Alice Isn't Well (Death Herself Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter Six

1941

“How did your family die?”

Flat on her back in bed, staring up at the dark ceiling, Wendy ignored the question. She didn't know the name of the girl in the next bed, didn't know anything about her at all, and she certainly didn't want to get into a conversation. Besides, it was a dumb question. She knew her family wasn't dead. Not her mother, anyway. In fact, she was waiting for her mother to arrive and collect her. Looking over at the door at the far end of the dormitory, she willed it to open.

“How did your family die?” the voice asked again.

This time Wendy turned and saw the girl in the next bed, staring at her with eyes that were just about visible above the sheets.

“It's alright,” the other girl continued. “Sister Julia left the room for her break. She won't be back for twenty minutes, we can talk without getting in trouble.” She paused. “So how did your family die?”

Wendy stared at her for a moment, before looking back up at the ceiling.

“It's okay,” the girl said. “We're all in the same boat. My family's dead too.”

“My family's not dead,” Wendy whispered.

“Mum was hit by a car,” the girl continued, “and Dad died a few months earlier in an ambush somewhere in France. We'd got the telegram a while back. My grandparents died a long time ago, and my aunt didn't reply to messages, so I suppose she didn't want to take me in. I can understand, really. Everyone's struggling with the war. Anyway, that's how I ended up here, I'm just lucky the monastery was able to take me. What about you?”

Refusing to answer, Wendy continued to stare at the ceiling.

“Her house got hit by a plane,” said another voice suddenly, from one of the other beds.

Wendy turned and saw another girl watched from the other side of the aisle.

“It did,” the second girl continued. “I heard about it.”

“Was that
you
?” the first girl asked. “Is that why you've got those bandages?”

“It is,” the second girl replied. “I heard Sister Julia and Sister Anna-Maria talking about it earlier. They said Wendy's house got completely flattened by a crashed plane and Wendy's mother was inside and the fuel from the plane made the house burn like -”

“Stop!” Wendy shouted suddenly, sitting up and glaring at the girl. She immediately felt flashes of pain under her bandages, but she held her breath so she wouldn't start crying.

“And Wendy got burned,” the girl continued, with a faint smile. “She was lucky. She wasn't in the house. Everyone who was in the house got killed, but Wendy just got burned in the street.”

***

“You can't go out there!” the first girl shouted. “It's the middle of the night, you're not -”

Slamming the door shut and leaning back against it, Wendy took a deep breath and tried to ignore the creeping pain under her bandages. She closed her eyes, trying to drown out everything those two stupid girls had just said in the dormitory, but her mind was racing and she kept replaying their words over and over again.

“Everyone who was in the house got killed.”

“Wendy's mother was inside.”

“Wendy just got burned.”

“Fuel from the plane made the house burn.”

“Wendy's an orphan now, like the rest of us.”

“It's not true,” she whispered. “None of it's true.”

Slowly, she opened her eyes. She had no doubt that the other girls were still talking about her in there, and that they'd probably enjoyed provoking her, but she knew she'd have made a bigger mistake if she'd stayed. She'd just about resisted the urge to jump onto the second girl's bed and start pulling her hair out, but it would have happened eventually and then she'd have been in
real
trouble. Looking both ways along the dark corridor, she realized that there was still no sign of Sister Julia or any of the other nuns.

“Get a doctor!” she suddenly heard Matthew's voice screaming in the back of her mind. “Someone get a doctor!”

She remembered the pain, flashing through her chest, and the orange glow bursting out from the flames.

“What's wrong?” she remembered shouting. “Why are you staring at me like that?” She remembered touching her face and feeling it falling apart, and then after that...

After that...

There had been a hospital, and a doctor. Rolling up her right sleeve, she saw that in the gaps between the bandages there were several red marks from where she'd been injected.

“Just rest,” she remembered a calm, friendly voice telling her at one point. “Everything's going to be okay.”

And then...

She waited, but the memories seemed stuck somewhere else in her mind, as if they couldn't reach the surface. She sighed, leaning back against the cold wall, trying to remember a little more.

Suddenly, in the distance, she heard footsteps.

Someone was coming.

She only had a fraction of a second to decide what to do, and she chose to slip around the corner and hold her breath, listening as the footsteps got closer. A moment later, she heard the door being opened and closed, and she realized Sister Julia must have come back from her break. She tried to imagine what the other girls would do. Would they tell on her, or would they pretend to be asleep so that they didn't get into trouble too? She knew Sister Julia would notice soon enough that she was gone, and she knew there was no way she could sneak back in without being seen, so she was already in trouble. All she could do, she told herself, was try to find a way out before she was caught, and then she could run home and then she could tell her mother about all the horrible lies everyone had been telling, and then her mother would make everything okay.

Those girls had been making things up about her mother.

They were liars.

As the minutes passed, she realized that Sister Julia would have come running out of the dormitory by now if the girls had told her what happened. Figuring that she had at least a little time to make good her escape, Wendy hurried along the corridor, ignoring the pain in her sore limbs and focusing instead on the need to get away. When she reached the end of the corridor, she hauled herself up on top of a radiator and looked out through a small window, and she saw to her frustration that she was several floors up. Outside, a large yard stretched away to a wall in the distance, but it was hard to see too much since all the lights were off due to the blackout.

In the distance, someone coughed.

Climbing down from the radiator, Wendy ran along another corridor, hoping against hope that she might find some stairs that would lead her down to the ground floor. All she found, however, were more doors, before finally she had to duck around another corner as she heard more footsteps approaching from the distance. She held her breath again as two nuns walked past discussing plans for the morning, and a moment later she heard then pushing open a door and then heading down a stairwell. After waiting a little while longer to make sure they were gone, she hurried in the same direction, pushed the door open, and looked down the stairs.

Home. She was going home.

Chapter Seven

Today

As the sun came up and cast warm morning light across the cemetery, Alice made her way along the row. After her first night-shift at Barton's Cross had ended, she'd been so tired she'd barely been able to stay awake on the bus. All she wanted to do was go home and sleep, ready for her next shift, but she knew that wasn't a possibility until midday at least. First, she had a couple of things to do.

Stopping at the end of the row, she looked down at the final grave and read the inscription:

In loving memory

Daniel George Aspen

Beloved son

Died in the line of duty

For a moment, she found herself thinking back to that night, and to the look of wild terror Aspen's eyes first as he'd seen her, and then as he'd turned and seen the other face, and then...

The rest was still gone. She knew the memories were locked away somewhere, but after ten years she still couldn't find a way to access them.

Reaching down, she placed some flowers on the grave. It was all she could do for him now.

***

“So it went well?” Doctor Carrington asked, making a note on his pad. “Overall, I mean?”

She nodded.

“And your co-worker is someone you think you can get along with?”

She paused, thinking back to Donald's more irritating tendencies. “Yeah,” she said finally. “He's fine.”

“Did he ask any questions about what happened to you?”

She nodded.

“And what did you say?”

“I didn't tell him anything.”

“Remember,” he continued, “you don't need to become best friends with everyone you meet. It doesn't work like that. Some people you encounter in your day-to-day life are going to be friends, some are just going to be colleagues, some are just going to be casual acquaintances. You might even make an enemy or two along the way. Don't put too much pressure on yourself in every social situation, or there's a danger that your anxiety might come back. That's how people get on with each other in the real world, Alice. It's not like in the hospital, where you were stuck with whoever happened to be on the ward with you.”

She nodded.

“Are you over-thinking things again?” he asked.

“I...” She thought about the question for a moment. “I don't think so.”

“Because that's another danger.”

“I know.”

“In the hospital,” he continued, “you were constantly being analyzing, and constantly analyzing yourself. That's not a healthy way to live in the real world.”

She nodded.

“Sometimes it's okay to just react on an instinctive level, even if you think your instincts are out of alignment with most people. Do what makes you feel good. Within reason, obviously.”

“I really think I'm doing okay,” she replied, suddenly remembering to sit up straight and correct her posture. She wanted to stay positive, to face the world and deal with it all. “If you'd asked me two weeks ago how I'd do once I got back into the outside world, I think I would have expected my progress to be much slower and more...”

She paused, trying to think of the right word.

“More excruciatingly painful?” he suggested.

“I guess.”

He made another note. “And how are the nightmares?”

She swallowed hard.

“Are you still having them?” he asked.

“They're not as bad.”

“But you
do
still have them?”

She nodded.

“Are you taking the pills I gave you?”

“They make me nauseous. They give me this metallic taste when I wake up.”

“You should still take them.” He made another note. “And are the nightmares the same as before?”

“They always cut out at the same point.”

“As if you're reliving that night up until the moment when your memory failed?”

She nodded again.

“I want to try to steer you away from those nightmares,” he continued. “I think there's limited value in having your mind relentlessly replay such a traumatic event, and there's a real danger that over time you'll get into the habit of experiencing negative emotions when you sleep. We have to train you back into healthy habits, Alice.” He made another note. “Do you wake up in the night very often?”

She shook her head.

“This new job should be very good for you,” he continued. “I actually felt from the beginning that it would be helpful for you to do something that gets you out of the house at night rather than during the day. That way, you don't have to face the trauma of being alone in your apartment when it's dark outside, which I understand might be a trigger. Sleeping in the day is very different to sleeping at night, you know.”

“I know,” she replied.

He stared at her for a moment. “You look exhausted.”

She didn't know what to say to this. “Okay.”

“It's a good thing. It's normal to be tired, Alice. You've done a long night's work. We should maybe alter the schedule for these sessions now that we have to work around your busy life.” He smiled, as if he was expecting her to smile too. “I take it you haven't made any friends yet?”

“It'll take a while.”

“That's a good approach to take. You missed the whole school and college experience, but there's time to get back on track, just don't rush it. Hopefully you'll have more to report in our next session on...” He checked his phone for a moment. “Monday? Does Monday work for you?”

She watched as he made some more notes. “Is it normal for me to be hallucinating or losing memories?” she asked suddenly. “I mean... Should that still be happening?”

He glanced at her. “Why do you ask?”

“It's just...” She paused. “What if something happens, something quick, just for a few seconds, but I don't remember it? Is that a cause for concern?”

“Give me an example.”

“A conversation,” she continued cautiously. “What if someone said they saw me talking to someone, but I don't remember that at all?”

“So you experienced a memory slip?”

“It's more like...” She paused again, trying to work out how to put her concerns into words. “It's more like something happened, then I forgot about it and my mind papered over the gap. It's not that I don't remember something, it's more that I specifically remember something else in its place.”

“I see.” He made another note. “And this thing you think you forgot... Are you sure it happened?”

“I think so. I don't understand why he'd lie about it.”

“Is this someone at your new job?”

She nodded.

“We all forget things occasionally,” he continued, clearly a little concerned. “I forgot my wife's birthday once. Terrible, I know, but I know I won't do it again. Don't micro-analyze everything that happens. You have a shift tonight, don't you?”

She nodded again.

“So focus on that. You're out in the world again, Alice, after a long, long stay in hospital. It wasn't easy for us to arrange this job for you, but we all believe in you. Don't worry too much about the past or the future, just focus on today.” He checked his watch. “And make sure you get enough sleep, because as someone who once worked nights in a kitchen to get through university, I can promise you the transition to a nocturnal life is definitely not easy. We'll talk again next week, but you can call me before then if necessary. Maybe Monday's a little long to wait for your next session. Let's meet on Friday instead. Is ten okay?”

“Is our session over?”

“Don't look so panicked, Alice. Yes, it's over. You're doing great.”

Getting to her feet, she grabbed her bag from next to the chair, but she seemed lost in thought for a moment. “I had another nightmare,” she told him finally. “One that wasn't about what happened that night.”

“What was this one about?” he asked, clearly no longer quite so engaged now that their session was finished.

“It was about a plane,” she continued, “crashing in the Second World War. Crashing onto a house at night.”

“Huh.” He turned to her. “Well, it's a good sign if your subconscious mind is starting to turn to other matters. Maybe it wasn't even a nightmare, maybe it was just a normal dream. That would be a real improvement, Alice.”

“There was a burning pilot, too,” she added, with a hint of uncertainty in her voice. “I saw his face in the flames.”

“And it was just a dream,” he replied. “Remember that, Alice. Dreams can't hurt you.”

“I know.” She swallowed hard, and although she wanted to ask him some more questions, she figured that her hour was up and he probably wanted to move on to his next patient. “You're right. It was just a dream.”