Chapter 35
She's going back to sleep again, they said. They need to stabilize her, they said. It's for her own protection, they said. Strap her down and stick more needles in her, let the fog come back and swallow her brain whole.
Deep deep down, she's almost happy.
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She's wandering again. Round and round and round she goes, where she'll stop, nobody knows.
Whoever said that was wrong. Calculating where she will end up is a simple process of gauging mental capacity, cognitive ability, and physical endurance. Then, using blueprints of the school and a chart of what medicines she is on they can plot the most likely course she will take in her journey and pinpoint the exact place she will drop with a margin of error of around five feet, depending on whether she was distracted or not.
We'll shop till we drop, her mother had told her in her first and only attempt for mother-daughter bonding. Now she supposes she will walk till she drops, though it doesn't rhyme. She wonders if it's supposed to. Either way, she is not entirely sure this is what her mother meant.
However, she could be wrong. She is wrong about many things these days.
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Whispers twine like poison through the school, passed and traded and shared through soft breaths in the passage of time between classes. Mouth to ear, ear to paper, paper to hand. Tear the paper into tiny shreds and repeat, murmuring quiet and low so no one can hear.
She follows the paths they leave in the air, trailing after stormy gray and crimson red. She can reach for them but they fall away, dissipating at her touch.
She is as insubstantial as they are, drifting through students like a ghost as she wanders along, always moving following seeking the whispers and the promise of sun.
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She is cold now, so cold, and her bones ache and her teeth chatter and her hair freezes and crumbles to tiny pieces at the lightest of touches. (She is a child taken by the Ice Queen with her frozen blue hands, though there are no splinters in her eyes because they are replaced by needles).
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River is dancing. She spins and twirls and leaps, following a music only she can hear. As she dances the sun comes out and she becomes warm and she is once again whole.
Twisting and turning and flying she whirls through the school, white feet on white tile, bringing life back to the dead kingdom.
They can't catch her, they can't catch her! She is fast and fluid, taking after her namesake. She slips through their hands and leads them on a wild goose chase, laughing and singing and dancing dancing dancing.
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River is dancing, but only in her mind. Her feet can't find the steps and her ears can't hear the music. They have stolen the joy, just as they have stolen the sun.
Winter returns to the land and she is buried under a pile of snow.
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She can't eat anymore.
She knows that she should eat, that food is a source of energy that humans need to live. But the fork goes into the food and comes out empty, refusing to allow particles to stick to it. Picks up an apple and puts it into her mouth, bite chew swallow. It comes back up later, a stream of acid falling from her lips.
The next time her walks take her to the cafeteria she focuses, shifting fog and forcing herself to turn and walk away. The effort exhausts her and she falls back into her mind, numb and empty and hollow.
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Tension, so much tension. Whispers and whispers and more whispers. Eyes dart around the room, meeting and falling away again.
The silence is taut, tense. It's too quiet, if that is possible.
River watches, drifting like a waif through the crowded hallways, always looking never touching. (you're not supposed to pet the animals)
She sees strings tangle around feet, sees touches and words and glances. Something's building, waiting to explode.
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Tick tick tick…..
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Two boys are fighting, screaming and yelling and breaking the silence that shrouds the school. Loud noise and a burst of light and they are at each other's throats, punching and kitting and kicking.
River watches with the rest of the children, hiding right inside the door of an empty room. In another school, they would all be crowding around and chanting.
Now they hang back, whispering and wondering and glancing around nervously. They want to fly, but they are afraid to leave the nest.
She knows they are right to be afraid. At this height with their wing span and muscle strength they will plummet to the ground and snap their wings.
But now two people are fighting and flying and trying not to fall. Children lean in with bated breath, watching their flight path.
Perhaps, if they succeed, they will follow, throwing themselves out of the nest. Mass exodus, they call it in the bible. Runlikehellandpraytheydon'tcatchup is what River calls it. She likes things simple.
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Crash or fly? Crash or fly?
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They crash.
Teachers come with hands of blue and pull them apart. Silver rod comes out and then there is blood.
The blood. It covers the walls and paints the floors and there is so much blood.
Red blood, red tears that come from the eyes, redredred.
An example they call it.
There are no words for what River calls it. She screams until she can't scream anymore, and she is not the only one.
She is, however, one of the only ones to scream only in her head. People who are asleep cannot scream, and as such they are smothered. At least there will be no blood. She hates red almost as much as she hates blue.
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She finds the window again, but it is covered with bars. She stretches one white, thin hand through, trying to reach the watery sunshine that is beyond.
There is nothing to find. Her fingers probe the air desperately, hoping and wishing and praying.
If wishes were cows, they would be prosperous cattle farmers. River would rather have sun than cows, would rather be warm than full.
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Fire. River dreams about it, wonders about it.
It would be better to burn than freeze, she would rather be over in a blaze of agony and warmth than to freeze to death at a place where there is no sun and blue hands and cold metal and needles drain the warmth out of everything.
She wonders if perhaps she can set herself on fire, but she would be caught. They are always watching, even when she can't see it. They would see on the security cameras and stop her.
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Security cameras. Volger. Escape. She remembers.
She passes him in the hallway and grabs his hand, clinging as tightly as she can before they continue on and she must relinquish her hold.
They will escape, and she will have sunlight again.
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More needles, always more.
They draw them out of her head and her arms and wake her back up.
Welcome back, they tell her.
It's been three weeks. She doesn't plan on being here for another one. She needs the sun.