Nevermor (68 page)

Wren had dealt
with what she was given, relieved to still have her life after what had
happened at the orphanage, telling herself every day that this trial would not
be for long.  Rifter would not abandon her.  He would come.

She had held
onto that belief, but it had begun to slip over time.

As in Nevermor,
time seemed to have no relevance at the asylum.  All of the days blurred
together into masses of vaporous nothing.  There was no hope of gaining and no
fear of losing.  Her existence spun like wheels in mud.  Though she could not
quite say when it had happened – after weeks, perhaps months of being locked
away – eventually the quality of her life within the asylum began to change.

Overcrowding had
become a problem, and it was decided that the ranks of inmates should be
thinned.  Some were to be sent off to distant country asylums, and Wren had
feared being taken to another place.  She’d wanted to keep herself constant
until Rifter had found her.

As fate would
have it, she got her salvation in the form of a doctor named Witherspoon, a
logical man with an intelligent forehead and deep-set eyes.  While the
directors had been sorting through the patients, he’d become interested in her
story, insisting she stay close.  Though she was not quite ignored any longer
because of him, things got a bit better for her after that.

Wren was put
into her own individual space.  Though it was merely a small cell, she was glad
for the solitude.  She was allowed to take walks outside with the others in an
attractive courtyard surrounded by high walls.  An aviary was added within the
ward, where the songs of cheerful birds could uplift her.  The condition of the
hospital was much improved.

Still, she
avoided association with the other women there.  Some of them were wrongfully
accused, just as she was, but the last group she had told innocent stories to
had wound up dead because of her.  She could not let it happen again.

I will not let
anyone else be ruined because of me.

As Wren rested
there on her bed in the cramped cell, the night gradually turned into a dismal,
gray morning.  Wren listened to the noises in the deep, echoing halls around
her as the asylum came to life.

The birds in the
aviary were chirping with the morning light, at peace with their lives of
captivity.  Doors were opening and nurses were talking, wheeling in squeaky
carts of breakfast and medicine.  Other inmates awoke in their cells, some
louder than others, meeting the day with scattered emotions.  Still, Wren saw
no need to stir.  She was tired and weak, but still a long way from rest.

She lay there
until her usual nurse, Mary, brought in her breakfast on a dingy plate.

“Alright now;
sit up and eat up,” the woman said, wheeling the cart toward the bed.

Mary was a plump
woman of around thirty, who looked much older around the eyes.  She was always
the same – her hair tightly wound, dressed in her uniform of a long black dress
and white apron, topped with the typical white hat common to those sharing her
profession.  Wren did not think poorly of her, but felt that the woman had an
oddly shaped shadow.

Wren had seen
Mary every day for months, yet there was never much warmth between the two of
them.  They never engaged in small talk or even shared much eye contact.  For
Mary, it was strictly business, and Wren didn’t have much reason to converse. 
She was unfit to talk to.

She was a murderess,
after all.

Wren often toyed
with asking Mary what she thought of her, but feared the answer.  The nurses
were all certain they knew the truth about her story, and Wren understood there
was nothing left but for her to do as they said – to be a good patient and pray
for deliverance.

Forgiveness
waits beyond the confession of sins.  That is what they would have me believe.

Once she'd
swallowed the food down like Mary expected, the nurse helped her dress in a
clean gown she’d brought in, which was plain and very similar to what the rest
of the inmates wore.  Mary maneuvered her as if she was a doll instead of a
girl, but Wren could not protest.  She had as much of a life as a doll had.

When Mary was
done and had wheeled the tray out to leave her alone again, Wren sat on the end
of the bed for a long time, staring absently at her shadow that was cast
against the far wall.  She'd often wondered about it – whether it was a shadow
as she had once thought, or if her
mimic
had returned with her here, but
she never saw it move out of sync, and so she had no proof either way.

Where are you,
Rifter?  Why did you leave me here?  Haven’t I suffered long enough?

She remembered
the last time she had seen him, when he’d looked into her eyes – when he’d made
her so many promises. 
I could never forget you
, he'd said.  Of all the
things he'd sworn to remember, Wren had not suspected that she would be the
thing that would disappear.  Hadn't the other boys –
Sly, Finn, Toss
–
remembered her?  Why hadn't they reminded Rifter that he needed to go after
her?

Maybe I will die
before I have answers.  I will waste away here.

It was at that
moment that the cell door squealed as it opened once again, and Mary leaned her
head inside.

“Come on now,
Wren,” she said with firm insistence.  “It’s time.”

2

In the drab
office, a pair of large windows let in the gray light of the outside world. 
The buildings of London stretched out in the distance, each doing its part to
block out the sun.  The city served as an endless barrier to keep Wren from the
world of her dreams, gradually closing in, reminding her that she had no world
at all to belong to now.

Wren sat before
Doctor Everett Witherspoon, his half-moon glasses turned downward toward the
journal on his desk.  Wren didn’t think he was a bad man, but she couldn’t say
that she enjoyed spending time with him.  He was always judging her like the
rest.  She didn’t want to be judged.  She wanted to be left alone.

“You haven’t
written much lately,” he commented, no doubt noticing the sentence she had
begun last night, only to leave off without the desire to finish the thought.

Wren did not
respond.  She watched Witherspoon open her casebook with steady fingers.  The
leather was worn around the edges from being opened and shut so many times.  He
must have known every word of it by now, having put most of the entries there
himself, but she kept silent as he looked over the pages.

Her eyes drifted
over his shoulder, watching his shadow against the wall behind him, reflected
by the light of day.  It was faint and still – clearly not a secret imp.  When
Witherspoon finally lifted his brown eyes to hers, she knew what he would say
before he opened his mouth.

“I want to start
at the beginning,” he said.  Wren wasn’t surprised.  He often liked to start at
the beginning.  “Can we do that?”

She nodded. 
Wren had been through this so many times that the sessions no longer fazed her. 
Some of those memories had been difficult at first – some still were – but she
knew that being agreeable with the doctor was better than trying to oppose him. 
She would comply.

“When you were
thirteen, something happened at home,” he reminded her as if she might have
forgotten.  “What was that?"

Wren knew the
answers to these questions as well as she knew her name.  She always gave him
the same replies, and though he might have been waiting for the day that she
would slip, she would not.  She knew her own story.  It was all that had been
looping through her head for years.

“My father had
an affair,” she stated in the factual tone of the shameless.

“How did that
affect your family?”

“It ruined us,”
she told him flatly as if the words were rehearsed.  “I never knew her name –
the other woman, I mean.  Father met her at the bank.  She was married as well,
and everyone was spreading the rumors.  My father lost his job and couldn't
find decent employment because of the scandal.  We ran out of money.”

“And what about
your mother?  How did she react to the betrayal?”

Wren remembered
it all clearly, as though it had not been six years since she had seen her
birth parents.  When the ordeal had come to light, she remembered how her
mother had not said a word.  She had not tried to fight with Wren’s father
about the rumors.

She just…went
away.

“My mother shut
herself up.  She grew distant from us.”

“From you and
your brothers, even young Max,” Witherspoon confirmed.  “He was a mere babe at
the time, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“All of those
responsibilities fell to you then, didn't they?  You had to grow up too soon.”

Wren looked into
his eyes as he watched her expectantly, awaiting her answer – her admittance or
her revelation; she couldn’t say which.

“I suppose,” she
replied finally, lowering her eyes, but she knew that he was right in a sense. 
She remembered how her life had been – hadn’t been given the chance to forget. 
Max had been an infant at the time.  She remembered the sound of him crying
upstairs – after they had lost their nanny – and their mother simply hadn’t
known what to do.  Wren hadn’t either, but she had learned quickly, for she was
the only one who would respond to the boy’s wailing cries.

Max, my little
boy, where are you now?  I hope you’re safe.  I know you must be
.  Wren often
wondered about him, but she knew where he had gone, and could only find comfort
in the thought that both of her brothers were in better places than she was
now.

“Let's skip
forward a bit, shall we?” Witherspoon said, interrupting her thoughts.  “You
said that your family ran out of money.  What happened then?”

“My parents had
to give us up.  They took us to Miss Nora's Home.”

“The orphanage,
correct?  What was life there like?”

She had always
been a bit torn about the Home before, but given the chance now, she might have
gone back to it with the promise to never stray again.

But I can’t go
back there
,
she thought. 
Not ever
.

“Most of us were
sent to work in factories during the day, but at least we had a place to return
at night.”

“That’s what you
told the others, isn’t it?  They looked up to you, didn’t they?”

Though Wren had
tried to keep her distance from the other orphans in her days after returning
from Nevermor, it was true that those children had always looked up to her. 
She had cooked meals for them and joined them in games.  She had gathered them
in the closet when there was a storm; told them stories.  She still remembered
the way many of their faces had looked as they’d smiled at her gratefully.

They had names. 
Polly, Liam, Lewis
… 
They had thought a lot of her.

“Yes, they did,”
she said, lowering her head.

“But you wanted
out, didn't you?” the doctor said, leading her on.  “You were finally able to
escape.  Where did you go?”

Wren lifted her
blue eyes.  This was, perhaps, the turning point.  It was the fork in the path,
often presented but never taken.  One direction might have brought her out of
the woods while the other led her deeper into the depths until she was utterly
lost in the dark tangles of her impossible reality.  Perhaps it was true that
if she’d only changed her story here, she might have been able to alter her
situation.  At the same time, it might have been the only difference between
the asylum and the noose.

Should I speak
the truth or a lie?  Should I deny or confess?
  Wren looked
toward her shadow as if it would give her some cue, but it did not move,
sitting as still as she was to gaze back at her.

“Wren?” 
Witherspoon drew her back with his voice, watching her carefully.  She blinked,
looked at his face, and then took a breath.

“I didn’t go
anywhere,” she said, and she saw his eyes widen a bit – but she wasn’t
finished.  “I was taken away – to Nevermor.”

His shoulders
slumped.  He had anticipated too strongly, but Wren could not change her story
now.  She’d told nothing but the truth.

“Nevermor,” the
doctor repeated, discouraged, but he humored her.  “As you describe it,
Nevermor is an island beyond the sea of dreams, full of fantasies.”

“Yes,” she said
quietly, as if the answer was going to turn around and bite her.

“There, you made
a new life,” Witherspoon said, getting back on track.  “You made a life with a
boy, I understand.”

“We called him
the Rifter,” Wren said lowly.  Sometimes it pained her to say his name.

“This
Rifter
,
who you have spoken so fondly of in the past – the two of you had a
relationship.  Would it be going too far to ask if it was
intimate
?” 
Wren’s eyes widened as she looked at him, and he paused a moment before probing
further.  “Was it of a
sexual
nature?”