The Children on the Hill(86)

She looked at the girl, Patient S, the smile on her face, the contentment. She had been taken care of and loved by her grandmother, who was smart and clever and kind, the best doctor in the world. And her grandmother had baked her favorite cake, so sweet it made her teeth ache, but light and fluffy, truly the food of angels.

Lucky girl, lucky girl, the God of Birthdays sang.

Make a wish, urged the God of Wishes.

What had she wished for?

A wish that seemed to come from nowhere, yet everywhere. A wish that had been inside her all along but had just worked its way up to the surface of her conscious mind.

She’d wished for a sister.

Someone to share everything with.

She looked down at this girl in the photograph, this pitiful know-nothing girl, and hardly recognized her.

She flicked on Gran’s lighter and touched the tip of the file folder to the flame, watched it catch.

“Vi?” Iris called. She was up on her feet, swaying slightly as if the room were spinning. She put her hands on the desk to steady herself. “What are you doing?” Her face was pale and sweaty, her eyes focused.

Vi shook her head.

Not Vi. Not anymore.

Call me by my true name, I dare you.

And what was her true name?

Patient S?

The Monster?

She must have had a name once before, when she was some other girl with real parents and a real sister.

She searched her memory for a name, for some flash of an image of that past life, but nothing came.

Only darkness.

It didn’t matter. Not really.

She wasn’t that girl anymore.

Nor was she Violet Hildreth.

She was someone—something—else altogether.

The folder was fully engulfed now, the edges of the flames burning her fingers. Pain pulled her back into her own body.

Whose body, though?

She dropped the burning folder onto the other papers on the desk. Then she gathered more files, more papers, and added those to the little pyre.

Iris came closer. “Stop! What are you doing?” Vi pushed Iris away, ordered her to stay back.

Smoke and ash and blackened curls of burned paper drifted up, then fell to the floor, burning on the carpet, sending up a hideous chemical stink.

She threw the broken chair parts onto the flames.

Let it burn.

Let it all burn.

The desk itself had caught fire now, and the flames shot up, up to the low drop ceiling. The plastic cover over the flickering fluorescent lights was melting from the heat. The bulbs exploded. The room went dark.

Iris screamed.

And the monster laughed.

She laughed and laughed until she was choking, the thick plastic-scented smoke filling her throat and lungs.

Iris was coughing, choking.

The room was so thick with smoke that Vi could hardly see her there, a pale figure standing just behind her. Her shadow, her doppelg?nger.

Vi took her hand, and Iris fought against her, tried to pull away. But Vi held tight, tugged her away from the fire toward the door.





Lizzy

August 21, 2019




TOO LATE, TOO late, I was thinking as I got to the crumbling front steps.

I touched the outside of the door, feeling for heat.

The door was cool and wet.

I put my hand on the knob.

Please open. Don’t be locked.

I could feel Skink behind me, hear him breathing fast.

The knob turned in my hand.

I took a deep breath, stepped in, and let out a relieved sigh.

Candles.

Candles were lit around the main reception area: two on the floor on either side of the door and three more farther in. The flickering light made a path that led to the basement door.

The building smelled like mildew, rotten wood, wet plaster, and smoke.

“Guess she’s expecting you,” Skink whispered, stepping into the room.

I nodded, pulled out my gun, and moved slowly forward, following the candlelit path to the basement stairs.

The floor was covered in chunks of fallen plaster, the mildewed remains of rugs, pieces of broken furniture. The floor gave a little beneath my feet. In places there was no floor at all: just burned-through timbers.

I turned back and whispered to Skink, “Careful where you step.”

He nodded, cautiously moving forward. “So do you have a plan, or what?”

I didn’t answer.

What was the plan?

I had to stop the monster. Save the girl.

Would I kill the monster?

That was how it worked in all the movies and what we’d written in our book: The monster had to die.

Beneath the raincoat, a slick sweat covered my body. The gun felt heavy and cold in my hand.

I paused at the top of the basement stairs. The door stood open, and candles lit the stairway.

I had the feeling I was walking right into a trap. I’d been led here. My sister was down there waiting.

I remembered the old hospital beds, the restraints, the ECT machine.

I started down the stairs, slowly.

Skink followed. “I don’t like this,” he whispered.

Me neither, I thought. But what choice did I have?

The only person I’d ever truly felt kinship with was waiting for me down in the basement.

My sister.

“Quiet,” I told Skink. “Get behind me.”