Chapter 8
8
I scrambled back, leaping off the bed and pressing myself against the wall. Catherine’s face was suddenly a blotchy red, her teeth bared, and she wielded the pen like a knife.
“You tricked me!” she cried. “How could you do that to me?”
Even in the rush of shock and fear, I marveled at the familiar throaty voice.
“Catherine, wait.” I held up my hands. “I didn’t do anything—”
“You tricked me!” She took a step forward, and I darted towards the door, shouting: “Security!”
“It should’ve been you! It should’ve been you !” She lowered her head and ran at me. I raced into the hallway, where a small crowd of patients was already gathering. I had a split second of unreality— Catherine O’Brien is chasing me, seriously? —before she jumped on my back. We both hit the ground, and I managed to wrench the pen from her grip and shove her off. She sprang back onto me, pinning my shoulders to the ground. Tears poured down her cheeks as she shrieked, the words unintelligible. Then she looked up, jumped to her feet, and took off down the hallway.
“Run, bitch, run!” one of the watching patients called out.
Catherine was nearly at the doorway when her bare feet slipped. Her head connected with the metal doorframe, and she sank to the ground with a moan.
Security guards Frank and Caleb appeared and bent over her. Catherine reanimated—punching, kicking, and screaming—until Nurse Femi managed to stick a needle in her arm to sedate her. In the sudden silence, the ghosts of Catherine’s shrieks still rang in the air.
“Thea.” Amani kneeled next to me and pointed at the front of my button-down shirt. Somehow in the struggle it had ripped open and my nude bra was visible.
“Oh.” I closed it, aware of the patients surrounding us.
“I have an extra T-shirt in my locker.”
“Thanks.” I was shaking. I got up and strode to the group around Catherine. A small trail of blood streamed from her head onto the gray tile.
Femi turned to me. “We paged the medical rapid-response team. They should be here in a minute.”
“You all right?” Frank asked.
“I’m fine.” The fear and adrenaline pumping through my system would say otherwise. I stared down at the now-unconscious Catherine, who looked like she was peacefully sleeping.
What the fuck had just happened?
“Okay, show’s over!” Amani clapped. “Let’s clear the hall, everyone.”
“Damn, Dr. Thea.” There was Ace, chewing gum and smiling. “Was it something you said?”
The rapid-response team took Catherine to the medical unit for testing, including a CT scan, when she awoke. For the rest of the day, staff and patients alike kept asking me to rehash what had happened, and I responded that I really didn’t know (staff) or that I couldn’t talk about it (patients). But any psych unit is filled with constant activity, and though shaken and bruised, I slipped back into work mode surprisingly easily.
It wasn’t until I was on the subway home that the feelings of disquiet and disbelief rushed back. I watched myself in the reflection of the subway car’s window. It was blurry and smeared, enough that I could imagine myself looking at Catherine.
Somehow Diane and I confronting Catherine with her name and identity had 1) snapped her back into reality and 2) caused her to attack me. I couldn’t get her eyes, shining with a mixture of anguish and fury, out of my mind. She’d thought I was someone else—but who? What did she think I’d done?
You tricked me!
It should’ve been you !
I pulled out my phone at the next subway stop and googled Catherine when the cell service kicked in. Her Wikipedia page shared the basics: that Catherine was the only child of writer and director Killian O’Brien and actress/model Lisette O’Brien. That she’d grown up in LA and had been acting since she was a baby, first in commercials, then in a two-season sitcom. She’d been in various movies throughout her childhood, and at eleven was still acting in ensemble casts; her first lead role was in her father’s movie Stargirl , which came out when she was thirteen.
I clicked on the Wikipedia page for the movie, pausing at the paragraph labeled Development :
Catherine’s father, Killian (who she became estranged from in her twenties), has widely stated that he got the idea for Stargirl from a dream Catherine told him about. He claimed in interviews that he believed Catherine may have been dreaming about a past life experience—both Killian and Lisette are self-proclaimed Buddhists and believe in reincarnation. Killian shared that Catherine helped him write the script, answering his questions easily about life as a “living goddess” or a temple priestess.
The movie had grossed more than $198 million and had been generally favorably reviewed at the time. There was a section on Controversy ; apparently feminist and religious groups had rightly blasted the film for its sexualization of a child. Catherine had been thirteen during the filming, and though a body double had been used for nude scenes, her implied sexual relationship with both Sebastian Smith, as the temple guard, and thirty-six-year-old David Cunningham, who’d played the pharaoh, had raised at least some eyebrows. Killian had defended the movie by stating that girls in ancient Egypt were considered marriable adults after their first period.
Whoa. Well, that’s gross. !
Feeling unsettled, I went back to the plot summary:
In ancient Egypt, thirteen-year-old Thuya is a living goddess who resides in the city temple. During a ceremony, she passes out from heat exhaustion and wakes up to hear the pharaoh’s aide questioning her fitness for the job. Back in the temple, Thuya argues with a guard named Hapi. She calls him disrespectful and rude, but softens towards him after he teaches her how to play a logic game. Thuya finds it stimulating in her otherwise tedious life. The pharaoh calls Thuya to his chamber and complains that his wife can’t give him a child. He points to Thuya’s birthmark, which looks like a dotted spiral within a triangle, and says that it shows she has been marked for greatness and that he would like to take her as his wife.
That’s what the symbol was—Thuya’s birthmark.
Thuya tells Hapi about the pharaoh’s plan and Hapi threatens to kill him with his prized possession: his deceased father’s dagger. During preparations for a festival on the spring equinox, Hapi convinces Thuya to use the confusion of the day to run away with him to a neighboring town. Conflicted because of feelings for the pharaoh, Thuya finally agrees.
Shortly before the festival, a newcomer arrives at the palace, claiming to be a sorcerer. He tells the queen of the affair between Thuya and the pharaoh and advises her to kill Thuya. The sorcerer promises to put a spell on Hapi to get him to fall in love with the queen so that he’ll reveal their escape plans.
Thuya’s mother has a dream of Thuya dying in the desert. She comes to the palace with her husband and demands to see her daughter. But Thuya refuses, angry that her parents gave her up at a young age to the royal court because of her birthmark and red hair.
As Thuya and Hapi escape, the queen’s soldiers stop them. At first Thuya believes Hapi has betrayed her and refuses to follow him. Guards spear him, and he dies in Thuya’s arms while slipping her his knife. The pharaoh appears, confessing he overheard her and Hapi and decided to put an end to their plans. Guards subdue Thuya, take her knife, and leave her in the desert, where she dies.
In the last scene, Thuya opens her eyes to find she’s on a spaceship. She enters a kitchen to see the queen, who smiles and says, “Good morning, Theta.” The camera pans down, showing that Thuya/Theta is clutching Hapi’s dagger behind her back. Then the camera pans out the window and into space, zooming out until the entire galaxy is visible—which matches the birthmark on Thuya’s/Theta’s chest.
Reading the description was bringing the whole melodramatic and problematic movie back. And it also made me remember the real reason I’d become so fixated on it, a reason I hadn’t shared with anyone, even Melissa.
The truth was that the movie had echoed my own life. Pastor John couldn’t have looked more different from the brooding, muscular pharaoh, but the dynamic had reminded me of us. We’d never had sex, never done anything physical, but in our numerous closed-door meetings in his office, he’d told me things about his wife and marriage. Even, in a roundabout way, their sex life. Things I now knew that no adult man should be telling a thirteen-year-old girl.
The wildest part was that just like the pharaoh, Pastor John would end up abandoning me.
We were between subway stops and the screen froze. I glanced up, noticing the man standing right in front of me was wearing sweatpants with a Jaws -like mouth, lined with teeth, on the crotch. Yikes. He noticed me looking, so I went back to the frozen Wikipedia page. Beneath Catherine’s image—her on the red carpet, smoky eyes glittering—it showed her birthday.
October 24, 1991.
Seeing the date made another memory slide into place.
She had the same birthday as me.