Are you any closer to working out whose name it is that you write on your wall?”
“Ivan Markovic,” I dutifully repeated, and shook my head. “I just can’t figure it out.”
Father Benedict sighed again like I was the most disappointing case of crazy he’d ever encountered.
The name on my wall was one I’d never forget, no matter what they gave me.
I’d never forget. Ever. But this was Benedict’s little test to see if I was taking my medication. There was only one acceptable answer.
“Tell me what you do remember,” he prompted.
I hesitated and then told him about my mother.
Her, I would always remember. Her and the little apartment we’d lived in after leaving Bulgaria and arriving in Italy.
In my memory it was clear as day. The smell of the small wood burner spitting, the taste of black tea, the feeling of the scratchy, stiff blanket on the tiny sofa in the living room.
Father Benedict nodded as I spoke, but I had the feeling he wasn’t really listening.
“I’m sorry, have I told you this before?” I wondered, suddenly self-conscious.
“Only every day.” He gave me a tight smile. “But don’t worry. The therapy that we do isn’t a fast process. It takes time, and I’m committed to helping you get better so you can go home to your mother and fiancé.”
The suggestion that Ivan was my fiancé boiled my blood, but I knew better than to fight back. I had to wait, bide my time, find the right moment. If I didn’t, my mother would pay the price, or I’d end up drugged up to my eyeballs and lost for three months.
So I nodded. I nodded like marrying Ivan was what I wanted. Like it was the only thing that mattered.
“Have you had any other . . . licentious thoughts?” Benedict tried to sound disinterested, but a catch in his voice gave him away.
I shook my head quickly. My fingers shook again, so I tucked my hands under my legs to hide them.
“No? I find that hard to believe, given the kind of behavior that brought you to us.”
I shook my head again. “I don’t think those kinds of thoughts anymore.”
Father Benedict watched me for a long moment before getting up.
“I will be the judge of that,” he said, and came to stand behind me.
I stared out the window behind his desk and focused on the spiny branches of a frozen cherry blossom tree.
Benedict leaned against my back, pressing his midsection into my head, and his hands touched my hair. I dug the small, delicate chain I wore around my neck out of my clothes and gripped the tiny crucifix on it, pressing the shape into the pad of my thumb.
“To cleanse the sinner, a good man must take the sin out himself, with his hands,” he murmured.
I stared at the branch. It was dead. Gone.
No, the voice in my head disagreed. It’s only sleeping. Soon, it will wake and be more beautiful than before.
I lost track of how long he stood behind me.
I didn’t listen to the noises he made. He only touched my hair.
My mind was outside on that sleeping branch.
From there, I would be able to see beyond the fence.
I was sure of it. I imagined what I’d find there.
One day, I’d walk through those gates and find the road.
I’d walk into town and find my mother. I’d hold her close, and this nightmare would be over.
Until then, I knew better than to protest. It would only make it last longer.
Benedict moved away with a sigh and heaved his bulky frame over to the window, where he fiddled around with a little paper cup before coming back to stand over me.
“Here. Take these. It’s a new dose; let’s see if it helps.”