Change Of Season (52 page)

"I don’t want to talk about it today."

"Okay, sure.  Can we talk about Miraj today?"

Autumn glanced up, pushing her tangled waves from her face.  "Huh?  What about her?"

"I noticed you hadn’t mentioned her in a while.  Are you not getting along anymore?"

She shook her head, drawing her knees up beside her.  "No, I haven’t seen her in a little while.  Although I guess we’re not exactly on great terms lately.  I don’t know.  Maybe the whole leaving home thing has affected her."

"Affected her how?"

"She’s pissy.  Miserable.  She always has a problem with everything I do and the people I talk to."

"When did you last see her?"

Autumn hesitated, digging through the fragments of memory and conversations.  "A month, maybe?  It was back in Toronto."

The fog lifted, and she could see it clearly:  midnight, at Woodbine Beach.  She hadn’t been able to sleep – shocker – and had slipped out for a late night walk, Chris be damned.  Miraj had been there too, walking the shore with a bottle of vodka and a vicious temper.

"What does she seem angry about?" Emma asked.

"She pushes me when I don’t cooperate with therapy, which is probably a good thing.  I know I need to process this mess, and I can’t do it alone.  I get that now."  She forced a weak smile for Emma, who returned it.  "But then, she gets mad about the amount of time I spend with Veronica.  She
really
doesn’t like that I’m dating Andrew.  We fought about that last time."

The arguments had come at her like bullets from a semi-automatic
.  How do you know he’s not like Chris?  How long have you known him?  Should you really be dating right now?  What happened to keeping to yourself?  You never have time for me now.
  Miraj had been seething and Autumn had rebuked her at every turn, that first kiss in the storage closet fresh from the night before. 

"Her arguments sound rather familiar to me," Emma remarked.  "They’re the ones you’ve written about in your journals.  Views you’ve expressed to me here."

"Well, yeah, of course.  We’re friends for a reason.  We think a lot alike.  She just doesn’t seem to trust me to know my own mind," Autumn complained. 

Emma remained silent, the music emanating from her tinny computer speakers the only sound.  Autumn felt uneasy, sensing there was something not being said.  Something important.

"I don’t get where this is going."

Emma leaned forward slightly, setting her pencil aside.  "Has Miraj met Andrew?  Or Veronica?"

"No.  She doesn’t come around often, so that’s no surprise."

"But she told you that she’d seen you with Andrew once.  You mentioned that to me, back in November."

"Um, I guess?  A lot’s happened since November.  I still don’t understand-"

Emma cut her off, her voice calm yet firm.  "If Miraj feels so left out of your world, why doesn’t she approach when you’re with others?  If she’s worried about Andrew’s intentions, why hasn’t she confronted him?  She’s not one to back down, from what you’ve told me."

Autumn hesitated.  "I-I don’t know...  Maybe she sees that I’m happy?"

How many times had Miraj threatened to slash Chris into pieces if he laid a finger on her?  If she was concerned enough to draw a line between him and Andrew, why would she not caution him? 

Something’s strange.  What is she trying to say
?

"Autumn, I’m going to ask a question, and I want you to take it seriously and consider carefully before answering.  Okay?"  At her reluctant nod, Emma continued, "Has Miraj ever met any of your friends or family?"

"What does that have to do with-"

"Please, humour me?  I’ll explain in a minute."

Tapping her foot, she thought back, taking each person in turn. 
Definitely not Andrew.  Not Veronica.  Evan, Keenan, no one at Casteel, but that makes sense....  Not the parents, but they would hate her, so we avoided that.  Heather? 
She bit her lip, confused. 

"No.  No, I don’t think so."

"Where do you two go when you hang out?  Movies? Dinner?  Sleepovers at her place?"

"The Beach.  Abandoned places.  Walking around.  She’s broke, usually, and her parents are abusive, so we never go to her place.  She’s trying not to be home, you know?"

Emma nodded.  "Of course.  Kind of how you’ve avoided home, in case your parents figured out the truth about Chris."

Autumn remained silent, her limbs twitching nervously. 
What is this?  I don’t understand
.

"She left home in September to escape her problems.  Like you.  You still had that friend, that protector, with you here."

"Okay, I really don’t like this," Autumn said angrily.  "Could you come to the point before I storm out of here or break something?"

Emma hesitated a moment, her eyes dashing to her notes before meeting Autumn’s angry gaze head-on.

"Autumn, Miraj is precisely that:  a mirage.  She’s not a real person."

The air rushed out of her chest, leaving her gasping. 
What?  That’s crazy!
  Her knuckles gleamed white as she gripped the arm of the couch to steady herself.  How dare she accuse her of, what, making her friend up?  She wasn’t there when Miraj stopped those two guys on the street.  She wasn’t there when her only outlet was venting to her friend.  And what was with all of the comparisons?

"That’s bullshit, and you really need to take it back, Dr. Stieg."

Emma sighed deeply, leaning back into her chair.  "I’m sorry, Autumn.  I can’t."

Miraj didn’t like people in general.  Of course she hadn’t met her friends!  Why was that so important?  It wasn’t so improbable to keep separate circles of friends.  People did it every day.

"I’m not crazy!"

"No, you’re not."

"You just said I was!" Autumn screamed.

"I never said that at all."

"I can read between the lines just fine.  I study literature.  I know when I’m being called-"

A memory:  the beach, late at night.  That last encounter in December.  Miraj had still been angrily accusing her of being a fool.  She’d settled onto a remnant of a fallen tree, straddling the log and refusing to even look at her close friend.  She’d felt too weary to stand another moment, too drained to argue.  It had grown silent, and she’d turned back, only to find Miraj gone.  She’d tried to follow her and apologize, but it was impossible...

"What is it, Autumn?" Emma asked.

"No footprints.  The snow..."

The snow was several inches deep, and yet, she couldn’t pick a path out to follow.  She’d blamed it on the winds coming off the lake. 

"Maybe I am crazy," she mused aloud.

"No, no you’re not," Emma insisted, kneeling in front of her.  "You’re not crazy to want a friend, or to struggle to cope with intense trauma.  What Chris put you through was overwhelming and terrifying.  You lived every day waiting for him to return.  You wanted to feel safe again."

Autumn felt her eyes ache, but there were no tears left inside her.  She’d cried them out the night before, reconciling her feelings for Andrew with the need to save him. 

"So I, what, made someone up?  That’s crazy, Emma!  That’s certifiable!"  She folded her arms around herself, struggling to see through the vertigo overtaking her.

I’m crazy.  Just like I always feared
.

"Don’t you see who she is, Autumn?  She’s not just a character in your writing.  Her last name is
Winterside
.  Her thoughts and feelings are the ones you scarcely admit to yourself." Emma tilted her head, catching Autumn’s averted stare.  "She’s you.  She’s the part of you that’s tired of being afraid of Chris, the part of you that blames him, as you should.  The fighter."

"I’m nothing like her," she whispered sadly.

"But you are," Emma insisted.  "You sent yourself away to protect your family.  You rammed the part of you that wanted to stand her ground and fight into a box, separated from it, so you could convince yourself to suffer in silence.  Miraj is that other side of you.  She could say all that you couldn’t speak of at the time.  But now, you do say those things.  You’re fighting back.  And where is Miraj?"

"Not here..."

"Oh, she’s here.  She’s back inside of you.  You’ve opened the box back up.  When you doubt yourself, doubt your instincts, she returns.  People debate themselves every day when making tough choices.  You’re just more visual than most of us.  Nothing more than that."

Emma seemed sincere, her eyes warm like her mother’s.  Her mother never lied; she was honest to a fault.  No matter what Autumn believed, her doctor didn’t see her as crazy.  It was a small consolation.

"Autumn, this is a lot to take in.  Did you want to extend our time together today?  I have more time, if you need me."

Autumn shook her head weakly.  "I’m really tired... Dizzy tired.  This... I don’t...  How long have you thought this?"

"That doesn’t matter," Emma replied.  "What matters is I felt you were ready to explore it today."  With a glance at the clock above, she added, "Did you want to nap here?  I don’t feel comfortable letting you walk across campus if you’re dizzy, and I don’t want to escort you and make you feel singled out among your peers."

"I...  Can I?  I mean, that’s okay?"  The couch suddenly seemed so inviting, its leather seats cooling to her feverish fingertips.

"Sure.  I’ll catch up on emails and such and wake you when I need to go."

"Thanks."

The soft music played on as Autumn stretched out along the couch, sinking into the cushions with a weary murmur.  Crazy, sane, it didn’t matter anymore.  She was too tired to debate it, too broken to fight it.  For now, she would cocoon.  Meditative metamorphosis. 

"She’s you."
  It echoed in her dreams, a lullaby. 
"The fighter."

***

"I’m already creeped out and we haven’t left yet," Veronica confessed, pulling her hair back into a messy knot.

"Nothing can top living in this room," Autumn countered.  "Besides, I’ve been down there twice and nothing ate me.  No white alligators or rats the size of Logan.  Did you bring the flashlight?"

"In my pocket."  Veronica leaned against the bathroom wall, watching Autumn tie her own hair back.  "Have you heard from Andrew?"

"Not since last night, and I don’t expect to."  Her chest ached at the thought of him, at how they’d parted.  "Okay, it’s time.  Do you remember where we’re going?"

Veronica nodded.  "You’re leading the expedition anyway, but yeah.  Weird side door into Media Studies, down the hatch.  God, I could use a drink for this!"

"You can back out, if you want," Autumn offered. 

"No, no I can’t.  Just a little shaken still."

The dangling sheet incident had rocked Veronica, dredging up lingering grief and worst case haunted scenarios about the tunnels.  She refused to speak of it, insisting it was fine, but Autumn was the queen of that game of Let’s Pretend and saw through to Veronica’s battered heart.  As desperately as she wanted an accomplice, she couldn’t bear to push her beyond the breaking point.

"It’s okay to be afraid," Autumn said quietly.  "I am, too.  But we need to know more to figure out the truth."

Veronica nodded firmly.  "For Nikki?"

"For Nikki."

They set out just after nine, propping the stairwell door to Ashbury just in case and taking Autumn’s scenic route around the quad in spite of it being a Friday before curfew.  No sense in risking any witnesses, particularly instructors with a predilection for carving into human cadavers and taking notes.  Each of them concealed pocket-sized flashlights in their bulky winter coats, along with Veronica’s iPhone for photos and video, should it come to that.  Autumn still couldn’t watch the paranormal investigation’s video, but she hoped to not experience the live re-run tonight.  Her session with Emma had shaken her up enough. 

"Over here," Autumn whispered, leading Veronica to the service door.

"You’d think they’d be able to afford fixing the lock," Veronica joked weakly.

"It costs a lot of cash to keep Logan from torturing us, I suppose.  Come on, and watch your step."

The tunnels were as dreary and damp as she remembered, only they were also frigid now.  Flipping on her light, she waved it to their left.

"Ms. St. Clair, welcome to Haunted Casteel Tours.  To your left you will see a long stretch of tunnel that carries straight to the laundry room of Trudeau Hall, as well as several short tunnels to your right.  These dead-end or lead to stairwells up into the theatre.  To our right," she continued, "we have a tunnel that eventually winds and loops back beneath the theatre, as well as one branching towards Pearson hall and alternately, according to the delightful sign, an operating theatre, once upon an asylum."

"Are you shitting me?  Have you not seen movies about evil doctors?"  Veronica grimaced, turning on her own light.  "Can we please avoid scalpels and things with shiny blades?"

"We’ll go the other way first, then.  Fair warning:  Pearson’s supposedly haunted."