Set This House In Order Part 20

She lay there for some time -- maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour. Maybe three hours. The darkness itself didn't frighten Mouse. She found it peaceful, almost comforting. It was only when she thought about how she'd come to be there -- what a bad person she was, had to be, for her mother to treat her this way -- that she dissolved once more into tears.

The tears were drying on her cheeks, and she was beginning to think about getting up and trying to find a way out, when she heard a sound, the soft sly creak of a door being opened. It wasn't the door at the top of the stairs; it was another door, a door to a different part of the cellar or, maybe, a door that led directly outside. Mouse lay still, listening, and the creak came again -- the same door, closing -- and now her fear was back, because she wasn't alone in the cellar anymore.

Mouse sat up hurriedly. She was completely disoriented, but she thought she couldn't have fallen too far from the stairs, and she began groping around urgently in the dark. Her fingertips brushed a coa.r.s.e wooden plank -- the bottom step! She felt along the step until she found the banister support post, grabbed it, and pulled herself to her feet. Then she went to grip the banister, but instead of a wooden railing she felt the back of another hand, that had found the banister first. The hand flipped over, encircling her wrist in an iron grip. And then. . .

. . . and then, she didn't know what happened. She blacked out in mid-scream; fell back, and found herself at home in her room, sitting on the edge of her bed in morning sunlight, while her mother called her down to breakfast. The pink party dress her mother had given her was gone, never to be seen again; so was the sundress Grandma had bought for her. And the memory of whatever had happened to her in the cellar after that hand grabbed her wrist, that was gone too -- thank G.o.d.

Only now, standing in the cavern with the little girl, Mouse realizes: it's not true. Like the photographs of her father that her mother burned, the pink dress isn't gone; it's in here. Grandma's sundress might be in here too somewhere, if she knew where to look for it. And the knowledge of what happened in the cellar after she blacked out. . . that's in here too.

Yes. Mouse looks at the sack in the little girl's hand, twisting as though it were alive, and she thinks she knows what's in it now. As if to confirm her guess, the sack's drawstring loosens of its own accord. The opening puckers like a mouth, and Mouse hears the soft sly sound of a cellar door opening in darkness.

"No!" Mouse squeaks. She wants no part of this; she doesn't want to remember what happened.

She takes a step back, and starts to turn and run, but even as she thinks to do it it is already happening: the cavern, the tunnel, the cave mouth, all go blurring past her in reverse.

-- and she is back in the doctor's sitting room, reentering her body at such velocity that it is a wonder she doesn't go flying off the sofa. As it is, her torso jerks forward violently; the safety helmet slides off her lap and tumbles to the floor.

"Ohhh," Mouse groans. Her hands come up and go to the back of her neck, pressing hard; the pain has returned, and it's worse. "Oh G.o.d. . ."

"Penny?" says the doctor. "Penny, are you all right?"

Mouse doesn't answer. She tries ma.s.saging her neck for a moment, but that just sends the pain shooting up into her temples, so she stops, and then -- when the pain has gone back a bit -- she begins tracing her fingers up along the sides and top of her skull. Probing.

"Penny?" repeats the doctor. "What did you see?"

Her hands are on her forehead now, where she most expects to find it, but there's no hole, no cave mouth gaping above her eyebrows, just smooth skin.

"Penny."

Slowly Mouse lowers her hands. She eases back a little on the sofa, careful to keep her neck straight. "I'm not going back in there again," she says.

"What did you see? Did you meet someone?"

Mouse gets a furtive look on her face. To the doctor it must appear as though she is listening for something, but what she's really doing is feeling for something: concentrating on the s.p.a.ce that she now knows is there inside her head, trying to sense if any of the members of the Society are lurking near the cave mouth, within earshot.

"Penny. . ."

She can't feel anyone, which doesn't necessarily mean they aren't there. But she decides to take a chance, speaking quickly in a low voice: "Can you take them out?"

"Take them. . . ?"

"The people in my head. Can you. . ." -- Mouse wants to say "kill them," but that's too harsh, they'd hear that for sure even if she whispered it -- ". . . can you get rid of them?"

The doctor doesn't seem surprised by this request, but she also doesn't seem inclined to grant it.

"Penny," she says, in that tone of voice used to deliver bad news, "do you understand why they're there in the first place? Did Andrew tell you --"

"I don't care why they're there! I just want them gone!" Mouse says, but then her courage crumbles. "Please," she begs. "I don't want anything to do with them. Not those awful twins, not that creepy little girl, not any of them. I just. . . can't you take them out?"

"I'm sorry," the doctor says.

"Can't you just hypnotize me? Or maybe. . . maybe there's a drug, some medicine I could take. .

But the doctor shakes her head. "Even if there were some magic pill that could suppress your alters, they'd eventually resurface -- or you'd call out new ones."

"No," Mouse insists. "No, I wouldn't, I'd --"

"You would. It's what you do, Penny. It's how you handle stressful situations: by dissociating, devolving them on someone else. With the right therapy, you can learn less disruptive methods of coping with stress, but it's not going to happen overnight. I'm sorry."

"Andrew says," Mouse stammers, afraid that she is about to offend the doctor, "Andrew says that you. . . that your method of treating. . . our condition. . . is different than most psychiatrists'. Maybe.

. . maybe if I talked to somebody else, maybe they would. . . well. . ." She fumbles to a halt.

The doctor frowns but doesn't get angry. "Some of my methods are unorthodox," she admits.

"Andrew may not be in the best position to comment, since his own treatment, his father's treatment, was.

. . interrupted. . . in an unfortunate fas.h.i.+on. But that's neither here nor there. Other psychiatrists may disagree with me about a great many things, it's true, but there's one thing they won't disagree about: an important step in treating your condition is coming to terms with the experiences that precipitated it. And for that, you're going to need your Society's help. Whether you choose to regard them as real people or psychological phantoms, you need access to information that they have. Later, after they've shared that information with you, there'll be plenty of opportunity to debate what their final disposition should be -- whether you want to reintegrate them, or learn to live with them, or some combination of the two. It's an important question, but it's a question for the latter stages of treatment. You can't start by getting rid of them."

You need access to information that they have. . . Mouse thinks of the little girl with her bag.

She thinks of the other people in the big cavern, too, the people she heard but didn't see. G.o.d! What if they are all children, all carrying bags? Take the terror she felt at the prospect of being reunited with that one memory, and multiply it by a hundred. . . no, worse, multiply it by every blackout she has ever had.

"No," says Mouse. "No, I don't think so. I can't do that." She looks at the doctor. "I can't."

"Only you can decide if and when you're ready," the doctor replies, with surprising patience.

"Although the fact that you're here suggests to me that you're close to being ready. But we won't force it.

What I'll do, I'll give you my number, and also the number of another doctor in Seattle -- the one who'd actually be handling your treatment if you decided to go ahead with it. And then you can go home and think it over some more, as long as you need to.

"Just one suggestion," the doctor adds, raising a cautionary finger. "I think you are making a mistake by regarding your alters, your Society, in purely negative terms. I can understand why you might view them that way, given the degree to which they disrupt your life, but they aren't your enemies.

"They aren't my friends, either," says Mouse, remembering the way Ugly hissed at her.

"Not friends, perhaps, but. . . allies. People with common interests. Not identical interests: you may at times find yourself at cross-purposes with them, and even when you don't, you may not always like them, or they you. But in general, you are pulling towards the same ends, and I think you'll find it much more constructive to work with them than against them. . . and I can see now by your expression that you don't believe me, but that's all right. Just keep it in mind as you're deliberating."

"All right."

"All right. And now, if you would. . . please get Meredith in here. . ."

The doctor has her helpmate give Mouse a card with two phone numbers on it -- the doctor's own, and one for a Dr. Eddington. Mouse tucks the card away in her wallet and tries to sound sincere as she says that she will carefully consider everything the doctor has told her.

A few minutes later Andrew comes back from his walk. He's clearly curious about what has happened in his absence, but -- still smarting, maybe, from being yelled at before -- he doesn't ask any questions. The doctor, who has suddenly become very sluggish, rouses herself enough to insist that Andrew call her again soon: "I want to talk to your father," she says, "and I want you to make that appointment to see Dr. Eddington." Andrew promises that he'll do as the doctor asks; Mouse thinks that his sincerity is only slightly more genuine than her own.

They are in the car, on their way out of Poulsbo, when Andrew finally breaks down and asks: "So, how did it go?"

Mouse shrugs. "All right," she says.

The inside of the car telescopes, the same way the doctor's sitting room did when the doctor counted to three. Mouse finds herself back in the cave mouth, without a helmet this time. She hears the voice of Ugly issuing from Penny Driver's mouth: "Bulls.h.i.+t. It wasn't all right. That little c.u.n.t took one look inside, saw us, and freaked out. Little f.u.c.king Mouse."

"Maledicta," says Andrew. "Were you. . . were you nice to her?"

"She's afraid of her own f.u.c.king shadow. Why should I be f.u.c.king nice to her? "

"Maledicta. . ."

Mouse, in a sudden flare of anger, surges forward again. Ugly -- Maledicta? -- is caught by surprise; there is a brief struggle for control, during which Penny Driver's hands go slack on the steering wheel, and the Buick starts drifting to the left. Maledicta, realizing the danger, gives up the fight.

"Penny?" Andrew says, wide-eyed, as Mouse grips the steering wheel again and swerves the Centurion back into its proper lane.

"Please don't talk to me right now," Mouse replies. "I need to concentrate."

"OK," Andrew says.

Mouse is furious. She wouldn't have thought it possible, but the visit with the doctor has made things worse. Bad enough to just lose consciousness, but to be tossed like a backseat driver into your own head and forced to listen and watch while someone else takes over your body and says terrible things about you. . .

She will have to be vigilant, now. She will have to stay alert, always alert, to attempts by the Society to seize control, and be ready to fight them off.

But vigilance, Mouse soon discovers, is hard work; by the time they get to the ferry landing, she is a wreck, trembling like someone who hasn't slept for days. As they wait for their turn to board, Mouse rests her head on the steering wheel -- -- and lifts it again an hour and a half later. The Buick's engine is off; they are parked in front of the house in Autumn Creek where Andrew lives.

"Penny?" Andrew says softly.

Autumn Creek! Realizing what has just happened, Mouse jerks upright -- and yelps, as pain stabs the back of her neck again.

"Oh, Penny," Andrew says, wincing sympathetically from the pa.s.senger's seat. "I thought you were going to have that checked out. Didn't you go to the hospital?"

Mouse looks at him, her eyes blurry with tears. "I don't know," she says. She tried to go to the hospital, on Sunday night; she knows that much. But as she approached the entrance to the emergency room, she saw a group of security guards wrestling a man in a straitjacket to the ground, and it occurred to her that if she told anyone how she bashed her head into a tree while trying to outrun herself, she might end up in a straitjacket too. So she froze up, and she doesn't know what happened after that. Maybe she went into the emergency room; maybe somebody did. But if so, it must not have done any good.

"Would you like me to go with you to the hospital now?" Andrew offers.

"No," says Mouse. "No, thank you." She swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. Her vision clears, and she sees Andrew's landlady sitting on the front porch of the house, watching them.

Watching her. "She doesn't like me, does she?"

"Who, Mrs. Winslow? She likes you just fine."

"She doesn't trust me. She thinks I might be dangerous to you."

"Mrs. Winslow does worry about my safety. But it's not personal, Penny. She --"

"She knows that I'm crazy. She's seen it."

"She's seen you acting out," Andrew concedes. "A couple times, now. But even if she hadn't, she'd still keep an eye out. Really, it's nothing against you in particular."

"Right," says Mouse. She closes her eyes and lowers her head towards the steering wheel again, wis.h.i.+ng for another blackout, knowing she won't get one as long as she really wants it.

Andrew says: "Her family was murdered."

Mouse lifts her head again. "What?"

"Her husband and her two sons," Andrew says. "They were murdered. So, you know, if she seems a little overprotective of me, you shouldn't take it personally."

"Murdered how?" says Mouse, shocked.

Andrew thinks before answering, consulting with his own Society. "They were on a weekend trip to the San Juan Islands," he finally tells her. "This was years and years ago, before my father moved in here, before I was. . . before I took over. Anyway, they went on this trip, and Mrs. Winslow was supposed to go too, but she got sick at the last minute and had to stay home. And on the way up, on the ferry, they met" -- here Andrew says something that sounds like "a cougar" but then corrects himself -- "a very bad man, who convinced Mr. Winslow to give him a ride. Once they were off the ferry and away from people, the man pulled out a gun and made Mr. Winslow drive to a cliff overlooking the Sound.

Then he shot Mr. Winslow, and made the two boys jump into the water."

"Did the police catch him?" Mouse asks, already knowing from the way Andrew has spoken that the answer is no.

Andrew shakes his head. "No, not for that. But my cousin Adam thinks he probably did get arrested for something in the end. At least we hope he did."

Mouse starts to shake her own head but then stops, wincing. "I don't understand."

"The police never caught him for the murders," Andrew explains, "but it wasn't the last they heard from him. They figure he must have gone through Mr. Winslow's wallet after he shot him, and found a picture of Mrs. Winslow, and something with a home address. And then later, after he made his getaway, he started writing to her. . ."

"Writing to her?"

"Notes, mostly," Andrew says. "Awfal notes. Postcards, greeting cards, sometimes longer letters -- all of it completely nasty, evil stuff, I mean a hundred times worse than the meanest message you ever got."

"But what. . . what did he write to her? Threats?"

"More like gloating. He would start out by reminding her who he was -- never gave his name, of course, but he'd remind her what he'd done -- and then he'd go on and brag about what a great time he was having, traveling around, free. He really did travel a lot, too -- the postmarks on the notes were from all over the country, never the same place twice.

"So this went on for about five years." Andrew pauses, c.o.c.ks his head. "Five and a half years."

"Five. . ." The word chokes off in a squeak.

"Yeah," Andrew says. "And each new note that came, Mrs. Winslow vould turn over to the police, so they could check it for clues. But they never got anything useful."

"But, but then. . . how can you say that he got caught in the end, if they didn't --"

"They didn't catch him for the murders, or for the notes," says Andrew, "but eventually the notes stopped -- I mean they stopped all of a sudden, with no warning. And the police, and Adam too, they think that the kind of person who would keep up something like that for five and a half years, he wouldn't just decide to quit voluntarily. So something must have happened to him -- most likely, he got arrested for some other crime. Or maybe, maybe he just died."

"But you can't know that for sure," says Mouse, horrified. "You --"

"No, but you can hope. The last note the man ever sent? It was postmarked from a town in northern Illinois. And this was in August of 1990, just a few days before a really big tornado touched down right near there. So who knows. . . maybe after he mailed that last note, maybe he got caught out in the open, with no storm cellar to run to. That's the way Adam wishes it ended. And sometimes. . .

sometimes I wish it too.

"Anyway," concludes Andrew, "anyway, the reason I'm telling you this, I know it's a horrible story but I want you to understand, the things you've done? Switching souls, and running off to the woods last time you were here -- that stuff is nothing to Mrs. Winslow. And when you say you're a bad person? Penny, seriously. . . I hear you say a thing like that, I want to say that you must not know what a bad person is. Except that you do know, don't you? You know very well."

Mouse doesn't answer, but she finds herself checking the rearview mirror to make sure her mother has not slipped into the Centurion's back seat somehow. She hasn't. Of course not.

"One other thing," Andrew says. "When my father first told me this, about what happened to Mrs. Winslow's family? He admitted to me that when he first heard about it, one of the things he wished he could do was take a look at the notes."