The Thirteenth Daughter

The train rocked and rattled on its way from Salem to Boston. The landscape flickered by as it rushed towards its destination. Only thirty-one minutes until the train would reach North Station. The scenery outside my window soon gave way to the scenery of my memory. My recent visit with the psychologist replayed itself through my mind. I remembered his office was earthy. It sported every shade of brown known to man. Even the lighting was somehow this luminescent shade of tan. The only exception being a solitary plant. A suspicious piece of foliage with its leaves being too green and glossy to be real. Like any stereotypical psychologist, he presented himself in a white turtleneck, tweed jacket, khakis, and leather footwear. My psychologist seemed to prefer the alligator leather type of shoes, but he was neat. His snowy hair and beard were thick but well-trimmed, bushy white brows standing out against the tan of his swarthy face, and half-circled spectacles perched themselves atop his bulbous nose. Doctor Alexander Liam, the psychologist. Like clockwork, he always mumbled his greetings at the door after the third knock. He would then proceed to direct me to his chaise while gazing at me over those half-moon spectacles. The monotonous routine never changed. Doctor Liam claimed that performing the same routine helped his clients relax. Especially those with anxiety disorders such as myself. He can claim what he will, but to me I believed him to be the obsessive-compulsive type. Everything in his office was always just so…tidy. Everything had a place, and nothing was ever out of the ordinary. Everything except perhaps his patients. After succeeding his directions, Doctor Liam would soon follow behind his client and just before taking a seat himself, he would always check the position of his metronome. Usually, this just meant giving the device a light touch. Then, satisfied that nothing had changed, he would gather his notepad from the center table and arrange himself comfortably in his chair. I guess in a way it was alleviating. I found it a strange comfort to know that someone else outside of this body was living just as boring of a life as I was. ‘Are you still taking your medication’, he begins by asking. ‘Yes’, I answered simply. I’d been visiting Doctor Liam since I was sixteen. A long enough time to have experimented. His lectures left me feeling worse than the side effects of any of the anti-anxiety meds. I would feel stuck in a fog until it was over and all I could compel myself to say was that I understood. Afterward, he would scribble something away on his notepad and the session would continue. This time, Doctor Liam wanted to try something new since I was about to leave for Boston. On the metronome was a triangular-like cover that protected the pendulum, which he removed and set to the side. He adjusted what looked like a small weight so that it was positioned towards the top of the pendulum. He then proceeded to wind the device up with a key that stuck out on the side. Once he set it back down, the music tool began a slow rhythmic ticking like that of a heart beating. ‘I would like to try a session of clinical hypnosis with you today. We’ve met many times over the years and have yet to uncover the root of your post-traumatic stress. It is likely you still possess the memory of what happened but, due to the nature of the trauma, it has become repressed.’ ‘I am fine with that.’ I consented robotically. ‘Excellent, excellent. Now I want you to lie back on the chaise. Make yourself as comfortable as possible. You will have nothing to fear because you are in a safe environment. If we are successful, it will be as if you are only dreaming. If things seem to be getting too intense, I will awake you from that dream with a signal. Let me know if you are ready and we will begin.’ ‘I’m ready’. I replied. ‘Excellent. Take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Imagine that you are letting go of all your current stresses and letting your body relax. Keep breathing, inhaling, and exhaling, inhaling, and exhaling steadily to the beat of the pendulum as you focus on the sound of its ticking. Good, now as the ticking continues you will start to feel your eyelids become very heavy. Let them close naturally just as if you are going to sleep. Now I want you to allow your subconsciousness to take over and drift with it. Just drift. Drift. Drift.’ With the last drawled out word of drift I was suddenly floating just outside my body. Face to face with myself, I could do nothing but watch as the session unfolded. It felt like another episode where everything had become depersonalized. Doctor Liam sat there peering over his spectacles with his legs crossed and his hands poised together in his lap studying me. He then scribbled more on his notepad before speaking again. ‘Now Celeste, I want you to drift deeper into your subconscious as I count backwards from ten. As I count down, just continue to relax. Relax your mind and body, just relax. Relax. Ten…, nine…, eight, just relax everything you are. Seven…, six…, five…, four, relax all your muscles. Three…, two…, one, relax. You are deep within your subconscious now. I want you to think back to this morning. Think back to what it was that you were doing. Use that memory to trace your steps back through time to when you were first found. What do you see’? At his request, I was no longer there hovering outside myself. Instead, I was propelled backwards through time like someone who had the rewind button pressed on the remote of their life. My memories have taken me back to the time I could barely remember where I was found dumped in some cemetery. I remember waking to blurry visions of the EMTs checking over me. They flashed a small pen light into my eyes to see if my pupils would react. The arm cuff of an aneroid sphygmomanometer was slipped around my arm to measure my blood pressure. It felt like so much was going on. The lights from the ambulance were bright in the darkness of night. A graveyard security guard had found me and called in for help. All the people looked like black shadows in front of all the flashing lights from the vehicles and flashlights all around. I was just a child then. ‘I see all the first responders. They are checking my vitals, hollering at me if I can hear them over all the noise.’ I tell Doctor Liam. ‘Perfect. Now let yourself drift backwards in time further to just before the first responders. It may feel like you are trying to push past a thick wall, but really it is just a door. Allow your subconscious mind to open the door to view those memories. What are you experiencing now’ he asks? I watch the shadows of the team of police and EMTs slowly depart, and the lights fade away. Slowly, ever so slowly, I’m submerged back into the darkness of night. Sometimes I can hear laughter from far away. Other times I can see the stars past the trees that loom above me. It seemed like endless days of opening and closing my eyes as I lay there and in between consciousness there are these reoccurring dreams of flames. In the dreams, the flames are so hot I can still feel them even now trying to burn my flesh. ‘I’m experiencing dreams.’ I recounted to my psychologist. ‘And what is happening in those dreams’ Doctor Liam asks? ‘There is a tall house, and it is on fire. The flames are hot even from where I’m standing. My little body is screaming into the flames.’ ‘What is it that you are screaming into the flames?’ As my subconscious drifts closer, it is like I am absorbed by the memory of myself and everything that I have experienced I am experiencing again. The roaring and crackling of the flames are the first sounds that I hear. Everything is already burning angrily. Timbers from the overhanging porch snapped and crashed dramatically, blocking the front door. Black smoke and soot billowed out. I try to get closer to the building but get struck back by what seemed like an explosion of white and red flames. The force from which I was struck by knocked me to the ground and took all the air from my lungs. As I lay there gasping for breath, I mouthed the word ‘mom’. Tears are marking streaks through the soot covering my face. Over the ringing in my ears, a voice urgently whispers for me to go. My eyes snap open and I am back in the ever-brown room that is Doctor Liam’s office. ‘I was screaming for my mother.’ I said as I turned my head to look towards my psychologist. He was poised at the edge of his seat now. His elbow was supported by the armrest of his chair. His hand was positioned up in the air with his fingers resting in a released snap. Whatever expression he held at that moment was quickly replaced by a calm and blank one. Doctor Liam cleared his throat and situated himself back in his chair. His hand moved very excitedly over the notepad. My skin felt hot and my hair damp. I sat up and ran my fingers through my hair. I was drenched with sweat. What was all that? I wondered to myself. ‘Losing someone can be a very traumatic event for a person’ Doctor Liam said. ‘Especially for a young person. And while none of us who have stood by you through the years really know your story, I have no doubt that your recollection through hypnosis is real. Overwhelming grief affects everyone differently and can cause real physical ailments in some. You may find that over the next few days you can recall certain things from your past now, but I want you to know that whatever happened was not your fault.’ He turned and set his note pad face down next to the metronome which had stopped its ticking. Leaning forward, he continued to ramble on. The memory didn’t seem real to me. Even though it seemed like I was the one who was experiencing everything, it didn’t seem like it was what was really happening to me. I was always just an observer. The emotions didn’t feel like they were really ones that I was feeling. It didn’t seem like I was the one who was responding. My actions were nothing like how I imagined I would have responded. And I didn’t think that is at all what happened. I was really beginning to feel hopeless. I don’t feel like I will ever truly know the reasoning behind why I feel the way I feel. I don’t feel like I am myself, which is why the people of this town have saddled me with the stigma of mental illness. ‘I have a book that I want you to read.’ Doctor Liam’s statement took me out of my inner reflection, and it was as if I was back in my own body again experiencing life in the real world. I gave him a sheepish smile which he returned just as awkwardly. He held up a finger signaling me to wait where I was as he stepped over to his bookshelves. Doctor Liam had all sorts of “learning to cope” kinds of books on his bookshelves. The book he handed to me was no different. It read ‘The Stages of Grief: A field guide to letting go’. Could it really have been the loss of my family that led me to become the way I am? Ever since I could remember, and after it was very clear that something was wrong with me, the people around me told me that one day I would be fine again. I would be cured once I was able to come to terms with whatever it was that I was dealing with. A rather rough jerk of the train took me out of my memories, and I had to close my eyes again. Everything looked distorted and out of proportion. It was like I was looking at the world through one of those circus mirrors. It gave me a sickening headache, but it would pass, and things would adjust back to normal. I glanced down at my cellphone to look at the time. Ten minutes until the train reached North Station in Boston. I was almost there. As far as I knew, I had lived my whole life in Salem. I needed change. So, I chose to change my environment. One to where no one gave me looks of pity or ignorance. Of course, there were people in Salem that I did care about. Yet I always felt I was separated from them by a wall of some sort. I couldn’t push past my feelings of numbness to experience any real connection with anyone. Those who understood my circumstances were patient with me and those who didn’t were always hurt. It was surprising to me that this move wasn’t giving me any stress. You may think that losing family so tragically in the past, I would feel more anxiety being away from those who had become like family to me, but I felt nothing of the sort. Doctor Liam said it was all about perspective. The reason it didn’t affect me was because I was the one making the decision to leave. In my subconscious I knew that the ones who I’d grown close to would always be there. Therefore, I was comfortable with letting them go for a time. It was great progress. Ping! I looked down at my phone again. It was a message from Matilda, one of my adoptive mothers. The message read, ‘Don’t forget we are always here if you need us. We miss you already.’ ‘Thanks mom, me too!’ I replied. Texting has become the only way that we communicate our feelings. It was perhaps the only way I could effectively convey what I was feeling to anyone. Often, it was also the source of many arguments between me and others. With others comparing my real self to my virtual self and then wondering why I was so different in person. The boys stopped wanting to get to know me and the girls would just avoid me. Altogether, everyone in general just tried to ignore my existence, but in Boston it was my hope that was all going to change. I felt the train begin to slow down as we were reaching our destination. I shifted my bags uncomfortably to get ready to move now that I’ve reached Boston’s North Station.