I don’t know who saved me from throwing myself in front of that train and ending my life, but I know someone did for the next thing I remembered was waking up in a psychiatric hospital, the very place I would spend my last years before I died.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I think if there was a hell on earth, it would be inside a state-run psychiatric ward. It is a hopeless place filled with people who are either empty shells of what they used to be or monsters of another making.
I never knew what I was. I felt like a shell of the woman I was and I felt like a monster too. All I did know was I was left alone and afraid and never saw my family again, not in the ten years I was locked up there.
To be fair, I was shown pictures of my family. Karl wrote to me often, which was nice when I was in the right frame of mind to read and not tear the paper up. He wished he was well enough to come visit since he was having hip problems still, but I figured it was all a lie and that he had moved on with his life and found other people to love. And Ingrid. My daughter, who once swore – with Daniel – that they’d never lock me up, my daughter who went and did the opposite. She lied for she was the one who put me away. She also wrote to me, first to show me her wedding photos, then her pregnancy photos, and then photos of her and Daniel smiling above a beautiful dark-haired child they named Perry.
I am ashamed to admit that I tore up those first photos too. I was wildly jealous that Ingrid got to have the husband she wanted, a child she loved, and I ended up here, with nothing. I hated Perry at first for no other reason than that.
Then, on my days when my delusions calmed down and I had enough strength to push through the medication (which, Declan, as you know, did help a bit), I realized that Perry needed me. Everything that Jakob said about my grandchildren being cursed with my gift ran through my ears. What if Perry were to grow up as I did, and with Ingrid of all people as her mother?
I felt utterly helpless and spent most of my time feeling sorry for myself. I should have listened to Jakob when he had warned me, I was just too selfish to listen. Then I realized Jakob might have the answers. Jakob might be able to help. Perhaps he could do for Perry what he did for me.
I tried to access the Thin Veil, to make the portal appear in thin air, but nothing worked. I was probably just some crazy old lady waving her hands about like some wizard. I almost gave up hope until I skipped on taking my medication for a few days. I had been a calm and pleasant patient most of the time, so the nurses weren’t as watchful over me as they were over others.
It was then, on one rainy night with water and wind battering the tiny window of my room, that the air around me moved and glistened and I stepped inside.
That familiar pressure pressed down on my head and made my eyeballs feel as if they were about to burst. It lasted longer than last time but soon enough the pain subsided and I was in a grey zone, the parallel world. Here, Jakob was in the room with me, sitting on the uncomfortable stool in the corner.
“Pippa,” he said with a jovial nod.
Tears sprung to my eyes.
“Jakob,” I cried out. I got to my feet and found them to be sturdy and willing. Here in the Thin Veil I was more able, stronger and I used this change to embrace the young guide in my arms and sobbed all over him.
When my tears finally subsided, I begged Jakob to go after Perry and to help her.
“She might have someone at some point,” he said. “There is no need for it to be you.”
“But can I help her? Can I use this place to reach her?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, weighing his options in his mind. But I could see the truth in his eyes and he knew it.
After a minute he said, “You can use this place for many things, but it doesn’t mean that you should. The most you can do, the most you should do, is just watch over her like I have watched over you.”
“I’ll never get a chance to meet my granddaughter.”
“That might be for the best.”
I nodded at that, a sinking feeling in my heart.
“I should have listened to you,” I admitted softly.
“Yes. But what is done is done. I can only guide you, I can’t make your choices for you. You made the decisions which you thought were best at the time, and I don’t blame you for doing so. And you shouldn’t blame yourself, either. Perry and Ada-”
“Ada?” My head snapped up.
He gave me a wry smile. “Yes, I had said grandchildren. Perry and Ada will have to make their own choices in life too and it’ll be up to them to handle the cards they have been dealt. There’s not much you can do or say to change that.”
I mulled it over. There seemed to be a loophole somewhere in what he was saying. I could do anything I wanted in the Thin Veil, including watching over people. What more could I do. Could I actually use it like a mode of transportation?
Jakob watched me carefully and I was afraid he was reading my thoughts. If he had though, he gave me no indication of it.
“Would you like to see her, Pippa?”
I nodded eagerly.
He put his hands together. “Very well, just do as you once did before. But instead of creating a portal, create a window and concentrate on that image of Perry you have in your mind.”
“But the picture I saw is a few years old now.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I did as he said and concentrated hard on a window, willing myself to see a young toddler, one with giant stone blue eyes and long black hair, on the other side of it. I kept this rate of thought and power going until I felt more pressure inside my skull and before I gave into the pain and blinked, the air parted like the Red Sea and a glassy window was in place. On the other side of it, the real side of real life, was Perry. Now she was at least six years old, a little round thing but still so very beautiful. She had a type of beauty that was unique from her mother’s and Ludie’s and I cherished that I could look at her without feeling guilt or shame.
Perry was sitting in her room, surrounded by toys and reading a picture book filled with dragons. She chewed at her fingernails, more out of an anxious, excited gesture than one of worry. She was so young and so innocent and I knew it would be hard for me to stay away.
“Can I always come in here and do this?” I whispered even though I knew Perry couldn’t hear me…she couldn’t, could she?
The girl in the image shivered a little but that was it.
Jakob said, “You can…but…”