Chapter 11

Blood on The Tongue

Crack!

My head snapped to the side under the force of the punch. Ear whistling fierce, I fell back onto the cold floor, rolling up into a ball instinctively.

Blood welled in my mouth, hot and thick as syrup. The singing pain in my skull made me, for a moment, fear that I had slipped into a vision again. But when I prised open my eye Cynthia was standing over me, damp with rain and shaking out her fist from the punch. Not a second had passed.

"Sweet jesus, you hit me?" I said, wiping at my mouth. It came away red.

"What do you taste?" Cynthia said.

"Why did you-"

"Blood. You taste blood. Right?" She said, earnest and wide eyed. I did- the tinny, rich, salty metallic taste of blood. Not ash, not the gritty, sour acid taste I would have expected, not like the food I had suffered through only hours before.

"Huh. I do." I said, surprised. "I can taste it."

"But sometimes, for no reason, you taste nothing but ash."

I nodded, stunned, not just from the punch but from the realization.

"Buffy said the same not two minutes, didn't you B-"

I turned, but Buffy was nowhere to be seen. Not beside me not across the room, but gone. She had completed vanished.

Lightning flashed white light cross the stark bed, revealing it was not only empty, but neatly made up. I frantically stroked my hands over it in disbelief. I had laid with her in it not a moment ago. She sheets where cold and crisp. Her dressing table bare; I couldn't see a scrap of the clothing that usually littered her floor.

"So." Cynthia sighed, resignation thick in her voice. "It's true. She ain't lyin'. Every damn word is true."

"You shouldn't have come." I snapped at the girl.

"Alice, I-"

"No! I don't want you seeing me like this." I said, slumping my butt onto the cruelly empty bed. Hot tears flowed a moment later. "Not like this. Oh Cynthia. Oh, god what you must think of me."

"It's okay. Alice, it's okay." She pulled me into an embrace, hushing me. "You should know, sis, I happen to think the world of you."

"I am so lost. Everything's jumbled. Up here. I am a mess. I am such a mess."

"I know." She chuckled, darkly. Her hand stroked over my short hair, smoothing it down. "And that's why I am here. Had hoped it wasn't, but, magic is a damn strange thing by its nature."

"Oh Cynthia. Cynthia, I'm not magic." I said, pulling her into a trembling hug "I'm not magic, I am just mad. Just mad." I whispered. "You can't be here. It's not safe."

"I know. He nearly got me, but I was too smart for him. Too fast. And you are magic, Mary Alice, but I wasn't talking about you." She pulled back a little so she could crouch down eye to eye. Her face was strange to me now, like It had been long forgotten and was only bleeding back into my mind now. And yet the face didn't quite fit right in my memory. It was a little too long, the freckles faded, the waxy child skin growing opaque with blooming womanhood, her blue eyes doe like but smaller in her face. Unmistakably Cynthia, but not the whining little sister I left behind. I ran my hand over her fuller cheek, feeling the solid reality of her.

"Pa was right, Cynthia. I am crazy. You are not safe with me."

"Shush now, and listen, I don't think we got much time." She said. "I wish I could change it for you Mary Alice, believe me, I thought I-" her head snapped up in a fashion that told me the nurse was coming. I tilted my head and heard the echo of hushed voices down the hall.

"They can't find me here. We need to go."

"Back out the window" I suggested, but she looked terrified by that idea.

"No way. He's out there, I just know it. Lurking out there, so we can't go back out."

"Pa?"

Cynthia shook her head, there was something like pity in her eyes. She bit at her full lower lip and swallowed.

"Who then?"

Cynthia pulled back my bed covers and nodded for me to get in. She then dropped down and slid herself under the bed just as a flashlight hit me. I winced, drawing my hand up for my face. I couldn't see past the piercing glow.

"Ms. Brandon, why are you up?" Came the matrons voice. She entered, coming up to the side of the bed.

"Bleeding." I said. "Must have bitten my tongue or something in my sleep see?" The matron grabbed my face, angling it in an indelicate manner.

"You been outside?" She said, staring into my mouth. I made the closest thing to a shake my head could manage in her grip. "Clarita said she saw someone through her window, not ten minutes ago, gave her the fright of her life."

"S'it mah tongue?"

"Lip. Just mop it, don't look bad. I can get you some ice."

"If you don't mind none." I said. "What she say they look like?"

"Black clothes. Pale skin. Dark hair."

I felt a chill go down my spine.

"Ain't got no black clothes here, I swear. But that sounds like the grounds keepers wife to me."

"That albino?" She said, raising a brow. "He doesn't have a wife. You seeing things again?"

"Maybe. I… the girl whose bed that is…Buffy..."

"You see her now?" She said, calmly.

"No." I said with a frustrated sigh. "Is… is there a Buffy Summers here? A patient?"

The matron looked at me, nodding evenly like a sine wave. She patted me firmly on the shoulder.

"Get back to bed ms. Brandon I will get your ice." I laid back on my bed, and she pulled the sheet up to my chin, tucking them around me like some unspoken binding. 'Don't move', her actions warned.

I lay still in the darkness of my room, which had taken on a sinister emptiness all of a sudden. Images of ghosts and monsters crept up on me. Of dark figures stalking the dark woods outside, of fingers clawing at the glass, of ghost girls who haunt my bedroom. Images of bloodied throats and long shadows.

The girl whispering from beneath my bed was real. Wasn't she?

"Listen sister. I cannot explain, but your memories are being used against you. A long, long time from now, you will be trapped somewhere and something is going to be using your own memories to trick you. Memories of now, of this present time. You still taste blood now, right?"

"Yes. Yes, I taste blood." I whispered.

"Your tongue is your key. The ash times, those are the illusionary times. When it has you. Those are lies."

"I don't understand."

"You don't have to. You just have to remember this moment, the things I say. Because when she tries to prize open your memories, she will open them to you… including this memory. It will come back."

"Cynthia, what are you yabberin' about? I don't understand."

"Alice, you were right about papa, and that devil woman he married. She murdered mama and got her claws in deep to him. I ran away, and a woman took me in. She taught me glorious things Alice… stuff like what you spoke of… of… of magic and of the future."

"Cynthia, you are talking nonsense."

"Thats her talking. It. Hush it up and listen. You are not the only gifted one in our family, dear sister. I am too. I just needed a guiding hand. Look, if she is right, and she has been so far, they are coming to catch me soon. And they will. Nothing can be done about it. You just gotta remember the taste of blood and of ash. Alice. Blood and ash. Truth and lies. Past and present."

Cynthias hand found mine in the dark. It felt creepily real. I looked at the empty bed across from me.

"Cynthia, I could never forget you."

"Shush. Ain't your fault. The horrors you are about to go through will break you. Your mind will build a wall and you will forget. A mercy. Is what it is. And I will be all bricked up behind it. Until the future. Or, I guess, until now. Again." She laughed at the thought. "Time is a strange beast."

There was a telephone ringing down the hall. A few minutes later, lights flickered on.

The hand squeeze felt strangely final. But perhaps it was just a reprieve, at the very least, I knew I got to say goodbye.

"I won't forget you, Alice."

"I won't…"

The hand was gone.

And when I looked, so was Cynthia.

"Here" said Nurse Cox, handing me the icepack. "And I got you some prune juice to wash out the blood some."

"Hey Cox, make mine a martini" Buffy chucked from her bed. "Extra olives, thanks." I glared across at her, half expecting her to vanish as I blinked. She remained.

"Well see now, I would, ms. Summers, and join you too, but didn't you hear?" The woman smiled wryly "The Eighteenth amendment passed. We are officially in prohibition."

"Spoil my fun." The girl sulked, slamming down her pillow over her head. Nurse Cox chuckled and left. Everything went back to moonlight and a silence peppered with distant thunder.

I settled back in myself, clutching the ice pack to my aching jaw, and tried to shake the confused images from my broken mind. I wanted the rains to break, to bring the cool air across my feverish skin. It felt like perhaps the cool air would somehow carry on it my sanity. I was so tired now, eroded, beaten down by conflicting imagery. I felt thin to snapping point. Haunted by horrors, holding on by the last dregs of my identity. I took the glass up in my hand and brought the cool liquid to my dry lips.

It tasted of ash.

"Alice? Are you having a turn?" The woman's voice said in that strange foreigner's accent of hers. I took in a deep breath and tried to get my bearings. When and where was I?

"I… uh… I think…"

"It's fine Mary Alice, you can be honest, you are safe here." She said, all warm and slow. Would it be crazy of me to say her her words were like the smell of baked bread? But… who was she again?

I was sitting upon a hard, heavy wooden chair so tall my slippered toes were barely touching the sickly yellow linoleum floor. Before me was a wooden desk, one I was unfamiliar with. It was heavy and seemingly ancient. Upon it, a steel fan had been placed to my left, next to an open window, it was angled towards my face, chopping at the midday heat. I could make out the sound of Cicadas chirruping through the whomping of the fan blades.

Crack. Shift. No map. No compass.

"Alice?"

I followed the voice to find a woman seated to my right, her swivel chair creaking something awful as she leaned back and angled her head to observe me. She was middle aged, perhaps, olive skinned with glossy black hair pulled back tight, dressed all smart and proper. A doctor, I guessed, but I don't remember a woman doctor ever seeing me.

She lowered her leather notebook and fountain pen upon her lap and smiled.

"It's okay Alice. You are safe.

Just get your bearings for a bit, and maybe when you are ready, perhaps tell me what you just experienced."

I realised I was staring at her, mouth flapping like a catfish. I took in a breath and tried to look away, but there was something in her manner that made that impossible. A kindness, perhaps, a gravity. She didn't seem bothered by my gaze, not like Nurse McGrath, she just sat patient as Job. Open. Waiting. Close. My eyes fell upon her slender fingers as they wound absently around her long string of pearls.

"I'm sorry-" a glance at the brass plaque on the desk a gave me "Doctor Mynegon".

"Nothing to be sorry about." She smiled softly.

"M'just a bit giddy s'all. Discombobulated some."

"That's quite alright. Can you tell me where you are."

"Mmmm. Jackson State Loon- uh hospital." I said, crossing my arms across my chest. I was wearing a slip and a faded robe. Had I been here long? Why didn't I remember her? Was I getting worse.

"Good." She said. "May I ask, did you have a vision again?" My eyes rose to her face but I didn't find a lick of sarcasm, nor mockery in her voice, something I found quite set me aback. "Care to describe it?"

"S'strange. My sister was here. Cynthia. Like, but she was older than I remember. Is she? Did… she visit?"

"I'm sorry, she has never to my knowledge visited." The doctor said. "Would you like her to?"

I wasn't sure. The feeling I had when I saw her was confused, shame, dread, fear… I should have been joyful to see her but…

"Where you close?" I nodded. She took down a note. "In this vision, what did she say?"

"Nothin. Hello. She just arrived. Through our window. Buffy saw her and…"

"Buffy?" She said, her eyebrow quirked.

"The girl who shares my room?"

"You talk about Buffy a great deal. Do you often dream about Buffy?" She said. I nodded. "Was this another erotic dream?"

I was back to playing catfish, this time my cheeks burning. I tried to turn my head away, but I may as well have been trying to steer a house.

"It's alright Alice. You have my confidence. Nobody is judging. I think you will feel a good deal better if you talk about this instead of bottling it up. Trust me. Nothing good comes from trapping your darkness."

"What… what do you want to hear?"

She shifted back, closing the notepad and putting the pen onto the desk.

"Your thoughts. Your feelings. Help me know how to help you. You know that's my goal? To help you? I want to see you free, happy, out there." She smiled again, a row of tiny perfect white teeth. She stabbed a slender finger towards the window. "Don't you want to get better? To be free?"

"Suppose, I… thought I was never getting out of here."

"Maybe you should focus on that." She said. "Nobody and nothing should be caged, Alice."

"Maybe some things have to be, for everyone else's sake."

The woman… Doctor Myhnegon's eyes flashed with anger, sneered and shook her head in such a manner that I felt for a moment she was going to lash out and strike my face. I must have been jumpy, for a moment later she seemed perfectly composed and open again.

"You are trapped in a world of unfair rules and crushing expectations that have brought you here. You are different to most You know this. You are the proverbial square peg in a round hole. That's why you are in here, Alice. Not because the world is better off with you locked away. Because it refuses to give you what you need."

"A square hole?" I quipped, then blushed again, and bit my lip in shame. Her eyes sparkled and a wry grin crossed her face.

"I am Chief of Medicine here. And a woman. And unmarried, I might add. I know a thing or two about being a square peg in a world of round holes" She said. "You know what I did?"

"Made a square hole?"

She smiled and folded her arms across her lap.

"Tell me about your vision of Buffy and your sister"

"I… it's fading." I said, then stammered "but I'm not lying. Just fading s'all. Before Cynthia came in through the window we were-"

Doctor Myhnegon sat calmly, openly. I felt it then, like a huge pressure building up inside, like a shook bottle of soda pop.

"Kissing. Is it okay we were kissing some?" I knotted my fingers together in my lap.

"How did you feel about that?"

"Ashamed." I said. "Confused. Elated, I guess."

"Did you fantasize about biting her again?" The doctor said. "Drinking her blood."

"Biting? What?" I stammered. "Drink… I... I would never, never think… I never hurt anyone. Is that what pa said? He say I hurt someone?"

"It's okay Alice. It's just dreams. It's all just dreams. You have shared your fantasies with me before."

"I have? I did?" I said, swallowing back the sour taste, feeling my stomach twisting all sickly like. Anger was rising in that stew pot too, I felt my teeth sharp against my lips. "I… why can't I remember?"

"Memories… dreams." The woman said, scratching her neck with a long fingernail, "Even the present reality… are all similar things internally speaking. What is a memory but a dream? What are dreams but something made of memories?"

"And visions?"

"You are lost Alice. Let's find a way out. Together. As we unlock this, your memories will become more reliable. You want that, don't you?"

"Of course." I said, "I told you that I dreamt of drinking blood?" The idea seemed familiar, vibrating true through my body, if not my mind. I shuddered at the idea. But not in fear. My cheeks burned hot.

"Many times. And, how you fantasize about being a vampire. Far from here, where the air is cold and crisp. With a beautiful, supportive family." She said, smiling. "In your fantasy, Buffy is a vampire as well, and that she loves you and shares eternity with you, and no one judges you. You are loved."

"I remember dreaming about something like that. I think." I sighed, and it felt like my hopes came out of my mouth on my breath. Cold tears were forming in my eyes. "I think, perhaps I dream about that a lot. What does it mean?"

"How do you feel about Ms. Summers?"

"She confuses me."

"Should we move her to another room?"

"No!" I gasped out before I could catch my tongue. "I… I mean… please, she keeps me… I… she makes me feel…"

"What?"

"Real." I said. The tears trailed cool streaks down my hot cheeks. I wanted to bathe in them, let the chill take away the burning in me. "Please. I want to feel real again."

The doctor closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, then she nodded, and reached out to place her hand on the desk before me. There was an oil cloth draped over it, which she drew back to reveal what appeared to be a disc of tarnished copper. It was over a foot wide, I would guess, and was made up of concentric circles, each ring etched with what seemed like a hundred symbols in some foreign tongue.

"What is it?"

"An exercise. A puzzle. Designed to let you focus your mind in the present."

"You want me to solve that?" I swallowed. "But, I can't even read it. There must be a million combinations."

"Two hundred and sixteen thousand combinations. And you get the order wrong it resets and the base pattern shifts. Solving it is not the point. It is the act of doing that frees your mind. Here, try it."

I placed my hand upon the outermost dial, instinctively knowing it wasn't where I should start. My fingers slid over the metal to a squiggly diamond shape on the third circle from the center. I felt the click in my mind before my hand slid it into place. The ring snapped down as I pressed with a small hiss and a satisfying click.

"See?" Doctor Myhnegon said, her smile broad and warm. "You're a natural."

I reached for the second symbol that sang to me.