Chapter 7: The Asylum
Andi's eyes fluttered open.
There was no disorientation this time. The absence of sound and others' emotions in her head had reminded her of the events of the night before vividly.
She turned her head, checked her bedside clock. Almost eleven-thirty. She'd never woken up this late before. No, correction; she'd never been allowed to wake up this late before. She started to roll over when she felt an unfamiliar pressure against her side. She looked down.
Nestled against her side was a small stuffed bear, its brown fur worn from what looked like years of handling. Andi picked it up, staring at it in disbelief. She'd never had a stuffed animal before; her mother said they were childish, silly things. Maybe that was why she'd always wanted one. A toy she could have, hold, love, cherish, talk to, cry on, scream at, and throw when she needed release…but she'd never been allowed to have one.
She sat up in bed, looking at the button eyes and soft fur. Maybe it was her imagination, but the bear actually did seem to be looking at her, and she could almost feel the blanket of warmth and comfort emanating from the relic. She was just about to wonder where he had come from when she saw the single long silver strand caught under the button.
Miss Munroe. Andi studied the bear. It was well-loved, obviously, judging by the neat stitches down its back where the seam had been taken out and replaced. She hugged the bear once, again, before setting him down against her pillow and sliding out of bed. She stood gingerly, resting her feet against the floor, and testing her ankle. It seemed to be okay.
She pulled on a fresh pair of black pants and another one of those awful white shirts, and surveyed her reflection in the mirror. On a sudden impulse, she yanked the elastic holding her hair in a tight braid out and let her brown hair fall in waves down her back. It wasn't as pretty as Miss Munroe's hair, but the feel of her hair loose felt wonderful. She slipped the elastic around her wrist and stepped into her loafers, then closed her room door and went downstairs to the kitchen.
To her surprise, Ororo was in the kitchen making what looked like breakfast. She looked up as Andi walked in, and smiled at the girl. "Did you sleep well?" If she was surprised by Andi's loose hair she didn't show it.
"Never better." Andi stretched, arms above her head, smiling. "It was wonderful, being able to sleep comfortably. It's been a long time." She looked around the kitchen. "Where is everyone else?"
"Doing various things." Ororo took a couple pieces of toast from the toaster and said, "I know you must be hungry, but after your upset stomach last night I believe it would be wiser if you ate a light breakfast. Would you prefer cereal, or oatmeal?"
"Cereal, please," Andi made a face. "Oatmeal is all I get at home. Oatmeal and bran flakes."
Ororo smiled to herself. "Cereal is in the cupboard over there." She pointed to a cabinet above the microwave. "Feel free to pick anything you want. Here." She passed Andi a bowl, which Andi took gratefully.
Ororo watched as the girl studied the contents of the cabinet carefully. Her hand hovered over the corn flakes for a moment, irresolute, and then grabbed for the sugary cereal Bobby had bought the other day. Ororo concealed her smile and returned to the toaster, which had obediently popped two more slices out of its slots. She smeared it with a generous amount of strawberry jam, then sat down at the table with her own plate. She pushed the extra toast across the table to a surprised Andi. "Go ahead, Andi," she said. "You look like you could use it."
Andi smiled, applied herself to her toast and cereal for a while, and it wasn't until she was reaching for the box of cereal for a second helping that she broke the silence. "Thank you for the bear," she said. "I've never had one before."
Ororo smiled at her. "His name is Ali," she said. "Take care of him, and he'll take care of you. He was with me through all the difficult times of my life; he'll help you with yours."
Andi's eyes widened. "Are you sure you want to give him to me?" she said. "I mean, he's yours, and you obviously love him very much—are you sure?"
"Quite," And Ororo launched into Ali's story as Andi ate mechanically and listened to her. When she finished, Andi sighed.
"I'll take care of him, I promise," she said.
Silence reigned as Ororo finished her breakfast and took the dishes in the sink. Andi joined her, rolling up the sleeves of her shirt and attacking the dishes with the soapy sponge. When she was done, Ororo handed her a towel to dry her hands and said, "Charles is still asleep. I thought that perhaps you would agree to accompany me to the mall so we could purchase you some clothes."
"Sure." Andi suddenly hesitated. "Ororo? How does the shield thing he gave me work?"
Ororo frowned. "I am not a telepath, child. I do not know." She suddenly realized what Andi was really asking, and she smiled. "If you are wondering if the shield will hold other thoughts out while we shop, the answer is yes. Charles is an extremely powerful telepath, and the shield will not come down unless he wills it."
Andi looked uncertain, but nodded anyway.
* * *
Ororo was really beginning to hate that uncertain look in her eyes. And she wanted to do something extremely painful to Andi's parents, who had kept their daughter so isolated that even such a simple thing as choosing her own clothes was difficult. Andi looked at the clothes in all the shops that catered to the children her age and kept saying, "My mother wouldn't like that" and "Father would hate that".
Ororo finally stopped Andi outside yet another store and said firmly, "Andi, you are going to wear the clothing, not your mother or father. They will never see them. You can leave them at the school when you go home for the holidays. You need not worry about what your parents are going to say about your taste in clothes."
Andi grew less tense after that, and soon she was heading for the dressing rooms of the department store with an armful of clothing items. She tried on everything, walking out wearing some of the items to get Ororo's opinion of the clothing. Ororo was amused by some of her choices, but was overall fairly pleased with Andi. The girl had taste.
They were walking past a rack of bathing suits when Ororo stopped. "Andi," she said. "Why don't you get one of these? Then you can come swimming with us in the pool."
Andi shook her head, but Ororo made it clear she wasn't going to take no for an answer. Andi finally reached out and took two off the rack at random, walked into the fitting room, and closed the door. Several minutes later she came out wearing the first suit so Ororo could see it.
Ororo studied the suit. The green color went well with Andi's brown hair and eyes, but the girl's excessive thinness made the high-backed suit pull too tightly in all the wrong places, and sag in others. Andi looked at herself in the mirror, grimaced at her reflection, and said, "I don't look good in bathing suits, Miss Munroe." She turned to go back into the fitting room.
Ororo stopped her when something caught her eye. "Andi, wait. What's that on your hip?" The girl suddenly grabbed the edge of the suit where it was riding up on her hipbones, and tried to run for the fitting room. Ororo followed her in.
She tugged on Andi's hand, pressed over her exposed right hipbone. Andi tried to prevent her, but she wasn't strong enough to resist Ororo's touch, and the older woman tugged the leg opening of the suit up a bit to see the mark that had caught her eye.
Ororo swallowed hard. On the white skin, against the protruding bone, was a scar, old but still visible as a circular patch of shiny pink skin. She stared at it for a moment, then looked up at Andi. The girl was looking up at the ceiling of the fitting room, trying hard not to cry. She wrapped her arms around the stiff body, and Andi suddenly collapsed against her, crying bitterly. "Ssshhh. Ssshhh, it's all right, child. It's all right."
Andi pushed herself away from Ororo finally and sighed, her hands going to the hook fastening at the back of the suit's high neck. As she pulled it down, Ororo held her breath. Andi held still as Ororo's fingers traced the circular scars on her shoulder blades, the two lines down either side of her spine, and the rectangular patches over her kidneys on her lower back. "Andi, what happened?"
"Dr. Hebron." Andi yanked the suit off, put it back on its hanger, and turned to get her clothes off the bench. Ororo saw the same marks on her stomach under her ribs, and on the other hipbone. The sight of them made her ill, and she wondered if there were any other scars hidden under the girl's white cotton briefs and exercise bra. She patted the girl's back awkwardly, and left as Andi pulled her clothes back on. Suddenly she didn't feel like shopping anymore; she wanted to take Andi home and have Charles and Jean help her exorcise the rest of the demons in her past.
* * *
Xavier was waiting for them when they got back. Ororo sent Andi on ahead to his office while she dropped their purchases in her own room, and then made a quick stop in Andi's room to pick Ali up. When she got back to the living room, Jean was there.
Ororo handed Ali to Andi, who clutched the teddy bear to her chest. "Andi," she said gently, "Please show Charles the scars. You don't have to remove your clothing; just pull the back of your shirt up a bit."
Charles looked visibly upset as he saw the two circular scars on Andi's kidneys, and Jean looked like she was going to be sick. "Andi, what happened?" Charles asked as Andi sat back down on the couch. Ororo sat beside her, holding her as she began to talk.
"I don't remember how I got to the facility. I have a vague memory of Dr. Hebron sticking a needle in my arm as Mr. Gordon and Mrs. Ferrette dragged me out of the closet. When I woke up I was at the facility, lying on a bed frame and held down by straps buckled around my wrists and ankles. There were a lot of people there; and a lot of them really were mentally ill. It was like being trapped in a room full of TV's, all of them on at full volume, and all of them changing channels faster than I could pin them down. I was screaming after ten minutes were out. I wanted to go home. I thought home was bad…but the asylum was worse. Dr. Hebron kept trying to talk to me, but I couldn't concentrate on what he was saying because of the emotions.
"He tried and tried, but I couldn't say a single word. He finally got disgusted with me, I think, and he had two people, orderlies, he called them, take me off the bed. They took me down a flight of stairs. I don't know how far down below the asylum they took me, but it was just enough to clear a tiny bit of the noise out of my head. They put me in a tiny room, not much bigger than the closet at home. It had cement walls and floor and a hole in the corner for me to go to the bathroom, and Dr. Hebron told me before he left that maybe several days in an isolation chamber would make me realize that my 'playacting' wasn't going to work with him.
"They shoved a plate of some kind of thick stew and a cup pf water inside once a day. I didn't notice the first couple days; the noise was overwhelming. I spent most of the time screaming, clawing at my head, pulling on my hair, trying to do something, anything, to get the feelings to stop. The third day, I started to sing. I sang as loud as I could, trying to drown out the mental noise overwhelming me. After a while, I found out if I concentrated hard enough, I could use the music as a barrier between my mind and everyone else's. I imagined the music notes piling on top of each other, thicker and thicker, until everything else got blocked out and I was alone in my mind.
"It worked. I had to concentrate really, really hard, but it worked. I thought it was a shield, like I'd read about. I started taking an interest in everything again, ate for the first time in a week, drank, and then tried to clean myself up.
"Dr. Hebron had me brought back up a day later. The noise was worse up there; I had to physically sing. I couldn't just imagine the music in my head like I could down there. So I talked to Dr. Hebron through my singing, making up phrases while I sang. He was puzzled at first, but he finally understood.
"He told me I was an empath, that I had a mutation that would allow me to 'hear' others' emotions. And he told me that he needed someone like me to help him with the research he was doing with his patients, because they couldn't talk, most of them. Not coherently, anyway. He needed someone who could tell him what the emotional reactions were to what he said and did. But in order for me to help him I had to learn to shield out other emotions so I could focus on one given individual.
"He said if I shielded using music that was okay; but I had to learn to do it completely and at will. And he set out to make it so I could do that. I was strapped down to the bed upstairs, right beside a violent mentally ill man whose emotions seemed the worst. I had to learn to shield, and shield tightly and completely, or he would drive me mad. I spent days and days lying there, screaming and singing, and finally he said I had to be quiet. After that I was gagged so I couldn't make a sound. The music in my mind was all I had, and I tried. I really, really tried…" Andi's voice broke a little. She took a few deep breaths, calmed herself, and went on. "I don't know how long I was there before I could block out that man's emotions, but one day I realized that I couldn't feel them anymore. I thought I had done it, I thought maybe he would be pleased enough now to do what he wanted to do and let me go home. He had promised that if I helped him for a while then he'd let me go home.
"But he said just learning to block it wasn't enough. I had to be able to shield no matter what. So he took the electroshock machine he used on his patients and hooked me up to it. He put electrodes on all the places of my body that would hurt the most; two thin wires taped on either side of my spine, electrodes over my kidneys, on the muscles of my shoulders, on my diaphragm, on my…breasts…and on my hips. And he started to shock me. It hurt terribly; I screamed, lost concentration, and all those emotions I had worked so hard to block out came rushing in again.
"He did it over and over and over. When he saw that the electricity had burned my skin, he unhooked me from the machine and sent me back downstairs to the cement room. I stayed down there two days, recovering, then he had me brought back up and he did it again. I don't know how long it was before I finally was able to concentrate enough to ignore the agony and do what he wanted me to do.
"For a year he had me at the asylum, locking me in the room downstairs at night and bringing me upstairs by day so I could tell him what his patients were feeling. He was trying electroshock on the patients, at different voltages, to try to make them respond. They felt the pain; but they couldn't voice it. I screamed for them; I begged him for them. I was their voice because they couldn't speak. One man; I think his name was Greg; Dr. Hebron called him patient 326. He knew what was happening. He was aware. And he couldn't do anything. When I screamed because Dr. Hebron was electrocuting him, he would look at me, and there was so much sadness in his eyes.
"I couldn't eat the hard bread they fed me half the time because my throat hurt so much from screaming. Greg knew. One afternoon as we were waiting in the lab for Dr. Hebron (he was in his wheelchair with the seatbelt in place; I was lying on the bed frame, my ankles strapped down. He reached over, unbuckled one of my wrists, and thrust a chunk of the softer white bread they fed the inmates of the asylum into my hand. I ate it, and thanked him. After that he started to save whatever he could sneak off his tray and give it to me. I think if it wasn't for him I would have died of hunger; Dr. Hebron didn't care about anything except for the results he was getting.
"But then he was cycled out of the asylum as part of a doctor exchange program, and the new doctor who came in talked to me and realized I wasn't mentally ill. So I was sent home.
"Mother and Father weren't pleased that I was home. They said they wished that I had been kept at the asylum, and that they were going to try to find where Dr. Hebron had gone, so that they could get him to readmit me to the asylum and get me out of their way." Andi swallowed. "I was terrified. I kept waiting for the phone call that would mean Dr. Hebron wanted me back, but as the months went by and he never called, I started to relax.
"Then one night I heard Mother talking. They had found Dr. Hebron, but he was in the process of getting his license revoked so he couldn't practice anymore. Father said he was going to try to find a way around it, but he said in the meantime I should go off to school. The tutors they had hired were expensive, much more so than a boarding school would be, and he said until they got the stuff with Dr. Hebron sorted out I would be better off in school. They looked around, chose one at random, and enrolled me here. Mother told me that if I'm not good here she'll send me back to the asylum. I was terrified; I promised her I would follow every rule, do all the studying she wanted me to do, and be the perfect girl.
"I have every intention of keeping that promise…at least until I'm eighteen. When my birthday comes around I'm going to take the money I've managed to save and go far away, get a job somewhere and get so lost my parents will never find me again. They won't care, anyway." She sat back against the back of the couch, sighing.