Growing Grounds

Chapter 2: Hysteria

Her older sister had been a resident at Daisy Lawn Sanitarium since she was fifteen and Tammy was twelve. She remembered Cindy using that same tone of voice that alerted everyone around that she was "having an episode." That was how their mother had put it, "Cindy's having an episode." As if the outbursts of pure lunacy were nothing worse than a small child's temper tantrum.

Marcie, Tammy's mother, always said the crazy came from her side of the family, that she had an aunt who was nuttier than squirrel s**t. At least that was what she said after Tammy and Cindy's dad left. Marcie said he was ill equipped to deal with the stigma that came along with having a daughter who had serious mental health issues. She, of course, never used the term crazy when Cindy, or anyone besides Tammy, was within earshot.

Tammy still recalled the distress in her mom's voice as she sat on the edge of the bed that night so long ago and tried to explain to a twelve-year-old why Daddy had packed a bag and left. He had done this during the day, before the girls returned home from school. No goodbye, no hug, no explanation. Just gone. Whatever was simplest for Feldon. That's just how he did things--the simplest way. No fuss, no muss.

When Marcie started to cry, Tammy tried to comfort her. When Cindy started to cry later that evening when Marcie broke the news to her, Tammy again found herself trying to comfort someone other than herself. It was not long before Tammy became furious with her absentee father. How dare he leave her to deal with all this grief? He could have taken her along. Instead, she felt that he had abandoned her to a life in which she was forced to become an adult too soon. Marcie could never deal with Cindy alone. Whether the problem lay in her ignorance of how to deal with the disease or in her lack of desire to do so, Tammy never really knew.

The next day, Marcie was home when Tammy and Cindy got home after school. "Cindy, I wonder if you would mind going out to feed the chickens for me? They love it when you go out to do the feeding."

Delighted, Cindy went outside immediately.

"Mom, you know she'll get filthy and you'll have heck getting her to wash up."

"I know. I need to talk to you alone, though. About Cindy." Marcie looked out the window, cringed as she watched Cindy plop down right in the middle of the chicken s**t-covered lawn and dump feed into her lap and all around her on the ground. "You know your sister is very sick, don't you?"

Tammy only nodded. No one could be around Cindy for more than a few minutes without knowing that something was seriously wrong with the girl.

"I got a call from her special education teacher today. Today was the last day of school for Cindy. She is getting dangerous and the teacher said she can't come back. Apparently, Cindy became enraged at another student about a red crayon and she just attacked the girl. Anyway, I've been in meetings all day at school while they had Cindy in a room with just a teacher's aide. They said it would be less traumatic if we let the day go on as normal as possible and just keep her home tomorrow."

"Did you call the doctor? Can't he do something for her?"

Marcie was nodding. "Doctor Harris said we could try more medication or…"

They had tried more medicine. Lots of them and when that had not worked, the "or…" was the only other choice. If you could not cure crazy, you locked it away so it could not hurt anyone.

Cindy was still living in Daisy Lawn. Twenty years and counting. For Tammy it had been twenty years of guilt and fear. Guilt because she was free to live her life while Cindy was locked away like a prisoner for crimes she had yet to commit and for reasons she could never understand. Fear came from thinking that crazy might be catching.

Tammy had been Cindy's only visitor at Daisy Lawn. After her mother's death, Tammy had searched through all the stray papers, computer files—everything—in the house trying to find information about her father. Feldon Wilforth, it seemed, had fallen off the face of the earth. Gone without a trace. At least no traces that Tammy could find.

Even though Tammy understood that Cindy could be dangerous without provocation and that it was impossible to care for her in a normal setting, this knowledge did nothing to assuage the guilt she felt about her sister. She wanted her father to help. Cindy was his daughter, after all.

What happened to "for better or worse"? Did that not include having a disabled child? For over a year Tammy searched for Feldon, thinking that, if nothing else, it would give Cindy some joy to have another visitor. Another someone who cared about her.

Eventually, Tammy's visits slacked off to one or two every month. The more she was up at Daisy Lawn, the more off-kilter she felt in her own life. Though she never liked to admit it, she was more like her father than anyone knew. Whatever is simplest. Seemed like a family motto to Tammy.

Not liking where her thoughts were heading, she derailed them and snapped back to reality. The stroll down Memory Lane ended with Tammy standing in the doorway to the living room and staring at the chair. Blanketed in the deepening shadows and somehow looking smug, the chair seemed to beckon her to sit. Sit and forget all her troubles for a while and she suddenly felt like someone, or something, else was in the room with her.

The thought, or invitation, came to her fully formed and not of her own making.

She picked up the camera from the end table by the sofa and walked up to her bedroom with the uneasy sensation that she was not alone following close. The camera went into her shoulder bag and she hung the shoulder bag from the hook on the hallway wall just past her bedroom door. As she flipped through her light jackets in the closet, trying to find a comfortable one for the next day, she heard a scraping, wood-on-wood sound from the first floor. The hairs on her arms stood out and the back of her neck prickled. Had she locked the door after Matt left? She did not think so.

Easing out of the room and into the hallway, Tammy made her way to the top of the staircase. The only sound she could hear was the blood pounding through her head with each heartbeat. Sure that she had heard a noise, a loud one at that, but unsure as to what had caused it, Tammy eased down the first couple of risers and swooned. She had never realized just how much of a chicken-hearted coward she was and it made her mad.

At first, she was mad at herself for being scared stupid and then she was mad at Matt for leaving. It was going dusk outside and all the shadows were growing as if they had life now that the sun was no longer playing sentinel. She could almost see the front door where Matt left earlier. Just another couple steps down and she would be able to see if the lock was flipped into the upright position or not. Yeah, and maybe whoever came in flipped it up. She hated the Voice of Reason that never spoke up unless it was bad news.

The scraping noise came again. Just as loud as before. Tammy's knuckles turned white on the banister as she clamped down unconsciously on the wood. Her feet seemed to freeze to the stair she was on and her heart skipped several beats so that when it kicked in again it sounded, and felt, like a thunderclap inside her quivering body. Though she was chilled, sweat oozed out of the pores on her scalp, face, hands and feet. The sound was obvious: someone was scooting a piece of furniture in the living room.

Leaning over the railing, Tammy tried to see if the door was locked. The knob was in view but she was too far away to see if the lock was engaged. She would have to take a couple more steps, but that would put her into view of whoever was in the living room, also. She decided she would do it quick and if the door was locked, she would retreat to her bedroom and call the cops, if not, she would run outside and leave in the car.

Her hand snaked around her hip to one front pocket and then the other, checking for the car keys. Not there. That meant they were most likely lying on the kitchen table. No way was she going to attempt an escape like that. She started backing up the stairs. The shadows were deeper now. Whoever was down there had not turned on a light and was being super quiet. Another step backwards and upwards.

Scrape!

She turned and bolted to the bedroom. With the door shut and the phone in her hand, she began dialing the police. The woman on the other end of the phone told her to remain on the line until the police arrived.

"What if he hears me and comes up here?" Tammy was in a full-blown panic and whispered frantically; she was on the verge of hyperventilating.

"Ma'am, stay quiet and get into the closet. If he hasn't heard you yet, chances are good that he won't hear you at all."

Tammy looked at the closet. That felt too much like a bad horror flick and she decided against it almost immediately. She would not get under the bed either. Eliminating her hiding places one at a time in quick succession, she stood directly behind the door to the hallway. At least if he tried to come in, she could hold him off for a while maybe.

* * * *

Unwilling to discuss what had happened when he touched the chair and even more unwilling to argue the true ownership of the damn thing, Matt had left the house quickly—before his state of irritation exploded into irrational anger.

The fact that he had not told Tammy the whole truth about how he had acquired the chair did not help the situation. Neither would telling her the whole story help matters.

Brian Todd had inherited the chair from his mother. He had cared for her continuously for three years, never leaving her in the custody or care of strangers even once. Matt knew this in a sort of second-hand way through one of the older kids at school where he taught. The seventh-grader had been in the boys' restroom telling one of his friends about how "loopy" Mrs. Todd had gotten and how he had heard her ranting on about gods and devils from the homeland--which homeland, the boy had no idea--while he rested outside the window after trimming the grass. This was something Brian Todd had paid him to do every ten days.

Another day, Matt heard the same boy, Adam Renland, telling not one, but a group of boys, a fantastic story about a living chair in the old woman's home. Mrs. Todd and her son had been arguing loudly over what would become of the chair once she was gone. According to Adam, Mrs. Todd insisted that Brian take the chair into his care and never to forget what she had taught him about it. Being curious, as most young boys are, Adam had stood on tiptoe and peeked through windows until he located the chair.

"I knew it as soon as I seen it, it was bad. It looked like a crooked, bent old man sitting there with three little heads insteada one big one like ours. Almost s**t my pants when the little heads all turned and looked at me, too."

That was when Matt stepped out from the last stall and surprised Adam and his awed entourage. They were all so mesmerized by his tale that it took them a few seconds to realize they were in the bathroom with a teacher and that the teacher had probably just heard them cursing.

"Boys, I think it's high time you all get on back to your classes."

They moved toward the exit in a shuffling unison that made Matt think of a herd of startled cows. Adam was in the crowd. Matt called to him to stay behind. The others never spared him even a single glance. The crowd parted and filtered out the door, leaving Adam to fend for himself and face the teacher alone.

Matt began washing his hands and looked at Adam sternly via the mirror over the sink.

"Young man, I think you and I need to have a little talk."

Adam looked guilty as he nodded at his scuffed sneakers.

Matt dried his hands and tossed the paper towels into the trash. "Care to tell me what that little scene was all about?"

"I'm sorry I cussed, Mr. Milner. Really. I just got carried away is all."

"I think there' a more serious problem here than a couple of bad words, don't you?"

Adam looked puzzled, "We ain't skipping class. Our classes are outside at recess and we had permission to come in here. You can ask Ms. Sullins."

Matt nodded. "Okay. I will. But what about you spreading those rumors about the Todds? This is the second time I've heard things you're telling about and they're not very nice things to be telling. Especially about a sick woman who has passed on, Adam. Would you like it if someone talked about your grandmother that way?"

Adam made eye contact for the first time. "But I swear, it ain't rumors, Mr. Milner. It's all true. I seen that chair with my own two eyes and heard what old Mrs. Todd was saying about it with my own ears."

"You saw a chair that looked like a man and it moved. How am I supposed to believe a silly story—"

"But it did! And I saw that same chair yesterday when Brian paid me. I still mow the yard for him. I saw it when he opened the back door that Mrs. Todd never would allow him to open and the chair, it looked different. Not so much like a three-headed old man but enough to still be freaky looking. Go and see it for yourself. Mrs. Todd made Brian promise to keep it when she died but I don't think he was none too happy about it."

The kid obviously believed everything he was telling Matt. How could he argue with that? How could he reason with a "freaked-out" twelve-year-old boy?

"Maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you, then. Sometimes light and shadow can work together and cause illusions, say, of something moving when it really isn't moving at all."

Adam shook his head and looked at his feet again. Matt knew there was no hope of dissuading the boy and so dismissed him to join his classmates with a warning about his cursing and spreading rumors. He made a mental note to speak to Ms. Sullins at the first opportunity.