Uncertainty (16 page)

The person who had been dragging me peered down at my lifeless body. It was a man, but that was all I could tell. A hood surrounded his face, cloaking it in shadow so I couldn't make out any of the features.

"She won't stop breathing," he said.

"That's why she's going into the water," another voice grunted not far off.

When I opened my eyes next, I was staring at a pair of neon blue pumps. I realized I was laying on the basement floor, spittle lazily flowing from my slack lips. I'd knocked over an old box of Claire's shoes when I went down. My head hurt from the impact on the hard floor.

Jenna was no where to be seen. I was all alone. It was darker outside. The rain sound, usually so comforting, made my stomach roll.

I barely made it to the utility sink before vomiting.

That night, I tucked into bed with Eleanor's medical file. I'd concealed it under a pile of sweaters in my closet, like a porno or something equally dirty, even though I knew Claire never ventured into my room. It felt too obvious leaving it anywhere else.

Propping the folder up on my knees, I flipped through the ancient pages. Some of the typewritten pages had coffee rings and fingerprints. I tried to imagine a doctor pulling them through his typewriter many years ago, scribbling out the misspelled words.

Quickly the contents of the file engrossed me. Eleanor was committed when she was seventeen. It was hard to associate this young girl with the grandma that I remembered. Most of it comprised of progress notes from her physician, a Dr. Wallace. His writing was difficult to make old, the old stereotype about doctor's handwriting being impossible to read.

She seems to be starting to crack open
, Dr Wallace had written.
Eleanor claims she began seeing spirits very suddenly. She kept it a secret from friends and family for as long as she could. It's only been in the last few months that she became unable to conceal her delusions. I asked her if she remembered a specific date when the visions started. She didn't hesitate to say her fifteenth birthday.

My blood frozen, nerves slithering a pattern down my neck. I'd had my first Jenna dream on my fifteenth birthday. I'd felt so off that day, like everything had changed color or shifted. And then I'd had the dream, of Jenna running to the orphanage, that had started this whole thing.

This knowledge both frightened and excited me. I had more in common with Eleanor than I thought. I wished she had been alive to talk to, instead of dusty, dead papers. Even as interesting as those dusty papers were, I knew I had questions they wouldn't be able to answer.

There were hundreds of pages crammed in the file, not organized very well, spanning several years. Since I was searching every detail, I combed each page for several minutes. The doctors at Bernhardt had diagnosed her as anxious, schizophrenic, and massively delusional.

Eleanor had a screaming fit today, and we had to bring in the straps. She's still refusing medication, and her daft-headed parents won't allow it without her say so. She said she keeps seeing images of a dark place in her mind.

I thought that would make me doubt my own sanity, after all, crazy ran in the family. But instead, it had the opposite effect. I believed her. It's just that no one else had.

That was the go-to excuse in the movies: the girl seeing the ghosts must be schizophrenic or delusional. No one ever believes when someone tells them they're seeing ghosts, because why would they? They want to go back to their white bread and clean sheets. Supernatural isn't safe.

But this was real. What I'd felt when I'd touched Jenna was real. And I was sure Eleanor's experiences had been real, too.

The hours on the clock ticked away steadily. I kept telling myself I'd get to sleep, and then I'd look and another forty minutes had passed.

We finally made an agreement to start Eleanor on a trial of medication. The electric therapy had made her weak, and had not had the positive turnout I've seen with other patients. She promised me that if the shocks didn't work, medication was next. I am just adjusting the dosages now, like beads on an abacus, and will report my results.

Another entry, dated two weeks later.
Eleanor's progress has been stunning. She says she no longer sees the spirit delusions, they no longer visit her in her dreams. At twenty, she finally has the disposition of a girl her age, and has even been talking about courtship and a secretarial job when she is released from the asylum.

She still has minor side effects of nausea and lack of appetite, but with careful adjustments to the dose, these should be eliminated.

There was a prescription stapled to the paper. It was for diazepam, which I already knew was a kind of benzodiazepene, like the one I had been on. Diazepam was Valium, the little helper of the 1950s, as I'd been taught in home economics, of all places.

The doctor reported that she had swift progress, and in the next six weeks she was ready to leave. She was released in the fall of 1967, never to return, apparently. A success.

So it was the medication that made me stop seeing everything. I just sat on the bed with my mouth open. It made a lot of sense. The timing was exact. I felt angry at Claire, as well, even though I knew none of this was her fault. She obviously knew about Eleanor's mental issues, why else would she hide the file?

No wonder she hated it every time I brought up anything paranormal. She thought her mom was a recovered nutcase. She didn't want me to be like her.

I woke up the next morning after only sleeping four hours, still full of questions I couldn't ask. I got dressed, wanting to be out of the pajamas I'd sweated in all night. Jenna walked into the room like nothing had happened the night before. I hadn't see her since I'd had the hallucination.

"There is nothing to do. Summer is overrated." She said, dropping on my bed.

"What?" I asked, stunned. She had been so upset earlier.

"There's only so much sitting around to do. And we can't drive yet, since my cheapskate parents won't buy me a car," Jenna said, "And..."

"Hold on. So you're okay now?" I pulled my t-shirt over my head and stared at her.

"Why wouldn't I be?" It seemed the reset button in her mind had pressed since her freak out.

"You were having a full blown panic attack when I got back yesterday," I said.

"I'm fine, Ariel. I was just having a bad moment. I'm okay now." Her smile wasn't convincing, and she avoided my eyes. "I appreciate you caring."

No matter how much I pushed, she wouldn't discuss what had frightened her. When I asked her about what she'd seen when I was gone, she was vague.

"You said there was fog..."

"Yeah, it was probably the weather," she said with a dismissive flick of her hand.

Who are you trying to fool?
I wanted to ask, but I kept my lips shut. I had enough of the circular conversation. I knew if I pushed it she would just shut down again.

CHAPTER 13

THE SUMMER CONTINUED
to boil. If ever Hell was an appropriate name for our town, it was now. The dumping rains dried off. The omnipresent decorations drooped, plastic skulls and spiders melting into grotesque, deformed blobs.

In the hazy air the bright splotches of flowers wilted. A witch on the tree of the house across the street tilted so that she was dive-bombing the ground. The air conditioner in our house went on the fritz, and the repairmen were not coming fast enough.

And in this evil weather, Hugh got the idea in his head that we just had to attend Hell Day. I had expected Claire to be the one insistent on going, but instead she was parked in front of the oscillating fan with her pantyhose hiked down to her knees.

"Why do you care?" Claire whined, like a child with a case of the gimmes.

"Yeah, seriously, Hugh," I said. "It's just some stupid festival. Unless you're itching for some processed meat on a skewer, I don't see why it matters."

I had spent the day on the sofa myself, my face firmly planted in a box fan, making Darth Vader noises as Jenna snickered at the TV. Hugh had been a spaz all morning, pacing the house like a caged animal.

"I don't like what they're doing with Hell," Hugh said bluntly. He'd already donned a Lions baseball cap, his pointy ears sticking out. With his knobby knees beneath the hem of his shorts, he looked like an overgrown kid. I thought he might pick up a surf board and start saying "Gnarly, dude."

"What, renovating old buildings so they don't get squatters? Making Hell look decent and respectable for a change, instead of a hick town?" Claire asked incredulously. She dabbed her forehead with a folded napkin.

"No, Claire," Hugh said, biting off his words. I was surprised by his acidic tone. "I don't like the control they have over us. Every week it's something else they've taken over. "

"You're just mad that they're infringing on your part of town," Claire said.

"It's not helping things, no. All that noise and hassle has been driving customers away from Erasmus. We've seen sales drop fifteen percent in the last month, and summer is usually the time for buying. I know you think I just tend a collection of pretty finger paintings, Claire, but this is my business."

I remembered Henry telling me about Thornhill buying up the ballroom and the orphanage, about how his mom was allowed to come and go as she pleased at the library. They were spreading their money around a lot, sure, but when they had so much, odds are they barely felt it.

The heat seemed to slow my parents into grumpy turtles. Though it seemed like they were winding up for one of their annual shout-matches, they defused quickly. Instead of fighting more, they just glared at each other, killing each other with looks.

"Then you go," Claire offered, slumping back against the chair and fanning herself with her hand, as if that would make a difference. She seemed to be on the verge of unraveling, a loose thread being tugged from a shirt.

"I want my family standing in support of me," Hugh huffed. He was normally so good-humored and laid back, a socks with sandals type of person, and it was both strange and unnerving to see him wound so tight. "It won't take long. You can sacrifice one afternoon."

"What are you going to do, storm the podium?" I was joking, but he didn't look like the idea would be entirely rejected.

"It won't take long," Hugh repeated. "We'll just go, have a listen to what they're saying and maybe toss in some counterpoints, and then we can have ice cream."

"You know I'm on a diet," Claire snapped.

"Frozen yogurt, then." Hugh was desperate, he snapped off his words again. "It's important to keep up with local politics. Or before you know it they're pulling the wool over our eyes and making massive changes."

Claire stood and grabbed her purse, not so much won over as she was tired of being nagged. I sucked in my automatic sigh and pushed myself away from the comfort of the couch. We all shuffled outside towards the car, wincing in the sunshine.

"I'm gonna hang back," Jenna said at the door, and stuck her tongue out at me when I shot her a withering glance.

The seats burned my thighs as I slid onto the leather. I tried to appreciate the drive with the air conditioning cooling the drops of perspiration wetting my hair. But the tension of my stone silent parents made it impossible. I felt like I was missing a silent undercurrent, something deeper they didn't want to discuss.

Hell Day was being held in the massive parking lot of Hawthorne. I'd hoped I wouldn't have a reason to come up to the school during summer break. As we pulled closer I realized I hadn't missed it at all. A little twinge in the pit of my stomach reminded me of the first day of school.

A banner stand stretched above the entrance to the parking lot, bunches of colorful balloons suspended around a plywood platform that had been built in front of the school's staircase. Two vendors with hot dog carts and cotton candy, already dealing with lines of sweaty, grumpy patrons, stood off to the side.

Rows of folding chairs had been set up in front of the platform stage, but those were already filled by early birds. The rest of the onlookers were standing. If I had to guess, I'd say everyone in Hell was there.

Sticky-faced children ran in front of us. Claire, having donned a floppy straw hat, glared at Hugh. "Where to now?"

"There's an empty spot over there," he said, gesturing. Our family as a unit shuffled over to the opening in the throng of people. I hate crowds, they made me nervous, and this was no different, especially considering how loud and wound up everyone was.

The brim of Claire's hat drooped over her face, hiding her expression. It took several agonizing minutes in the heat until anything happened. Then the Mayor came up on stage and introduced Thornhill.

"Thanks for coming out today!" This was met by thunderous applause, as if everyone was giving themselves a pat on the back.

"The Thornhill Society truly embodies what small town values are about," the Mayor said. With his ill-fitting hellcats t-shirt and jeans and slick, oiled-back hair that seemed to be melting, he'd made a ridiculous effort at looking casual. "People coming together for the good of their neighbors, trying to improve things from the bottom up."