Oblivion (13 page)

But the words still echo in my mind, morphing to kaleidoscopes, blooming and bursting with color. The words become part of me, dancing in my veins, instead of beating at me from the inside of my brain.

I tighten my grip.

On him.

On the words.

On distant memories.

The wind hisses, chiming with the words within me:
remember
.

D
r. Ewing dangles the rosary from his hand and studies the sketch on the table before him. “Your mother drew this?”

“She gave it to me last time I saw her.” I’ve foregone my posture in order to accommodate a raging headache, and I’m lying across the worn leather sofa in Dr. Ewing’s office—elbow propped on the armrest, cheek resting in my palm.

“And John Fogel gave you this.” He jingles the rosary, as if it’s a strand of sleigh bells instead of semiprecious stones.

“Uh-huh.”

There’s a concave roundel at the cross’s intersection, where my mother drew a stone. When I close my eyes, the stone is red, but if ever it was there, it’s gone now.

“Uncanny.” He looks at me above his Buddy Hollys. Blinks. “I don’t think it’s yours. There’s a name etched on the back, see?”

I lean forward to see it. In tiny, hand-scratched block letters on the horizontal arm:
Lorraine Oh
. It looks like subsequent letters have worn away. “I didn’t notice that.”

“Interesting that John Fogel would give you a rosary that very obviously belongs to someone else.” He glances up at me. “Hmm.”

“So let’s cut to the chase,” I say. “We know the song and dance: you prompt me, you lead me around the block, and eventually I arrive at the right hitching post. The heavens open up and shine down on me, and I say what you want me to say.”

He cracks a smile. “Is that what you think happens here?”

“I know that’s what happens here. So in the interest of saving time, tell me what you want me to say.”

“Why do you think I want you to say anything?”

“John Fogel met my mom at the Vagabond on Fortune Night. He told me.”

“They talked about this rosary?”

“A rosary. Maybe that one.” I shrug. “He said she told him he’d find a body up there.”

“A body?”

“A body of an angel, to be exact. And he knows a lot about me.” I gauge Dr. Ewing’s expression; he looks
genuinely interested. “You’ll think I’m crazy—
crazier
, I mean.”

His fingers become a steeple under his chin. “I don’t think you’re crazy.”

How can he not? It’s my turn to challenge him with a steady stare.

He shrugs and actually smiles a little. “I don’t, and I have the degree to prove my discerning is worthy.”

“John found the rosary, right?” I take a deep breath. I feel silly even thinking the words, let alone saying them. “He knows something, something I don’t know.”

“Hmm.”

“I mean, I have these memories, almost bordering on visions. The other day, I wrote the words
flutter shy
, and John pointed out that there’s a boat called
Fluttershy
docked at the Vagabond Harbor.”

“So John Fogel’s filling in the blanks?”

“Well … maybe.” My stomach tumbles a little. I can’t believe I’m about to be this honest. With a frigging shrink. Telling him about my string of sexual escapades with Elijah was one thing; telling him my deepest hopes and fears is another. “I feel like there’s something living inside me, and John taps it, whatever it is. When I’m with him, I write. Almost constantly. Here. Look.” I shove my current journal, which is sitting on the table, closer to him.

“So on one hand, we have Elijah, who’s been known to impede the process. On the other, we have John, who
seems to encourage the words. Do you find yourself gravitating closer to John because of it?”

“No, but I guess I don’t really know why I keep sleeping with Elijah.” I swallow hard, unsure I want to admit the next thought. “I think he’s seeing someone else.”

“Hmm.”

“Recently, I guess, I’ve seen a glimpse of how things are supposed to be.”

“Via John Fogel.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Have things gotten, you know, physical”—his nose crinkles a little when he says the word—“with John?”

I should tell Dr. Ewing about what happened last night in the rain. I should tell him that John Fogel and I hooked up, that making out with him was the stupidest, yet most natural, most incredible and dangerous thing I’d ever done.

Unless, of course, I killed my father.

Did I?

Do I believe in murder?

I ought to, if I committed it.

“Callie?”

“I remember things. About the past.”

My shrink lifts his chin. “What kind of things?”

“Well, that’s just it. Not the kind of past you and Lake County PD are hoping for. I don’t remember anything about Palmer and those hours I spent writing on the bathroom walls.

“I remember things I don’t exactly remember doing.”

One of his eyebrows contorts, bends downward toward the bridge of his nose.

“I’m crazy,” I say.

“No, no, go on.”

“It’s like a vivid dream, only it feels more real. I taste things, smell things …” I shift on the sofa, sprawl on my back. This is real psychoanalysis now—me, lying on a sofa, under the watchful stare of a man in glasses. “It’s like when your mom starts telling you a story about something you did when you were little, and slowly, bit by bit, the picture emerges until suddenly, it isn’t a story anymore. You remember.”

“Have you had any more blackouts since that last one at school?”

I can’t look him in the eye, but I feel his stare beating down on me. If his pupils shot lasers, I’d be charred right now. A chill jolts through me. I shiver and briskly rub my arms from elbow to shoulder. “Yeah.” In the periphery, I see him nodding. The pressure of his stare is too much to ignore. I offer him a glance.

“How long are the blackouts lasting?”

“Nothing like that first one, not like at the Vagabond.”

“Not thirty-six hours?” He cracks a smile.

I know he’s trying to relax me, but I shake my head.

“How long, then, would you say?”

“A few minutes, tops. Sometimes not more than a few seconds.”

I’m still cold. My head pounds. Words close in on me.
Close the crimson door in your mind
.

“Callie.”

“Close the …” I pinch my eyes shut, force my tongue to stop moving. Tears build behind my eyelids. Don’t give into the impulse. Don’t say the words.
Crimson door
.

“Callie.” His voice garbles, like when cell reception starts to fail. “Callie, focus.”

“On what?”

Close the crimson door in your mind
.

I’m trembling now. Shaking. Chilled. I think of nothing, if not my pen, my paper. Putting pen to paper. I nearly taste the words; they’re that powerful. I close my fingers into a tight fist. Sweat. Shiver. I can’t take it. Can’t take it anymore. I reach for my pen.

Everything blurs.

I’m in the garden house at Holy Promise. Soaking wet. There’s a pair of panties on the floor. Yellow floral pattern, cotton.

God, what are they doing here?

How did I get here?

If I could muster the strength, I’d stand, but what’s the use? The door is locked. From the outside.

From the outside! And I’m in, I’m in, I’m in.

A blanket descends over me, comforts me.

My eyes open to see Dr. Ewing taking his seat again.

The blanket is a blue-and-orange plaid fleece, the type
football fans bring to Soldier Field. Tears blur my vision. I glance down at my notebook:

Sift through as the hours pass.

“How much time do we have?”

“Don’t worry about the clock. Talk.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

“I don’t expect you to say anything. Want to tell me about what you wrote?”

I read it to him.

“Any images materialize along with that line?” he asks.

“Ashes. Buckets of them. In the garden house. But I don’t know why.”

“Was this indicative of what usually happens?”

“Yeah, that’s about it.” I think of the day in the labyrinth with John, and my breath catches. The terrible things I felt … horrific images I remembered …

“And what happens with the words, when you’re blacked out?”

“See for yourself.” I shudder with an inhalation. The tears intensify. They’re pouring out of my eyes, as if someone turned on a spigot in my head. “One word, written over and over again sometimes. It feels like a violation. Like something’s invading me. Like rape.”

“Rape?” Dr. Ewing shoves a box of tissues across the table toward me.

But I can’t reach for it. I’m frozen beneath the blanket. The pain at my temples is nearly unbearable. “I feel
it sometimes. Vividly.” The nausea. The pain. The shame.

“Tell me what you think you remember.”

“The labyrinth behind Holy Promise.” A violent sob escapes me. I’ve never cried like this before, not even on the day Palmer sent my mother away. I hear movement across the table, but I can’t open my eyes to see what Dr. Ewing’s doing. I’m afraid, I realize. I’m afraid of the words—those I’m about to say, and the ones racing through my brain. Afraid of why I think them, afraid of what they might mean. Afraid of what Dr. Ewing will think of me, once I blurt them out.

The world spins before my eyes. I’m dizzy, so dizzy. I feel heels of hands against my inner thighs, spreading me wide.

I can’t breathe.

Can’t fight the hands.

Can’t block out the stabbing pain.

“Warren?”

“I’m right here.” His comforting hand lands on my shoulder.

He’s standing over me. Staring down at me.

My cheeks flush with humiliation. What a mess I must be. I wipe at my face, but the tears are coming too quickly. I can’t dry them. The little bit of eye makeup I’m allowed to wear at Carmel hangs on my lashes in midnight black gobs. I see it, glowing in the iridescence of my tears.

He gives my arm a pat. “Let it out, Callie. It’s okay.” He moves to withdraw.

I grasp tightly to his wrist.

Alarm registers in his wide eyes in the split second it takes for him to realize I’m admitting I need him.

I hold tight. Manage to sit up.

He lowers himself to the coffee table.

Our knees graze.

I hiccup over a sob. “Warren …”

“I’m here for you.”

“What do you think of me?”

His shoulders dip. He tilts his head slightly to the left, but refuses to break eye contact. “I think you’re strong.”

All evidence to the contrary, I’m unraveling before his eyes.

“And, Calliope, you’re special. These words … your ability to write them … it’s a gift. Not everyone can do what you’ve been doing.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes at his attempt to bring me down off the ledge. “Am I a bad person?”

“Sometimes good people make bad decisions. Whether or not you’ve made a few of those … well, we’re getting there, aren’t we?”

I remember the feel of John Fogel’s body in my arms.

I nod. “Yeah.”

E
lijah kisses my temple, while I snuggle in close to his warm body.

It’s Tuesday, and we’re in the apartment above the Vagabond. Elijah was late, nearly half an hour late, and I think maybe he shouldn’t have come today.

My head is pounding relentlessly, poisoned with the mysterious crimson door in my mind. I’m resting my head somewhere between Elijah’s bicep and shoulder. His arm curls up, framing my head; he brushes hair from my face.

Today, a single word haunts me:
strangled
. So far, it’s just a nagging sensation, but I know it’s only a matter of time before I’ll have to write it.

The music of a flutist and a timpani drummer filters
up from below. Yet despite this easygoing, beatnik atmosphere, I feel dirty inside.

Strangled
.

We’ve hooked up tons of times, and usually, it’s an experience I crave. Tonight, however, I did it out of obligation, so he wouldn’t be able to sense the impending end of us, so he wouldn’t know that I noticed the faint scent of girl in his clothing. Even while lying in Elijah’s arms, I feel the distance between us.

The distance has been growing, if only in minuscule increments, but suddenly, the small steps we’re taking to create the gap between us are lengthening.