Haunted Rayne

1 | Whispers of the Watcher

PRESENT DAY

Aurora Psychiatric Hospital
Blackburn, Michigan
September 17, 2018

┈┈

Beneath the cloudless morning sky, Rayne Foster felt an overwhelming sense of vulnerability, as if at any moment the ashen-azure expanse could draw her into its void as easily as a dust-bunny to a vacuum. A lone barn swallow soared overhead, its tawny belly vibrant against steely blue wings. Its form cast a fleeting shadow over her eyes. Dressed in jeans, a white cotton shirt, and a blue-plaid flannel, Rayne should have been warm—if not sweating—beneath the harvest sun. Yet she shivered, teeth clamoring like a little wind-up toy.

"Can we please just get out of here?" she murmured. Something had caused the hair on the nape of her neck to stand, and she was more than ready to pop some pills and take a nap already.

Sharing a seat beside her on the front steps of the psychiatric hospital, Officer Scott removed a paisley handkerchief from the breast pocket of her uniform. She dabbed a pebble of perspiration from her forehead. "Ten more minutes, kiddo."

Rayne pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine."

"You think she'll show?" asked the officer.

"Not in this lifetime."

"But you want her to?"

"I don't know."

"Then we wait."

"Fine . . ."

The sun was too bright, the noises too loud. Anxiety fused to the walls of Rayne's chest like a sticky tar. It clogged her organs, and quickly, it began to nauseate her, churning her stomach in a way that left her feeling dizzy.

The officer said, "We can swing by the house on our way out if you want."

"No," Rayne answered stiffly. "If she isn't here, then there's a reason. Don't torture the old woman, and stop torturing me."

"You shouldn't leave without saying goodbye to your mom. Just be patient. Let's wait a while."

"Don't tell me what to do," she snapped, lashing out the way teenagers often do. Pivoting in her stairwell seat, Rayne's short brown ringlets brushed her jawline as she turned to glare at the building behind her. She couldn't wait to leave.

More than a year ago now, Rayne Foster had been the perpetrator of a horrific crime. She spent two weeks in Aurora Hospital before being transferred here, to its sister psychiatric facility, about twenty miles outside of town. Thirteen months she had spent under lock and key, analyzed by doctors, nurses, and psychiatrists—only nine months of which, she had actually been coherent. Even after she regained mental and motor functionality, Rayne's mother still never visited her.

Not even once.

Now for the first time in her life, Rayne would be leaving the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and traveling southeast, toward her new reformatory school in Pennsylvania. She would be completing her last year of high school in a prison-like campus until June.

And her mother couldn't even swing by for a brief send-off.

"I don't think she can say goodbye," Rayne mumbled, turning away from the wretched hospital.

"Well, it's harder for some than others."

"That's not what I mean . . ."

"Okay, I'll bite. What do you mean?"