Jackie
“What is it like?” Akilah asks. Lottie stares at the Special Tree. “Having visions.”
Lottie is feeling better today, on account of having eaten. It is her opinion that Coach tasted better than Javi, though that may be because Lottie had blood in her mouth from her own injuries when eating Javi, and had to choke him down rather than savour due to moral compunctions.
“What makes you ask?” Lottie asks. She doesn’t turn from the tree.
“I think Mari’s been seeing things,” Akilah says.
“It makes sense. We’ve been here a while. She’s learned to listen.”
“I still listen to you.”
“I told you, I can’t hear It anymore.” This is driving Lottie a little crazy, but she doesn’t want to admit that.
“Yeah, but you did hear it. I talked to Taissa’s sleepwalk self,” Akilah goes on. “She, or it, it’s getting stronger. Do you think it’s connected to Mari?”
Lottie shrugs. She still can’t see anything in this fucking tree. “The Wilderness is distributing itself. Are you sure you haven’t had visions? Dreams, nightmares, signs? You might have thought you saw something, and still don’t know that it was guidance.”
“I’d rather be guided by you,” Akilah says simply.
Lottie touches the tree. Closes her eyes. Nothing.
She finally looks at Akilah. “Don’t.”
--
Akilah has grown up to be a very good person. She has worked in women’s refuges, done overseas outreach, and is now a foster mother. Six children are currently in her care, and there’s a photo of her beaming as she brings them to watch the final of the soccer club that she runs for underprivileged girls.
I’ve helped more people than you, Lottie thinks at the screen. But then: has she? Lottie spent fifteen years in psych wards, helping individuals. Akilah was out in the world in that time. All the people Lottie helped after last release might be playing catch-up to what Akilah has done.
Soccer club. Ridiculous.
--
Lottie’s father remarried when she was twenty-three. His son, biologically her half-brother, was born within the year.
By the time Lottie was coherent enough to understand this, the boy was five.
Her father never asked her to meet him and she never asked in return. She saw a picture, once. A rosy-cheeked, curly-haired blond boy. Smiling at the camera.
He looked like Misty Quigley.
She was always fairly certain that he didn’t know she existed. One day, he learned. He turned up on her doorstep at the age of sixteen, a rucksack in hand.
“Dad said you’re, uh, mentally…” he trailed. Lottie had allowed him to sit on her bed, and then gone and glared at the wall, willing herself to be the kind and compassionate Charlotte, instead of bitter broken Lottie whose father had gotten the son he always wanted. “He didn’t use the words I would use, but he said…But here you are, and you’re…I mean, you don’t seem…”
“Crazy,” Lottie finished, turning to face him. “He called me crazy. You don’t have to tell me for me to know.”
“Yeah,” her brotherher half-brother the boy admitted. He was wearing normal clothes and he hadn’t styled himself at all. Not like Lottie always had. Not like her mother. Not like their father. “This place is, uh…I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Lottie smoothed her dress. “Why are you here?” His rucksack was set by the bed. He didn’t want to stay, could he? She knew what their father could be like – but then, why would he have any reason to be nearly so cruel to his normal son than his insane daughter?
If he did want to stay, would she take him? Her policy had always been to accept everyone. But this boy, this better model –
“I wanted to meet you,” the boy explained, confused, like it was obvious. “I found out I had a sister that I never knew about, how could I not -”
“Half-sister.”
“Right,” he said. Lottie knew she was being sharp. She reminded herself: kind, compassionate, Charlotte. Deep breaths. “Still, I’d like to get to know you. I don’t have other siblings, that I know of, for all I know there could be loads…”
“Just me, I’m afraid,” Lottie informed, which was true. Probably. If the boy didn’t know about her, then maybe there was another one she didn’t know of. Someone their father was even more disappointed in, now wouldn’t that be a high bar to clear.
“Good. So, yeah. If it’s just the two of us, don’t you think we should try and have a relationship? It’d be nice to have someone else to talk to.”
Hm. Someone else to talk to. All about him, then.
“Give me your number,” Lottie said. “I’ll check it when I have the time. But I must warn you, my role here keeps me very busy.”
He keyed his name in. She already knew it, but seeing it in writing rose an anger in her that she hoped she’d left behind in psych ward #3.
She didn’t let Charlie stay. She gave him fifty bucks for a motel and booked him a cab.
--
“This might be an awkward question,” Lottie says. “But is Akilah really alive?”
Taissa frowns. “Unfortunately. What kind of a question is that?”
Taissa has come to pick Lottie up and take her to Van’s. Taissa has come alone to do this, as alone as Taissa can ever be.
Lottie did intend to go straight back to Camp Green Pine, but that was before she saw Akilah’s book announcement. It seems like the book confesses cannibalism but not ritual sacrifice. A modified truth, then, but still not one that anyone wants getting out.
“I used to think Mari was alive,” Lottie confesses. “For two years straight, I was convinced that she had made it, somehow. Even though I saw Shauna bleed her dry and cut her to pieces, I thought I might have imagined it. Things at the end were ‘hazy’, to use Natalie’s description.”
At the mention of Natalie, Taissa’s face drops. Lottie wisely chooses not to tell her that she literally saw Mari, the way she used to see Laura Lee. She thought Mari had tracked her down and was visiting her.
At least the interactions of the others confirmed that each of the others is real. One less problem for Lottie to worry about.
“I think my other self remembers more than I do,” Taissa announces. “She’s been waking up. I thought it was the stress of the election, but the timing is weird. The 25th anniversary, maybe it means something, I don’t know. She was still inside and she read a news article with me, or something.”
“You shouldn’t speak about her so flippantly,” Lottie says. “I doubt she thinks of you so carelessly.”
They arrive at a traffic light. Taissa takes the small break to sit back and turn to Lottie.
“The ‘Other Taissa’ is a cunt, okay, she beheaded my dog. She tried to kill my wife. She terrified my son.”
“And what have you done to balance that? Where is your son now? How is your wife? What did you do to honour your dog?”
“I bought a new dog,” Taissa mutters, arms folded. “Look, I haven’t really – dealt with the parts of my life that aren’t related to the Wilderness, because I’ve been busy with this other stuff. So this book is coming at a really bad time. The worst possible time, other than before the election. I bet Akilah’s done it on purpose.”
“Or the It has. This will have been in the works before Nat died. Because of our sacrifice, we should be able to stop it.”
“Her sacrifice,” Taissa says. “It was her sacrifice.” Lottie is quiet, because there is an inevitable conclusion to what Taissa is saying. “I do miss her, though. I didn’t think it would draw her. Or me. Or Misty. We were the three I was sure would be fine. I guess it was our sacrifice, because I’ve lost my friend. My other self certainly isn’t happy about it. I don’t suppose you have any more guru advice about the whole thing?”
“When we can’t handle what we’re experiencing,” Lottie says to Taissa, who is shaking her head, looking anywhere but at her. “When the present moment is so untenable, our mind finds a way to cope.”
Taissa scoffs. “So I imagined another self?”
“That’s what I would have said if you asked me last year,” Lottie says. “But you’re asking now. So, I hesitate to speak with any certainty, but I think that other part of you is real, and connected to the Wilderness, while still being you. A split self. The ability to hold a dichotomy within you is very powerful, when handled correctly. You have to achieve a balance, and then all the answers you seek will be with you.”
“You’re wasted in a private cult, Lottie.”
“Intentional community,” Lottie corrects, but it’s with levity. She knows Taissa doesn’t mean it. Taissa is afraid, Taissa is lashing out, Taissa is struggling to handle the transition back to the people they were. That doesn’t mean that transitioning isn’t right. “And you’re the only case of DID I’ve treated.”
“That you know of,” Taissa mutters. “This isn’t treatment, you’re just as crazy as I am.”
“Over many years working with many people, I’ve come to realise that ‘crazy’ is relative.”
Upon arriving at Van’s, they are led up the back stairs of a VCR store.
“Hey,” Van is frantic. “Okay. You’re both here. That’s good. What’s the situation?”
“That’s what I was about to ask you,” Taissa says. Lottie wanders into Van’s apartment. It’s cosy. “Have you managed to contact the others?”
“No. Have you?”
“No.”
“They’re more likely to listen to you than me,” Van says, “seeing as you helped them kill a guy…”
“You have got to let that go,” Tai says. “And I didn’t help kill him, I helped bury the body. Lottie, do you want water, or coffee, or herbal tea, because Van hasn’t offered you anything.”
“I don’t have herbal tea,” Van says.
“Water is fine,” Lottie says. Water is natural. No coffee in the Wilderness. Coffee beans, sure. No filtrated water, either, but this is the best she can do.
The three of them take a seat on Van’s couch.
“This place is so retro, Van,” Taissa disapproves. Lottie missed the comment that prompted it.
“Is it?” Van and Lottie ask at once. Lottie continues: “Don’t look at me. I avoid technology where possible.”
She missed a lot of technological advances while in psych wards. It was off-putting, getting out and being told to use apps on a mobile to track how she was doing.
She bets Tai never had a problem with technology. Tai, who is clapping her hands and standing in front of the two of them. Tai, who is declaring: “Okay, I call this Yellowjackets meeting to session. We have a big problem. We have a snitch. It’s not the full scale of snitchery, but it’s bad. It could ruin all our careers, all our families, all our chances of never being recognised again. Most people had almost forgotten about the Yellowjackets, and now Akilah has pushed us into the public eye. What are we going to do about this?”
Van: “Stop her, obviously.”
“Thanks, Van, but I was looking for a practical suggestion.”
“I don’t know if that’s our place,” Lottie says. She’s been thinking. About that card.
“Who else is going to do it?” Taissa demands. “Akilah herself? This wouldn’t be happening if she’d thought it through. Misty? Will probably commit more murder and make the whole thing worse. Shauna? Probably the same. So, who else? Family members want to know what happened, the media want to know what happened.”
“Maybe she’ll be visited by three ghosts,” Van drawls.
“It’s not our place,” Lottie says. That card, that card, that card. “We can try to stop her, but it can’t be purely at our own behest. We can’t deny that It chose -”
Taissa’s phone rings. Taissa looks at the phone, grimaces, frowns, gets upset. “I think this is the hospital. I’ll be right back. Make a plan and I’ll nitpick it when I’m done.”
Taissa goes into her ex partner’s bedroom to take the call about her current partner. Lottie looks at Van.
“You know it’s not our call,” Lottie says. That card.
--
Three days after returning to her mansion from the wilderness, when Lottie hasn’t spoken or eaten or slept, she has a visitor.
Her visitor is the worst person it could possibly be. Misty Quigley comes bouncing in like everything is fine, all grins and chatter.
“I never thought our parents being friends would come in handy, but lucky me, I get to see you,” Misty cheers. She’s unpacking something from the backpack she brought. Lottie stares at the ceiling. “Apparently you’ve been a real Gloomy Gus up here, and I figured, what better way to practise my career in nursing than by taking care of you?” She’s got a stethoscope. “So, you play patient, and I’ll play nurse, and maybe one day your parents will hire me as your private nurse!”
That would be a nightmare worse than the last nineteen months.
Misty jumps onto the bed. A stuffed animal falls off, hitting the floor in such a way that it’s soundbox is activated. A fake sheep bleat.
“I’ll get that in a second,” Misty assures. “At least it’s not broken, ah ha ha. One box is enough. Now, hold still.”
Lottie holds still because holding still is all she is currently doing. If she had the capacity to move, she would do so out of spite. Instead she watches Misty exaggeratedly check her heartbeat, wishes there had been a drama club at the high school so Misty wouldn’t have signed up for equipment manager.
“You have a perfect heartbeat,” Misty informs, entirely seriously. “Completely plum normal. Okay, now your teeth. Open wide!”
Misty has to hold Lottie’s bottom jaw open. Holding a mirror and a light while doing this proves awkward enough for some frustration, and at one point Misty actually drops the mirror right into Lottie’s mouth, though it’s quickly retrieved.
“Less perfect,” Misty concludes, analysing Lottie’s teeth. “Slightly crooked, actually, but only behind. I assume you’ve had braces for the front? I had braces. It’s a good job we didn’t crash with them still on. I would’ve had to find a way to adjust them, otherwise. I tried to do Melissa’s but she wouldn’t let me. She got Mari to cut them off with the dead guy’s pliers. Don’t know where those went. Burned to a crisp, presumably. It’s a shame, because they could’ve been useful, but no one thought to make an itemised list of useful items. That was a lapse in judgement, huh?”
Lottie has a rare moment of mental clarity to think: Oh my god, shut the fuck up.
“I invited the others to my house, but someone must have intercepted the invites. That or they don’t want to come, which is crazy, because I told them that I have a pool and I know they wanted a pool party, remember the lake? But I bet they would come if you do. You’re the one they listen to, after all. Even though you didn’t speak at all those last few months, you were still queen bee. Or queen wasp, as it were.”
Get on with it.
“I don’t get what they see in you,” Misty tells Lottie, irritated. “My family has money, too. I saved Coach Scott’s life, I helped deliver Shauna’s baby, you just stood there and saw things and chanted! Why are they all so – so concerned with you? What’s so special about you?”
Lottie doesn’t answer, because she doesn’t want to talk ever again.
Misty’s angry little face is above hers, and Lottie doesn’t fight it. She doesn’t fight it as Misty starts unbuttoning the pink shirt Lottie’s mother forced her into this morning, and she doesn’t fight it as her skirt is pulled down, and she doesn’t fight it as Misty reaches underneath to unbuckle Lottie’s bra.
“What is it,” Misty says, pinching Lottie’s nipple. It hardens from pure friction. The other one doesn’t. It’s like being back in the winter. Lottie stopped wearing a bra out there, because that didn’t seem like something the wilderness would want. “Why are they all so obsessed with you?”
Lottie doesn’t answer. Misty, with a frustrated noise, grabs the scissors and cuts Lottie’s panties away.
What would be complete nudity is offset by fluffy pink socks. It seems Misty doesn’t think the secrets to Lottie’s power are in her feet. She does seem to wonder if it’s in the face, on the arms, inside her mouth. She gives a cursory look between Lottie’s legs and scoffs. Looks like the answers aren’t there, either.
“Well, I still don’t see what’s special,” Misty concludes, snapping her gloves off. Lottie didn’t even notice that Misty had gloves on. “Why you of all people, I’ll never know. Even the ones who hate you, they’re still thinking about you. Well, not me. I deem you unspecial, Lottie Matthews. When I leave here, I will never think about you again. I have enjoyed our inspection, though.”
Misty leaves and doesn’t come back for twenty-five years.
--
“Hello, Charlotte,” Misty greeted upon sneaking her way into the compound. Lottie stared in fury.
--
Lottie can’t help but wonder if Van wants to sleep with her.
She won’t offer it, but if Van asks, she will let it happen. It’s the least she can do, after everything.
She wonders because Van is looking at her with reverence. In a way that Taissa, whose headstrong personality is as admirable as ever, isn’t.
Lottie does miss friendship. She thought she might have felt it, in that barn, but even though Van listens to her and is concerned for her, Van is still acting like she’s Lottie’s follower, a devotee. Where Van approaches Tai for discussion, she approaches Lottie for guidance. Lottie wishes, once again, that Van had found her at Camp Green Pine. They could’ve done great work. Now they’re playing catchup.
Case in point, Van’s current train of thought.
“I’m scared, Lottie. Nat drew it when we were kids, and now she’s dead. I drew it when we were kids. What does that mean for me? For Shauna? Are we all tied to the card?”
They both think of that last night. That last card draw. Van running. Lottie thought, at one point, that the weight of Van’s footsteps were so loud they were echoing over the whole area.
It wasn’t footsteps. It was a helicopter.
Lottie contemplates. “A failed card draw means leadership. Nat led us through the end of that winter. You led us to the rescuers. Your role was brief but so essential. So I think…that Shauna has been chosen to lead us now.”