I sighed and felt sorry for these people who were locked in here behind thick bars on the windows and heavy security guarding the exits. I realized that this wasn’t a normal mental institution, if you could ever use the term “normal” about such an institution. This was a place that they were never meant to leave once they were put in here. This was a prison for mentally ill criminals, for those who were sentenced to a life in treatment. Those who were too dangerous to have running around in the streets. It was a high-security psychiatric hospital something I—when I was a kid—would have called a lunatic asylum.
So I realized that my human had to be dangerous in some way, and I had to admit that it made this assignment a little harder on me. Maybe she had done something awful. But then again, I thought to myself, they wouldn’t let her go to the Academy, would they? Would they let her into Heaven? As I made myself invisible to the human eye and flew across the corridors, I agreed with myself that she might have been wrongfully convicted, and that was why she chose to take her own life.
I found her in an activity room. A couch and a few chairs filled it along with some small tables, some with games on them, like chess or checkers. Plastic plants in unbreakable plastic containers were in the window sills. All windows had bars and big locks. I recognized her pink bathrobe from the picture in the book. It hung on her skinny body like a dress on a hanger in the closet. Nothing underneath filled it out. Her skin was porcelain pale like she hadn’t seen the sun in years, which I guessed she probably hadn’t. She wore no makeup but somehow she still managed to be beautiful. The years had been hard on her; I could see that clearly on her face. Wrinkles almost like a withered walnut, deep lines that looked like dark parentheses around her lips. A face that showed life hadn’t been easy on her. And yet still she managed to stand out among the rest of the patients. Somewhere in spite of it all, she had managed to keep that aura of someone who had once been on top of things, someone who had lived a normal life. But again, I could be wrong. I didn’t know anything about her yet.
Rosey sat in a wheelchair in the corner when I approached her slowly. She wasn’t doing anything; she just sat there, staring at the window that was elevated just enough for her to not be able to look out. Around her, other patients were playing games, doing puzzles, or watching an old broken TV hung up high that kept switching on and off. But its viewers didn’t seem to care.
I sat down in a colorless plastic chair next to Rosey and began observing her. She didn’t move her body or even her hands. She hardly even blinked. It wasn’t until I got up and floated in front of her that I realized the only thing moving on her was tears running slowly down her cheeks. Almost as symmetrical as beads in a necklace. She didn’t make a single sound or one small movement. Only the tears rolling revealed that she was in fact still alive.
She sat like that for hours, while I watched her, and every once in awhile a nurse would come to her and wipe off the tears with a tissue, only to leave her again and just before new ones would arrive. The quiet time with Rosey made me start thinking about my own situation and soon I felt the tears piling up in my eyes as well. Running from problems didn’t solve anything—they had come with me to earth—and in a split of a second I wondered if I should go and see Jason instead of hanging out here. But I was afraid of making things even more complicated by doing so. A big part of me wanted the feelings to go away. The sensible part of me said that I had to forget him and go back to Mick. Visiting Jason might just stir up something that shouldn’t be stirred. It was hard to see how it could make anything better.
But it did help me in some way to be sitting there with Rosey all day. In some selfish way I started realizing that there was always someone who had it worse than I. A lot worse. My problems became insignificant next to hers.
Rosey was stuck in this place with her sadness and no one was going to help her out of it. How she would ever get her hand on those pills in a place like this with this kind of security on everything, I had no idea. But according to the book she would soon put an end to her miserable life, and I couldn’t blame her. Sitting with her in that desolate activity room made me fully understand her decision. The only thing I didn’t understand was what I was supposed to do. Where was the assignment in this? I was glad to help her out of this life and into the next, where she could finally become alive again. It wasn’t hard and that troubled me greatly.
It was supposed to be.
As the day went by I noticed that Rosey never touched any of her food when it was served and she didn’t even drink the water they brought her.
“Rosey, you’d better eat something or we have to tube feed you again,” the nurse sitting at the patients’ table said during dinner.
But Rosey still didn’t utter a word. It became apparent to me that maybe she was already trying to kill herself simply by not eating.
“We will force you, you know that, Rosey,” the nurse continued. “I will tell Doctor Larsson when he arrives tomorrow morning that you haven’t eaten for days and then he will make sure you get something in you. One way or another. You know that. Might as well start eating on your own. It sure would make things a lot easier on everybody.”
“Please eat, Rosey. We don’t want that tube in you again,” yelled another patient while his hands were trembling. He was an older, almost bald man with a few remaining long hairs on top of his head that hadn’t yet realized all the others were long gone. He combed the few hairs back on his scalp with his one hand as he spoke. “Please Rosey. We don’t want that screaming again. It hurts my ears and makes me so … so … afraid.” His face was shining from sweat as he nervously combed his hair with his hand. As he talked, turmoil broke out among the patients and they all started pleading Rosey to eat. “Eat, Rosey. Eat,” they yelled with strained faces.
The nurse got up and called for help. Two big orderlies came running and started removing the patients from the table. Five more patients started yelling and holding their hands to their heads. “Not the tube, I don’t like the tube.”
Still Rosey didn’t even move a muscle.
“See what you do to everybody, Rosey?” the nurse said as she took Rosey to her room in her wheelchair. I was surprised to see that Rosey didn’t even move around on her own since she had done just that in the pictures in the book. From what I had seen, nothing was wrong with her, but now it seemed like she was completely helpless. Like she couldn’t even walk or get herself into bed.
“No one likes it when you don’t eat. Then we have to keep you in your room for a couple of days, if you don’t start behaving,” the nurse continued.
But Rosey never answered. As a matter of fact she didn’t speak all day, and she hardly moved. All she did was to sit in that wheelchair and cry.
Back in her room, the nurse lifted Rosey into her bed. “Why won’t you do anything for yourself anymore?” the nurse complained. “You are killing my back here. The least you could do is to walk by yourself and get yourself to bed. We know you can, Rosey. Ain’t nothing in your body that doesn’t work. No, there ain’t. The doctors keep telling us that.” The nurse put the covers on Rosey and tucked her in. “You don’t talk, you don’t eat. Have you just given up on everything, have you given completely up on life?”
But Rosey didn’t even look at her. She stared at the ceiling with that same empty look and the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Well, suit yourself,” the nurse said and turned Rosey on her side. “If you want to make your life even more miserable than it already is, then it’s your problem.”
Then she was gone. I heard keys in the door and the locks being turned. Rosey lay completely still in her bed for a few minutes. From the barred window near the ceiling the sunlight lit up the entire room. It was still light outside and early in the evening. I was about to leave her when she suddenly moved. Rosey turned her body and sat up in her bed. The nurse had been right. Rosey was perfectly capable of moving around on her own.
A second later her legs were out of bed and she got o
n her feet. She walked toward a small dresser standing against the wall and opened the top drawer. She took something out of it and closed the drawer again. Then she went back to sit on the bed and look at what she had pulled from the drawer. It was a framed photo showing her and a man standing with a young girl between them. They were so happy in that picture, especially Rosey. I’ve been right about her, I thought to myself. She did have a normal life before she came here. She had been a normal woman with a husband and a child, PTO meetings, a social circle and housekeeping. How on earth had she ended up in a place like this? What could possibly have gone so wrong in her life that it would end like this?
Rosey stared at the picture for a long time while touching the people in it gently with her fingertips.
Then she opened her mouth and whispered: “Where are you sweetheart? Are you all right wherever you are? I miss you so much that it hurts. I just know in my heart that I will see you again, someday.” Her voice was hoarse and rusty from not speaking all day and it became obvious to me that it wasn’t a punishment for her to be put back in her room. This was where she became alive. She played a role when she was outside; I just couldn’t figure out why. Was it some sort of protest for being wrongfully convicted to this life and prison, or was it a way of dying? Did she refuse to eat so she could die? Was that her brilliant plan? If so then it didn’t seem to be working very well, but maybe it was the only thing she could do right now.
Rosey held the picture tightly to her chest and hugged it for a long time while the tears poured down her cheeks nonstop. I couldn’t believe that she could have any more tears in her.
“I don’t know how I know this, Mandy. I just do.”
I stared at her. Mandy? Was that the girl’s name? I started wondering about the two in her picture. Where were they? My first impulse was that they had died in some accident and now she was trying to follow them, but I wasn’t sure. It didn’t explain why she was in a psychiatric hospital. Could they still be alive and living outside this prison? Was that what she was talking about when she said she was sure to see them again? Was she planning on breaking out? Maybe she was only taking the pills in order to get to a real hospital and then escape from there? But then it would go wrong and she would die instead. Was that it? I didn’t know, and I was tired of guessing. I’d been there all day and hadn’t gotten many answers as to why I received this assignment. But Salathiel had told us to be patient, so as I left Rosey still sitting on her bed I thought to myself that I had a lot of trips like this ahead of me.
Chapter 13
It was nighttime when I got back to the castle and entered my dormitory as quietly as I could. A set of eyes stared at me in the darkness. It scared me at first but soon I realized it was Mick. He was sitting on my bed. Jackline, Mai and Acacia were all heavily asleep. I could tell Mick had been crying a lot when I got closer to him. I knew he would want to talk, so I asked him to come with me outside.
“Let’s fly to the ocean,” I said and took his hand.
He was awfully quiet as we floated toward the big cliffs. Big waves splashed against them and made water fly up high in the air. The big moon was right over our heads. I hadn’t seen Mick since the breakup two days ago and I had really missed him. He looked so handsome in the moonlight. His blue eyes lit up when the light hit them.
“So where were you today?” he asked as we reached the cliffs. He picked up a small rock and threw it into the ocean.
I stared at the waves underneath us. We sat down at the edge. “I didn’t want to be here, so I went to earth.”
Mick nodded without looking at me. He stared at the ocean. The waves seemed angry beneath us. “Did you see him?”
“No.”
Mick went quiet. He looked at me shortly like he wanted to see if I told the truth. “So what did you do then?”
“I went to see my human, you know, the assignment. I thought I might be able to get to know her better, like we are supposed to, but she’s really difficult. She doesn’t do anything but stare into thin air and cry all day. She is in a mental institution for criminals. I couldn’t even figure out why she was in there, what she had done. But get this. All day she doesn’t walk or even move a muscle. They have to roll her in a wheelchair and lift her in and out of it. But as soon as they close the door to her room and leave her alone, she gets out of bed and walks around in her room. Isn’t it weird?”
Mick shrugged and smiled. “Sure sounds so.”
I smiled. It was nice talking to Mick again. I had felt so guilty the last couple of days and talking to him made me feel relieved. I knew he was hurt but I was happy to realize that he wasn’t too mad to be able to talk to me.
“I tell you, she is a real nutcase. I have no idea why I got this assignment. I mean it’s easy. She dies and I help her get to the school where she will get a better life. She sure deserves it. I don’t care what she has done or why she is in that place; it’s not a life worth living.”
“But maybe it would be a good idea to find out why she is in there? Maybe you will figure out why they gave you her and not someone else. There is usually always a reason.”
I nodded quietly. Right now I didn’t care about Rosey or the assignment. I was enjoying this moment sitting on the cliff with Mick. I sighed deeply.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. It is just nice to sit here … with you. I love talking to you.”
Mick nodded but didn’t look at me. He found another small rock and threw it in the water. “I just don’t get it,” he said when it was gone in the deep darkness. “You love being with me; you keep telling me that.” He paused.
“I really do,” I said. “I missed you the past couple of days.”
“Then why won’t you marry me?”
I sighed and paused. I had to choose my words with care to not hurt him too much again. “I don’t know if I will or not. I haven’t decided yet,” I said. It sounded horrible and I could tell how it hurt Mick by the way he turned his head away from me.
“That is really brutal,” he said with a thick voice.
I grabbed his arm. “I know. I am a horrible person. I don’t expect you to love me after this or even care about me. If you want to go now and never see me again I will understand perfectly. I can’t explain what is going on inside of me right now, simply because I don’t understand it myself. But if you will give me time to think, I promise I will figure everything out somehow. But I need the time.”
Mick looked at me. His jaw was clenched. “And you need to face Jason.”
I sighed again and let go of his arm. “Yes. I need to look Jason into the eyes and make sure that I have no feelings left for him anymore. Does that even make any sense? I totally understand if you are mad at me and never want to see me again.”
Mick was quiet for a long time. Too long. A wave splashed on the cliffs beneath us and water touched our feet. It tickled and made me smile. Mick pulled up his legs with a grin. I looked him in his eyes and for a second I wanted so badly to kiss his red lips in that light skin. I wanted him to hold me tight in his arms and never let go of me again. I hated myself for what I had done. How could I have been so stupid? Mick was perfect for me. He was the one who had always been there for me. Jason was nothing but a fling, a castle in the air built by my imagination, a dream that would never come true. And even if it did, it might not even live up to my expectations. I loved the idea of Jason and nothing more.
“I am so sorry,” I said as our eyes kept staring into each other.
Mick leaned over and put his face close to mine. I could feel the air from his breath as he spoke. “Me too.” Then he kissed me, and I let him.
“I’ve ruined everything,” I whispered as he let go of my lips. His head still leaned on mine. His eyes were closed and his breathing was heavy.
“I will wait for you,” he whispered. “We are meant to be.”
I smiled and closed my eyes as he kissed me again. His lips were warm and gentle. “So what do we do now?” I asked.
>
“You do what you have to do, and I will be here when you come back. You find me and tell me that you are done with all this, that you are serious about us now.”
“I can’t ask that of you. I can’t do this to you.” I was really taken by his forbearing attitude toward me. How did he manage to do that?
“Then don’t. I will do it because I want to. I want you to have closure. Leave me and go and look into his eyes. Then come back to me. I have waited so long for you to come into my life, I can wait a couple more weeks.”
So I left Mick sitting at the cliff. I gave him one last kiss before I flew back to the castle. I fell asleep feeling happy and peaceful inside. This would work out. Now all I had to do was to get this done. I had to face Jason and get the closure once and for all.
The other students at the school weren’t as forgiving and forbearing as Mick. The next day I was still the social outcast and only Abhik and the girls from my dorm would speak to me. But I didn’t care about everybody else anymore. Mick and I were good, he was still my friend, and even if he didn’t talk to me during the day, I hadn’t lost him. He just kept his distance and gave me the space I had requested. And when the delightful food suddenly came back after the night at the cliff, people became milder in their view of me. I was still the selfish, heartbreaking monster who had destroyed their possibility of ever entering the Phoenix Garden, but I could live with that. Mick wasn’t depressed any longer—slightly heartbroken, but still filled with hope. I hoped I wasn’t going to let him down again.
When I met Mick in the Hall or in one of the corridors we smiled a secret smile like secret lovers and hoped that no one would notice. We still had something between us, something no one else would understand.
On Tuesday we had our first lesson in flying faster than light. Professor Grangé had screwed his head back on his shoulders as he always did when we were about to learn something new, something dangerous or wild. And according to him, flying faster than the speed of light was the wildest thing we would ever do. If we ever got this, then he wouldn’t be able to teach us anything more.