Every Single Secret(58)

Haven?

I felt my way along the surface, identifying each subsequent letter. “O, P, I, T, Y, S, O . . .” I shook my head. Went back to where I started. Felt the scratches there. “I,” I said and furrowed my brow. “IHAVENOPITYSO . . . What in God’s name?” I shook my head again, hard, clearing the cobwebs. “I have no pity,” I murmured. Ran my fingers over the letters again. “I have no pity so . . .”

I imagined Matthew Cerny, a small boy with floppy blond hair, carving this phrase into his desk during his lessons. What a strange thing for a child to carve. How desolate.

“Daphne?” I heard behind me, and I whirled. Even in the gloom, I recognized the voice. Heath. And then I saw the knife, lying on the floor of the shed, just beside his feet.



Chapter Twenty-One

“Daphne, I’m sorry to take you away from your activities.”

Dr. Cerny took my hand between his. The overhead lights of his office were dimmed to a soft amber, turning the glass-paned walls opaque in the dark. We couldn’t see out, but anyone looking in could see us. Like actors on a spotlit stage.

Heath wandered across the room to peruse the bookshelves. In the barn, he’d simply asked if I’d be willing to go back to the office to speak with Dr. Cerny. On our way out, I trailed behind and gave the knife a gentle kick into the shadows.

Now Heath ran his fingers down the spines of Cerny’s books, leaning in periodically to get a closer look at a few of the volumes.

The doctor tapped his iPad. “I wanted to speak to you, Daphne. Get your input on some subjects Heath and I are accessing. Would you be comfortable with that?”

“I think so,” I said. “I’d like to help if I can.”

Heath turned and sent me a look—a signal I didn’t quite understand. Looking at him usually made my heart feel tender, swollen with love to the point of being painful, but ever since I told him about Chantal, I sensed something was different between us. An unnaturalness that hadn’t been there before. Something cold and stilted.

The doctor leaned back, folded his hands across his sweater. “The nightmares Heath was having before you came to Baskens—he says he is unable to remember them. You said he referenced a mirror.”

I felt the low rumble of panic in my gut. The nerves all over my body sang to life. I dropped my hands behind my back and snapped the band on my wrist.

“Are you all right?” Cerny asked. “Can I get you something?”

I swallowed. “No.”

“You don’t look well.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’re having a panic attack,” he said calmly.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” And yet I could feel myself dying to count the books on the shelves or the blacked-out panes of glass around me. Anything to ease the discomfort. I snapped the band again and again, not caring anymore if they noticed.

“Sit. I’m going to get you some water and a paper bag to breathe into. Do you take medication for anxiety? Or do you just employ the . . . other coping mechanism?” Cerny was up now, bustling in a circuit around the room, but it made me too dizzy to watch him, so I sat, dropped my elbows to my knees, and closed my eyes.

“Daphne?” Heath’s voice seemed thin with concern.

“I don’t do meds,” I said, to no one in particular.

Dr. Cerny returned with a glass of juice and a paper bag.

Maybe I was having some kind of attack. At the very least, Baskens was unraveling me. I felt untethered here, without an Internet connection, without any of my familiar tasks and boundaries and outlets. Paranoid because of the cameras. Dull and hazy. With Heath’s nightmares no longer waking me, I was sleeping substantially more than usual, but instead of rested I felt groggy. My dynamic with Heath had shifted ever so subtly too, after the thing in the shower. Or maybe it was that I’d told him about Chantal. It was hard to tell.

It was like my mind had become an unruly child, running wild through the dark, dusty corridors of the mansion, up and down the wind-whipped mountain, body-free and heedless. And somehow, in the process of investigating the dark nooks, watching the glowing monitors and seeing the secret lives of the other patients here, I had fallen into the strange offbeat rhythm of the place. I had become unclenched and vulnerable.

A child again.

And like an obedient child, I finished off the juice the doctor gave me.

Heath spoke. “I’ll take you back upstairs, Daphne.” He glanced at the doctor, and some form of communication that I couldn’t decipher passed between the two of them. “We’ll finish this later,” he said firmly, then touched my arm.

I lifted myself out of the chair. I felt as heavy as an elephant, which had to be from the panic. Or was it . . . I stopped and turned to Cerny. Heath plucked at my elbow, but I pushed away his hand.

“Dr. Cerny . . .” I said.

The doctor, just settling into his chair behind the desk, raised his eyebrows.

“I was supposed to meet Glenys Sieffert this afternoon, at the top of the mountain.”

He froze.

“We were just going to do some yoga. On the mountain.”

Cerny’s eyes flicked over at Heath. “We have a policy.”

It was only the millionth time I’d heard someone at Baskens say that, and frankly I was over it. “I know,” I said. “And I’m sorry I broke your rule, but I couldn’t not say something. I mean, it’s more than her not showing up. I haven’t seen her in a while.”