Chapter Sixteen: Paralysis

I couldn't understand how I could be conscious and unconscious at the same time. Inside myself I was shouting out for someone to hear me, but my voice was silenced even though my mind was not. I would have rather been back in the safe haven of our mind, but there was no salvaging what had been lost.

My feeling was gone. It was like I was a stiff corpse, and I couldn't understand why I wasn't dead. The dead can't think and they can't hear. There sounds of birds chirping that signified the morning, but I didn't know where I was.

I came to the conclusion that Carla must have transported me elsewhere. I thought that we must have been somewhere in the country. My sense of smell was weak, but I could smelled fresh flowers and the clean mountain air. Carla was always with me. I tired of her idle talk, most of the time she would read to me from those stupid romance books and boring magazine articles. I wanted to hate Carla who acted like a masochist, but I felt nothing but grateful. I knew she was only caring for me because of Mary; but if Carla only knew the entire situation was concocted by Siercy she probably would have washed her hands of me.

Mary believed her dead, but there was no way Siercy would ever die. Her influence still remained. I must have been in a reclining position when Carla stomped in. I could hear the door opened, but Carla never let the door swing all the way open. She would push it open just enough to squeeze herself through, and she always wore those squeaky shoes. I felt a headache coming on any time she wore them.

"Good morning, Marianna," she said. "I hope you feel up to going outside. I know what you're thinking.

The sun hurts your eyes, but you don't have to worry about that. I have your glasses right here.

"Oh, goody," I thought. Carla was trying to be the Mary Poppins type. Then I thought to myself that this might be the reason for my trying to kill her.

At this moment I wished I could talk if only to shut her up. She kept jabbering on and on about nothing. Only the knock on the door saved me from her nonsense.

"Stay here, Marianna, and I'll be right back."

That was an incredibly stupid thing to say. Where would I go anyway? The place we stayed in must have been quite small. I could clearly hear the voices coming from the front door.

"Top of the morin', Miss Benson."

"Oh, Mister Briggs, nice to see you again. But what brings you by?"

"I know ya told me to told me to stay away, but I have to see her."

"Peter, she's not well. She's been through hell. It's been almost a year since she's even moved. It's like her mind has shut down. I'm not sure how she will react to seeing you."

"Miss Benson, the problem is that she ain't reactin' to nothin'. I love her, Carla, so please, let me see her."

"Alright," Carla said. "Oh, I see you've brought presents."

"Na, this here's the only things she left at my place back in Chicago. I hung on to 'em for her. Ya see, that day when she didn't come back I got angry thinkin' she left me. Then I found this here bag of stuff in the closet. If she intended to leave me I figured she wouldn't leave this behind. Pretty little doll, ain't she?"

"Yes, and you should give it to her."

I then heard footsteps, but not Carla's. Fear came over me. I thought that maybe one of Brown's minions had come for me. I felt a brush of wind touch my face as the door opened. Someone was coming towards me.

"Hey, M," a man's voice whispered. He touched my hand. "I wish ya would talk to me. Well, seein' ya's enough for now. Ya look as beautiful as ever. Oh, yes, I brought ya somethin'. When ya left you forgot this. Here."

He cradled something in my arms, but they were dead like the rest of my body.

"She's the prettiest doll I have ever seen, next to you, and I also found this. Could it be a love letter, here you take it."

I felt my eyes open, realizing he had put a powder blue envelope in my hand. It was Mary's letter. Somehow I felt that it was important. I clutched the envelope containing the unknown letter. The feeling empowered me. My strength was minimal but growing.

"How about I put the letter over here? You can read it later."
I refused to let him take it. I felt as if I did let it go the little life I had stolen would leave as quickly as it came.

"Alright, you keep it." He kissed my forehead and walked out of the room, but I could hear voices coming from the other side of the door.

"Take care of her, Carla."

"And what about you?"

"She don't need a lover right now. She needs a mother. It's time for me to go."

"Will you be coming back?"

"Na. The city's callin'. Maybe if things were different, but that girl in there ain't M. So just take care of her, whoever she is."

So now I knew the truth. Peter only loved her, even though it was me who initiated the relationship. He feared me. He proved it that night in the alley. He watched us kill that dirty pimp and grew chicken when he assumed he was next on the hit list.

What did it matter if he too abandoned me? I didn't love him anyway. I guess I was good at hiding that. I heard Carla walk in again.

"Did you have a nice visit?" Carla asked.

As usual I couldn't answer. Carla bent down to take my temperature. Her touch was warm and brought a tear to my eye.

"You're still in there, aren't you? If you are, fight."

I believed in that word, but I didn't know if I could. I thought that I was getting what I deserved. I wished for us both to die; the killer in me was the killer in her. Both us were misunderstood.

Days and nights meant nothing to me. It was all the same. Whether I was sitting or lying down I was reduced to doing a whole lot of nothing. Carla was gracious and occasionally a doctor would stop by. Doctor Davis she would call him, but to me he was a bothersome creature.

He would insist on sticking that stupid thermometer in my ear and check for vital signs, but it wasn't my vital organs that were in danger. Having the power of self-healing always kept my body in check, and visit after visit the conclusions were the same.

"I'm sorry, Carla, but there's no explanation to your daughter's catatonia, not for this long a time.

Has she had any responses of any kind since my last visit?"

"I'm glad you asked that," Carla said. "The other day an old friend of hers came for a visit and she cried."

"It could have been a bodily release. Carla, you may have to face the fact that she may not recover.

You don't know how extensive her drug use really was."

"Listen to me, Doctor Davis. Don't feed me this load of crap. She's still in there, and I know she's fighting to come back."

"But you must face the fact that it may be too late. It's my recommendation that she be placed in a facility better equipped to handle her."

"I think you better leave, and, doctor, don't come back."

"Very well," he said. I heard his footsteps growing fainter until the slamming of a door silenced them.

I was proud of Carla for telling him off like that. Perhaps I didn't give her enough credit. Day after day she stayed here in this mountain cabin and took care of me. Even if I did recover from this it would be because of her.

Besides the regular delivery boy no one ever came to visit, not since Carla's episode with the doctor.

Late one night I found myself unable to sleep. I was determined to move out of this bed under my own power. The powder blue envelope with the unread letter gave me the strength and determination I needed to attempt this feat.

My hands twitched and slowly they started to move. I pulled down on the sheets and tried to pull myself off the bed. Suddenly my body shook all over, but still I hung onto my determination. Whether voluntarily or involuntarily I rolled off and landed hard on the wooden floor.

The impact of hitting my head on the nightstand jostled me inside my subconscious. Finally I was able to scream "Mary, Josie, help me." I cried.

No one answered.

"Mary, please. I was wrong. I need you, please. Help me." I sobbed into my hands, or what I thought to be hands. I looked at them and noticed them slowly disappearing. I screamed in terror.

Then I heard Mary's voice. "It's time, Shadow," she said.

"I'm dying, Mary," I cried. "I'm so weak. Help me, please."

"Shadow, you are not dying. We are merging. We must, or we will both die. I feel your fear, but you must let go. Let go, Shadow."

"Will it hurt?"

"I don't know. Come, Shadow. Separate we are weak. Together we are strong. It's the only way."

"What about Siercy? What if..."

"She sleeps, but together we have defeated her, and we will again and again if need be. Give me your hand. Bind with me."

I did what she asked in the hopes that this pain would stop, but when our hands touched an electric energy exchanged between us. As our bodies fused together, we both writhed in pain. We corrupted each other with our thoughts and memories until I realized that Shadow and Mary would be no more.

Darkness consumed our light as oblivion embraced us.

I woke on a platform of hard wood. A hysterical female picked up my body and placed it on a soft comforter that supported me perfectly, but I couldn't understand why I couldn't move.

"Well, Marianna," this mysterious blond woman said, "I would like to know how you managed to get on the floor. Can you tell me?"

I found that couldn't, and I couldn't understand why she called me Marianna. I tried to think of who I was, but nothing came to me. Maybe I was Marianna. Who else could I be? I listened closely to what the blond woman was saying.

"Well, I knew that doctor didn't know what he was talking about. I told him you would come out of this."

I couldn't conceive what she was talking about. Who was I and what was wrong with me? I didn't know this woman nor did I want to know. I felt safe with her, just anxious.

"Marianna, would you like me to read to you?" she asked.

I wondered why she asked these questions when she knew I couldn't answer. What I really wanted right now was quiet and a chance to take in the surroundings.

The day went by quickly, although I never felt part of it. Carla, as I learned her name to be, cared for Marianna, the girl who was supposed to be me. Since her bout of madness Marianna's brain had shut down, but perhaps in a sense I was her. Maybe in forgetting who I was I found a way to survive.

Late that night I tried sleeping but foreign images invaded my brain. I heard the screams of silenced victims, reliving with them their last memories. The images made me cringe as I thought of the deeds done to them.

My body jerked. I was happy to learn that I wasn't paralyzed, but if truly I had forgotten who I was how did I know the names and meanings of things when I couldn't even remember my own name?

I reached out and tried to find my own existence. I heard a voice of a woman guiding me to the truth. I felt myself being bound. I was held in place by some unknown force. The image was cloudy at first then became clearer. The image I saw was me.

A voice called out to me. "Don't fight yourself. Embrace who you are."

Oddly I learned who I was supposed to be, but in a strange way it was not me at all. Madness was coming over me, the side of me that I was fighting. Triggered memories exploded into my head and jostled me back into reality.