Seduction of the Mind

The Mother Speaks

The office smelled of antiseptic calm: lemon polish on the desk, recycled air humming through the vents. Ethan stood at the window, watching rain ribbon the glass in diagonal strokes. It should have been just another gray afternoon.

But Vivienne’s drawing still pulsed in the back of his mind like a nerve.

He turned when Mrs. Collins appeared in the doorway, her usual efficiency folded into her stance.

“You asked to see me, Doctor?”

“Yes.” He adjusted his tie though it didn’t need adjusting. “Can you reach Mrs. Lancaster? Set up a video call in the conference room.”

Mrs. Collins’s brows lifted a hair—surprise she didn’t voice. “Right away.”

Within minutes, the screen glowed in the small conference space adjacent to his office. Mrs. Collins clicked and retreated, leaving the door half-closed. Ethan stood alone, staring at his own reflection until it dissolved into another face.

Mrs. Lancaster appeared framed by the golden light of some ornate sitting room. The background screamed old money: carved paneling, a chandelier’s crystal grin. She wore cream silk and pearls like armor, her hair coiled in a style that took more than mirrors to achieve.

“Doctor Hale,” she said, relief spilling into her tone. “Thank you for reaching out. I was worried after our meeting you might—”

“Mrs. Lancaster,” he cut in gently. “I wanted to clarify a few things. You said yesterday that you believe your daughter is dangerous. That’s… an extraordinary claim.”

“I know how it sounds.” Her hands fluttered once, then stilled on the desk in front of her. “But I wouldn’t have come to you if I weren’t certain something is very wrong.”

Ethan leaned forward slightly. “Help me understand. What made you come to that conclusion?”

A breath, deep and shaky. “Vivienne has always been… spirited. Intense. But in the last few years—” She hesitated, as if words were steppingstones over water. “She’s had… numerous partners. Men. Women. None of it lasting more than weeks.”

“That by itself doesn’t indicate pathology,” Ethan said evenly.

“I’m not finished.” Her voice sharpened. “There were… incidents. Twice the police brought her home after fights. Bar altercations, they said. She blamed the other party, of course, and nothing stuck. But it’s not the image of control she projects.”

He wrote a quick note: impulse aggression? Managed narrative.

Mrs. Lancaster continued, lower now. “Then there were the birds.”

Ethan looked up. “Birds?”

“In our garden. Two summers ago.” Her lips thinned. “Sparrows, doves… not eaten, not mauled. Broken. Arranged like—” She broke off, swallowing. “Like someone wanted to see what silence looked like.”

The air in the conference room seemed to contract. “Did you ever confront her about that?”

“Yes. She smiled. Said cats do terrible things when no one’s watching.”

“Do you own cats?”

“No.”

Ethan’s pen paused on the paper. A small clock ticked somewhere behind him, loud enough to map his pulse.

Mrs. Lancaster hesitated, then added quietly, “This isn’t new. When she was a child, she was obsessed with dolls. Always wanted new ones. But it wasn’t about playing house. She… opened their heads. Took them apart piece by piece. Everyone laughed back then—called her curious, clever.”

Ethan frowned. “And then?”

Her voice hardened like glass. “Then we started finding the heads. In jars. Lined up under her bed like… trophies.”

For the first time, a chill moved across Ethan’s scalp like cold fingers. He didn’t write that down.

“And then,” Mrs. Lancaster said, voice flattening into something like dread, “came the first killing.”

Ethan kept his face neutral. “You mean the first Midtown homicide.”

“Yes.” Her eyes slid to the side, then back. “It was in every paper. You know the details, I’m sure. But what you don’t know is what happened here, in this house. Before that week Vivienne was… volatile. Snapping at me, barely sleeping, erratic in her movements, her moods.”

“And after?”

“She became calm,” Mrs. Lancaster whispered. “Too calm. As if something inside her had been… fed.”

The phrase hung like smoke.

“You have no proof,” Ethan said quietly.

“I have no proof,” she echoed. “Only a mother’s knowledge of what her child becomes when the world stops giving her what she wants.”

Ethan let the silence stretch. Rain ticked the window. Somewhere in the main office a phone rang and died.

“When you spoke to her,” Mrs. Lancaster asked suddenly, voice rising with a brittle hope, “what did you think?”

Ethan considered the question. The memory of Vivienne’s steady gaze drifted back—the neat clothes, the measured tone, the polite smile like a door that opened just enough for light, never for entry.

“She was… controlled,” he said finally.

“That’s what terrifies me,” Mrs. Lancaster murmured.

He closed the notebook softly. “Thank you for your honesty.”

“Doctor Hale.” Her voice stopped him as he reached for the button to end the call. “If you believe, even for a second, that she’s capable of harm—stop her. Before it’s too late.”

The screen went black, and Ethan’s own reflection stared back, distorted by a ripple of static.

He sat for a long moment, pen still in his hand, the rain whispering against the glass like a secret.

If Mrs. Lancaster was right—if Vivienne really had blood on her hands—what then?

He could see the answer before he finished asking the question: nothing.

Because between them now lived the one thing heavier than guilt, darker than violence.

The law. The code. The unbreakable thread of doctor and patient.

If she confessed—if she painted the truth in words as sharp as the pencil that sketched that cat—he could never tell a soul.

Not the police.

Not John.

Not even God, if He was listening.

Ethan closed the notebook and slid it aside like a weapon he couldn’t use.