Beside him on the wall, his own shadow bowed grotesquely. If he's hurt you...
The candle on the cold radiator guttered, swinging shadows up from the floor until they merged with a greater darkness near the skylight. No, I mustn't even consider that possibility. That's why I'm here. Objects in the room, the wooden crate that served both as stool and table, and the sleeping bag, bunched in the corner with some clothing, seemed to sway in unison with the candle flame, as icy air trickled up his legs. To protect her. To rescue her from him. Shivering again, he pulled the parka closer. He'd taken it from a man who'd bought him dinner at a truck stop, and it fit him perfectly, as though the man had simply been delivering it. Certainly, his need had been greater. In addition, there'd been enough cash in the man's wallet for the few purchases he'd needed to make in order to ensure that he looked like the rest of them. Or close enough at any rate. He ran his fingers across the leather toiletry kit he'd taken from the man's luggage. Wouldn't do to attract attention. Not now.
Night rattled at the painted glass, getting in around the frame, and the newspaper fluttered between his fingers. So close. Glittering dimly, the hairs on his legs stood straight, while his testicles, shriveled from the chill, pulled close beneath his overhanging stomach. The air in the room circled, a faint echo of the wind outside, and his breath steamed the clear oval of glass that candlelight coated with a filmy gloss. The damp patch spread, trickled, a single drop rolling down the pane. As the candle sputtered, his doppelganger capered on the wall. Shuddering at his post, he felt that he knew every molecule of this window: the dust clot in the corner, the plaster crumbs on the fallen strands of cobweb.
Across the way, the red point of the cigarette rose, brightening.
He slapped the sheet of paper down as a sudden draft made the candlelight in the room swell. Mustn't let him see me. The flame swayed tenderly, and the shrinking tongue trembled. No, that would never do. He took his glasses off and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. When he stared too closely at the flame, the rest of the room blurred into rough shapes, ever more indistinct, until at last the world became a deep brown cave, this hot point its center. His chattering teeth sounded like the rattle of the glass, and again, he felt the chill stir harshly up his legs. Yanking a blanket from the pile of bedding on the floor, he wrapped it about his waist, then snapped up the parka's hood.
He brought the heel of his hand down on the candle, and blackness fell from the skylight. Tearing aside the paper, he leaned to the glass. Even through the paint, the freezing pane burned his palm. Ah, the nick of time, as they say. Arcing from the roof, the cigarette scattered embers as it plunged along the lattice. He watched a dim form pitch recklessly down the fire escape; then the curtains thrashed briefly. He could see nothing more, barely any hint of light now, and another shudder sluiced through him, a damp tremor that seemed to begin in the floor beneath his feet. She was smoking too, the morning I killed her. He let his vision drift out of focus, while the memory curled around him.
Where had everyone gone that morning? Oh yes. Another excursion. Some dull museum perhaps, or a matinee concert, another thinly disguised reward for placid behavior. But he hadn't been allowed to go with them that day. Dr. Leland had requested he stay behind for an interview--an unscheduled interview--and any break with routine alarmed him then.
"Mr. Chandler, do come in. You don't mind if I call you Ramsey? You didn't really mind not accompanying the others today, did you? No, I shouldn't think you would. You don't really enjoy these outings the way the others do. That's been evident for some time, to me at least. Of course, you feign a certain enthusiasm, but then you feign a great many things, do you not?" She sucked on the cigarette, her eyes glinting like those of a shrewd rodent. "Is that not the case?" She exhaled an impressive cloud of smoke and leaned into it.
Even then, he tried to smile, nodding affably and shuffling his big feet.
"And you can stop that playacting, Ramsey. At least, I assume you can. Correct me if I'm mistaken." A prideful fascination lay behind her stare, as though she'd discovered some new and astonishing germ beneath her microscope. "And don't simply lean there in the doorway. Take a seat." She stubbed her cigarette out in a marble bowl, immediately lighting another. "Does the smoke bother you? No, that's right, you never complain about anything, do you? The perfect patient. So cooperative." She smiled thinly. "Small wonder your treatment has progressed so remarkably."
He kept his face blank while he studied her expression for clues as to how this scene should progress. Her features bore their customary expression of brittle intellect and slight malice, but a new line etched the flesh around her mouth, as if those muscles strained to suppress a smirk.
"I asked to see you here, away from my office"--she gestured vaguely at the bay window--"because I thought you might be more comfortable on your own home ground, so to speak." She waited for him to meet her gaze, but his eyes had followed her gesture, straying to the window, then to the main building on the hill. "I'd hoped that, here, you might feel more inclined to, shall we say, a certain candor." She emphasized the last word with a wave of the cigarette, and ashes dribbled. "I realize you've a battery of behavioral tricks upon which to fall back, answers you've trained yourself to give. Amazing"--she nodded--"all this time, you've been getting away with that. Truly amazing. It must have involved a tremendous amount of study on our part, did it not? I wonder how much of it was observation and how much reading and research." Her tone of voice might have been appropriate to a lecture hall. "Hmm? Still we can't expect explanations for everything right away, can we? We have time. A great deal of time in fact. And you're a great deal more intelligent than you've ever let anyone realize, isn't that so?" Despite the smile, her voice held only speculation, edged with just a touch of eagerness.
Outside, the trees swayed, flaming with color in the autumnal sunlight: flashes of gold, a surge of red on the gray hospital grounds.
"...for your own good. Don't you agree?"
"I beg your pardon, Dr. Leland. I'm afraid I was admiring the trees. What were you saying?"
The soft rustle of his voice startled her, as it often startled people, emerging from his immense bulk as though some hapless child he had swallowed suddenly spoke. She sat back. "You do see that, do you not?" she repeated with a visible attempt at patience. "You've not really helped yourself through these pretexts, have you?" She tapped a cigarette pack gently against the arm of the chair. "What you've in fact accomplished is precisely the opposite--the evasion of help. But we're going to correct that situation now, are we not? I intend having you transferred out of this residence and back into the main wing, where you'll be under my direct supervision. I believe that's best. We'll meet daily. And I believe we will make significant accomplishments. Don't you agree?" She paused, as though counting off the seconds. "Ramsey? I asked you how you felt about this."
He turned from the window, his attention fixed on a massive and ornate mirror that covered most of the sunroom wall behind her. "Ridiculous name, sunroom."
"I beg your pardon?"
He examined himself in the mirror. The smile, taut on his lips, added a far from reassuring note to his otherwise harmless visage. He adjusted it, nodded at the results. "Yes, that's much better."