Chapter 2
Selma
“Selma?”
Selma slowly turned her gaze from the tranquil gardens beyond the bay window-ledge where she’d been curled up for the better part of the morning. A nurse stood in the doorway, a kind smile on her face. Her name was Marie, if Selma remembered correctly. Her mind was still fuzzy from the drugs.
“The doctor is ready for you again. Would you please come with me?” probably-Marie asked.
The doctor. Selma didn’t remember a doctor, but then she didn’t remember much of anything from after the paramedics had injected her with whatever sedative they’d had on hand.
She unfolded from the window ledge with a sigh, slipping obediently to the floor.
With an encouraging smile, the nurse led her from the small, high-ceilinged room she’d slept in and down a series of long corridors lined with the same large windows as the one she’d spent most of the day gazing out of.
Although whoever had converted the old manor into a psychiatric ward had gone out of their way to make it look the part of a hospital, it still retained some of its grandeur from its glory days.
It even smelled faintly of old wood through the acrid odor of cleaning agents filling the air.
There were very few indications of other patients or staff members on the premises.
A soft humming from one of the rooms was the only noise apart from their footsteps echoing off the mahogany floors as they passed closed door after closed door.
Only after climbing the staircase to the first floor did life seem to vibrate through to the hall: the low buzz of a radio flowing through an open door; the murmur of female voices; and the scent of coffee emitting from what must have been the staff break room.
The hallway grew quieter as they came to a broader stretch, where golden plaques engraved with doctors’ names hung next to dark, carved door frames that matched the floorboards.
The nurse stopped to knock where the fancy sign indicated Dr. Martin Hershey had his office. Upon hearing an affirmative mumble through the aged wood, she offered Selma a reassuring smile before opening it.
“Dr. Hershey, your next patient is here to see you.”
“Very good,” a pleasantly deep voice said from within. “Show her in please, Marie.”
Marie turned to Selma, the previously encouraging smile on her lips now spread wider. “Go on in.”
Sighing inwardly, Selma moved past her and through the opening into the psychiatrist’s office, feeling like she was stepping into the middle of an office romance.
But romantic interest or no, patient confidentiality was patient confidentiality, and the door closed behind her, leaving Selma alone with yet another professional about to draw a blank on her condition.
“Come on over and have a seat, please.”
Maybe he’d give up quickly—he would have had her medical records sent over from the other institutions and therapists she’d seen, and would probably come to the sad conclusion that his newest patient was a lost cause just like they had.
If she was lucky.
With another sigh, this time not so inward, she lifted her head to face the doctor... and froze mid-step at the sight of him.
He was certainly handsome, which was probably the reason for the nurse’s sudden shift from reassuring professional to giddy schoolgirl.
The first thing Selma noticed was his olive skin, strong, clean features, and thick, black hair.
However, the neatly brushed, wavy strands did nothing to hide his pointed ears, nor the small horns protruding from just above his hairline.
His almond shaped eyes watching her halted approach were a burning orange.
He was one of them.
No. How was she meant to get through this? She’d had to deal with them before, from her physics teacher to bank advisors, and even a supervisor at one point, but never had she been expected to open up about her illness to one. How could she trust him with her health—and her already fractured mind?
The slight tilt of one of his dark eyebrows brought her out of the maelstrom of her thoughts. If she were to have any hope of being released before the hospital notified her parents, she best get herself together!
Forcing her legs to complete the steps needed to reach Dr. Hershey’s desk, she gritted her teeth and lifted her gaze to meet his. Apart from their disturbing color, his eyes held no dark threats.
“Please, sit.” He indicated the chair next to him—a comfortable-looking one, perfect for therapy sessions and delving into childhood memories.
Selma obeyed, fervently wishing that he’d just hand her a prescription and be done. She had no interest in exploring her trauma with this... whatever he was, and even less desire for him to do so.
“Selma Lehmann, correct?” He lifted those dark eyebrows at her questioningly, waiting for her nod.
“I am Doctor Martin Hershey, chief psychiatrist here at Ravenswood House. I suspect you don’t recall me from last night, so it’s a pleasure to meet you.
” He stretched his large hand toward her.
Hesitantly she took it, bracing for the heat she knew he’d radiate.
It wasn’t unpleasant, but the warmth traveling from her fingers up through her arm felt mildly invasive, as if his touch attempted to cover as much of her skin as possible.
He smiled a little at her hesitation before letting go and leaning back, watching her in that therapist way she knew meant that every unconscious move of her body was being observed. It always made her fidget even more.
“I read your file this morning; this is the first time in ten years you have had a recorded incident. Did the hallucinations disappear in your late teens, or did you decide to deal with them on your own?”
Selma bit her lip. The way his fiery gaze locked on the gesture didn’t ease the sense she was being scrutinized, but if she could make him believe that her latest “hallucination” had been a freak accident and not a relapse, this might be over quicker.
“I... haven’t had an episode since I was seventeen. I think maybe it was just due to the stress of the situation, and I hadn’t eaten all day...” Her voice died at his cocked eyebrow.
“You don’t need to lie to me, Selma.” His tone was mildly admonishing, but also gentle—the kind of tone someone would use to correct undesirable behavior in a skittish cat. “I am very good at recognizing deception. They never disappeared, did they?”
Splendid. So apart from having fire-eyes and horns, her new doctor was also a living lie detector. She shook her head.
“How did you manage them for so long on your own?”
There really was no way around it—they were going to talk about all the details of her miserable existence with this illness, and she was going to be permanently put back into a system that had no way of helping her, and every way of ruining what levels of contentment she’d managed to scrape together over the past ten years.
“I learned to ignore them,” she said, voice low and defeated. “I found that if I didn’t pay attention to them, the monsters wouldn’t be able to tell me apart from everyone else. It’s easier in the daylight.”
Dr. Hershey cocked his head as he watched her, his burning eyes falling into shadow. He almost looked like a normal person, apart from the horns and ears. “Interesting. That must have been very hard.”
Selma shrugged. “It was at first, but now it’s easier than... than before.” She gave him a pleading look. “I was doing alright. I really was. Last night was just...”
“What happened last night?”
She shot him a quizzical look. “Didn’t they tell you?” She was pretty much used to having every detail of her life readily available in file format to anyone with a doctorate.
“They did indeed, but I would like to hear it from you, if you don’t mind.”
It was strange, really. She’d spent all her life keeping as much distance from them as she possibly could, and now she was sitting right in front of one who seemed genuinely interested in her well-being, almost... caring. It was intensely disturbing.
“I saw a girl being led away by three of...” She glanced quickly at his horns and stifled the words “your kind” from coming out of her mouth. “...uh, three of the illusions, and she looked very scared, so I couldn’t not help.”
“But they weren’t illusions, were they? There were three men there, according to the police report.
You did save a girl from her rapists,” he said, leaning forward and supporting his chin in one big hand.
The way he was watching her now, as if she were the most intriguing creature on the face of the Earth, was not much better than his previous scrutiny.
Selma shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Well, yeah. But... to me, they didn’t look like men, and... and when they tried to hurt me, I... panicked.”
“You say ’tried to.’ Did you fight back?”
She shuddered at the memory of the metal rod connecting with hard bone, sending shocks of vibrations down her arms. “Yes. It wasn’t enough, though. It never is...”
When the police officers came, the tentative grasp she’d had on her broken mind snapped completely. A flash of the scaly monster who had ripped the pipe from her hands made her gasp. His claws tearing through her clothing had hurt, as had his fist locking around her throat.
Selma couldn’t remember anything after that, apart from the sound of gunshots and the footsteps of the police officers sprinting to their rescue. She hadn’t stopped screaming until the paramedics injected her with some kind of sedative.
“I... I’m sorry, I... don’t recall the details so well.” She wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to quell the sinking feeling of despair. She would never escape the waking nightmare that was her illness.
Dr. Hershey patted her soothingly on the knee, transferring heat to her skin through the fabric. “That’s quite alright, Selma. I know you must have been very frightened. Would you mind elaborating on what you mean by ‘it never is’? Have you been hurt by people you see as monsters before?”
Of course he’d picked up on that. She bit her lower lip, nodding. “A few times, when I was a kid. Only one time really bad.”
His orange gaze narrowed, something reminiscent of anger flickering behind it for a short moment before he managed to regain that soothing therapist-expression. “Sexually?”
“Oh, no. Mostly just...” She’d been about to say “normally,” but thought better of it. Instead she rolled up the loose leg of the comfortable white pants she’d been given upon arrival, twisting her leg to reveal the long scar down her calf.
Dr. Hershey trailed his finger up it, leaving an electric trail in his wake, and the thought that she was happy she’d shaved her legs the morning before sparked in her mind.
Blushing at that—completely irrelevant—contemplation, she resolutely stared at the horns sticking up from his wavy locks.
Goosebump-inducing touch or no, horns did not belong on a man’s head, and they certainly subtracted from the charms of his firm jaw and wide shoulders.
“This was vicious,” he said, the softest touch of his breath grazing her skin. “And certainly not a figment of your imagination. Did anyone catch the perpetrator?”
Selma pulled her leg back, shifting so the fabric slid down and covered her skin again. “No. Some passerby saw her, though. Said it was a young redheaded woman. She ran when he came to help me.”
“And to you it was...?”
She grimaced. “A monster.”
Dr. Hershey leaned back in his chair, staring straight into her eyes. “Are the monsters always evil, Selma? Is that what you see? A physical manifestation of inherently dangerous people?”
Before even realizing what she was doing, she shook her head.
“No?”
She flushed again and glanced at his pointed ears. “Uh… well, I don’t know for certain. Many of them have left me alone, even when I… was staring at them. Or crying and pointing, when I was little. But I don’t know if they are dangerous in other circumstances.”
A small smile tugged at his full lips. “And do you see me as one of these monsters?”