Mr Wicker Read online

  Dr. Farron stepped into the middle of the hallway—

  KRAW! KRAW! KRAW!

  As the raven dived at his head, Dr. Farron covered his face with his arms, swatting at the bird as it dogged him. It didn’t seem bent on hurting him, though. The carrion eater merely screeched as it fluttered.

  Then he felt the warmth on his back. He turned to greet the heavenly light that flooded the hallway from the dead end. Stunned, he shielded his eyes with his hands, as if to push the glare back into the wall as the raven flew into the light. A dark waltz echoed with sweetness into the hospital. Then, he saw her:

  Alicia danced from the light and caught his hand. She swung him into a quadrille, silhouettes against the infinite.

  She smiled so peacefully that he wondered if she was asleep. Black smudges caked her cheeks. Her chin. Her lips...

  At first he wondered why her face was covered in black charcoal, but then: “He kissed...?” Dr. Farron sputtered. “You...kissed...?”

  Alicia stopped dancing. She slipped her hands under his arms and, pressing every curve of her body against him firmly, she kissed him so passionately that he thought the light would burst through his eyes and chest.

  Everything dissolved into an opalescent haze as the powerful emotions pulsed into his fingertips and her warmth sank into his flesh.

  ...in a time and out of time...

  Chapter 28

  DAY 3—BAYFORD PSYCHIATRIC UNIT

  Dr. Farron awoke to the ringing of his cell phone. He sat up abruptly, the rush of blood to his temples stealing his balance. Body wavering on the brink of sleep, he slowly realized that he sat in a chair beside a hospital bed. Daylight stung his eyes from the open blinds. He glanced to his left to see Alicia crashed out almost face-first into the pillow, turned toward the window. He checked his phone. Dr. Dulac’s number appeared in the missed call window.

  His fingers were dirty. Grimy. He shuffled into Alicia’s narrow restroom and sleepily washed his hands. What was the last thing he remembered?

  The light...

  Oh, shit.

  Dr. Farron dried his hands and briskly left the room. As he passed, she looked at him strangely. “Good morning, Dr. Farron,” she squeaked. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded. “Good morning,” he said, swiping through the white door to the elevator. Once inside, he ran his card through the reader and pushed the floor button for Dr. Dulac. As soon as the doors opened, he punched out into the busy hospital hallway. A surge of joy lifted him, like endorphins after a run. He could not remember when he last felt happier. He hummed a waltz as he strode. It was a new melody. What was it called? Come to think of it...when did he hear it?

  “Good morning!” he said, to nurses and orderlies, therapists and administrators. “Hi! How are you?” But they greeted him with worried looks and blank stares. Some people sure got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, he thought. But as it persisted: What’s wrong with everyone this morning? Was the outage that bad?

  As he approached Dr. Dulac’s office, he slowed to check himself in the mirrored, gold-veined panels. His hands automatically reached for his tie again, but they stopped mid choke.

  A black streak smudged his lips. He pushed his lip up with one finger. His teeth were smeared black.

  Fear widened his eyes and he turned his head. A wide smear of ash streaked his neck from ear to collar. Ash also blackened his clothing and dusted his arms.

  Dr. Farron stumbled backwards against the far wall, staring at his disarranged clothing, palms turned upward.

  Ashes...ashes...

  Chapter 29

  This time she could feel the wind on her face and everything around her rippled in its fingers.

  The scene eerily flickered like a damaged film reel as she approached the circle of roses. Some stood as high as six feet tall, tightly surrounding a concrete arena about eight feet in diameter. Two blanching roses hung their blighted heads, Gog and Magog, as they arched across the arena’s entry. Their bowed stems crossed like pikes, thorns murderously cuspate. Like a fairy woods, the roses entwined above and below, a mass of commingling vegetation that faintly reeked of perfume. Throughout, the hiss of an unattended needle rode the dead grooves of an antique phonograph, dipping with a crackle into a deep scratch.

  Also this time a voice. Tender. Small.

  Help me, Alicia? Help me do it.

  A deep fright launched Alicia from her pillow.

  Lillian.

  Breathing hard, she blinked, felt the heaviness of exhaustion beckon her backwards, and then twisted back to fall face-first into her pillow. But when she saw the black smears on the white case, she caught herself and scrambled back toward the end of the bed. More ash stained the sheets. Sitting up, she held up her hands.

  Alicia shook uncontrollably, her breath coming in short, quick hiccups. Her legs unfolded deliberately beneath her like metallic cranes as she stood up dizzily, the enormity of what happened pulsing megawatts through her frail nerves. She touched her lips. Her fingers came away dirtier than before.

  Mindy happened by the door that moment with a tray full of med envelopes and shrieked, the medication crashing to the linoleum. “How did you get here, Ms. Baum?” she squeaked. “Ms. Baum...?”

  “Mr. Wicker!” she whispered. She raised her soiled hands in the air. Triumphantly, she cried, “Oh, my god! I was with Mr. Wicker!”

  A round robin of howls from the other patients began, a mock chorus of mad revelation echoing throughout the ward as every patient hooted the Librarian’s name.

  Mindy backed away and shouted for the techs. Within seconds, a five-man takedown team swooped into the room, surrounding Alicia with restraints and needles. One orderly tried the needle spray, a thin stream arcing into the air. “This isn’t gonna hurt a bit, Ms. Baum. Just relax, okay?”

  “What are you doing? I’m fine!”

  The men grappled her down to the bed. Terrified, she shrieked as they bruised her ankles and arms.

  “Wait! You don’t understand! Come...ON!” She sobbed, anguish knotting in her heart.

  “Get off her! NOW!”

  Dr. Farron pushed through the takedown team and began to loosen her straps. The orderly interrupted. “This is Dr. Sark’s order. She escaped last night and...” He eyed the black smudges. “Dude, what’s up with your clothes?”

  Dr. Farron winked at her as he unbuckled her restraints. Tears ran cold on her cheeks at the sight of ash streaking him. She threw her arms around him and he held her, his presence immediately soothing.

  “I think it’s pretty obvious that Ms. Baum never left the hospital,” Dr. Farron replied. “Which doesn’t surprise me since Dr. Sark is the biggest inmate of the ward.” He spoke to her directly. “Let’s go back to my office and talk about this, okay?”

  Alicia sensed that he meant to talk about the night before, not about what just happened. She nodded.

  He escorted her out, shooting a dirty look at the team as they left. Mindy seemed distressed. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Farron,” she cheeped ruefully as she hopped after them like a harried rodent. “Rachelle is coming in soon. Do you want me to have her call you?”

  Dr. Farron stepped into the elevator with Alicia, who wiped her running nose on her lavender sweater. “Yeah, I would,” he said, swiping the security card. The door shut and they were alone. Alicia reached out and touched his stubbly cheek, wiping the grime. It was real. Incredibly real. He stared at the elevator door and sighed deeply.

  Tears of awe ran down Alicia’s cheeks as they walked silently to his office. She sat in the black overstuffed leather chair as he paced. “This is so fucked up. I don’t have to tell you how fucked up this is, do I?” One hand lay on his forehead as if taking his mental temperature. “Oh my god! I’m dropping f-bombs!” He seemed genuinely disturbed by this.

  “It’s fucked up,” she said, “but now at least it’s fucked up for both of us.”

  “Well, before we get into the weird stuff...tell me how you escaped.”

/>   “You said yourself that I never left.”

  “You left the ward. I know. I saw you.”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “You can’t? Or you won’t?”

  “Are you kidding? I’ll never get out of here if I tell you!”

  “You won’t be held for that. It’s a hospital security problem. Not your fault. Tell me what happened!”

  “You don’t care how I got out. But you do care how I got back.”

  “Well, yeah!” he exploded, throwing up his hands. “Hell yeah! But you’ve got to tell me how you got out. Like I said, it’s a hospital security thing. Not every patient is like you. Some of them if they escaped could be dangerous. So, come on.”

  Alicia sat for a moment as she weighed her next statement. “I found Mindy’s security card.”

  “Found? Or snatched?”

  “Found!”

  “Okay, okay! Found.”

  “She lost it. I found it on the floor. I simply failed to return it.”

  “So, we’ve got security issues,” he said, digging through his desk. He procured a box of child face wipes and offered the pack to Alicia. They both took one and began cleaning their faces. “And?”

  “And?”

  “How did you...you know...get...ashy?”

  “The light came for me when I was with Georgeta.”

  “The light,” he said, exasperated. He planted himself on a child’s chair and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Wait—how do you know her name?”

  “Yes, the fucking light. You know? The light that comes for you when you die. Except this time I didn’t.” She lowered her voice. “It took me to the Library.”

  “Oh, no!” he whined. “I don’t want to hear this!”

  “Mr. Wicker told me everything, James,” she said. “Even Georgeta’s name.”

  “From your book?” he asked more hopefully.

  “No. From his past,” she replied. “Who he is. And James...oh, my god. It is an unbelievable story. But it rings true with what I know about that time period.” She told him briefly about the Gauls, Caesar’s war, and how Drunos the druid suffered.

  He slumped on the chair. “There’s got to be an explanation. I’m sorry, but there has to be something that—”

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” She stood, pointing at him. “Look at you! Look at me! Ash! Everywhere! I don’t know how this happened, but I know that it did!”

  His eyes shined. He looked like he was going to cry.

  Resigned to taking the reins of this conversation, she set aside her anger and knelt before him as he sat on the small chair. As she tenderly stroked his cheek, he did not cry but he spoke to her as if for the first time, his eyes flicking from hers to the floor.

  “This is a lot,” he said. “You take a man who’s a golem—just a lump of mud, moving around to please other people. But you, you come along and he feels human again. Not just alive but like there’s something more to being alive. Alive, after years of death.”

  Alicia could relate too well. “When did you die?”

  His hands shook. “It was summer, and we were in D.C. visiting her family. We took a stroll out onto what they call Tourist Alley one evening, just looking at the monuments. I left her alone on a bench to get some water. And she was pregnant, so...” He sighed deeply again, as if something had flown from his open mouth, and faltered. “Witnesses say that sonuvabitch demanded her purse, but he took her life.”

  “Both lives?” Alicia asked, astonished.

  He nodded, eyes dimmed.

  “Oh, god. I’m so sorry, James. Truly, truly sorry,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  “You talk a lot for a golem. That makes you considerably less golem-ish.”

  A smile hooked the corner of his mouth.

  A moment of silence.

  Alicia ached with stupidity. Yes, life had shat on her, but it had not stolen from her something as precious as this. A wife. A baby. A happy life of love and hope gone in a flash of gunpowder. And here she was judging this guy, punishing him for not getting caught up in the ecstasy of her so-called revelations as they tore his world apart in some terrible new way. At least he’d been listening to the children. At least he knew something had been going on. Yet she criticized and scolded him like he was every other man in her life. Clearly, he wasn’t.

  And here he opened up to her and she hung onto her stupid secrets like Monopoly money in a Hello Kitty purse. Maybe it was time to let it go. Take a risk. She wondered if this was how people learned to trust one another—drowning in the same sunk bag when together they could swim and save themselves. She wasn’t sure why talking about Mr. Wicker had been easier than her life before the Library. But after a moment of consideration, she knew exactly why—

  “Can I tell you a secret?”

  He nodded.

  “I feel really stupid when you ask me why I hurt myself. It’s like what Winnie the Pooh says—you know Winnie the Pooh?”

  He nodded officially. “We speak Pooh here.”

  Alicia smiled. “Well, like Pooh says, I have this very thingish thing inside of me but I’m afraid that once it’s outside of me, it won’t be so thingish. And then I’ll feel even more very stupid for hurting myself.”

  “But it must have been pretty thingish. In fact, there were probably several pretty thingish things that happened, one right after another.”

  Alicia broke her look with him briefly, summoning her courage. “In fairy tales, things come in threes. In my life, things left in threes. The first thing to leave was my career. My last two books did poorly and I then became blocked for the first time in my life. Nothing of any worth could possibly come out of me. At least, that’s what it felt like. And when I couldn’t write, I couldn’t save myself from the world. It was how I coped with everything. Which leads to the second thing to leave: my husband, Eric. We were married five years and he left me for another woman. Me! He left me, when he was the one who was violent and moody. He could be incredibly charming when he wanted to be, of course. I was much better off without him. Still, I felt like someone had torn open my chest and knuckle-punched my heart. We had taken out a second mortgage to pay off his expensive habits. Drug habits.”

  “Heroin?”

  She nodded. “The house is in foreclosure. I’ll lose it any day now.” Alicia paused. She remembered how badly the weight of this had been crushing her. “The third thing to leave was my health.” She tried to fight the tears, but it was just no good. “They found another lump. I’d had one a few years ago. It was brutal. I narrowly missed having to have a mastectomy. This time, I might not be so lucky.”

  After a moment of her silence, he said, “That all sounds very thingish to me.”

  He hugged her and she sank into him. He received the weight of her completely.

  “Okay, before you jump to conclusions about the lump, you need a diagnostic mammogram. But one step at a time. I need your total cooperation,” he said. “I’ve got major dragons to slay.”

  “Dr. Sark?”

  “Yeah. Although Dr. Dulac might be harder to deal with.”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  Dr. Farron explained that Dr. Dulac was the Chairman of Psychiatric Services at the hospital. He was his mentor and a good man, but not very understanding when it came to breaches of professionalism.

  “Oh, give me a fucking break! You know Minnie Mouse is sucking off Dr. Sark, right?” she said. “I heard them carrying on in his office.” As he started to react, she added, “And that Brian guy? He thought I was asleep, so he jacked off next to my bed! Fuck this place. Dr. Dulac is AWOL.”

  Dr. Farron looked shellshocked. “Are you sure?”

  “You have got to get me out of here,” she begged. “I’m afraid of Dr. Sark. There’s something about that guy that’s very wrong.”

  The office phone rang.

  “The dragon,” Dr. Farron said and answered it.

  Chapter 30

  Dr. Farron hit the
tension in the room like it was a rubber wall when he saw Dr. Dulac and Dr. Sark conferencing. The stalagmites of paperwork on Dr. Dulac’s desk showed no evidence of thaw, but Dr. Dulac had moved some to the floor for the meeting. Dr. Farron had scrubbed himself as best he could, put on a polo shirt with an embroidered logo from the last hospital fundraiser under a hooded sweat jacket from his locker, clipped his hospital I.D. to the zipper, and ditched the lab coat. He looked clean, if not entirely professional.

  “James, Mason has recommended that we transfer Ms. Baum to a facility,” Dr. Dulac explained. Alicia’s chart was lying open on the desk before him. “He says she escaped last night, is violent, and needs at least a month of in-patient treatment.”

  “She is not violent,” Dr. Farron said.

  “She is totally out of control!” Dr. Sark countered.

  “Your staff tried to sedate her when she discovered someone had played a mean joke on her.”

  “Are you suggesting that my staff would allow such a breach of conduct?” Dr. Sark sneered.

  “I’m suggesting that your staff might have been the perpetrators!” Dr. Farron asserted. “Ms. Baum reports that one of your nurses masturbated beside her bed last night when he thought she was asleep. What do you have to say for that, Dr. Sark? Do you normally run your unit this side of a lawsuit?”

  “I will not bear one more accusation!” Dr. Sark responded, more to Dr. Dulac. “Not unless Dr. Farron can explain how he slipped past my night nurse into Ms. Baum’s room and left this morning covered in some noxious black substance. We’ve a half-dozen witnesses to that, whereas not a one to these other baseless assertions other than the accuser.”

  “Look, here’s the story,” Dr. Farron said, hastily pulling on his bullshit gloves to K.O. this piss of a man. “Last night Dr. Sark called me when they couldn’t find Ms. Baum. I had a hunch that, if she was missing, she was definitely somewhere in the hospital. So I checked the one place that she had expressed a desire to go, and that was to a child she had seen one day during a walk after our first session. Sure enough, there she was. I walked her back to her room and sat with her until she fell asleep. The problem was,” Dr. Farron intimated, spreading it on as thick as he thought they would eat it, “that I was exhausted myself and I fell asleep in the visitor’s chair, making sure she stayed put. You know I’m on medication, Leonard.”