Voodootown

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Shaunice

Finally they were dying.  She had upped the dose of sucrose much higher than she had thought necessary, but they were finally dying.  Her research could continue.

The triumph that she should have felt was dimmed by the headache she had felt all day long.  It wasn't one of her normal ones, the kind that spread up from the tension in her neck.  It was a sharp pain in her forehead, and she had been seeing spots in the left side of her field of vision all day long.

She leaned her head down onto her research notes.  She shouldn't have let herself fall asleep last night.  There had been more dreams.  Dreams of a man that had hurt her.

The classroom door opened and she stood up straight.  It was Michael, the janitor.

"Hey Shaunice.  How are the mice?" he asked.

"Dying," she said.

"Congratulations," he said.  "On to pre-med."

She smiled.  Maybe there was more to the janitor than she had thought.  He helped her with the mice, and he understood, not only what she was going through, but why she was doing the research.  He might even understand what she wanted.

"But you're still not doing too well, are you?" he asked.

It had felt inappropriate the day before, when he had talked personally with her, but it didn't anymore.  He seemed more like a friend who was concerned about her.  Shaunice shook her head.

"Bad dreams?" he asked. 

She nodded.

"I'm sorry," he said.  He pointed at the mice.  "It's a lot of pressure getting ready for college, I know.  But that's not it, is it?  There's more."

She wanted to tell him, but couldn't see how he would understand all that she was going through.  She couldn't tell him about what she was dreaming about, or about how Ash had known about her dream.  "You said your father was a doctor?" she asked.

Michael pulled a stool over and sat across from her.  She watched him smile as he spoke.  "He was.  A very good one.  I wanted to be just like him, and he wanted me to be a doctor more than anything."

The smile remained on his face, but she could tell he was making it stay there.  She looked to the back of the room, where his trash bin waited.  It felt good to talk with him.  It distracted her from the headache, but she didn't want to make him talk about why he was a janitor instead of a doctor.

He looked back at the trash, then to her.  "What happened?" he asked.

Shaunice shrugged.

He nodded.  "I think I was about your age.  Everything just started to get complicated.  I did my best to control it, but it only got worse and worse.  I went to college, got into med school, but no matter how hard I worked, everything went wrong.  Everything was just out of my control."

He stopped and they sat there, looking down at the mice in their cages.

"Is that how it feels?" he asked.

She nodded.  She didn't know Michael, not really, but was grateful that there was someone who understood just how she felt.  She hadn't had that since her mother had walked out years ago.

She looked up, saw that he was watching her.  His smile wasn't forced anymore.  It looked like he was remembering something positive.  "I always admired how my father, how doctors could take the chaos and uncertainty and control it.  They always seemed to have some special knowledge to deal with things that were beyond everyone else.  They could take the chaos, cut it out, throw it away and make things better.  I wanted that and it has taken me years to get it."

Shaunice looked into his eyes.  That was what she wanted, to be able to cut out the strangeness and the doubt she had felt these last few days.  She had been shutting things out since her mother had gone.  She had even been doing it before then, in the months before, when her mother had begun to change and grow erratic.

He leaned back on his stool and nodded back to his wheeled trash bin.  "I'm here during the day, but at night, I've got that control.  I'm finally a doctor, in a way."

Shaunice smiled.  "Should I call you doctor?"

He laughed and shook his head, then stopped and stared at her.  "You deserve better, Shaunice.  You shouldn't have to fight your whole life against things that shouldn't even be there in the first place.  You shouldn't be at their mercy."

Shaunice looked away, pretended to focus on her mice.  She wondered if she could tell him about what she had been dreaming about.

"I can't get rid of all the weird things, I can't make things as simple as they should be.  I'd be a liar if I said I could.  But, I can help you control those things.  They'll still be there, but you won't be under their control.  You'll be safe from them," he said.  "And I know you're strong enough to deal with that."

She wasn't sure if she agreed.  A week ago, she had felt strong, sure of what was around her and where she was going, but she didn't feel that way after the dreams. 

"I have something for you, something that can help."  He stood and reached into his pocket.  He pulled it out, opened his hand in front of her.  In his palm was a silver chain.  Attached to it was a larger metal link that was broken in the middle.  Wire held a plastic button to the bottom of the broken link. 

She frowned down at the necklace as he offered it to her.  "How can this help?"

"You're seeing things that don't make sense, things that you can't fight with logic and reason.  You have to beat them on their terms," he said.  "Just try it."

She took the necklace.  The pendant was heavier than it looked.  She held it in her hands a moment, then slipped it over her head.  As she did, her headache went away and her vision cleared.  She felt a lightness in her chest, as if something had been pulled off of her.  For a moment, she simply stood there, took in a deep breath and let the burden of worry slip off her body.

"No more bad dreams," he said.

"How?  What is this?" she asked.

"It's something to protect you.  Don't take it off," he said.  "You're just you now.  You don't have anything else controlling you."

She didn't understand what was going on any more than she had before he came into the classroom, but she couldn't deny that she felt better.  "Thank you, Doctor Michael."  She held the broken link in her hand and touched the button that was wired to it.  They felt warm in her hand.

He snorted and shook his head.  "Michael is the janitor.  Not a doctor."

Shaunice looked up at him.  He was more than a janitor.  She should have seen that all along.  He had said that he had the control and the knowledge at night.  Was that when he got to show who he really was?  "Doctor Night?  Doctor Midnight?"  It sounded funny as soon as she said it, but her father had known a man named Midnight once.  She laughed and he began to laugh too. 

"I like that.  Doctor Midnight.  There is a dignity in that, I think."  He laughed again and reached out.  She shook his hand.  "Thank you, Shaunice.  I like that very much."