10
Mason limps towards Mirana as fast as he can, but he trips over himself and nearly ends up faceplanting. Mirana catches him just in time, holding him to her. He feels so frail in her arms, and all she wants to do is protect him, but they both know she's powerless against Dr. Bumby.
Dr. Bumby laughs, but there's a hidden rage behind it. "Now, now, Mason. Go back to your room." There's no mistaking that all too familiar growl beneath that didactic tone.
Mason burrows further into Mirana. "No."
Dr. Bumby reaches them in two strides and pries Mason out of Mirana's grasp. Mirana holds on as much as she can, but it's no use. She's too weak to keep him in her arms. Tears begin to well up again. She barely feels Alice pull her to her feet and can't bring herself to recoil.
"We should be going." Alice tells Dr. Bumby in that stuffy voice that makes her sound congested more than anything.
Dr. Bumby's eyes linger on Alice for a moment before flickering away, back to Mason struggling in his grasp. "Right. Goodbye, Mirana." His smile sends bile racing up Mirana's throat, but she stops it. He drags Mason away, kicking and screaming.
Alice leads Mirana out of the hospital, and as she steps out into fresh air for the first time in nearly two weeks, she knows she should feel relieved, ecstatic that she's free. Yet the image of Mason running towards her, clinging to her for protection she cannot give, makes her feel worthless.
As soon as they leave the gates of the asylum, Mirana slips from Alice's grasp and begins walking mechanically towards the car, wrapping her arms around herself. The dull ache resurfaces. Mirana won't let her touch her. Mirana hates her. She follows, feet feeling heavy as cinder blocks, and raps on the passenger side window. Tarrant shoots bolt upright with a start, having fallen asleep at the wheel, and hurriedly unlocks the doors. Alice climbs inside and buckles herself in.
"Mirana!" Tarrant cries. He reaches back to embrace her, but Mirana shrinks away just as before. She hasn't belted herself in either. Tarrant draws back, frowning. "I understand. But you're safe now. You're with us." Mirana says nothing, staring listlessly out the window. "Everyone misses you." Nothing. He tries again. "We can pick up some hair dye for you on the way back." She seems to brighten a little at this, but still no words pass from her lips. Tarrant twists back around and settles into the driver's seat. "Right, then. We'll stop at Selfridges."
They drive for a few minutes in uncomfortable silence. Alice fidgets in her seat, drumming her fingers on her knees and shifting every now and then. This goes on for a bit, until Mirana says:
"We have to go back for him."
The car jerks to a stop, flinging them all forward, but Tarrant manages to quickly recover and pull over to the side of the road.
Tarrant's knuckles are bone white. "Go… back?" he says through clenched teeth. "Go back?! Why?! For who?!"
"Mason." she says flatly.
"WHO'S MASON?!"
"Tarrant." Alice says, gripping his arm, trying to placate him. Tarrant breathes heavily through his nose, silently steaming. "He's a boy from the Asylum. When we were in the lobby, he ran up to Mirana and stayed until Bumby took him away."
His jaw still tightly locked, Tarrant manages to grind out, "We can't go back there. Not when we just got her away from that place." He yanks the gearshift into drive. "Sorry, Mirana. We can't risk it. Bumby knows my face."
"If you won't, I'll go back and get him myself."
"No!" Alice yelps.
"You don't control me, Alice!"
Tarrant lets his head fall against the horn, exasperated with both of them. Mirana claps her hands over her ears until Tarrant relents and sits up again.
Alice realizes what has to be done to begin to make up for everything she's caused Mirana. She doesn't like it, but if this will make her happy again, will bring her about to stability, then she must. "No, I don't." she says softly. "But you need to stay with Tarrant. I can't lose you again."
"But —!"
"Please." There's no masking the desperation in her voice, the need to keep Mirana as safe as she can. "I'll go back for him." Alice unlocks the passenger side. "Tarrant, take her back to the academy. I'll catch a bus back. Make sure Iracebeth doesn't see her. No one must know she's returning until we know what our next move is."
"Not you too." Tarrant groans. "I'm mad as a hat, but between you two I'm the only sane one."
"Tarrant, please." Alice says.
Tarrant sighs. "Alright, fine." He embraces her tightly, lingering a little. "Come back in one piece, okay?"
Alice grins. "No promises." Tarrant socks her arm a little too hard, making her wince. "Ow! Okay, I promise." She carefully steps out of the car, but Mirana's voice stops her.
"Alice?"
Alice looks back at Mirana, who stares down into her lap, playing with the hem of her tunic. "Yes?" she says, hoping with the dimmest hope that Mirana might have changed her mind, because going back into that nightmare house is truly madness.
"Thank you."
"No problem." Alice closes the passenger door behind her, and, after a final look back, begins to walk back to the asylum, dreading every step that carries her back to the place of her nightmares.
Because it is, indeed, a problem.
"Mr. Ratcliffe!" the receptionist cries, though she doesn't sound at all disappointed. "Back again so soon?"
Alice nods. "I need to see Mason as well."
"Oh, him?" the receptionist gives a dismissive gesture. "He's a hopeless case, don't bother with him. Says he's a pansexual, whatever that is. His problem's rooted deep."
"I'd still like to see him." Alice does her best to flash a charming smile. "Please."
The receptionist melts. "Well, alright."
She leads Alice down the hall, not as far as before, to Mason's room. She unlocks a series of locks, and the added security sends a sense of unease throughout Alice's body.
"Now, I don't know what you'll find in there." she says, unlocking the door for Alice. "He can be a bit unstable." She replaces the key onto a ring of similar ones Alice hadn't noticed before. "I know I can trust you, so I'll be up front."
"I'll be fine." Alice says, though whether she's reassuring the receptionist or herself, she can't be sure. Her hand closes on the handle, and she braces herself.
"I just don't understand, the girl clearly wasn't ready…"
Bumby! Alice darts into the room and slams the door shut, hoping the doctor didn't see her.
"Are you here to hurt me?" a small voice asks.
Mason. The boy appears to be curled up on the sorry excuse for a bed, hugging himself in an uncomfortable fetal position, but upon closer inspection Alice sees a chain clamped onto his ankle, the other end connected to one of the bed frame's rungs beneath the mattress. Alice's heart goes out to him, remembering being in a similar position once before but much younger than he is now. Back then, it was rope, not metal, that bound her to that terrible bed.
She leans over him and he whimpers, causing her to step back with her hands raised. "I'm here to get you out of here." she whispers, acutely aware of the camera watching them up above. She glances at the lock on the chain. "Do you know where the key is?"
"It's over there, on the floor. Dr. Bumby says it's to remind me that freedom is always near, if I earn it." He shudders, drawing further into himself. "Are you a friend of Mirana's?"
"Not important." Alice dodges the question. In truth, she has no idea anymore. All she can do is hope that this will set things right, if not repair their relationship completely. Relationship. She wants to laugh at herself for thinking that. If only. "We can't go out the front." she says quietly, retrieving the key from the floor and hoping the camera doesn't pick her up. Noticing his mottled skin and purpling blemishes, some more recent than others, she can't help her curiosity. "How long have you been here?" she asks.
"Three years." he says softly.
Alice curses under her breath, fitting the key into the lock and twisting to the left. The bolts within click open. Three years. "That must be awful." she says, not knowing what else to say. She slides the shackle off Mason's ankle.
"I'm glad to be free." He sits up and groans, rubbing at his ankle, which has a ring of purple around it. "Bless Mirana, and bless you." he says. "God sent me two angels at last." He smiles, but it's laced with the pain of a tortured soul.
Alice stops herself from laughing at him, but barely. "God?" she says, setting the key aside.
"Yes."
"After so long in this place, you still believe in God?"
"Yes."
Alice frowns. "Why?"
"Because He didn't let me die. I understand everything now." Mason slides off the bed and onto the balls of his feet, holding onto the mattress to steady himself. He looks up at her. "I know what Dr. Bumby does is wrong. I know that he believes that he is doing God's work. But I also know that even though there are some parts of you that God does not like, He will not stop loving you if you do not stop loving Him. That is why I can forgive Dr. Bumby." He lets go of the mattress. "But not now. Not until I'm far away from here."
As Alice walks Mason out of his prison, her mind wanders back to her very broken relationship with God. She'd always had mixed feelings about Him, and the clear conservative bias she'd lived with all her life certainly doesn't help.
Yet, for the first time, she feels that maybe, just maybe, God doesn't hate her as much as she thinks He does. After all, He had blessed her with Mirana's friendship, if not her love.
Maybe she'll ask for her rosary back from her mother when all this is over.
Ten minutes later she's riding the bus back with Mason to Underland Academy.
Mason had been afraid of even the slightest contact with Alice at first, but after nearly being caught by Bumby again he had clung to her instinctively.
Now he lies asleep with his head against her chest, arms hanging loosely around the neck of his "guardian angel". Alice is unsure of how to feel about the title, but if it makes him feel safer with her, then she'll let him call her that for as long as he wants.
They stop at a nearby charity shop. Alice needs him in normal clothes as soon as possible to lessen the stares they've been getting. She lets him pick out three outfits and he wears the first out — a blue long sleeved t-shirt with a smiling cartoon cloud in the center, jeans, a pair of white sneakers, and a black cap with some random rugby team's crest on the front. Mason's primary objective with the outfit is to cover himself completely, to snuggle himself in clothes that make him feel safe. While Mason had been changing, Alice had gone to the washroom and scrubbed the makeup off of her face. She's glad that her skin can finally breathe, but without the makeup she looks extremely butch. She's not quite sure how to feel about that. Mason's hospital gown, of course, had been shoved deep into the rubbish bin on the way out.
With his clothes covering the evidence of his time in the asylum, Mason looks almost normal. The only thing giving him away is his gaunt face, barely visible underneath the oversized ball cap.
Alice buys him a large order of fish and chips before they take their bus back to the school.
Mirana studies herself in the mirror. Her hair, freshly dyed and concealing her dark roots, is once again silky and smooth, loose waves cascading about her shoulders, some taken in to braid a crown around her head. The two showers she had taken hadn't been able to scrub away all the injuries she had received from Dr. Bumby, and so what she couldn't cover with her outfit — a floral white dress with long sleeves that barely brushes the floor when she walks — had been caked in ivory cream and powder several times over and then coated in setting spray. She looks like her old self again, and though it is comforting in a way, she also notices that her mask is even thicker, stronger than before, much like herself. She is ready to face Iracebeth when the time comes. She tightens the fresh gauze on her wrists, feeling a little better.
The door opens and Mirana flinches, but it's just Alice and Mason.
Mason.
They run towards each other at the same time, Mirana enveloping Mason in her arms. He's safe. He's safe! She realizes belatedly that she's crying, but she doesn't care, hugging him tightly, reassuring herself that he's still here.
"Alice is right." Mason mumbles happily into her shoulder. "You do look like a queen."
Mirana raises an eyebrow at Alice, who is now blushing furiously. Alice scuffs the floor with her shoe, staring intently at her laces. "I mean, you do." she says sheepishly. "You can't tell me you don't. Everyone else thinks so too."
Mirana giggles, and for the first time in a while, feels a rush of fondness for Alice as she had once before. And then it hits her. Alice brought Mason back to her. She releases Mason and smiles at him, gripping his shoulders, before moving over to Alice. She reaches out, hesitantly at first, before embracing her chastely. She steps back before Alice can return it, not ready for that yet.
"I'm still mad at you." she says firmly.
Mason frowns. "Why are you mad at her?"
"Because she's the one who got me into this mess." she says matter-of-factly.
Alice groans. "Not this again."
Mirana scowls. "Yes, this again!" Familiar rage pours through her as she remembers. "You know bloody well what you did!"
Alice sighs. "I'm sorry I told you how I feel, but honestly, that shouldn't have made you check yourself into an insane asylum."
"Hang on." Mason cuts in. "You checked yourself in?" he asks Mirana.
"Yes." Mirana folds her arms.
"Wouldn't that mean you would have had to return Alice's feelings, then?"
Now Mirana's face flushes, the heat burning her cheeks. "I —"
"What?" Alice yelps.
"It doesn't matter!" Mirana recovers. "It's wrong and I won't entertain it!"
Yet unbidden, memories resurface once again. Art class. Walking together down the grassy paths. Her lips captured in that searing kiss. And that recurring thought.
I wish she would kiss me again.
"It's not wrong." Mason says. "Mirana, look at me." Mirana glances over at him and sees him gazing at her earnestly. "Trust me, there's nothing wrong with you."
"But God —"
"Loves you. Do you really think that what Dr. Bumby was doing to you was God's work?"
The name sends bile racing up her throat, and she realizes that Mason is right. And then she realizes that Mason essentially just revealed her old feelings toward Alice to Alice. Old feelings that are now confusing and muddled. There's too much to sort through now to know for sure.
"This is a lot to take in." she says honestly. "I need to lie down and think for a while."
After getting Mason settled in with Bayard and Tarrant, Alice finally has a moment to lie down and relax. The events of the day had taken up most of her school day, and she really sees no point in going to class for the rest of the day.
Mirana is sitting at her desk, catching herself up on the homework she'd missed, smuggled in courtesy of Tarrant. They'd decided to keep Mirana's return a secret for a little longer and meet about everything tomorrow to give her the rest of the day to rest. She hasn't said a word to Alice ever since Mason left, and she doesn't look like she's going to any time soon. She stretches her legs out on her bed. The silence is slowly killing her.
They have to talk.
"Mirana?"
"Mmm?"
Alice stares idly at the ceiling, trying to find the right words to start. Then she gives up trying to choose the right words because there are none. "How do you feel about me now?"
Mirana sighs. "I still don't know, Alice." She turns in her chair, finally facing her. "You try hearing one thing all your life is wrong, and then suddenly it's okay, and you don't know whether to hate yourself for being so stupid or the people who lied to you in the first place."
Alice chuckles. "I'm sure everyone who's been to Dr. Bumby's has felt the same." There's another bit of silence. Then, Alice asks another terrifying question. "How did you feel when I kissed you?"
Mirana colours again, the rouge of her cheeks barely visible beneath all that powder she's got on. "Surprised, at first." she says. "But after all I wanted was for you to do it again." She tips her head down, eyes trained on her hands folded in her lap. "That's what made me check myself in."
Alice hardly dares to hope, but after everything she's been through today, she might as well try. "Do you think it would help you make sense of things if I kissed you now?" she asks tentatively.
Mirana hesitates, then gets up from her chair and sits at the foot of Alice's bed.
"You can try."
Alice sits up. Mirana hadn't told her everything that had happened to her in the asylum, but something in her tells her that she needs to be slow, gentle. A feeling of protectiveness curls around her heart for Mirana. This isn't a matter of wanting her anymore. This is love, and she hopes that Mirana's felt it too, and that she can bring that feeling back for her.
She cups her face in her hands, stroking her cheeks with her thumbs. She searches Mirana's eyes for any signs of fear or disgust and finds them strangely unreadable.
"Is this okay?" she asks, wanting Mirana to be very sure.
"Yes."
The word comes out a breathy whisper, but Alice hears it all the same. She leans in slowly, close enough to feel Mirana's breath against her lips, her sweet, vanilla bean scent making her feel a little dizzy so close, giving her all the time in the world for her to tell her to stop, to tell her no, until finally, finally, she closes the distance between them. She brushes her lips over Mirana's, a ghost of a kiss, just a taste of that tart, black cherry lipstick, then a little firmer. Her lips caress Mirana's soft, luscious petals, telling her every word she's afraid to say out loud as Mirana slowly begins to reciprocate, her delicate hands coming to rest on Alice's shoulders, sending a fire racing throughout her body.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Mirana pulls away first and Alice has to hold back a whimper at the loss of contact. She keeps her hands on her shoulders, leaning her forehead against hers. It takes all of Alice's self-control not to start kissing her again, not wanting to push Mirana's boundaries. She licks her lips out of habit, tasting that cherry lipstick once again. She needs to know.
"Well?" she asks breathlessly.
"I'm still not entirely sure." she says softly. "It didn't feel… wrong, though."
It's not much, but Alice will take it. Maybe this will be the beginning of something truly wondrous.