Chapter 50
“Hey, sweetie.”
My body feels very far away. My eyelids are too heavy to lift; I don’t want to open my eyes. There’s pain there, somewhere far away, and I don’t want it to get any closer. I just want there to be quiet. I just want to be left alone.
“Isobel, can you hear me?”
The voice is soft and sweet, but it can’t trick me. I know better. Once I open my eyes, they will know I’m awake, and they will make me get up, and I’m so very tired.
So tired.
I try to say I don’t want to go to school, I don’t feel well, but my lips won’t move the way I’m used to; instead, the words fracture in my mind, and I try to turn my face away.
“You have to wake up now, sweetheart. It’s time.”
“I … I c-can’t…”
My lips feel strange. Dry and stretched and numb.
I want to roll over and pull the covers over my head, but I can’t. I’m not lying down. I’m sitting.
Why am I not lying down?
There are memories trying to reach me, but when I grasp for them, they scatter. Like they are taunting me.
“Come on, now.”
The voice isn’t happy anymore.
A loud noise, and a sharp, stinging pain on the side of my face, and I have to open my eyes now.
It’s very bright in here. Too bright. I recognize this place, but I can’t remember where it is, and that makes me feel like crying.
There is a face in front of mine. It’s smiling gently.
I know it, but I can’t recall who it is. I only know it’s someone who—someone who—
I open my mouth, but my throat is so dry, and I begin to cough.
“Here, honey.” She hands me a glass of water, helps me wrap my hands around it. It’s cold and smooth in my clumsy hands, but still, I manage to bring it to my lips and drink.
“Isn’t that better?” She reaches up to push the hair out of my face. Her touch is very light, and my eyes droop closed again as I lean into the touch.
“I’m tired,” I mutter.
“I know, honey,” she says. “I know you are. It’s the tranquilizer. You’ll feel better soon.”
“Where am I?” I search for her name, and when it comes back to me I feel a moment of triumph.
Anna.
I remember now.
When I try to say it out loud, it comes out slurred and slow, but she laughs. It’s a very nice sound. High and bright.
“Yes!” she says. “Exactly. See, you’re going to feel better soon. Drink some more water.”
I force my eyes open again, and I see her get up to her feet and walk away, hear her steps receding.
There’s someone else sitting there. I can see them, a shadow out of the corner of my eye. There’s a sound coming from them. Groaning, or sobbing.
But I can’t see them. I can’t even turn and look.
God, my head is pounding. There’s pain everywhere. In my face, in my feet, in my shoulder. My body doesn’t feel like it belongs to me; I’m hunched, and when I try to sit up, I almost slide off the chair.
“Hey, now, Isobel,” comes Anna’s voice again. “Take it very easy, sweetie, okay? You’re going to feel a little woozy for a while. That’s normal, it’s nothing to be scared of, but try not to move around too much.”
“Okay,” I whisper, and I try to drink from the glass again. I spill down my shirt, and it should embarrass me, but I am so thirsty, and so tired, that I can’t be bothered to care.
Anna—her name is Anna, but who is she?—comes back into my view, pulls a blanket back up around my shoulders.
“There.” She smooths it down. “You got very cold out there. I don’t want you to get sick.”
It dawns on me that I do feel cold. Or, not exactly; it feels like I have been cold, or I used to be cold.
I try to look up and look around, but my head is too heavy, or maybe my neck is too weak. The room is bright and warm. There’s a sound, coming from somewhere, a soft pattering of something, but otherwise it’s quiet.
Am I sick? Is this a hospital?
Maybe. I can’t remember.
When I manage to tilt my head, I see a window to my right. The outside is cloudy and gray, and I see a dark mass of water beyond it.
It makes something stir in my mind.
A flashing image. A pond. Water, cold water everywhere, and fear, and a face. Pale and perfect but … wrong.
A word comes to me.
“Himlafall. I’m at … Himlafall.”
It’s no more than a whisper, but it feels right.
I’m at the Himlafall Clinic. Yes. I was going to do something. It was very important.
But I can’t remember what it was.
My head rolls over to the other side, and now I can see more: a couch opposite me, and a desk, and someone sitting in a chair.
No, she isn’t sitting; she’s tied to the chair, and her eyes are wide and unblinking, full of tears, and there is a gag in her mouth, white fabric stained with dried blood, and the sight of it makes me start to dry heave.
Something is wrong.
The electricity was out. How did it come back on?
“Hey, hey.” Anna comes back to me, quick and swift like an angel. “Just breathe. You’re a little nauseous, that’s normal, but you’re going to be fine.”
I feel her hand against my stomach.
“Breathe all the way down into your stomach. There you go, as deep as you can.”
My body stills again, and my face feels wet.
“It’s okay.” Anna laughs again. “It’s all okay, sweetie. You don’t have to be scared. You’re going to feel like yourself very soon, all right? And everything is going to be just fine.”
“What happened?” I manage to say. It’s slurred, but clearer than it was, and I take some perverse pride in that.
Anna’s hand disappears from my stomach. She wipes the tears from my cheeks very softly, like a mother.
Like my mother, when I was very little.
“I’m so sorry I had to lie to you.” Her face contorts. “I had to set everything up, you see. I had to make sure nothing would ruin it.”
When I look over at the woman in the chair, her name comes back to me, too. And her face, not bloody and terrified like it is now, but calm, and strong, and intimidating.
Martina. That’s Dr. Martina.
Where is Armin? Armin was here. Where is he?
Anna straightens up again, and she clasps her hands in front of her, and when she smiles, it lights up her whole face.
“You know, at first I was just going to leave you there with the others,” she tells me. “But then I thought better of it. You deserve to be here, too.”
“What?” I try to say, but other memories are reappearing now, muddled and confused.
Rain, and cold, and fear.
I was running. We were all running. We were trying to get away, because—because—
Anna’s smile grows wider.
So many teeth.
“When I found out about you, I actually thought about just telling you,” she muses. “Maybe I should have. I should have trusted you. But I was scared, you see. I was worried it would all go wrong.”
“You’re…” I blink, hard, as she turns double for a second.
She turns and walks away, over to the desk.
The glass of water slips out of my hands and tumbles onto the floor, icy cold water spilling over my feet.
She stands behind Martina and looks down at her.
Her face twists into cruelty.
I hear Martina trying to scream behind the gag. A muffled, pathetic sound.
I have to do something. What is it I’m supposed to do?
Anna looks over at me, and there’s a spark in her eyes. Like we’re sharing a private laugh, she and I.
“What do you think, Isobel?” Her voice a coquettish joke. “Because I think it’s time to start the show.”
She doesn’t wait for me to respond. Instead, she reaches down and pulls the gag out of Martina’s mouth.
“Time for your therapy, Doctor,” she spits, and as Martina begins to scream, it all comes back to me in a crushing, all-consuming wave.