Show Me the Stars

Andromedae

Andromedae : The Chained Maiden

* * *

A year passed, and for about eight months I was stuck in that god forsaken cast. I was rolled into the courtroom in one of those portable beds. That was about the only enjoyable thing during the entire ordeal. I cried both the Amazon River and Niagara Falls combined not only because I had lost my family, but because I had no power over my own fate.

They tried to tell me that my family dying was my fault, which was impossible because I had not even been with my family yet. I tried to them that, but they refused to listen to me. They also rejected my claims that I was on my way to see them, and instead claimed that I had masterminded a scheme to kill them all. None of the claims they were making made any sense, but it apparently made more sense than anything I had to say.

My lawyers told me after the first day to plea on four counts of manslaughter, but I refused. Why would I lie about something I did not do? I told them I would testify for myself, but they pounced towards my throat the minute I said. Instead, they decided to declare me mentally incapacitated or something of that sort to make sure that they would do all of the talking. The rest of the trial made no sense to me, and I could barely recall a shard of it outside that first day. All I knew was that the judge decided to send me there instead.

Mount Hope Rehabilitation Center.

The first thing I realized when we arrived was that there was no mountains. Instead, it was steps away from the Atlantic Ocean, and was surrounded by a white picket fence. The building itself was a series of three beach houses with hallways built in between to keep them connected. The house on the left was red, the middle was white, and the right was blue.

"The residents like to call it the French House," a red headed nurse said to me. Never before had I seen such a bright red anywhere. I looked at her name tag and saw that her name was Linda. She helped me out of the car, and placed me into my wheelchair.

Linda became my favorite nurse at the French House. She was the only one who truly believed that I was innocent of the deaths of my family. The other nurses tried to get me to admit it or at least say I had a part of it, but she stood by me. However that was not the only reason I took a liking to her. She had a personality that so matched my own to the point where she felt like a lost sister. Any time I was with her, the world would keep spinning again until she would leave. It also helped that she was twenty two, only a year older than I. She made me feel like a human being rather than another patient.

That was the other thing. She called the people of Mount Hope residents, not patients. I asked her about it one day, and she told me that she wanted the place to feel like home for the people here. I told her that was sweet of her, and she smiled.

I stayed in the White House and for a while, the place did feel like home. Linda reminded me of my sister. She has the same chocolate brown skin, and dark honey colored eyes. She would roll me out to the beach at night and point out all of the stars to me. The waves would be crashing in the background and the acacias would be singing as we stared into the sky.

"When I was younger," she said. "I wanted to be an astronomer. You see that group of stars over there? That's Andromedae."

"What does that mean?"

"The chained maiden. I like to think of her as a woman trapped in a kind of limbo. I could be getting the story wrong, who knows. But the way I see it, she's simply a girl with no power over her situation. She is chained to the troubles of her time, but manages to rise above and into the stars."