The Boarding House (30 page)

“Just what I said, darling. I’m losing my hearing because you don’t really need me anymore. I’m still here, only because you’re clinging to the past.”

Ellie felt sick. “No. That’s not true. I love you, Sophie. I’ll always need you.”

“I love you, too, but I’m not your mother. I can’t ever take her place. When I’m gone, it will be alright. You’ll see. I’ll still be with you, but we just won’t talk anymore. You’ll feel my love and strength and remember what we’ve shared, but that will be all. That’s how memories are supposed to be.”

Ellie handed Sophie another piece of chocolate in a subconscious need to appease the horror of what she was saying.

“No, Sophie. Your ears are fine. You’ll see. I’m full of this chocolate now. Would you like to have the rest?”

Sophie sighed. “I can’t eat your food for you, Ellie. It’s your candy. It’s your life. Take charge. It’s time.”

Ellie shoved the rest of the Hershey into her mouth at one time in a desperate attempt to assuage Sophie’s demands. “I’m eating it. See. I took charge. You don’t need to leave. You don’t need to go anywhere.”

Sophie patted Ellie’s cheek. “Don’t worry, Ellie. I’m still here
 . . .
at least for a while.”

Cinnamon bounced onto the bed and then leaned against the wall. “What’s going on? I heard a lot of angry voices.”

Chocolate was dribbling from the corner of Ellie’s mouth as she began to cry. “Sophie’s leaving us. She said she won’t come back.”

“There’s chocolate on your chin,” Cin said, then got a tissue and wiped Ellie’s face.

“I don’t care about the chocolate on my face. I care about Sophie. Talk to her. Make her stay. You have to make her stay!”

Cin tossed the tissue in the trash and then folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not the one in charge of us, Ellie. That’s you.”

Ellie screamed. “Stop saying that. I don’t believe you. I’m not in charge of anything.”

Wyatt slid into the conversation so smoothly Ellie didn’t even know he’d come in. “It’s obvious you’re not in charge of anything or we wouldn’t be who we are.”

Ellie flinched as if she’d been slapped. Wyatt never criticized her. “I can’t believe you said that. Stop being mean.”

Wyatt put his arms around her, holding her so tight against him that she could feel their hearts beating as one. “I’m not mean. I’m honest. When you learn to be in charge of your life, you won’t need us anymore.”

Ellie erupted, spewing huge, hiccupping sobs that felt like knives being poked into her chest. “If I don’t have any of you, I’ll have no one. I don’t want to be alone. I’m afraid of being alone.”

Wyatt sighed. “But Daddy’s gone now, Ellie. I killed him so he could never hurt you again. There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore.”

Ellie rolled over onto the bed and turned her face to the wall. All three of them began talking to her at once, but she didn’t want to listen. She pulled the pillow over her head and shut her eyes. Just when she thought life couldn’t get any worse, it handed her a mutiny. “I hate you, God. I hate you.”

At the other end of the building, Luther Dunn suddenly reeled as if he’d been shot and fell out of his chair onto the floor.

Aaron tossed a new stash
of Hershey bars in his desk drawer for when Ellie Wayne’s therapy time rolled around. After his first success with the candy, he didn’t want to be caught short. It was just in time as Charlie knocked and then let Ellie in.

Aaron knew within seconds it wasn’t Ellie, and from Wyatt’s attitude, Aaron figured Ellie probably wasn’t going to show. Still, he thought he’d try speaking to her in the hope that she’d hear him and come forward.

“Good morning, Ellie. I hope you slept well last night.”

Wyatt strode into the office and slid into the seat like a typical teenage boy, his legs sprawled, his shoulders slumped.

“I’m Wyatt. No, Ellie didn’t sleep well. She’s pretty mad at all of us.”

“Really? What happened?”

“She’s still struggling with the fact that we’re not real. She sees us just like you see her and is afraid to be alone.”

Aaron was fascinated by how adeptly Ellie’s brain had found a way to cope with unbearable trauma. Knowing there were other personalities was one thing, but he hadn’t been aware that Ellie physically saw them. “So who told her you weren’t real?”

Wyatt shrugged. “I think it was Cinnamon who told her first, but it was what’s happening to Sophie that freaked Ellie out.”

“What’s happening to Sophie?”

“She’s losing her hearing, right?”

“Yes, I’ve noticed, but—”

“Sophie claims she’s losing her hearing because Ellie doesn’t really need her anymore.” Wyatt shoved his hand through his hair and then doubled up his fists. “She got so mad. She freaked. She’s never been that mad at us before. It was hard to see.”

“I’m so sorry, especially for you. You two have been together almost from the start.”

Tears welled, but Wyatt blinked them away. “We know you’re doing your best to integrate all of us, but I have to tell you there’s nothing you can say that will make it happen. Either we talk her into accepting it, or she’s lost.”

Aaron didn’t know how to respond to a statement like that. It felt weird, having an alter talk treatment with him as if they were peers. He scrambled to remember some of the things Ellie had said to him that might sway Wyatt. He needed for all of them to trust him, not just Ellie, but Sophie decided to put her two cents in as well.

“Dr. Tyler, it’s me, Sophie. Wyatt’s right, you know. He’s always right about Ellie, whether we like it or not. Maybe when the first of us leaves, it will convince her we’re right, that she can exist without us.”

Aaron found this fascinating—an alter being willing to cease existence. Everything he’d read about this indicated the opposite—that they often took on a personality they didn’t want to give up. There were even a few documented cases where the original person completely disappeared and the alter took over and lived out the rest of the life.

So why was this case different? What made all three of these alters willing to “die” to make Ellie well? Was it something innate within Ellie that had caused her to create alters with empathetic personalities, or was there another reason—something he didn’t understand?

“What’s the scoop on this guy who wants to talk to Ellie?”

Aaron blinked. “Uh
 . . .
Cinnamon, is that you?”

“One and the same. I told Ellie about the guy but she didn’t seem interested. What’s he in here for?”

“I can’t comment upon that. Doctor-patient privilege, you know.”

“Then I’m going to tell Ellie to stay away,” Wyatt said. “For all we know, he could be some crazy killer. She doesn’t need any more grief.”

Aaron was torn. He was curious as to how Ellie would react if she knew the basis for Luther’s delusion, but he couldn’t recommend them meeting on the chance it might do her some good. He wasn’t in the business of playing with people’s lives just to see what might happen.

“I can tell you he wasn’t admitted for any crimes, but other than that—” He shrugged.

“Did Ellie tell you about the ghost baby?” Sophie asked.

He nodded.

Sophie started to cry. “We don’t know how to help her with that, and it’s the one thing I fear might push her over the edge. She’s been hearing it cry for weeks now. I don’t want her to go so far away that she can never come back. We’ve all worked so hard to try and help, but we don’t understand the baby or where it came from.”

Aaron was surprised. “You don’t think it had anything to do with the abortion?”

“No,” Wyatt said. “And if you’d known how bad Ellie hated Daddy, you wouldn’t even ask that. That pregnancy was like a plague to her. If she hadn’t been able to get the abortion, she would have killed herself before she would let it grow.”

Cinnamon interrupted. “If you all remember, she
did
try to kill herself, and it was only by the grace of God that I was with her when she bought the sleeping pills and still with her when she tried to take them. I flushed them all down the toilet. And that was
after
the abortion. She was freaking out because she thought the baby was haunting her and she couldn’t take it.”

Wyatt nodded. “That’s when Sophie and I found out about the abortion. I’d thought about killing Daddy a lot of times but never did it. That was the last straw.”

“Do any of you have an idea as to why she might be hearing a baby cry? Is there anything in her past that it might be connected to?”

Cinnamon threw out an observation that startled Aaron and almost made sense. “What if Ellie isn’t ‘hearing’ the cries, but is remembering them instead? What if the baby she hears crying is her?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry, I had no idea. What’s happening?”

Cin moved closer then lowered her voice. “You two need to hear this. This Luther Dunn, the man who wants to talk to Ellie—”

“What about him?” Wyatt asked.

“He thinks he’s God.”

“What the hell?”

Sophie frowned. “Wyatt. I won’t have cursing.”

“Sorry, but I don’t get it. So he thinks he’s God. What about it?”

Cin rolled her eyes. “You pay absolutely no attention to anything I tell you, do you, Wyatt?”

Wyatt glared. “I’m listening now.”

“Then hear this. You know Ellie says she won’t pray to God anymore because he never listened to her prayers, right?”

Sophie and Wyatt nodded.

“So guess what the last thing this Luther guy told me to tell Ellie?”

Wyatt threw up his hands. “I give up.”

“Remember, he never told me his name, or who he thought he was. He just said for me to tell Ellie that he was listening.”

Sophie gasped.

Wyatt looked stunned. “Are you serious?”

Cin nodded. “So my question to you guys is this—do we tell Ellie? Would this help or do you think she would believe him and make everything worse?”

“I don’t know. I need to think about this,” Wyatt said.

“Don’t take too long because Ellie may decide to see him for herself this afternoon purely out of curiosity.”

“See who?” Ellie asked.

“Oh. Hi. There you are.” Cin handed Ellie the Hershey bar. “Dr. Tyler sent this to you. Said for you to come back and see him next visit.”

“Thank you,” Ellie said, and started to open it when Sophie stopped her. “You’ll ruin your lunch. Save it for after.”

“Oh. Right.” Ellie looked at it wistfully, laid it on her table then moved to the window.

“It looks so pretty outside. I hate being locked up like this. Remember when we used to walk to the pharmacy whenever we wanted? It’s so weird not being able to go where you want to.”

Wyatt slipped up beside her. “We’re stuck in here because of what I did, remember? Are you mad at me?”

“No, Wyatt. Never. You saved us. I’d rather be in here for the rest of my life than living free under the same roof with Daddy.” Ellie’s focus shifted instantly from wanting out of the hospital to grabbing her hair by the handfuls and pulling it in frustration. “My head hurts. I don’t feel so sorry for that ghost baby anymore. I just wish it would shut the hell up.”