Banished

6: Falling for You

"In event of accidental poisoning, reflect on whether you've lived a good life. If you haven't, the bright side is that it will be over soon."

-Curse Control Warning Label

6
Falling for You
Dorthea

"Do. Not. Move."
A voice rang out, clear and demanding in the dark.
"I know I said you have issues, but this is not the answer."
The voice. The guy from my hospital room. The one with the eyes like him.
All at once, my vision snapped back into focus. I was looking down. And down. Down at the cars zooming along, splashing through the puddles in the street. At the people, the size of bugs, scurrying around below us. Some of them dropped their umbrellas, pointing up.
At me.
Only then did it hit me that I was standing on the other side of the railing that separated the graveled roof from the concrete edge. My balance may have been steady before, but as soon as I realized my situation, my legs turned boneless.
"No," he called as I pitched forward.
I expected him to sprout wings. To transform to reach me in time.
He didn't.
Twisting my body at the last second, I grasped the railing. But the rain made it slick. Too slick to hold.
As my grip slipped, his hand shot down-his nails biting into my wrist, his other hand grabbing hold of my wet, tangled hair. With a heave, he fell backward, using gravity to haul me up. We tumbled over the rail and across the gravely rooftop.
He grunted underneath me. "Ugh. You're heavy."
"Yeah, I've heard that before," I said. My heartbeat quickened as the fog of my memory lifted. "Where is she?" I hopped up and searched the skies frantically for the storm witch.
"So you lack sanity and gratitude," the boy grumbled, standing up and picking the gravel out of his elbow. "It's not like I saved your life or anything."
I stopped for a moment. "Not the smoothest of rescues," I said. I rubbed my head where I was sure I'd find a missing chunk of hair. "But thank you anyway. Now I'll return the favor. We need to run."
I grabbed his hand and dragged him across the roof and toward the stairwell door. Before we could get there, my mother and father threw open the door and crushed me in their embrace.
"We couldn't find you. And then the roof alarm went off, and nurses were rushing up here for a jumper. I thought I'd lost you again. I can't. I just can't," my mother said, sobbing. Then she held me out and scolded me. "What could have possibly been going through your head? Why would you run away like that? Why would you come up here?"
I tried to herd all of them back to the stairs. "I will explain when we are safe inside behind locked doors."
"No, you will explain now," my dad, never the stern one, commanded with a voice like steel.
I took a deep breath and said, "A shadowy ink creature crawled out of the ceiling in my treatment room, and he chased me to the roof, where the storm witch appeared out of the cyclone like lightning. She was alone, without her flying puppies...that breathe fire..."
The more I said, the more my parents eyes clouded with worry. Not about being fearful of Griz, but about me. I knew because I had been there, and what I was describing sounded fairy flipping crazy to me.
I searched their faces for understanding. There was none. "Please don't look at me like that." I pointed at my rescuer. "Ask him."
"Me?" he squeaked. "Nuh-uh. Leave me out of it."
"You should have thought of that before you saved me." I grabbed him and pulled him in front of my parents. "This guy was here. He'll tell you."
"What does she mean you saved her? Is that true, young man?" my mother questioned.
He looked around for escape. But once my mother had you in her claws, you were stuck. "She went to the ledge and climbed over the railing like she was sleepwalking. I pulled her back."
I smacked his shoulder. "Not that part. The earlier stuff."
He looked at me with a blank, trapped expression.
"You had to have seen it. The tornado? If not Griz, then the darkness. The emergency lights going out in the stairway. Anything," I implored.
"I'm sorry. I really am. When the power went out, I saw you bolt, so I followed you. But nothing was chasing you, and there was no one else around. Just you." He backed away. "I think it's better if I leave you to your family." He opened the door and disappeared before I could ask why he had followed me. Before I could even find out his name. Before I could figure out why his eyes were so blue and made my pulse race.
My wonderings were interrupted by a flurry of white coats who flooded out to drag me back inside.
• • •

I looked at the chart my parents handed me. My chart.
Level-3 chemically induced hallucination triggered by a malfunction in chemotherapy dosing equipment from the power outage.
I put down the folder. "Really? These visions are common enough there are levels for it?"
My dad nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, apparently it's very well documented."
Mother took the folder and gave me another stack of paperwork. "Indeed, I've been researching. What you are going through is actually surprisingly prevalent."
"There's a list of people who've seen flying demon puppies and witches in cyclones?" Somehow I seriously doubted it, but if there was, I really wanted to see it.
Dad shot me a look. The stern one he rarely gave me. Give us a break. Knock off the crap, kiddo, and be thankful you aren't in a straitjacket.
I shrugged. "I guess I can see that. The whole shadow creature is all really hazy like a dream." Both my parents let out the breath I didn't realize they had been holding. Relief. That maybe I wasn't broken beyond saving.
I wish I felt that way.
I thought I knew what I saw, but my grumpy rescuer hadn't seen anything. My gut said he was lying or blind, but the hospital administrators reviewed security footage of the stairwell and the roof in case we sued for negligence. While the video was glitchy from the power outage, the rooftop was empty. No witch. No cyclone. Just rain and me walking to the edge in a daze.
It was all there in my file, the one that got thicker by the day.
My mind played tricks on me, arguing devil's advocate.
If you were really from another world, how come you know so much about this one? How do you know about lawsuits...and cars...and reality TV?
I didn't have an answer. At first when I woke up in the hospital, I marveled at everything in strange world of Kansas, relying on magic to explain my surroundings. But my brain filled in the holes with knowledge of this world and the things in it. There were even pictures of me as a child. In Kansas. Evidence that I lived here was piling up and hard to explain away. Maybe everyone else was right, and I was wrong. Maybe I was the one who was delusional.
I stood up and reached for my drawings on my wall. "Maybe it's time to take these down and focus on getting better."
My parents stared at each other, clasping hands, sharing a look so hopeful and personal that I was at once embarrassed to witness it and happy that I finally brought them some happiness.
Dad squeezed my shoulder. "Imagination is a good thing. You have a gift for story, and that's nothing to be ashamed of."
"That's right. As long as you remember that it's just that-a story," my mother finished. She focused in on the last picture on the ceiling. My drawing of Kato.
I put my hand on hers. Her smile dimmed. "I'll do it," I insisted.
She nodded solemnly and backed away.
With a deep breath, I stepped on top of the bed and gave a small tug. The picture came off without resistance. I was disappointed. I don't know what I expected. Some magic proof I was making a mistake? For Kato's picture to be as stubborn as I remembered-no, imagined-he was in person?
I put his picture with the others and let Mother put all of them in the folder along with my notebook.
"Are you going to give those to Dr. Baum?" I looked at the clock. It was past the time when I normally saw him.
Dad crossed his arms. "Punkin, you won't be seeing Dr. Baum anymore."
"Why?"
Dad looked at Mom and then his feet. "You want to explain this one?"
She sighed and put a hand on my shoulder. "I won't lie to you. It seems Mr. Baum wasn't who we thought he was. He wasn't a specialist or even a doctor at all."
"What?" I shook my head, trying to make sense of what she was saying. What about all the things I'd shared with him? His advice? The tea?
"I had some suspicions after our conversation, and I asked the administrators to look into it. He faked his credentials. He has no history. It's like he doesn't exist." She clenched her fist, her hand shaking. "It's no wonder you weren't getting better. If I ever find that man, I'll..."
Dad put a calming hand on her arm. "You'll report him to the proper authorities."
The look on her face made me think we'd all better pray she never saw him again.
I was torn. If what Mom was saying was true, Dr. Baum-or whoever he was-had lied to me. I'd started to trust him.
Maybe because he always seemed so familiar-the way he spoke in riddles, the untidy brown jacket he wore, and his endless fiddling with his mustache-I started to believe he might be right. That I could control the story. But if he wasn't a shrink, if he'd set out to deceive me the whole time, what did he want from me?