Counting Wolves Read online

  When she pulls her hand away to push the intercom button and announce our arrival, I wobble in my Converse sneakers. She lowers her arm, and I clutch the wrist again. We stand in the cold, green hall. An emerald tunnel with everywhere for a wolf to hide.

  “I can’t help you anymore, Milly,” she says for the billionth time, as if saying so makes it true. “It’s just not safe . . . Isn’t this a nice color? It would go well with your bedroom’s red curtains. Green and red, they’re complementary colors.”

  Blood on leaves. I quake. What threatens to take me to my knees now isn’t lack of food, it’s the sign. And the doorway. Hospitals are warrens of doors. It’s taken half an hour of counting to reach this one. Each time with Adriana waiting, her eyes judging as I count.

  Pediatric Psychiatry reads the sign. I know what that means. A ward for crazy kids. Not me, not Milly Malone.

  “Here she comes, start counting please,” Adriana orders.

  Through the small, mesh-covered window in the door, a shadow approaches.

  With a click, the door gapes toward us, traversing the shiny arc on the floor where it has passed many times. It squeals over the linoleum like a pig at the sight of food. The woman in the frame wears a hospital shirt printed with pumpkins and witches, a stethoscope, and black slacks concealing a pair of flats. With her hair in a severe bun, I already know what she’s planning to be for Halloween.

  “Romila?”

  One, two, three . . .

  “She prefers Milly,” Adriana says and holds out manicured fingers that stick from a vascular hand attached to a birdlike, gold-watch-encircled wrist, connected to the arm of a total bitch.

  “I’m Nurse Stenson.”

  Everyone stops and waits.

  Thirty-three, thirty-four . . .

  “You found us okay?” The nurse continues; clearly she’s been briefed on my quirk.

  This is how it normally goes. The patience only lasts for so long and, at some point during the first thirty to forty count, the conversation fillers begin. As if I’m not here, not counting. I know their talking invites the wolf. It’s all I can do to hold it back.

  Fifty-six, fifty-seven . . .

  “Yes,” Adriana replies with way too much emotion. “But the cost of parking is robbery.”

  “Don’t we all know it. Funding cuts have hit hard and the hospital needs upgrades, built in the seventies.”

  Eighty-five . . .

  “We’re looking forward to having her.” Stenson’s words cover my whispering count.

  “So am I,” Adriana says. “This has been hard.”

  She’s telling the truth. She really can’t wait for the hospital to have me—the psych ward.

  Then they pause again, as if I must be coming close by now. I know what Adriana’s wondering . . . am I counting to speak, or counting to go through the door? Because you can’t do both at the same time. Obviously.

  . . . ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred. “Call me Milly. I don’t belong here. Adriana’s the reason I’m here. You want to talk to her, go ahead. Being here will only make me worse. Adriana wants to dump me. She wants to be rid of me while my dad’s overseas so she can stop feeling like a failure at motherhood. In my opinion, you can’t fail at something you’re not.”

  One, two, three . . . Counting also buys me time. Time to take in what’s surrounding me. Time to gather my thoughts, which are a bit sluggish these days. With each count I surf a wave of anxiety.

  The nurse smiles at Adriana, who doesn’t say a word—swallows hard. At home, she’d be nagging at me for the next hundred count. Here, she’s either so close to being free of me she doesn’t care, or she’s on her best behavior, trying to reassure Stenson that my presence on a psych ward has nothing to do with her.

  Rather than say anything further, the nurse spreads her arms like bat wings and points down a hallway. Recessed lights glow like a soft moonlight haze.

  I stare at the nurse as I count and wonder if she will hold my gaze. Adriana never does. Within the first thirty Adriana always rolls her eyes and then starts shuffling her feet. The nurse looks away too. I’m a bit disappointed. That was a test.

  . . . ninety-nine, one hundred. I edge to the threshold, hold my breath, shut my eyes, and hop to the other side. A chill runs through me. Is my spell working or is the wolf letting me slide deeper into its lair? Biding its time. With my eyes open again, I search for places where the wolf could hide. A corridor to the left leads to two doors with tiny windows framed in them. They remind me of prison cells. Another door is to a washroom. The only escape is the door behind me.

  “Acute patient rooms,” the nurse says, pointing down the hall.

  For the really crazy.

  At the corner of the two hallways stands a thick, glass-armored nursing station. I bet an axe couldn’t break it. Another nurse busies herself behind the barrier. It’s so quiet. She’s fiddling with charts, stickers, and markers. It could as easily be a kindergartner’s craft project. The nurses are safe. They have their burrow to retreat to, but what about me?

  Someone, something, howls, and it echoes down the hall from the acute rooms. I lean against the wall and draw deep breaths. Adriana gives a hesitant smile.

  The patient rooms are labeled with nurse names. Room 3A, Nurse Stenson. Room 3B, Nurse Abby. Eight beds total, four per room, plus the acute beds. One psychiatrist, two nurses, eight patients. And I wonder about the number eight. There were probably eight beds in the ER too. Eight.

  “Hiya!” A black girl bounces in front of me, having come out from a toilet stall that’s still flushing. I’m sure she’s a patient, but the Tina engraved on her hospital nametag suggests otherwise.

  “Call me Tink! Do you like ping-pong?” She flits from foot to foot. As her hands hold mine they’re clammy with cold water. I’m surprised that she’s touched me, but touching isn’t a big deal so long as I’m not counting at the time.

  One, two . . .

  “Tink is our Recreation Therapist,” Nurse Stenson says. “Tink, this is Milly. For today, we’ll let Milly take some time to familiarize herself with the ward and meet with Doctor Balder.”

  Ward—there’s that word again. Eighteen, nineteen . . . Once I’ve started counting, I can’t stop. If I do, the wolf will have its chance. And it will swallow me. Sometimes I feel like a bomb with a looping timer. I can never be defused.

  We continue along the hall; the nurse points out the showers. I catch a trace of mold and force away the memory of the gym change room. “The doors to the bedrooms don’t lock, nor those of the washrooms or showers,” Stenson explains. “Be sure to mark them ‘In Use.’”

  Adriana pales. “Is this a coed ward?”

  “Yes, but we can’t have locked doors,” the nurse replies as if we should understand the reasons for this.

  . . . one hundred. “The ER doctor said I was here for an assessment,” I say. “Not necessarily to stay.”

  “The doctor will be a few minutes,” Nurse Stenson says. “In the meantime I thought a tour might be in order, but you should know that an assessment can require a stay, too.”

  I snuff Adriana’s smug smile with a glare.

  Beyond the washroom and shower are two interview rooms, windowless with the exception of the ones inset into the doors. More cells.

  My foot crunches over shards of a broken mirror. Stenson frowns, peering through the interview room window. As we pass, I spot a small, shattered frame in the far corner of the room, mounted to the ceiling. A talon of mirror reflects back at me. Someone is in for seven years of bad luck.

  “One of the kids here,” Stenson says. “He’s harmless, but he really doesn’t like those mirrors. They’re not supposed to be breakable.” Even Adriana’s brow furrows at this. Nurse Stenson retreats to the nursing station and I hear her request a cleanup.

  Thirty-three . . . A boy, easily two hundred pounds, almost six feet tall and wearing a pink tutu over his sweatpants, sways down the hall. I rub my eyes.

  “Fairy, fa
iry, witchy-mirror, tralalalala!” he sings in a falsetto. He’s pretty much the saddest fairy I’ve ever seen. With one leg in a plaster cast, clearly his mirror-bashing bad luck has already begun. His tongue protrudes from his mouth a little as he skips past, half on his toes, half thumping on his cast.

  Fifty-two . . .

  “Hello, Peter.” The nurse smiles as she returns. “This is Milly. Please use your crutches.” He pirouettes into 3B, ping-ponging off the doorframe without stopping. As the door shuts, I see that it’s thick—almost bank-safe thick.

  Seventy-seven . . .

  “This is the cafeteria,” the nurse says. It’s just a room with some tables and a hole in the wall through which the food is probably served. The hole would make a cozy hollow for a wolf to skulk. It’s on the ward somewhere. I can feel it. “If Milly stays, she will have a sitter. The doctor will go over the eating protocol.” Adriana seems to know what this means, but I don’t and no one is explaining it to me. “And here is the recreation room.”

  I squint into the room and ignore the other kids. The lights above have the buzz of night insects. The dark green walls are like a glade in twilight. Two boulder-like couches dwell near smaller armchairs. Cords trail from a television to charging game controllers. A ping-pong table and shelves of books, crafts materials, and board games overgrow the room. The two windows don’t open, but the view looks out over a forest. The Dark Wood. So close. In a tree, crows. Eight of them. Eight again. What was that poem? It’s in my book of tales.

  One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told. Eight? Eight for I can tell you no more. For secrets. What for a hundred? A hundred crows, that would be a murder for sure.

  A few kids stare at me from where they sit in a circle in front of a woman with a red streak in her hair and a clipboard on her lap. When I take in the kid with no hair and the one dressed like he’s headed out to a nightclub, I’ve seen enough and shrink behind Adriana.

  “The rec room’s where we conduct most of our group therapy sessions,” Stenson says.

  “Very nice. You’ll make friends here, Milly.” Adriana beams. As if she’d love to have this crowd over for dinner.

  “Would you like to wait here, Milly? While Adriana signs some forms?” Stenson asks.

  Forms? My heart picks up speed. Galloping now. There’s no chance I’m only here to talk to the doctor. I know what I need to do.

  . . . ninety-nine, one hundred. I hear the click of the outer door unlocking at the far end of the hall. But I’ve been counting to speak and can’t use it for the door. Adriana’s arms fold across her chest as she waits for my answer.

  “No ping-pong, no Peter, no this,” I say, pointing at the group. “No, no. I’m not some dancing fairy, bald kid. And I sure as hell won’t be friends with any of them.”

  Another howl from deep in the ward sends a shudder through me. My wolf hunts.

  The kids smile, their eyes alternating between wisdom, amusement, and boredom. The youngest looks my age. The eldest, with the headed-to-the-nightclub hairspray disaster and shimmering tight clothes, has a patchy beard; he grins at me while chewing gum and says, “She’s right. You people are all dumbasses. Let’s blow this pop stand, Chiquita banana.”

  And then I’m sprinting, and I have more energy than I thought, because I run into all two hundred pounds of Peter with enough force that he stumbles back. I roll around him and dodge the nurse emerging from the station. She’s holding a broom and dustpan.

  Thirty-five . . . This is as fast as I can count and still keep the wolf back. The outer doors have opened on some mechanism and once started they don’t stop either, just like me. Inexorable. A juggernaut. I’m going to make it. I brake at the door and hear the swish of the nurse’s slacks rubbing together.

  Sixty-two . . . I think Nurse Stenson already knows how much time she has. “You don’t really want to leave, Milly. Not until you’re better.”

  And I hear her: if I were better, I’d be out of here. I’d be on my way, hitchhiking across the country, crazy Chiquita banana on the lam. Counting towns, not time. I want to leave, but stepping through now means stepping into the Dark Wood.

  In my stomach, a knot tightens. It’s tied with my emotions. When the knot twists, my lungs hitch and I gasp; the sluice of my tears opens and drains, and the pegs in my knees are pulled out so that I struggle to remain upright. The nurse’s hand lands on my shoulder. It’s a caress. A manacle. I jump, cry out, and miscount.

  I start over . . . cold fingers clutch my intestines and pull. “No,” I say. My count’s so weak. The spell is nearly broken. I sob.

  “Do you want to sign the papers, Milly?” the nurse asks. “It would be a good first step.”

  I shake my head as fat tears roll down my cheeks. The door’s still open, but I’m anchored to my hundred count.

  “Family time is from four to eight,” Stenson says to Adriana, who signs carefully without reading the forms.

  “Visiting might be a bit awkward due to late meetings,” Adriana says. “But I’ll do my best.”

  The exit door shuts.

  I’m trapped. I finish my hundred and have nowhere to go and nothing to say. So I scream.

  Chapter 4

  I’m in an acute room. That means I’m really crazy.

  At least I’m safe here. I sit on the bed with my knees to my chest and lean against a cool cinder-block wall. I’m waiting for Doctor Balder.

  The small window in the door looks out at another wall and the bathroom I share with the second acute room. There are no other windows. A light caged against the ceiling shines on me. Furnishings include a sink, a desk, a chair, a bed. That’s it. The chair is molded into the desk and the desk screwed to the floor. A kid could go insane in here. I’m hilarious. I’m relieved. No more doors to pass. No one to talk to. I’ve calmed. I’ve dried my tears. They offered a sedative, how nice of them, but I passed—I need to be alert. I think Adriana eyed it longingly.

  My stepmother isn’t here. She’s set up a laptop in an interview room to get some work done. I really can’t believe her. She couldn’t give a crap about Doctor Balder—maybe my screaming fit convinced her to stay, but more likely she only wants to be on record as having been motherly.

  Oh, Mark, your daughter is in such good care, she’ll say. The doctor said she’d be better lickity-split, it’s all in Milly’s head. Nothing some pills can’t fix. Wasn’t your ex depressed, too? These things run in families. She says passive-aggressive stuff like this all the time.

  I hate her. I hate her talking about me with my dad. I want to talk to him, and pull my phone from my pocket to text him. I don’t have to count before I type or tap—that would be crazy.

  “Milly.”

  I jerk back. It’s Stenson again.

  “Sorry, but I need your belt. No belts. No shoelaces. And your phone.”

  I swing my legs off the bed. I hesitate handing it all over. Anything that can be used as a weapon against the wolf.

  . . . “I need to text my dad,” I say.

  “You can call him on the unit’s phone.”

  I think Stenson likes that I don’t talk much. The belt whips out of its loops. I press an old model iPhone into her palm. I grip the device for a moment longer before relinquishing it. When you need to count to a hundred to speak, losing the ability to text is like losing your voice. My relationship with Bill is half hearts and emojis.

  “We want to help you, so you don’t need to text,” Stenson says as she holds up the phone. I stare, and she turns to avoid seeing that I’m counting as fast as I can and want to respond. She doesn’t get it. She can’t help me. It’s been three years. “The doctor will be here in a minute,” she says as she leaves. It’s not fair. I haven’t had another turn to speak and slap my palms against the wall in frustration. But Stenson’s gone.

  I’ve seen enough doctors to know that a minute can mean a lot of things, so I’m surprised when the door ope
ns a moment later. “You the new patient?” The man at the doorframe wears a long white coat, jeans, and yellow Crocs. “I’m Doctor Balder.” Doctor Balder has just showered, his cheeks are ruddy as if from a recent shave, and he’s familiar. I’ve seen him, but I can’t place from where.

  One, two, three, four . . .

  “It’s wonderful to have you here,” he says with a bright smile missing one tooth. “I see you’re whispering, are you counting? Is that it?”

  He sits on the edge of my bed, close to me, within inches of my thigh and leans in to listen to my count. It’s nice not to have Adriana here, but it’s also weird. I’d figured it was a rule or something.

  “What brings you?” he asks.

  Doesn’t anyone pass information along in a hospital? I roll my eyes but keep counting.

  This guy doesn’t have my chart and looks like a junior resident, not even close to being out of medical school; come to think of it, he doesn’t even look out of high school, but he’s from India or something and they age well. His knee bounces like a jackhammer.

  My lips are flying . . . ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred. “I fainted during gym class. My stepmother brought me here, because she’s totally out of her depth and thinks I have every possible eating disorder, and I’m probably psychotic too, because I have thoughts about wolves. So, let’s just say I’m here against my will, because my dad has to travel for work and leaves me with that witch.”

  The doctor laughs.

  I blink with surprise. I’ve never had a doctor laugh at something I’ve said.

  “Evil stepmother, eh?” He laughs again. “Witches and wolves. Wow, sounds like I need to prescribe you a bow and arrows. Is there something you want me to do while you count? Count along, maybe?”

  This doctor’s crazy—maybe it runs with the specialty—but he’s the first person who has ever asked me what to do while I count. He doesn’t wait for an answer and starts counting aloud. I make it to a hundred before he even reaches forty.

  . . . “Maybe you can juggle? I never see the w—”