Even if what he wanted was only for the benefit of somebody else, doing it this way felt disgusting. But what was the alternative?
Jane said, “You will have better luck talking to him than I will. You definitely have to try.”
“You two don’t get along?”
This time Arthur could see the girl’s smile was genuine. It crept up on her face quite suddenly, and forced her muscles to move in all the right ways. The natural ways.
“Not getting along is an understatement. We have an understanding and stay out of each other’s way whenever we can.”
“What happened between the two of you to make things go sour?”
“A lot of stuff. Really, I… I can’t go into the details there.”
Silently they all drank their coffee. When Jane and Caleb finished they got up and tossed their plastic cups in the small trashcan in the corner of the room.
Before leaving the room Jane said, “I will be back this afternoon. Maybe we can talk some more then.”
As soon as Jane departed Ellie woke up. Her pale blue eyes immediately shifted into a state of blind panic and her tired muscles fought against the straps that held her small body down.
From her almost paralyzed throat came a barely audible whisper. “I’m… not… your… chocolate milk….”
As soon as Jane stepped outside the hospital she looked for a bench to sit on. She found one not far to her left and walked toward it.
“I need a quick rest,” she informed Caleb as she sat down.
Jane leaned back and closed her eyes. Her head was exploding from the terrible stress she had built up over the previous night. It was the kind of headache she got whenever she strained her abilities too far, as if her brain protested against all the work she forced it to do.
She had spent the night fighting for Ellie’s life. The claws that had dug themselves into the girl’s brain were wild and vicious, but Jane had kept them at bay for long and desperate hours.
The terrible force that ravaged Brettville, however, was relentless, and it would only be a matter of time before it overpowered Jane. Not necessarily because it was stronger, but because it seemed to have a limitless supply of energy.
The only way out of this was to find the source. Where had the terrible power that once resided in the oak gone? Where was it hiding? And could it be beaten when she finally found it?
Jane wasn’t sure and, right now, she didn’t have the energy to figure it out.
It was entirely possible that she’d start to taste her own blood soon and the prospect worried her. The blood, she knew, didn’t come from her throat. It only came through her throat, as the natural canal to relieve the injuries her brain sustained. If she wasn’t careful it would go down the wrong pipe, causing her to choke on her own blood.
When she worked her hardest she literally squeezed her frontal lobes together, causing blood to flow from the friction. It was funny because they showed the phenomenon in movies and television shows from time to time, but as a very mild and modest nosebleed. The kind that looked just right on television.
Fuck. Jane wished she could get a delicate little nosebleed like that.
Maybe she could still find a way out of this. If she could relax in the privacy of her mental house and give her brain some rest, it wouldn’t be so bad.
Without opening her eyes she told Caleb, “I’m going to shut down for fifteen minutes or so. Don’t worry, I’ll wake up when I’m good to go.”
Jane could send herself to sleep whenever she wanted to. It wasn’t that hard to do if you had complete conscious control over your body. She needed that rest now. She needed to walk around in her mental house for a little bit, maybe take a hot shower and just pray to whatever God she knew didn’t exist that her brain could take the beating she had endured during the night.
Jane took a deep breath and counted down.
Five… four… three… two… one…. Goodnight.
She opened her eyes and found herself in the cool darkness of her mental house. All the lights were off, just the way she had left them, and a peaceful silence embraced her body. Soon that silence would make room for the giggles of the little girls that resided inside her head, but for now, she could walk through her house uninterrupted.
Jane took the flashlight that was always in her left pocket and turned it on. She preferred to walk through the darkness, focusing only on the details of her mind that she liked with the flashlight. Reality would come soon enough and with it the overabundance of thoughts and feelings, both her own and those of the people around her.
On her bare feet she started up the stairs and heard the faint laughter of the little girls. They had come out to play with her but she would have to disappoint them. Jane simply didn’t have the time right now.
Jane turned around and watched as the little girls tried to climb the stairs, impeded by the heavy lumps on their necks and shoulders. They always struggled so much, trying to maintain their balance but never quite succeeding.
Jane sat down on the last step of the stairs and waited until the seven girls had caught up with her. Two of them crawled up next to her while yet another knelt at her feet, playing with Jane’s bare toes. The other four surrounded her left and right and together they sat on the stairs for a bit.
Jane put down the flashlight and said, “I know you girls want to play, and I like playing with you a lot. But I’m in a hurry today so I won’t have much time. I’m just here to take a shower right now.”
The girl that played with her toes tried to speak, and Jane waited patiently for her to find her voice. It was difficult to talk when cancerous tumors ran rampant inside your throat.
“You… hot… shower?”
Jane smiled as she answered, “Yes. A nice hot shower. I really need one.”
The girls nodded as they understood. They weren’t selfish or greedy spirits that haunted Jane’s mind. They just wanted to be seen and to be interacted with. Life had given them so little in that way and all they could do was kindly ask for it now. Jane gave them a lot of attention and for that they were grateful. Perhaps they even loved her for it.
Satisfied, Jane stood up and left the little girls behind. She started walking along the hallway where she had previously seen the pale man from her window. Remembering his beauty still sent shivers down her spine. How could such an immaculate body house such a horrible entity?
She couldn’t think about that right now. Giving him too much attention, in her own home at that, gave him power over her that he shouldn’t have.
Jane arrived at a white door to her right. It stood in the far end of the hallway and was so bright that she didn’t need her flashlight to find it.
She opened the door and stepped inside the room. There she turned on the light for the first time, illuminating her small bathroom with a warm yellow light shining from the ceiling.
Jane could have made the room as big as she wanted it to be as there were no limits to the size of her mental house, as far as she knew. But she never wanted for very much and the few luxuries she allowed herself were perfectly fine in their intimacy. What was she going to do with a giant bathroom, anyway?
There were no mirrors in this bathroom because Jane wasn’t very fond of looking at herself. She disliked the delicacy of her childlike face that refused to grow up. She resented, even more, how her body had stopped growing before she could develop the curves other young women had.
It wasn’t fair, but then, her life had never been very fair to begin with. She was a freak of nature that had no real right to exist and defied the laws of evolution. Her ugly and dysfunctional body was merely a testament to that fact.