Strangewood (20 page)

"Too late, Frankie. Gotta go," he said, the
muscles of his face slack. He looked as though he were dead.

The cab slid to the curb, engine idling, and Thomas reached
for the handle.

"What? Wait, I've got to talk to you!"

"I have an appointment," said the zombie who had
once been one of her biggest clients.

"Listen, the Fox people took you up on your
suggestion," she said hurriedly. "When I told them about Nathan, they
agreed to come here. They're flying in tomorrow afternoon. They have other
business, but they want to meet on Friday morning."

He stared at her for a moment as though he hadn't understood
a word she'd said.

"Hey, in or out, pally!" griped the driver.

Francesca leaned over and sneered at the man, an old-time
New York hack with a Yankees cap slightly askew on his head.

"Start the meter, you asshole," she barked. "You
can bill us for the conversation."

The cabbie balked about her suggestion being against the
rules, but he started the meter anyway. Frankie was surprised he hadn't simply
gunned the engine and driven away. Thomas looked like he hadn't even noticed.

"It's important, isn't it?" he asked.

Francesca stared at him. "Thomas, are you all
right?" she asked. "You know how important this is."

"Friday, noon. Lunch at Keen's," Thomas said
mechanically. "You make the reservations. I just can't think about it
right now."

"What is it, Thomas?" she asked. "Did you get
bad news about . . . about Nathan?"

Thomas got into the cab. "Make the reservation,
Frankie. I'm sorry. I have to go." He pulled the door shut and the taxi
sped away.

"Oh, boy," Francesca muttered to herself. "What
am I gonna do with you?"

* * * * *

After his appointment with Dr. Mizell, Thomas felt
considerably better. Not completely sane, but then, he'd been hallucinating for
what seemed to be days. Possibly even before the horrible thing that had
happened to his son, this bizarre catatonia.

He'd first called Rachel Morrissey, who had been Nathan's
therapist when the divorce had first come up. Dr. Morrissey specialized in
pediatrics, but she remembered Nathan and his parents quite well. When Thomas
had begun to explain the nature of his concerns, Dr. Morrissey had actually
made an appointment with Dr. Mizell for him that very day. As a favor to
Morrissey, Mizell had skipped lunch.

Thomas had wondered if she would bill him double time.

But Dr. Mizell turned out to be nothing at all like he had
expected. She was young, and very pretty, but not in any fashion magazine's
definition. Her black hair was chopped very short, and her olive skin was
dotted with a small sprinkle of freckles that he found intriguing. She had an
easy laugh that soothed him greatly, and Thomas found himself opening up within
minutes of settling into a chair opposite Lee Mizell.

"Did anyone but you and Nathan witness any of these
oddities previous to his catatonia?" she had asked him.

Thomas knew the next question. "No," he admitted. "And
Nathan didn't speak to anyone else about them, as far as I know. But they did
happen, Doctor."

Mizell had nodded gently, her brown eyes sparkling with
understanding. She wore a burgundy dress that was nothing if not professional,
but Thomas could not help but be distracted by her. The writer in him made a
mental note that the old saw about how easy it was to fall in love with your
doctor or therapist was very, very true.

It was her job to be sympathetic. It was her job to be
concerned for his well being.

Thomas found great comfort in that.

After a long pause, she had said, "And yet these other
instances, which you insist are hallucinations, were just as real as those
things you claim Nathan witnessed as well."

Thomas had been taken aback. "What are you
suggesting?" he had asked her, almost angrily. "There's a huge
difference between some prankster or even a stalker spreading peanut butter on
my lawn and my window, and hearing birds talk to me, or seeing characters from
my series come to life."

"Of course there is," Dr. Mizell agreed. "I
merely illustrate how difficult it can be to draw the line between reality and
fantasy once the line has begun to blur. I had a patient once who was convinced
that she was plagued by ghosts. Saw them all the time. Eventually she began to
see the ghost of her mother, a sprightly old woman of eighty-three years, who
was very much alive. Several weeks later, when the patient's mother died, the
poor woman blamed herself, as if her seeing that 'ghost' had somehow brought on
her mother's demise."

Thomas had frowned. "What happened to her?"

Dr. Mizell raised her eyebrows and tilted her head slightly
as if wishing she could have avoided the question. Finally she said, "The
patient took her own life."

Feeling morbid, but unable to help himself, Thomas had
laughed at that. "Well," he'd said, "at least I'm not feeling
suicidal. I suppose that's a start."

Mizell had smiled and agreed. "Mr. Randall, it isn't
terribly uncommon for imaginative individuals to detach themselves from reality
during times of great stress and seek to find some solace in worlds they
believe are safer. Your situation is a bit different, a bit more hostile, but
under the circumstances, there is a pattern. You feel helpless to heal your
son, and the products of your imagination keep appearing to dun you with the
suggestion that only you can 'save' him. It's very likely a product of your own
misplaced guilt. If we can try to address that, and perhaps discuss your
attachment to those characters, we may be able to stop these episodes
completely."

"That's a lot of 'ifs,'" Thomas pointed out.

"Would you rather I tell you that you were a raving
lunatic and pack you off to Bellevue?" Dr. Mizell asked sweetly.

After that, things had gone rather well.

Soon, Thomas would have to call Emily and tell her that he
would be there to relieve her that night. It would be, after the day he'd had,
almost relaxing to sit up with Nathan. He needed to be with his son, to watch
over him. No matter what Dr. Mizell had said, he was still Nathan's father, and
the urge to protect the boy was great. Perhaps there was nothing he could do to
speed Nathan's recovery, but he could at least be there for him, talk to him a
little, just in case he could hear.

He would sing, he thought suddenly. Just as he'd used to
sing Nathan to sleep as an infant. James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt and the
Eagles. He'd known them all, then. He'd find something to sing.

Despite his concern for Nathan, and the pain the boy's state
brought him, Thomas's heart was lighter than it had been in days. He bought a
kielbasa from a park vendor as he strolled a wide paved path with the sun
beating down, making him sweat. It had grown quite warm, but he didn't mind. The
sweating felt therapeutic to him. When the kielbasa was done, he bought a
lemonade from another vendor and then took a turn down a narrow path he thought
would take him back toward Fifth Avenue, where he figured he would have no
trouble hailing a taxi.

The path meandered a bit, and there were thick copses of
trees and shrubbery where an assailant might have been hidden. Thomas grew a
bit anxious. While Central Park was generally safe during the day, this path
would have been an invitation to brutality and robbery or worse after dark. Even
during the day, there might well be unsavory people hidden just off the path.

He stepped up his pace.

Just off the path, he heard a whisper.

Instead of pausing, Thomas picked up speed. Whoever was out
there, he didn't want them to think he was paying attention to whatever they
were up to. It could be lovers, or junkies, or just about anything, but one way
or another, he didn't want to see.

The whispering seemed to follow him, sounding like nothing
more than the wind through the trees. But there was a voice there. He could
hear it. Syllables that had nothing to do with the wind. After a few more
seconds, he recognized the one word that was repeated over and over again.

His name.

"Thomas," whispered the park.

"Leave me alone!" he shouted, putting his hands
over his ears and squeezing his eyes as tight as he could without cutting off
his vision entirely.

He fought the urge to run, recalling Dr. Mizell's words
almost as a mantra.
"Anxiety, guilt, and stress. All of them can cause
hallucinations, given the right circumstances. Yours are very powerful, but
that could be just the power of your own imagination. And hallucinations are
like fainting; once it has happened to you, the chemical processes of your
brain have followed a certain path, and it becomes more likely that it will
happen again."

Thomas slowed, now, refusing to run. With a great effort, he
blocked out the whispering until he could hear it no longer. Not at all.

With a deep sigh, he got his bearings and continued along
the path, hoping it would soon lead to one of the main paths, and then out to
Fifth.

"Thomas!"

He froze on the path, bit his lip, and closed his eyes. A
tear slipped down his left cheek. He was going insane. That was it. He knew he
was completely losing his mind.

Slowly, Thomas Randall turned. In the middle of the path
behind him was a tree. But not a tree. Not like the other things that grew in
the park. For one thing, it was not rooted into the path, but stood upon its
powerful roots. The tree bent over slightly so that the eyes cut in its bark
could look down upon him, its branches and leaves blotting out the sun above. It
was Broadbough, the captain of the Forest Rangers.

"Our Boy," it said solemnly, "you must come
back to Strangewood. If you do not, your son will surely die."

With a shriek, Thomas crumpled to the path and lay there
sobbing until a young couple jogged by. The man stayed with him while the woman
went for help. After a while, the man was able to get him to his feet and begin
to walk along the path. But he was forced to lead Thomas by the elbow until
they were out onto the rolling lawn of Central Park.

Thomas would not open his eyes until he was away from the
trees.

The hospital cafeteria was relatively deserted when Emily
slid into a chair near the row of windows on the far wall. She dumped her purse
onto the chair next to her and set down the paper cup of chicken broth she'd
gotten from a machine that dispensed the brew in the same way it would coffee
or cocoa. It was much too salty, and it scalded her tongue, but Emily loved it
because it reminded her of her childhood.

It was perverse, in a way. Her grandfather had died of
cancer fifteen years earlier, a horrid, debilitating experience for all those
who had loved him. But she fondly recalled the chicken broth she'd get from a
vending machine for a quarter. This wasn't exactly the same, but the taste was
pretty close. If anything, this was even saltier.

The urge to return to Nathan's room rose up and she quashed
it immediately. Without short breaks like this one, the little room would
quickly become unbearable, so she forced herself to sit there and sip at the
broth and stare out the window onto the lawn where the oak trees threw long
afternoon shadows. Someone laughed and Emily turned to see a pair of nurses
walking to a table with trays encumbered with little more than salads and
coffee. She recognized one of the nurses — Nancy, she thought her name
was — and offered the woman a polite nod. The nurse smiled kindly, and
Emily wondered what was in her mind:
Ah, there's the poor woman whose son
went off the deep end, disappeared into his own head — I'd die if
anything like that happened to my . . .

Emily winced, turned away, looked back out the window as the
day slowly died. That was a path she was unwilling to walk down. She didn't
even know if Nurse Nancy had any kids, for starters. And as far as sympathy was
concerned, she'd rather have help. She didn't need any assistance in feeling
sorry for herself.

A soft trilling sound interrupted her, and Emily was
grateful. She didn't like where her mind was going. As the chatty nurses
glanced her way, she withdrew her cellular phone from inside her purse, flipped
it open, and said, "Thomas?"

"Sorry, but no," a woman's voice said.

For a moment, Emily didn't know who it was. She hadn't heard
the voice in close to a year, after all. Then it hit her.

"Francesca," she said. "Thanks for returning
my call."

"I was a little surprised to hear from you, Emmy,"
Thomas's agent said. "But I'm glad, as well. I'm getting a little worried
about Thomas. But first, look . . . how's Nathan?"

Emily frowned. "He's the same. But what about Thomas? Have
you talked to him? He was supposed to be here almost two hours ago. I've left
half a dozen messages for him, but . . . well, that's why I called you."

"I saw him this morning. He seemed pretty
scattered."

"He was going to see a therapist today," Emily
said, though she worried that she might be revealing more than Thomas would
like.

"I'm glad," Francesca replied. "I don't want
to sound cold, Em, but he needs a little perspective. He may end up queering
this whole Fox deal if he doesn't start paying attention. I know it isn't his
number one priority, but you're talking about an investment in the future,
y'know?"

Emily raised an eyebrow. "Fox deal?"

Silence. Then a sigh. "Ah, shit. I shouldn't be talking
to you about this stuff. You guys both have Nathan to deal with, but that
doesn't mean you're not still divorced. I'm speaking out of school, here."

"Not at all, Francesca," Emily insisted. "Thomas
and I have been really good about not playing that game so many couples get
into when they split. And now, with this . . ."