Midnight Flight

  What did the doctor ask in that letter? What she should do with Mama's remains? How do you write such a question? Surely the doctor was thinking, we've got to get her out of here. She's one of our screwups. Come get her, sweep up this mess, remove it from our sight.

  Did Mama deserve it? Was she so wicked that she was being punished?

  Is that what was happening to all of us now? We were bad: we had all done illegal things, some of us worse than the others. Bath Mindy and Gia were nearly responsible for killing another human being. and Teal and Robin were thieves. Should anyone feel sorry for us? Should we be upset at the cruelty of the buddies? Was Dr. Foreman right? Could she cure us of evil, turn us into good people? Should we resist? Should I blame myself for surrendering completely?

  These questions circled in my brain like mayflies. The more I tried to swipe them away, the more they came. They were relentless. I had to stop working and hold on to something to keep myself from spinning and fainting. I caught my breath and started to brush down one of the horses; then I saw Cria in the doorway. She had a small garden spade in her hand. With the sunlight behind her. her face was in total darkness. She looked more like a ghost or a shadow coming to life as she slowly walked into the horse barn toward me.

  I stepped to my right and took hold of the handle of the shovel we used to clean out the horse stalls. I wasn't going to let her hurt me. She stopped about halfway,

  "You think you told her something about me that she didn't already know?" Gia began.

  She made me. She put me in the Ice Room and you know what she can do to you. You were the one who said you're not in the Ice Room. The Ice Room is in you. Now I know what you meant. That helmet thing... there were rats all over me and she knew how much I hated them."

  "She didn't have to do that to you to get information. She just wanted to break you. Phoebe. She already had Mindy tell her everything I said about Posy. Mindy denies it. but I know she did. She pretends to believe me, but she doesn't. Dr. Foreman has her thinking otherwise."

  "Is it true. Gia? Are you making up Posy?" "What do you think?"

  "I think you are," I said, my eyes on the hand that held that spade like a switchblade.

  She smiled coldly, her small mouth stretching and curling in the corners with disgust. "You're going to be a Foreman girl then, are you? You're going to stay here or come back here and become a buddy someday so you can torment and torture someone like you?"

  "No.-

  She crossed over to a bale of hay and sat, digging her spade into it.

  She told me what Mindy did with her baby," I said.

  "Did she?" Cria smiled and shook her head. "Dr. Foreman used the same technique on me. telling me what Posy had done. This was afterward, of course.-

  "After what?"

  "After the imaginary Posy disappeared, but that's what imaginary people do, don't they? They disappear."

  "What did she tell you Posy had done?" I asked.

  "Why do you want to know if you don't believe there ever was a Posy?"

  I didn't say anything and she looked at the horse behind her. "Posy liked the horses. too. She would have slept with them if they had let her. I told you Natani took a liking to her just as he has taken to you. He taught her many things, but the most valuable was how to escape."

  "Are you saying she escaped? I thought you believed she was put into the basement and might even still be there."

  "From time to time. Posy escaped, and maybe in the end. forever."

  "I don't understand. Gia."

  "Do you know anything about meditation?"

  "No. I mean, it's a religion or something, isn't it?"

  "It's not a religion, but it's part of some religions. It's part of what Natani believes."

  "What does that have to do with Posy?" "He taught her how to meditate, to leave this world and enter some spiritual place, and when she was there, no one could touch her, hurt her. It got so she would rather be there than here all the time, and it wasn't long after that when she disappeared." Gia looked like she was crying now. I thought I saw a tear glistening on her cheek.

  I stepped closer to her, "It doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know what any of that means."

  "Maybe you can get Natani to show you."

  "I want to believe you. Gia. I really do. and I don't want to hurt you I'm sorry I betrayed you in there."

  "You didn't betray me in there, but you are betraying me out here," she said, standing. She took her spade out of the hay.

  "What does that mean?"

  "You don't believe me. That's more important to me."

  "I said I want to believe you."

  "Do you?"

  "Yes,"

  "Okay, we'll set. I'll give you the chance to prove that." She started out.

  "When?" I called after her.

  She turned back. "Maybe tonight."

  "How?"

  "We'll get into the basement."

  "I thought you said the door had a lock on it. How can we get in?"

  "Leave it to me. We'll get in and then we'll see if Posy is there or if she was." she said, and walked out of the horse barn.

  Wind Song reached over the stall door and poked me in the back of my head.

  I looked at him.

  Was that meant to be a warning? Did he see something in Gia's actions?

  Was I as crazy as Gia? Now I believed what Natani had told me... horses and people could talk to each other.

  Meditation? Escape? What was she talking about? How was I supposed to understand any of this? More important, how had I fallen into this whirlpool of pain and confusion?

  Every time Gia saw me the remainder of the day, she looked at me weirdly. She said nothing else to me about the basement and Posy, so I thought it was just something that had flown in and cut of her mind as quickly as a humming-bird. However, just before we started to the house for dinner, she stepped up beside me and whispered. "Don't tell the others anything about this. It will just be you and me, understand?"

  I nodded, but it all made me nervous. The one thing I didn't want to do was get into any more trouble here. but I didn't want to anger Gia any more than I already had either. I was so anxious about it all that I didn't eat well, and sure enough, before the dinner ended. Dr. Foreman came into the dining room.

  "How are my girls doing tonight?" she asked, her eyes fixed mainly on me.

  We all muttered all right and thank you.

  "You should make sure you eat well. Phoebe. You have to keep up your strength for the challenges that lie ahead, and believe me." she said, looking at everyone now. "there are challenges. I would like to speak with you before you return to the barracks to do your homework. Phoebe. Come to the office when you're finished with your kitchen duties."

  I nodded and returned to eating, but the other girls. especially Gia, looked at me and then each other.

  "What's that about, I wonder?" Mindy asked.

  "I don't know," I said.

  "What I don't know is why she is so worried about you eating and you getting stranger," Teal said. She didn't watch over me like that after my

  horrendous episode."

  "Well, then," Mindy said. "maybe your episode wasn't as horrendous as you make it out to be."

  "What are you talking about? You were there when they brought me back. You saw."

  Mindy shrugged. "I know how to put it on. too."

  "Put it on? Listen to that. Phoebe, tell her what its like to be stung by one of those... things."

  I looked up. "It's painful, makes you nauseous. I think I even had a fever."

  "See?" Teal jumped on the end of my words.

  "That's Phoebe, not you." Mindy said, barely looking at her.

  "I wish it happens to you, that's all. Then we'll see how horrendous it is and isn't."

  "And I wish you get bitten by a rattlesnake in the bathroom in your you know what," Mindy countered,

  Teal flung a glob of her mashed potatoes at her, hitting her in the cheek,

 
"Bitch!" Mindy screamed. She was about to toss her glass of cranberry juice at her when M'Lady Three appeared in the doorway.

  "Problem?" she asked.

  "No," Mindy said quickly.

  "You're a bit of a messy eater, aren't you. Mindy? Why don't you do all the dishes, silverware, and clean off the table yourself tonight? Maybe that will make you neater. You have any problem with that?" she asked quickly.

  "No," Mindy said, shaking her head. Some of the mashed potato fell to her plate. She wiped her chin and looked away quickly.

  "Good. The rest of you, except for Phoebe bird, return to the barracks. Let's go."

  Teal. Robin. and Gia rose. Mindy lowered her head. but I could see the tips of her ears were so red, they looked like tiny candle flames. She didn't lift her head until they were gone.

  "She'll be sorry," she muttered. "Just wait and see."

  "Don't get into a fight again. Mindy. They're just hoping you will," I advised her. "And then you'll know what it's like in the Ice Room."

  She looked at me with surprise, not expecting anything nice or kind from anyone, I think, especially one of us.

  "Right." she said. "Thanks." She began to gather the dirty plates and bowls. I thought about helping her, but something told me Dr. Foreman watched us in this room. Maybe there really were microphones or secret cameras all over this place.

  "See you later," I said, and went out and down to Dr. Foreman's office, To my surprise she wasn't sitting behind her desk, but on the sofa instead. She was reading a magazine and looked up and smiled,

  "Hi. Come an in,"

  I did and she indicated I should sit on the sofa.

  "I can't believe some of the fashions young people your age are wearing these days. Look at this, for example." She turned the magazine to show me an actress wearing what looked like nothing more than two large Band-Aids over her breasts and a flimsy skirt. She had what resembled a dog collar around her neck. "And she's about to enter some award show. Would you wear that?"

  I shook my head.

  "I didn't think so. Mindy might. She probably wore things like this. She was a classic

  nymphomaniac, you know. You know what that is, of course."

  "A nympho? Someone who has a lot of sex,"

  "Yes. Only she had those tendencies ever since junior high school, even sixth grade. To me a girl who is so wild and loose with her body has no respect for herself. I know your mother was very loose. right?"

  I nodded. What could I do, deny it? She obviously knew a lot about all of us. and I did write about some of Mama's sexual escapades when I wrote my autobiography for Dr. Foreman.

  "I'm impressed that you don't have those tendencies. Phoebe, but you did get yourself into trouble because of sex in your new school, didn't you?"

  "I guess so." I had met a boy in the nurse's office as he had preplanned and the nurse caught us. It wasn't something I had done often before. In fact. I had never done anything that serious in school. I wanted to explain it, of course, describe how I had been desperate and angry and didn't care. However, she didn't need my explanation.

  "You were most likely getting at your aunt. You wanted to embarrass her and your uncle, didn't you? You didn't want to be there and you were hoping you would be sent home, back to Atlanta, where you could be with your father. right?"

  "Yes."

  ''Only he wasn't home very much. You would have ended up even worse than you did. Phoebe. In a way you were lucky to get into so much trouble so quickly and be sent here. I can't imagine what would have become of you had you not been picked up at the clinic. Strike that. I can imagine. I've seen girls who had to live in the streets. It's not a pretty sight, and their life expectancy isn't any better than the life expectancy of young women in some third world countries.

  "Sometimes"-- she sighed and looked toward the window, which had the curtains drawn open for a change--'I feel as if I have been chosen for my work, given all this responsibility by a higher power." She looked pensive for a moment, then shook her head and smiled. "Here." She handed me the magazine. "Im sure you're interested in all this nonsense anyway."

  I looked at the magazine. I did want it, but if I took that and brought it back to the barracks. I would have some explaining to do.

  On the other hand. I saw that if I didn't take it, she would be angry, suspicious. and I was more afraid of that than anything.

  "Thank you," I said.

  "You're welcome. Phoebe. So, tell me, how did Gia treat you today?" she asked, holding her soft, friendly smile.

  There was little question in my mind that she already knew.

  "She was angry because I told you what she had said about Posy."

  "Her Posy," Dr. Foreman muttered. "Yes. You told her you had no choice, of course."

  I nodded.

  "You're free to tell the other girls about it. If Gia sees no one believes her, it will help. Should Gia get violent or physical. I want to know immediately, understand?"

  "Yes. Dr. Foreman."

  "Good, How did she defend herself? Did she tell you anything else about her Posy? Claim she did anything?"

  "She said she worked on the horses like I am." The more I told her that was true, the less I might have to tell her what I feared to tell her. I hoped.

  "Yes, well, of course it was Gia who worked on the horses. You believe that, don't you?" she said quickly.

  "Yes, I do."

  "Good. As I mentioned before. Mindy troubles me more and more these days." she suddenly said, changing the subject. "She's really regressing."

  "Regressing?"

  "She's becoming more and more like she was when she first arrived here. She's too aloof. too distant most of the time. I think she's actually getting worse in some ways. I'm getting bad vibes these last few days. I want you to keep an eye on her, too, for me. Keep track of what she says, does, whenever you're around her."

  "Everything she says?"

  "You'll know what I want, Enjoy the magazine, but be sure to get your homework done first, understand?"

  "Yes, Dr. Foreman."

  "And no one else is permitted to read it, not even over your shoulder."

  "But..."

  "I don't want to hear that they have," she added, her eyes full of threat.

  I nodded.

  "You're excused."

  I rose and started for the door. "Phoebe."

  "Yes. Dr. Foreman?"

  "I think you could look a lot prettier than that so-called actress, even in those ridiculous clothes. I can see you in a modeling career someday. Would you like that?"

  I nodded.

  "Good. I'll see what I can do about finding you a good modeling school when the time comes."

  Every time she offered to do something good for me or said something nice to me. I felt worse.

  Why was that?

  Why should I care about anyone else anymore? She was right after all. They would all forget me and have nothing to do with me once we all left this place, especially if I returned to my neighborhood in Atlanta or someplace like it. I was tempted to reveal the rest of it, describe exactly what Gia was planning to do tonight.

  "Was there something else you wanted to tell me, Phoebe?"

  Did she know already? Was she expecting me to tell? Was this another test and was I failing it?

  What kept me from telling her, I do not know, but I couldn't do it.

  "Yes." I said. "Thank you."

  She smiled. "You're welcome. Phoebe. Most welcome," she said, nodding slowly.

  I turned and left the house.

  On the way back to the barracks. I was tempted to throw away the magazine. but I worried that she might ask me to return it. I know I was becoming what Gia called paranoid. too. I couldn't help looking around, searching for hidden cameras, microphones, or perhaps one of the buddies watching me from a hidden place.

  Robin. Teal. and Gia looked up when I entered. They were already working on math problems. I noticed Mindy was still not back.

  "Where did y
ou get that?" Teal asked quickly, eyeing the magazine.

  There was no point in lying about it. ''Dr. Foreman gave it to me, but she warned me not to let anyone else look at it."

  Teal immediately recoiled, pulling her head down and her arms back. "Oh, we can't look at it. Only the special Phoebe can look at it. Big deal. Who cares about some stupid magazine anyway?" She returned to her homework.

  Robin stared at me with an expression of disappointment. "I didn't ask for it. She gave it to me."

  "Of course she did," Gia said. "She did the same thing with Mindy soon after I arrived. Its another one of her little ways to set us against each other and depend on her."

  I wanted to warn her not to say so many terrible things about Dr. Foreman aloud. Surely a hidden microphone or two were in the barracks, but if I warned her. Dr. Foreman could hear the warning as well.

  I said nothing and they returned to the homework. Gia asked me to join them and helped me with my assignments. I put the magazine under my cot and got my books and notebook. After a while, we all wondered what was keeping Mindy. Even alone, she should have finished by now, we thought. Of course we had no way to tell how much time actually went by since none of us had a watch and there were no clocks, but Robin estimated it was nearly a good two hours.

  MLady Two appeared in the doorway and told us to prepare for bed.

  "Where's Mindy?" Teal asked.

  "It's none of your business where Mindy is. Your business is where you are."

  I thought Teal was going to say something else, but she looked at me and then turned to her cot. Before we were all actually ready to go to bed. M'Lady Two shut off the lights,

  "My business," Teal muttered. "My business is getting out of here."

  No one said anything more. The air felt so heavy, even the starlight streaming through the windows looked droopy. I closed my eyes and hoped I would fall asleep quickly. but I didn't. I saw from the way Teal was lying that she had. and Robin had turned her back to me and looked very still as well.