Beneath Claire's House (Mount Herod Legends Book 1) Read online

  My plan had blown up in my face. I had no idea when, or if, I’d get out of Saint Thomas. The hope of finding Spencer Hawkins disappeared, and that reminded me...

  “Hey,” I said. “You ever meet a priest here named James Delevan?”

  Ben rolled a six and another two. “Four of a kind!” He scooped up the six. “The name sounds familiar.”

  “He came to the ward last night.”

  Ben dropped the die and let it tumble to a stop. “Four of a kind.” He wrote down his score and pushed the dice to me.

  “Shake,” said Ben.

  I snatched the dice with both hands and gave them a violent shake.

  “So, what happened with the priest?” Ben asked.

  As I dropped two sixes and a mess of other dice onto the table, I fed Ben the story. For a fifteen-year-old boy, Ben was a great listener. The fact he listened more than he talked was the reason he knew so much about the staff and patients.

  After I finished my story, Ben said, “That’s the weirdest story I ever heard.”

  “I know, right?”

  “Are you sure you didn’t dream it?”

  I crossed my eyes and forced a nasally tone as I mimicked Ben. “Are you sure you didn’t dream it?” Satisfied I offended him, I dropped back to my normal voice. “No, I didn’t dream it, you moron. He even told me who painted that picture.”

  Ben looked up at the Crucifixion. “Who painted it?”

  “Bartolomé Esteban Murillo,” I said, attempting a Spanish accent.

  “It’s weird when you say Spanish names with a Chinese accent.”

  I evil-eyed him. “Who’s turn?”

  Ben nodded toward the dice. “Yours.”

  I left two sixes lay and took the remaining dice in my hand. The thought of spending the rest of my life in Saint Thomas spiraled into my head like a threaded stake. I held the dice in my hand and whispered, “Have you ever thought about running away from here?”

  “I think we all do.”

  I leaned closer. “How would you do it?”

  Ben looked around to see if anyone was listening. “For real?”

  “For real.”

  “OK. A couple months ago, there was a grease fire in the cafeteria kitchen and the fire alarm went off throughout the whole hospital. Guess what happens when the fire alarm goes off.”

  I was in no mood for games. “The fire trucks come.”

  Ben squinted. “Guess what else happens.”

  “Ben, I don’t know. The water bucket brigade shows up whistling Dixie and carries us away on their shoulders. Just tell me.”

  “All the magnetic locks release on the doors.”

  It took a few seconds for it to register. “How can they unlock all the doors? Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “This is a mental hospital, not a jail. It’s called fire code. The patients still have to be able to get out if something happens to the staff. They can’t just let us burn up, no matter how bad they want to.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “They lined us up like soldiers, took a head count, and marched us out. It was all very organized until we got to the stairway. Then it fell apart. There were patients and nurses everywhere. Any one of us could have easily slipped away. And you don’t have to wait for a grease fire in the kitchen either.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Ben smiled. “You see the nurses’ station? Inside is a fire alarm handle. I’ve seen it through the door when the nurses come and go. All you have to do is get to the handle.”

  I sat back. Still holding the dice, I turned the plan over in my head. Only two paths led to the handle: jump through the safety glass surrounding the station’s countertop or bust down the locked door. My initial excitement faded as reality chipped away at Ben’s plan. “Your plan is dumb.”

  Ben glared. “It isn’t dumb. It’s a good plan.”

  “Assuming I could get to the alarm, your plan would get me out for, like, an hour.”

  “No, you have to steal a car and make a break for it. There’s a gas station a block away.”

  “Ben, I’m talking about getting out of here forever. I need to find out who Spencer Hawkins is. I need time to find this guy. They’d find me in less than a day, Dorkosaurus Rex.”

  Ben’s blank face stared back at me. “Shake the stupid dice,” he said.

  I sighed. “So, to sum up, I don’t know anything about this Delevan dude or who Spencer Hawkins is, and I’ve got no chance of getting out of here to figure any of it out.” I rolled the dice onto the table in disgust.

  “Claire?” Nurse Amy said from across the room.

  I looked up and saw my father. He wore a smile that said he’d missed me, and perhaps he needed me home. Handsome, fit, and tall, he looked stronger and healthier than any other man on the face of the earth.

  “Daddy,” I whispered, and I smiled. DeLuca was a powerful man, but not as powerful as Dad. Trying to fake out DeLuca had been a mistake, but perhaps the real solution just walked into the room.

  Ben seemed to read my mind. “Looks like Superman’s come to save the day. Lucky you.”

  As I stood, I glanced down at the dice. “Lucky me. Yahtzee.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The Courtyard

  THE BRIGHT MIDDAY sun warmed my face and bare arms as Dad and I strolled the bleached walkways weaving through the hedges, flowers, and shrubbery of the courtyard. The distant trill of songbirds brought a certain peace to the yard, and if it weren’t for the brick walls surrounding us, I would’ve almost felt free.

  Some people said I resembled Dad. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I would’ve much rather been compared to the angelic appearance of my mother.

  No one should have to live with what I had done to her. I couldn’t even think about it, much less talk about it. So, if DeLuca wasn’t going to set me free without talking about it, then surely I’d die in Saint Thomas.

  Unless Dad could save me.

  Dad had raised me since I was six. He’d done the best he could, but he worked a ton of hours, so I spent a fair amount of my young life in daycare and other programs away from home. This was a drastic change from the life I’d had with my mother who’d given up work and stayed home to raise me.

  Dad had comforted me through much of the early years following my mother’s death. I wondered who had comforted him and how heavy was the weight he’d bore.

  He not only had carried the burden of the unexpected death of his wife, but also the sudden task of raising a daughter alone. In some ways, I pitied him, but in every other way, I respected him.

  Still, part of me despised the fact he institutionalized me. Yet, I couldn’t blame him. The final straw came when I woke up in hysterics after a nasty incident of sleep paralysis—at least that’s what DeLuca later called it.

  Sleep paralysis can occur as a person moves in and out of REM sleep. The brain disables the body’s muscles while they’re asleep. It’s nature’s way of preventing us from acting out our dreams (and emptying our bladders in our beds).

  If a person becomes conscious before their brain switches on their muscles, they’ll find themselves flat on their back unable to move or speak, entombed alive within the unresponsive, dimly lit prison of their own body.

  During my episode of paralysis, four dead women stood over me. Two stood on each side of my bed like spectral pallbearers. I tried to scream for Dad, but I couldn’t. It felt as if a concrete block rested on my chest, and although I could see the women standing over me, I couldn’t be sure my eyes were even open.

  And when I was certain I would suffocate to death while the dead women watched with malevolent pleasure, I awoke from whatever state I was in by levitating three feet straight into the air and dropping back down onto my mattress with a stentorian scream.

  Dad claimed it took him two hours to calm me down. I really don’t remember. I spent the next night in a bed at Saint Thomas. After a week of meetings and therapy sessions, they decided to admit me for long-term care.

  I felt like a disappointment. Dad was a doctor, a respected emergency room physician, and there I was, his daughter, locked away in a psychiatric hospital. What shame I brought him.

  Still…

  “I don’t like it here,” I said.

  He wouldn’t look at me. “I don’t blame you.”

  “Can’t you take me home? You’re my dad. They have to do what you say.”

  “They do. It’s true,” he said. He took long, slow steps alongside me.

  “Then get me out of here. I don’t belong here. I’m not like these people.”

  Finally, he looked at me. “You need this place, Claire.”

  For all the hope I’d placed in him, for as much as I counted on him and needed him, he had no faith in me. He either concluded I was mentally ill or he was vindictive over the death of Mom. Maybe he thought Saint Thomas was the prison I deserved.

  “Claire,” he said, “you mean everything to me, and someday I’m going to bring you back home, but right now you need this place. They’re helping you.”

  If this was help, I didn’t want it. “They think I’m crazy. I hate it here.”

  “You’re safe here.”

  I knew what he meant. At Saint Thomas, they guarded me like gold. No one could touch me. No one could hurt me. Not even myself.

  We came to a stone bench along the path. I sat down. Frustrated and bitter, I dropped my head and glared at the sidewalk. “It’s an awfully expensive daycare, isn’t it?”

  Dad knelt on one knee in front of me and, taking my head into his hands, kissed me gently on the top of my head. “I don’t blame you for your mother’s death,” he said.

  So, that’s what he and DeLuca had been discussing.

  I recalled my mother lying on
the hardwood floor of the foyer, but it’s all I’d allow myself. “I won’t talk about it. Ever,” I said, and I choked as I said it.

  Dad stood and looked off into the distance of the courtyard. “You don’t have to.”

  I swung my head upward, hopeful his next words would be he was taking me home.

  Instead, he said, “But you’re not coming home until Dr. DeLuca says you can. This is where you need to be right now. I never worry about you here.” With that, he’d closed the subject.

  The disappointment stabbed at my insides. Forget Spencer Hawkins. Forget leaving.

  Saint Thomas was home now.

  CHAPTER 6

  Not So Sweet Dreams

  I STAND ALONE in a dark room with no memory of how I got here. I look around and see a piano, a fireplace, a sofa. I hear myself breathing too heavily. I have a cottony taste in my mouth, and I can feel my heartbeat in my tongue. My feet are cold. I’m trembling.

  It’s very still and very quiet, except somewhere a clock ticks. I can feel the second hand move. My eyes adjust to the darkness. I recognize the piano. I recognize the fireplace. I recognize the sofa. I’m in my living room.

  Yet, it feels strange. It feels like twilight, or the edge of sleep, or a frozen point on a timeline.

  From somewhere below me comes a loud thud. I feel the floor shudder. It’s not normal.

  I begin searching. I walk into the foyer. I look to my right, past the staircase and into the kitchen. I see many shapes but no textures. The world looks black and gray.

  The basement door near the kitchen is ajar. I hear voices behind the door. One is very angry, and one is very frightened.

  “Daddy?” I call in a voice much too high to be my own.

  More thuds. The voices behind the door grow louder, but the words are gibberish. Someone’s crying.

  “Daddy?” I call again, and I approach the basement door.

  I look through the crack between the door and the wall. A light is on downstairs. The handle is within reach. I wrap my fingers around the icy handle and draw open the door.

  Dad stands on the steps halfway down. His back is to me.

  “Daddy?”

  He turns to face me. His handsome face is distorted by flared nostrils and a frown so sad it makes me want to cry. His eyes are big and wide. The shirt he wears is blue and red, a pattern I do not recognize.

  “Claire!” he gasps. He’s terrified of something or someone.

  A shadow emerges behind him. It grows like a phantom, and black tendrils wrap around him like a dozen snakes. They crawl, first over his shoulders, then around his chest and waist, until their darkness engulfs his entire body. No form or shape remains of him, nor is there anything behind him. It’s as if a black hole is swallowing him.

  I hear his disembodied voice telling me to run to my room. Finally, he screams a scream so chilling and so high he must be dying.

  CHAPTER 7

  Bleed for Me

  FRIDAY, JUNE 6

  I GASPED AS my eyes opened to the familiar silhouettes of my hospital room. The nightmare had returned. But if the screaming was only in my dream, why could I still hear it?

  Another scream thundered through the halls. The angry voices of orderlies followed. The Quiet Room door slammed. More screams, this time muffled. It was Angry Gary.

  It’s supernatural how the sounds of reality bleed into dreams. How can the real world and the dream world synchronize so precisely? I recalled an obscure Bible verse. It was something about God communicating with humanity through visions and dreams. I needed a Bible—or Father Delevan.

  I rolled my legs over the edge of the bed and let my bare feet touch the cold floor. I wiped tiny beads of sweat from my brow then pulled my damp hair behind my ears.

  I looked at the digital clock on the tiny nightstand next to my bed: 1:23 a.m.

  The nightmare had come two nights in a row. I’d never fall back asleep.

  I padded into the hallway. Stuffing my hands into the pockets of my pajama bottoms, I made my way down the hall into the empty rec room. As I entered the rec room, I glanced out the window. A full moon hung in the cloudless, star-filled sky and washed the room in a silvery blue light.

  “I wasn’t going to miss you two nights in a row,” said a voice from behind.

  I spun toward the voice. It was Ben.

  “You scared the poop out of me, you little turd!” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Gary’s screaming woke me up. I peeked out my room and saw you in the hall. Followed you here.”

  I glanced at the nurses’ station. I spied Amy at the desk. I tiptoed to the sofa with Ben behind me. I fell into the thick cushions and pulled my legs up pretzel-like.

  “I had another dream,” I told him.

  Ben sat down next to me. “The stairs again?”

  I tugged a bothersome throw pillow out from behind me and tossed it on the floor. “Yeah. What do you think it means?”

  Ben looked away. “I don’t know what it means, Claire. You need somebody to help you figure this out.”

  I nodded. “Spencer Hawkins.”

  “He’s out there somewhere.” Ben motioned to the window. “You’re still in here. Unless you can get out, I don’t know how you’ll ever find this Hawkins guy.”

  I looked toward the nurses’ station. “Don’t you have any ideas other than the stupid fire alarm?”

  We both heard Angry Gary scream from the Quiet Room. The whites of Ben’s eyes virtually glowed in the moonlight. “Just one other. You want to get out of here really bad, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you have to show your dad you’re not as safe as he thinks you are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The corners of Ben’s mouth turned down as though he was about to cry. “When’s the last time you bled?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Desperate Measures

  FRIDAY, JUNE 13

  NURSE LINDA HANDED me a paper cup. It contained two small pale-orange tablets. Quetiapine. One hundred milligrams each.

  Sitting on my bed, I held the cup between my thumb and forefinger. In a habit I had begun weeks ago, I swirled the pills in the cup, clickity-clack. I stopped and looked up at Linda. She raised her eyebrows and flattened her mouth as if to say, “Get on with it, girl.”

  I pressed the rim of the cup to my parted lips, tipped my head back, and let the dry, bitter tablets fall into my mouth. I returned the cup to Linda who immediately handed me another small cup, this one full of water.

  I held the pills tightly against the roof of my mouth with my tongue and let the cool water roll to the back of my throat. As I swallowed, I used my tongue to jam the tiny tablets between my cheek and top right molars. I handed the cup back to Linda who promptly dropped it inside the other cup, turned, and tossed them both into the garbage next to my dresser. Without a word, Linda drifted back into the hall, pushing her med cart to the next room.

  I raised my fist to my mouth as if I were about to sound an imaginary trumpet. Then, with a single cough, I fired the two sticky tablets into my fist, just like I had twice a day, every day, for the last week. I was officially off my meds.

  It was all part of Ben’s plan. I needed a clear head for what I was about to do, and the meds left me too light-headed, too drowsy, and too passive to pull off this stunt.

  I stood, snatched a tissue from the box on my dresser, and blew my nose. As I wadded up the tissue, I slipped the dissolving tablets into it. I stepped into my small bathroom, dropped the crumpled tissue into the toilet, and kicked the handle. The tissue and meds vaporized with an industrial flush.

  I used the sink to wash off a smear of orange dye from my palm. As I dried my hands, I looked into a square sheet of reflective scrapbooking paper I had taped to the wall above the basin—a crude, improvised pink mirror in a facility where they allowed no mirrors. A little trick Ben had taught me.

  My face was fat, and I had dark circles under my eyes. I blamed Saint Thomas for both. But my skin itself was without blemish. “As pretty as a china doll,” my mother used to say.