The Zodiac Collector (25 page)

“What the heck?” I ask myself.

The intruder taps my spinal cord.

“Ohmigod.” I lean closer to the mirror. “Mary?”

Fireworks go off in my brain. I drop to my knees and clutch my skull.

Ohmigod, Ohmigod, Ohmigod, she's inside me, she's inside me, she's inside me!

My chant returns to me, riding a boomerang of, “oh, you've done it now.”
Castor and Pollux, make us whole, give me back my other soul
.

They'd sent Mary's soul into my body. It has to be.

I dash to the kerchief and unravel it. It's empty. The symbol is gone.

I scream. And scream and scream.

I scream until Mom clambers up the stairs and bursts into my room.

“What is going on?” she screeches, wide-eyed and wild-haired.

I point to the mirror as if it explains everything.

“Is it a spider or something?” She clutches her hands to her chest and steps back, slumping her shoulders and perching on tiptoes like a humpbacked ballerina. She's terrified of spiders. The hellion who mimics Medusa with her craziness is afraid of arachnids.

“M-Mom, it's…M-Mary.” I squeak. My hand trembles as it flicks toward my reflection. No, Mary's reflection. No, mine. No… Oh, I can't tell anymore.

Mom's face contorts. “Who's Mary?”

My hand falls and so does my heart, right through the floor and into the basement where it settles on the concrete and oozes blood.

She slams back on her heels. Fear is replaced by fury. Just like that. “I asked you a question. Who. Is. Mary?”

Panting, I frantically search my mind for a viable explanation. Thoughts ricochet around my skull, random and way too fast for me to grab hold of.
The spell didn't work. Mom is about to explode all over my room. I'm possessed by my sister. Castor and Pollux have a sick sense of humor. I wish William were here
.

Her face goes slack. “Are you feeling all right?” Her eyes narrow with suspicion.

My throat is too tight to speak and it burns from screaming so much. I tremble as I nod.

“Why were you yelling?” She tucks a strand of frizzy hair behind her ear.

I open my mouth. A gurgling sound comes out. My fingers scrape my neck to release whatever's blocking my voice box.

“Oh, Lord, not my baby, please, not my baby,” she cries, tears already racing down her cheeks. Her whole body shakes with the prayer and she reaches out for me, like a grieving fallen angel unable to save herself. “Have you used your inhaler?”

I shake my head. This isn't an asthma attack.

She rushes to my nightstand and yanks an inhaler out of the drawer. Holding the thing to my mouth, she says, “Take two puffs.”

I cry too. Of all the weirdness that's happened over the past few days, this is by far the strangest. Mom all maternal and caring? No way. The bitterness inside me swells while the desire to run into her arms twists itself in my guts. A sob escapes my mouth. I'd long ago given up the hope that Mom would show me some love. But Mary, she hangs onto it like a lion suffocating its kill. So are the tears hers…or mine?

It's too much to fight myself, her, and decide what to do. I shake my head and shift my weight back and forth from one foot to the other while clenching and unclenching my fists.

“Come on, do it!”

I push her hand away. “I don't need it.”

Her eyes widen. Then her jaw clenches. “Did you just hit me?”

“No.”

Mom pins me with her dragon's eyes. Her face ripples with the constipated wince of confusion, the hard angles of anger, and the blind openness of fear. “Are you using drugs?”

“What?”
She's got to be kidding, but her eyebrows suggest otherwise. They're completely flat, like two cultured caterpillars resting above her intense eyes. Her lips are thin and pale. She's in total serious mode.

“Well? Why aren't you answering me, Anne? Are you tweaked?”

“No.”

“No you're not tweaked, or no you're not answering me?” Her gaze scours over me, acidic and rough.

“I'm not on drugs.” I bite my tongue to stop myself from saying, “You should be.” I fight the urge to reorganize my closet. No, it's Mary's urge. I squeeze my eyes shut and whisper, “Stop it. Just relax. I can handle this.”

“Who're you talking to? You better not be talking to me like that.” Mom's totally over her sob fest now. Any hint of insult, whether imagined or not, whether directed toward her or not, will trigger the rage simmering beneath her thin crust of humanness.

The urge to organize intensifies. “Mary, please,” I say under my breath. “No, Mom, I'm not talking to you.” I put up my hands in surrender, hoping to calm the beast blocking my exit.

“Well, who else is here, Anne? No one. Which means you're hearing voices and talking to the devil or something.” She folds her arms like she knows all. Her head tilts down, confirming the fact.

“No, I'm not hearing voices!” I stomp my foot. “You're the one who's crazy, and everyone knows it. Your customers are talking about you, you know. So why don't you just go to your workroom and pretend to create something!” I cover my mouth the instant the words gush out, but it's too late. The dam broke, and I can't collect the words hitting her in a flood of daggers.

Her face reddens. In the fraction of a second that time stops, I see the next series of events, a flash-forward of the scene to come. She covers the distance between us in an instant and has her fingers tangled in my hair and digging into my scalp so deeply a neurosurgeon would have to extract them.

Mom drags me behind her down the stairs so fast I almost slide down a few of them in my socked feet. She has the number to the hospital on speed dial, so she is able to call them and shove me in the passenger seat of her car at the same time. She's already barking out her intentions before she even turns over the engine. It doesn't matter that I have no shoes and she's still wearing her robe.

“My daughter, she's gone ballistic. I think she's hearing voices. She attacked me.” Mom throws the car in reverse and squeals the tires, not bothering to check if any cars are coming. Luckily, we don't crash into anybody. She swings the steering wheel and off we go. “My name is Elizabeth Devans, my daughter is Anne.” She recites our address and phone number. “I have her in the car now. No, I don't need the police or the ambulance. I can handle my own kid.”

I find my voice again, thankful of its return. “M-Mom, please, don't—”

She shoves a finger in my face, letting go of the steering wheel to do so. “Don't talk to me, you're psychotic.”

“No, I'm not. Please don't take me to the hospital.” I pick at my nails, unsure if it's Mary or me. I can't go to the psych ward. They can't admit me for this, can they? If they believe Mom, they can. Doesn't matter that she's the crazy one.

I grip the armrest on the car door as she hangs a right turn without pausing for the stop sign. I hear a particularly angry car horn and I cringe, waiting for the crunch of tangling metal, but it doesn't happen. A green sedan takes up most of the side mirror. The driver is waving his fist at us.

Mom extends her middle finger at him. “I got a sick kid here, okay?” she growls, pressing the gas pedal. The car surges ahead and I'm pressed into my seat from the force of it.

I click my seatbelt in place.

The next two miles are taken up with her complaining about detours around the local bridges. I keep waiting for her to bark at some cop like the floods are their fault, but she's all too pleasant when one asks her to roll down her window at a blockade.

“The bridge is closed ma'am. Oh, Mrs. Devans, hey.” Johnny Wilks smiles his charming smile and tips his hat to her. He knows Tommy and therefore he knows us. Fantastic.

“Hello, Johnny. I'm in a hurry, my daughter needs to get to the hospital.” Mom speaks in her I'm-a-concerned-parent-looking-out-for-the-health-of-my-child voice.

“Oh, wow, Anne, are you okay?” He ducks down to look at me through the driver's-side window.

I lean against the seat belt. “I'm fine, I don't need to—”

Mom clamps a hand over my mouth. “She's…sick…you know,” she rolls her eyes and clicks the button for her window to go up while easing her foot off the brake.

“Oh,” Johnny frowns, probably confused, but not stupid enough to ask for clarification. No one ever does. It's like they think bad things don't exist if they don't see them firsthand.

I can't stay in the car with her. She'll have me locked away forever. I release the belt, unlock my door, and launch myself out of the seat, stumbling as my feet hit the pavement. I'm off in a flash, running back the way we came, not really with any destination in mind. Then it hits me. William's. I'll go to William's.

The car's engine roars. It's followed by the churning of gravel under rubber. Glancing over my shoulder, I catch Mom bringing the car around in stunt-driver fashion. Her tires spin and the car lurches toward me. I run faster, half-panicking that she'll run me over and half-freaking out that my lungs won't manage this pace for much longer.

And I don't have my inhaler.

My feet hurt from the loose stones littering the road, left behind by the rushing floods, but I don't stop. Pain streaks across my chest and my pulse pounds in my ears, but I push myself. I veer off the road into the nearby woods just as Mom whooshes past me. Her tires squeal.

I don't look back. My primary concern is not impaling my feet on the branches littering the ground.

“Johnny, help!” Mom's cry slices through the trees.

Soon, I hear two sets of footsteps crashing behind me. And they get louder. Tears sluice down my face, blur my vision, and burn my nose. A stitch in my side slows me before the pain in my feet does. “No, no, no,” I cry. They'll catch me if I stop, but I can't go any farther. My freaking tightened asthmatic lungs throw up a roadblock the size of the Great Wall of China. My head pounds as I bash my skull against its ancient stones. Darkness swirls at the edges of my vision.

I trip on a tree root and slam into the ground chest first. It knocks the remaining air out of my lungs and no matter how much I open my mouth, nothing goes in.

A pair of hands slap onto my back.

First abandoned by air, then abandoned by freedom.

Chapter Twenty-One

I
wake to whispers and screams, shuffling feet and banging…and the worst headache of my life. Opening my eyes sharpens the pain.

The room is dark. The curtains are pulled and the door is closed most of the way, letting a sliver of artificial light smack against the painting on the wall next to me. I blink a few times and a pastel-colored still life comes into focus. Its theoretically calming colors are so boring that my brain waves flatline. I shift my gaze to the left. Another bed parallels mine, its far side pressed against the wall. The sheets are taut across the mattress.

Dry disinfectant and starchy bleach clog my sinuses and settle in the back of my throat.

The last thing I remember is…Mom chasing me in the woods. Me falling. Gasping for air. Passing out. I gotta be in a hospital.

Another scream pierces my ears. It's coming from outside my room. Someone farther along down the hallway orders, “Stop screaming or you'll get an injection to help you calm down.”

The cry dies down to a steady moan.

Holy Mary. I know where I am.

A psycho ward.

I don't belong here. I shift to my side. Every muscle screams from stiffness. The universal protest tosses me onto the mattress.

My breath quickens and a squeaky wheeze shoots out with every exhale. I reach for my inhaler, then realize I'm not wearing jeans, but am dressed in a tent-ish gown. I follow the trail of non-fashion, hoping my legs are covered, but they're not. No pajama bottoms, ugh.

My feet are wrapped in bandages.

I jerk my eyes away. My inhaler's on the bedside stand. Reaching to pick it up, I wince at the stiffness of my ribcage. A hit of the inhaler relaxes me.

The door swings open and the lights flick on. I squint at the brightness and duck my head. “Hey, ouch, light,” I stutter.

“Anne Devans?” A woman in Mickey Mouse scrubs walks in holding a clipboard. Her name badge reads “Monika Drumme, RN.” Beneath her name reads “Kings Hospital Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.”

“Sorry to wake you. How are you feeling?” Her mouth widens into a smile—the same glitzy white smile as the picture on her ID. Her brown eyes crinkle with her grin. They match the tone of her skin.

“Tired. Who was screaming?” My gaze darts to the door and the hallway beyond.

“Do you know where you are, honey?” She scribbles something on her paper.

I tuck my legs toward my chest. I know where I am. And I know why I'm here. Mom thinks I'm crazy. She's the one who's nutso. My insides go cold—Mary's pain is the same as mine. We're trapped here together. If only she could talk to me. But then I really would be hearing voices.

I shiver.

“Tell me all about it, dear. Let it out.” Monika sits next to me and wraps an arm around me. Her hand is warm and slicks the goosebumps off my skin as she rubs her palm over my shoulder.

“I…I'm not crazy,” I trip over every syllable. She's probably heard that line before at least a million times. It's the same one Mom uses whenever she's in the loony bin. In my case, it's the truth.

“No one said you were crazy.” The frankness of her voice sobers me.

“Then why am I here?”

“Why do you think you're here?”

Sly. I've heard my mom's doctors do the same thing. Whenever you ask a question, they respond with another one. I figured that out during one of our numerous “family sessions” with a therapist. What a joke family therapy is when the crazy one doesn't admit she's crazy and spends the entire time blaming everyone else for “not understanding.”