The Girl from the Well (4 page)

“When Mister Tarquin came to class. He doesn't like her, either.”

“Why don't you like her?”

“Because she wants to hurt Mister Tarquin. She wants to hurt me. She wants to hurt everybody. Except she can't. Not while she's still in prison.”

“Sandra,” the young woman says. She pauses, trying to frame the question right. “Sandra, where is this prison?”

Bright green eyes look back at her. “Mister Tarquin,” the girl says. “Mister Tarquin's the prison.”

• • •

“Let's talk a little bit about when you were younger, Tarquin,” the therapist says. “What do you remember about your childhood?”

“Not a lot. Dad used to tell me stories about when I was little, though. Like I once nearly fell into a manhole, and I used to have a pet dog named Scruffy. But I don't remember anything. It's like the stories happened to someone else, not to me. You'd think I would have at least remembered the dog.”

“What is the earliest memory you can recall?”

Another pause. “My mother,” the boy says, and his voice is quiet and vulnerable. “I remember that she used to sing to me before I went to sleep.”

“Was it a lullaby?”

“I don't know the song's name.” The boy hums a little, and the melody is a strange, haunting one. One hundred and forty-three, one hundred and forty-four.

“I'm afraid I'm not quite familiar with that song,” says the woman who specializes in caring for children and knows exactly one hundred and thirty different lullabies in her head.

“It's the first thing that I really remember,” the boy said. “And then my mom had to… Well, she went bonkers, excuse the political correctness. Dad had her checked into Remney's. And shortly after they took her away, I started seeing that…that.”

“I see,” the therapist says. This, too, is a lie; she does not truly see.

“Your son is an exceptionally bright boy,” she tells his father later, once the session is over. The boy is leafing through a small stack of magazines while the man and the therapist conduct a hushed conversation behind the door. “Much more intelligent than an average teenager his age, but he tends to express this through sarcasm and self-deprecation. It's a better outlet than other forms of rebelling I know of, but still not something I would like to encourage. He also suffers from a very deep-seated psychosis, very similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“Was it because of the McKinley boy's death?” his father asks, troubled.

“It doesn't seem likely. His hallucinations have nothing to do with any kind of flashbacks from the incident, which I find puzzling. I believe this may stem from feelings of abandonment caused by his mother leaving, though his symptoms are still quite peculiar. He exhibits no aggressive behaviors, as far as I can determine.”

“Will he be all right?” the man asks.

“I'm not comfortable with administering strong antidepressants to someone so young. I suggest that he comes back for several more sessions so I can monitor his progress and let you know of any improvements. I recommend not putting him in any more stressful situations than he's already in.”

“We're going to be visiting his mother in an hour's time.”

The therapist frowns. “I'm not sure that would be healthy at this stage, Mr. Halloway, especially after the last time…”

“His mother's been asking for him,” the father insists. “And I know that whatever he says, he misses his mother and wants to see her, too. We're taking very careful steps this time. Nothing is going to happen.”

The therapist looks reluctant, but the father is resolute. The boy abandons the magazines, staring instead at a lone mirror on the wall.

• • •

“What about the other woman you mentioned?”

“She wears a white dress, not like the lady in black. It's really dirty, but that isn't her fault. Not really.”

“Does she stand behind Tarquin, too?”

“Nope. She likes to stand upside down on the ceiling sometimes.”

The young woman feels a decided chill. “How do you know all these things, Sandra?”

“I don't know,” the girl says, puzzled herself. “I just see them, and then I do.”

“Why doesn't she like the number nine?”

“She had ten things a long time ago, but then she lost one of them so now she only has nine, and she got hurt because of it. She doesn't like being reminded.”

“Why does she like standing on the ceiling?”

“Sometimes she stands the right way like us, but she got used to ceilings, too. Someone hurt her really, really badly, and they put her down someplace that was dark and smelly, like a big hole. Her head went in the hole first before her feet and she died like that, so she got used to seeing everything upside down.”

“I don't understand.”

The girl swivels in her swing seat. She grasps the sides of the swing with both hands and tips herself over backward so that her hair grazes the ground and she is looking over at the teaching assistant from the wrong way up.

“Like this,” she says. “She died looking at everything like this.”

• • •

The father and the boy finally leave, and the therapist returns to the solitude of her office, back to the one hundred and sixty-three volumes on her bookcase. She picks up the small device she uses to record conversations with patients and presses a few buttons.

“My mother.” The boy's voice comes from it, low and tinny. “I remember that she used to sing to me before I went to sleep.”

“Was it a lullaby?” she hears her own voice ask.

“I don't know the song's name.” The boy begins to hum.

Within the tape, something else begins humming in light counterpoint.

The therapist gasps and shuts the recorder quickly. She hesitates, steeling herself, and switches it on again. The boy's humming continues, but this time there is no other accompaniment.

Melinda Creswell, psychotherapist, looks around the empty room with growing unease, but by then I am long gone.

The boy and his father enter a different building next, this one a dollhouse of white decay. The walls and floors are white. The doors are painted white and the ceiling is painted white and the windows are painted white, and whenever there are curtains, they are also white.

There are two kinds of dolls here. The first kind wears white shirts and pants. They hurry down corridors pushing white carts and carrying white towels, stacks of white paper, and white trays. They carry about themselves an air of forced joviality, though they know very well there are few things to smile about in these halls.

And then there are the broken dolls. They are pushed around in wheelchairs and fed, drooling, from plastic cups. Sometimes they are dragged, fighting and screaming, by the White Shirts into white beds inside white rooms. Needles are jabbed into their arms to keep them calm, but they are never truly cured. The broken dolls cry and laugh and shout and sing, and often they sound much more alive than the White Shirts.

The boy and his father follow one of the White Shirts down a long corridor where many broken dolls live. One doll is banging her head repeatedly against the wall, over and over, until another White Shirt comes to take her away. Another has soiled himself, a stream running down his leg even as he meows and swipes at his own head with a curled arm, oblivious.

Still another steps out of her room and sees them. “I curse thee!” she shrieks, lifting a spindly finger to point at a spot behind the boy. “I curse thee, foul abomination! In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, I abjure thee! Begone, foul spirit, begone, begone, begone!”

A Shirt takes her arm but she shakes him off, still spewing curses at nothing. More arrive, seven in all, to subdue the little woman, and she fights madly, like a crazed tiger struggling with its last breath to hurt one last time. “I abjure thee!” she wails. “For I am the Sword of God, and I order you to be gone, demon, begone begone begonebegonebegone—!”

She is dragged into another room, but the screaming continues.

The boy is unsettled, and so is the father, though he tries to hide it. “I'm sorry,” the White Shirt tells them apologetically. “That's Wilma. She's been quiet the last several weeks. I don't know what's come over her today.”

“What's wrong with her?” the father asks.

“She thinks she's the archangel Gabriel.”

“Who was she talking to?” But the Shirt only shrugs, because it is not their job to know, only to help.

The room they seek is located at the end of the hall, on the far left. “We set up some Japanese sliding doors in her room, like you asked,” the Shirt says. “She seems to like it, and she's been considerably calmer since they were installed. Says it reminds her of home.” He pauses, shooting the tattooed boy a significant look. “She's under a heavy dose of medication right now, but I'm not sure she should see you just yet. You'll have to stay behind the screen until we're sure she won't react as badly as she did before.”

The boy nods, though reluctant about this suggestion. The father squeezes his arm. The Shirt knocks quietly at the door.

“Looks who's come to visit again, Mrs. Halloway.”

Inside, a woman sits on a white lounge chair. She is a beautiful lady: no longer youthful, but far from the old age the white streaks peppering her long, black hair imply. Her brown eyes are unfocused. In contrast to the whiteness of the dollhouse, a wooden shoji screen splits the room in half and prevents her from seeing those who stand beyond the door. But the screen is not what makes this room different from all the others in this building.

Unlike the people outside, the dolls filling this room are real. They occupy rows of wooden stands that mark every wall. A large platform stands beside the woman's bed, covered in heavy red carpeting, where a set of dolls have been carefully arranged—a likeness of the Japanese imperial family and their court, presiding over a roomful of subjects.

The dolls that surround the walls are of a different design. While the imperial dolls are smaller and more triangular in shape, the others are carefully proportioned
ichimatsu
dolls with faces that might at times pass for real children, if not for their affected stillness. Despite these differences, all the dolls in the room bear milky, porcelain-white skin. They are dressed in heavy robes and kimonos, colorful ornaments woven into their hair. Their eyes are colorless. All gaze down at the visitors with expressionless faces, draped in the silence that often comes before the passing of judgment.

“Who is it?” the woman asks. Though her smile is genuine, her words are slow to come, thick with unnatural lethargy. One doll, two dolls, three.

“Yoko?” At the Shirt's nod, the father enters the room. He slides part of the shoji to one side so he can step in and kneel by the woman. He is used to the presence of these dolls and thinks little of them, but the boy is not yet acclimatized. He does not follow, remaining hidden behind the partition. His eyes wander from doll face to doll face with nervous misgiving.

The man takes the woman's hand in his. “It's me, Yoko,” he says gently, and all the love and worry are in his eyes. “It's Doug.”

“Doug,” the woman repeats. She smiles warmly at him. “It's been so long since you last visited,
anata
. I was so worried something had happened. It's been…It's been…” She falters, unable to remember. Nineteen dolls, twenty dolls, twenty-one.

“We'll be visiting more often,” the man promises. “And Tarquin is here,” he adds, though he now says this slowly and deliberately, watching her face anxiously for any signs of distress. The boy standing behind the screen waits, his back rigid. From his position, all he can see of his mother is her shadow, stooping behind the screen.

“Tarquin's here?” the woman says, this time with more animation. “Where is he?”

“Hey, Mom,” the boy says. His voice is low, trembling with pent-up emotion. Gone is his usual derision, all traces of sarcasm lacking from his tone. For now, Tarquin Halloway is a fifteen-year-old boy who, for all he has endured, still misses his mother. For all his hurt, there is much forgiveness in him.

“Tarquin? Where are you?” The woman twists her head and moves as if to stand.

“He's here, Yoko,” the man says, “but the doctors say you can't see him today.” Forty-one dolls, forty-two dolls, forty-three.

“Did I hurt him?” Terror rings in her voice. “Did I hurt him again? I am so sorry, Tarquin, I am so sorry!”

Overwhelmed, she starts to sob. The man wraps his arms around her. The boy can only watch their shadows, helpless.

“It was the only way,” the broken woman whispers. “I didn't know what else I could do. I didn't have much choice. But I couldn't let her out. Don't you see? I couldn't let her out!”

The White Shirt steps forward, alarmed, but the woman quickly rights herself, shaking off her ramblings. The sudden queerness in the air that had settled around her like dense fog is gone. She sits up straighter in her chair, now prim and delicate, though her hands twist and clench without her knowledge at invisible paper she is slowly tearing to shreds. Sixty dolls, sixty-one dolls, sixty-two.

“It was very nice of you to visit, Doug,” she says calmly with no trace of her previous hysteria. “It's been so long since I last stepped out of these walls that I'd almost forgotten what it feels like to be outside.”

“Yes,” the man says, at a loss at how to respond.

“I'd like to go back to Japan again,” the woman says, and her voice sounds like it is coming from somewhere else, far away. “It's been so many years since I've been back in Tokyo. I miss
hanami
in the springtime. Do you remember, Doug? All those times we would camp out underneath the trees and watch the cherry blossoms bloom 'til nightfall. How long has it been?”

“It's been seventeen years since we graduated from the University of Tokyo, Yoko.” The man's voice is choked.

“Has it been that long since our
Todai
days? How odd. I still remember them as clearly as if they were only a week ago. I remember the
hanami
well.” She laughs. “We had to look at six different shops just to find a
yukata
in your size.”

“You always insisted on doing things the traditional way,” the man said, smiling at their memories. Eight-five dolls, eighty-six dolls, eighty-seven.

“For
hanami
, it is only proper to dress in the right manner.” She squeezes his hand. “The old ways of watching are always the best. Cherry blossoms die as quickly as they bloom, so one must always come with the proper clothes and the proper attitude to admire their beauty before they pass away so quickly. The great writer Motojirou-san said it best:
‘Sakura no ki no shita ni wa shitai ga umatte iru
.'”

Dead
bodies
lie
under
the
cherry
tree.

The woman whips her head to stare at me, as if I had spoken the words out loud. Her face turns white, her eyes staring.

“Who's there?” she whispers, growing more agitated by the second. The man reaches out to take her hand again, but she shakes him free.

“Who's there?” She jumps out of her chair and begins to advance toward me, unexpected anger bleeding from every pore in her body. “There is someone in here! You! Who are you?” Her voice grows louder until she is all but screaming.

“Who are you?”

The White Shirt starts forward, intent on restraining her, should it become necessary, but there is strength in the woman still. The drugs that cloud her vision prove to be his undoing. She pushes him away, harder than it would seem possible, given her small frame, and the White Shirt crashes into the shoji screen, knocking it over and revealing the tattooed boy standing behind it, stunned and shaken by his mother's rage.

The woman sees her son, and then she begins to scream.

It is a howling symphony of loss and fear and madness. She leaps toward him, her eyes blazing and her hands clawed, transforming that pale, pretty face into that of a creature of malevolence.

“You!” she howls. “I will not let you escape! You will not have him! I will not let you have him! I'll kill him first! I'll kill him!”

At the same time, I see that aimless shadow drift up from behind the boy's stricken form, the same darkness I saw in the classroom that day, though there is more to its shape. Something is rising out of the boy's back—something with terrible, burning eyes, yet not quite eyes at all, preserved behind a bloodless, decaying mask that hides its face from the world.

Our gazes

meet.

The woman is still screaming, hurling vile curses into her stunned son's face. She fights off her husband's attempts to restrain her. “Get away from him! I will never let you out! I'll kill him first! I'll kill him I'll kill him I'll kill him!—” She stops only to reel off sutras and chant at breakneck speed in a language that should be familiar to me but is not, a language that crackles in the air, which now grows uncomfortably hot from the heat of her words.

The door flies open and several more White Shirts run in. With efficient precision, they surround the woman, cutting off her chants. She lashes out with her legs and her fingernails, dislodging dolls from their shelves in the process, but the Shirts are successful at incapacitating her, holding her long enough to jab a large needle into her arm. In time her struggles grow weaker until she finally sinks, exhausted, against a White Shirt's chest, her head nodding as she spirals into sleep.

“I'm sorry,” a White Shirt tells the man and his son. “She'd been responding well to the lorazepam. I'm not sure what triggered this outburst.”

“That's okay,” the father replies. The boy says nothing, though his face is as white as those of the dolls that surround him. The dark fog has disappeared.

“I'm so sorry you both had to see this. But I think it would be best if we cut this visit short and give her more time to rest.” The man nods and gently ushers his son out of the room.

With one final effort, the woman's eyes fly open. She lifts her head over the sea of White Shirts attending to her and stares directly at me. In her eyes there is desperation but also a sudden realization of my purpose here in this room of one hundred and eight dolls.

“I am so sorry,” she whispers, imploring. “Please. Please protect him. Please…” The words trail off. Her head lolls to one side and her eyes fall shut. Within seconds, the drugs have taken their toll, and she is fast asleep.

The boy is frightened. He keeps glancing back at his unconscious mother, who is now being lifted by one of the bigger White Shirts onto her small bed.

“What did she mean?” he asks. His father looks at him. “Was she talking about me? Who was she talking to?”

“Your mother isn't well, Tark,” the man tells him. “You shouldn't take to heart anything she says while she's in this condition. We just came at a bad time.”

“We always come at a bad time!” the boy responds with violence in his voice. “What is it about me that she hates so much, that she can't even stand the sight of me?”

“Tark…I…”

“Forget it. Just forget it. I'm getting out of here.” The boy brushes past his father and tears down the hall. Several of the patients jeer and cheer him on as he runs by, but the boy does not pay attention.

“Tarquin!” His father takes off after him. A woman reading a newspaper on a nearby bench lowers it to stare at the retreating visitors and then at me.

“Mad people,” she observes sagely. “They're all mad.”

Then she grins to show off rotting teeth, and she winks at me. “Not like us, dearie,” she coos. “Never like us.”