Jackie Lantern

Author's Note: I wrote this story a couple years ago now, and while I'm very proud of the work done on it, since that time, my characters and timeline have evolved in such a way that this particular story no longer fits into it. I'm leaving it up because I think it's good, and because I'm still hugely grateful to Harlequinader for letting me write this and use her character, but in terms of my own timeline, I've written a different character for the Scarecrow to marry, one which I believe fits more with how he's developed over the course of my stories. Please continue to enjoy this story, however, but if you want the version of the Scarecrow's wife who fits in with the rest of my universe, please read the story "The Bride of the Scarecrow." Thank you! :-)

Prologue

"Ring around the roses, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down…"

Alice Valentina Crow stopped singing suddenly as the door banged open, knocking the ball which she had been throwing against the wall out of the way. "Alice, how many times have I told you not to play in the corridors?" snapped the doctor.

"Sorry, Dad," she muttered, slipping the ball back into her pocket, but not before her father saw it.

"Where did you get that?" he demanded, grabbing it out of her pocket. She shrugged. "I asked you a question, young lady!" he snapped.

"Someone gave it to me," she muttered.

"Who?" he demanded.

"Someone," she repeated.

He glared at her. "It was one of them, wasn't it?" he snapped, gesturing at the cells which lined the corridors. "One of those freaks? It's probably coated with poison or something – that would be just like one of the Joker's sick gags – give a toy to a child that kills her!"

"I'm not a child anymore, Dad," she muttered.

"You're not an adult until you are eighteen," he snapped. "You are thirteen years of age at present, so you are a child. You don't understand the world yet, Alice, you don't understand all the evil that people are capable of. Especially these people," he muttered, glaring at the cells.

"They are still people, Dad," she retorted.

"Only in the minds of some," he muttered. "Now come back with me to my office. It's not safe for you here."

He seized her arm and dragged her out of the cell block and into his office. "Can I have my ball back please?" she asked, holding out her hand.

"No," snapped her father, throwing it into the trash can. She glared at him and sat down opposite his desk, folding her arms across her chest. He began making some notes, and while he was distracted, she reached into the trash can and retrieved the ball. She began throwing it and catching it, humming the same song.

"It's about the plague, you know," she said, suddenly.

"What is?" snapped her father, looking up at her angrily.

"The nursery rhyme. Ring Around the Roses. They used to use roses to try and keep away the plague, because they thought the disease was carried by bad smells. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. It's about death."

Her father looked at her. "You're such a morbid child," he muttered, returning to his work.

"Anything I can take a look at?" she asked, nodding at the papers.

"You've looked at quite enough, thank you," snapped her father.

She gazed at him but said nothing. "Did you submit my theory about the Ventriloquist having multiple personality disorder to the other heads?"

"I did," he retorted.

"And?" she pressed.

"They will change his treatment," he finished.

She was silent. "I am good at it, Dad, aren't I?" she asked, softly. "I don't understand why you don't want me to train as…"

"Because they are dangerous people, Alice," he interrupted. "I don't want you to have anything to do with them."

"They're sick people, and maybe I can help them. I have good insights about…"

"Yes, you read a lot about mental illness in books, don't you?" interrupted her father. "And you think that means you understand these patients now? You don't, Alice. You don't have any idea what those freaks and monsters are capable of. I've seen them do things to doctors that would make your stomach turn."

"I doubt it. I've got a pretty strong stomach," she retorted.

"Oh, this isn't like a scary book or movie, Alice," he whispered. "This is real, true horror. Stuff that's been done to real people, by other real people. It's disgusting."

"I know, Dad. I've been sneaking pictures out of your case files since I was a kid. I know what these people are capable of."

"And yet you insist on talking to them, hanging around their cells, and wanting to train to dedicate your life to them. Why is that, Alice?"

She shrugged. "Maybe I understand them somehow."

"Maybe you do," her father agreed. "A little too well."

He stood up. "I want you to understand that this is for your own good, Alice. I have to stop this now, when you're young, before it can take hold and ruin your life forever."

"What's for my own good?" she asked.

He pressed a button on his desk and two guards entered the office. Something clicked in the girl's mind, and she turned to stare at her father in horror. "No. No, Dad, you can't do this to me! I'm your daughter! You can't do this! I haven't done anything, I'm not crazy, I…Dad! Daddy!"

He stared after her coldly as she was dragged away and back into the cell block. She screamed and fought as she was dragged down the corridor, under the watchful eyes of the patients – Two-Face, calmly flipping his coin, although his eyes were narrowed in anger as he watched her screaming. Poison Ivy, who stopped tending her plants to gaze in astonishment at her. And the Joker, who just sat there and smiled, laughing to himself, laughing at the scene of a child being thrown into a cell in a lunatic asylum for the criminally insane. She would remain there for two years.

One night, the despair suddenly seized hold, and she panicked. She had had several panic attacks over the last two years, where she had screamed and cried and beat the cell door, but nobody had heard. Or nobody had cared. And she felt the panic rush through her now, the fear, the terror, that she would never be free, that she would stay locked in here her whole life like the rest of the mad people. In a wild burst of desperation, she began banging on the cell door, screaming and panicking and crying. "I'm not crazy!" she shrieked. "I'm not, I'm not, I…"

"We're all mad here," said a voice from the neighboring cell. "Or so they would have us believe."

The voice was a comforting one – intelligent, cultured, soft and gentle. She stopped sobbing, wiping her eyes. "I'm not mad," she muttered. "I shouldn't be in here."

"Yes, I daresay they all believe that," continued the voice. "But it's no good telling the doctors that – they can't see it. The uneducated and stupid, blinded by their own ignorance. For what is madness, after all? No man can define it – he can merely say what it is not. When a man is mad, he is not sane. And when a man is sane, he is not mad. But you can't define the terms on their own. And if something can't be defined, how can a man be guilty of it? You see, madness and sanity can't exist without the other. They are dependent states of being. And so the line between them is almost impossible to distinguish and the terms themselves completely arbitrary. A man is mad when he is perceived as different to the norm. But the norm is an ever-changing, unfixed state. So how can a man ever be truly mad?"

She had stopped crying, and sat down next to the wall of the neighboring cell to listen to the strange voice. "I'm not a man," she whispered.

"Man, woman, all the same in terms of sanity, I'm afraid," continued the voice. "All the…"

He stopped speaking suddenly as he peered between the bars of his cell to see who his neighbor was. A look of astonishment passed across his face. "Good Lord. You're a child."

"I'm fifteen," she snapped angrily. "That's old enough to…"

She looked up suddenly and met his eyes. There was something fascinating in them, something warm and comforting, like his voice. He still stared at her with that same look of surprise.

"I've seen you before," he murmured. "You're one of the doctor's children. Whatever are you doing locked up in here?"

"You could ask Dr. Crow," she snapped. "I don't wanna call him my father anymore. What kinda heartless bastard locks up his own kid?!"

"I don't believe a young lady should know a word like that," he said, softly.

"Sorry, Scarface taught me it," she muttered. "He always tells me not to repeat stuff, and I always do."

She reached into her pocket and found the ball Scarface had given her, and began throwing it against the wall. "And I'm not a young lady," she continued. "My father wants me to be a lady, but I'm never gonna be anything my father wants. So I'll swear all I wanna, god dammit!"

She kept throwing and catching the ball angrily, and then took a deep breath. "Sorry, I'm not mad at you. I like what you said. Made a lot of sense to me, Mr…"

"Professor," he said. "Professor Crane."

"What are you in here for?"

He laughed. "I'm not a patient, Miss Crow. I've come from the university to help the patient in this cell with his claustrophobia. Phobias are a bit of a speciality of mine. Well, to be more precise, fears, rational or irrational, are my speciality. Claustrophobia is…"

"A fear of enclosed spaces," she interrupted. "I know."

"Um…yes," stammered Crane, surprised and impressed. "It's…rather unfortunate when one is locked up in an asylum, but then I suppose he would not be locked up in an asylum if he didn't have bizarre phobias. An unfortunate Catch-22 in his case. He's resting quite comfortably now, but I daresay your continued screaming may well wake him up."

"Sorry, I'll be quiet," she said, lowering her voice. "Do you have to stay here long?"

"I'm monitoring him through the night in case he wakes up," said Crane.

"Doesn't seem fair that you have to spend the night in a lunatic asylum when you're not insane," she said.

"Allow me to debunk you of the misconception that life is fair," said Crane. "It is by far one of the most painful truths one must realize."

She nodded, and then curled up on the bed, crying softly.

"You're crying," he murmured.

"I am not!" she snapped. "Kids cry! I'm not a kid!"

"You are, and you shouldn't be in here," he said.

"Shouldn't be but I am!" she shouted. "So unless you can think me a way outta here, why don't you just shut up and go away?"

He shrugged and prepared to leave the window. "No, Professor, I didn't mean it, I'm sorry…" she stammered, rushing over to him suddenly. "I'm just upset…I…"

He reached over to the bedside table and handed her a book through the bars. "Why don't you read this and try to distract yourself? It's not particularly wholesome for young ladies, but it's the only book I brought with me, and it's one of my favorite stories."

She took the book from him. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," she murmured. "I've been wanting to read this, but Dad won't…" She paused. "Dr. Crow doesn't believe young ladies should read morbid books. He's banned all kinds of horror stories and movies, but I've snuck in a few here and there. I just love them. Nothing like the thrill of fear."

"No," agreed Crane, smiling slightly. "No, there isn't."

She lay down on the bed, holding open the book with one hand and bouncing her ball with the other as she read. She lost control of it once and it bounced off the wall and flew between the bars into Crane's cell. She heard an annoyed sigh, and then his face re-appeared at the window, holding up the ball in disdain. "Is this yours?" he asked.

"Yeah…thanks," she said, taking it back. "Sorry. Um…what are you doing, now that I've stolen your book?" she asked.

"Writing," he retorted.

"A book?"

"A letter."

"Who to?"

"Dr. Leland."

"I like Dr. Leland. She's nice."

"Indeed she is. An eminently reasonable woman, who will surely see the insanity of confining a child in a lunatic asylum."

"You're writing about me?"

"Unless you know of another child confined in a lunatic asylum," he retorted.

She smiled. "Um…thanks. But wait a few more hours before you give the letter to her, huh? I wanna finish the book."

"You're nearly done?" he asked, surprised.

"It's not a very long story."

"Yes, but…for a child…"

"I told you, I'm not a child," she snapped.

"Do you…like it?" he asked.

"What's not to like?" she replied. "You got a haunted town, a headless horseman who throws flaming pumpkins…"

"Yes, I've always enjoyed the glamor in the idea of exploding pumpkins," agreed Crane.

"Plus they decompose, so there'd be little to no evidence at the crime scene," she said, nodding.

"Well, yes…quite," stammered Crane, impressed.

"And I really like this guy Ichabod Crane. He's a bit like you, isn't he, Professor Crane? Lanky, intelligent, interested in fear…"

"Yes, I used to wish that my parents had named me Ichabod," said Crane. "But then I doubt they had read the book. They were not what one might call educated people."

"Like my father then," she retorted.

"Hardly. They weren't monstrous enough to confine me to an asylum as a child."

"Well, if you listen to Dr. Crow, it's my own fault," she snapped. "He's doing this to break me outta my morbid tendencies before they dominate my life."

Crane smiled. "I don't know if this means anything, coming from a perfect stranger, but if I had a daughter like you, Miss Crow, I would be nothing but proud of her."

"It's Valentina," she said. "You can call me Valentina." She much preferred that to Alice. That was her father's name for her, and she was done with it.

"And you can call me Johnny," he said. "Or Ichabod, if you prefer."

"I prefer Johnny," she said. She smiled at him and then lost herself in the book.

Valentina awoke much later to the sound of the cell door creaking open. "Alice, there you are!" exclaimed Dr. Leland, rushing to embrace her. "The guards gave me a letter saying you were locked up in here, but I didn't believe it! Your father explained the situation – said you were raving, a danger to yourself and others, that there was no other choice at the time. But I told him he should have sent you to a hospital, not left you here among these people!"

"It's…fine, Dr. Leland," stammered Valentina. "Everyone here has been…very kind."

Dr. Leland hugged her tightly. "I'll do a few check-ups on you myself to make sure you're ok, but you won't ever be returning here. It's no place for a young lady like you."

"No, I guess not," agreed Valentina. Dr. Leland took her hand and led her out of the cell. "Oh…just a second," Valentina said, rushing back inside. She grabbed the book and her ball, which she threw into the neighboring cell as she passed. She heard Professor Crane growl irritably and beamed, slipping the book back in between the bars.

"See ya later, Johnny!" she called as Dr. Leland led her out of the cell block, shutting the door.

Professor Crane checked that his patient was still resting comfortably before he picked up the ball, tossing it into the corner of his cell in annoyance. He picked up the book and opened it, and was surprised to see a message written in a child's hand on the inside front cover.

Ichabod,

But I prefer Johnny. Thanks for the shiver. Exploding pumpkins are good – exploding Jack o'lanterns are better.

Love,

Valentina

Crane read the note in astonishment, and then smiled, shutting the book. "Remarkable child," he murmured. "Quite remarkable."