Dark Waters

Dark Waters

Celtic Legacy Book I

Shannon Mayer

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

-Mark Twain

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1

The Eric Martin Pavilion was a nuthouse. A nice nuthouse, but still, that fact didn’t change what it was.

“Do you think Grandpa will know us today?” Ashling asked. Her strawberry blond curls were held back in a bouncy ponytail, wide green eyes—just like Mom’s—had a look of perpetual surprise—also just like Mom’s.

“I hope so,” I said. We paused at an intersection to let two attendants pass, a patient between them. The patient hung forward, allowing the attendants to carry most of his weight, his feet dragging behind. We were in the minimum security section. That meant there were no really dangerous people—just those that had lost touch with reality. Like Grandpa.

“I, I, I, I don’t, want, want, want a bath. I’m melting, melting!” The patient started to scream as they disappeared around a far corner. He ended with a fair imitation of a witch’s cackle.

Ashling let out a giggle. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop from grinning. These people were here for the same reason Grandpa was: their inability to adjust to reality and deal with what was inside their heads. But sometimes, even knowing that, it was hard not to be amused by the things they said and did.

I coughed into my hand. “You shouldn’t laugh Ash, it isn’t nice.”

Her mirth was wiped away in an instant. “Shut up Quinn, you aren’t Mom, you can’t tell me what to do.”

My jaw clenched in a sudden reflex that I had to quell. She was right. I wasn’t her mother; yet I might as well have been for all the time Mom took for Ashling. Recently she’d taken to reminding me I had no say in what she did, or who she did it with. It irritated me and she knew it.

As we passed closed doors, voices flitted towards us—gasps, groans and even the occasional screech.

“I hate that Grandpa’s here. He doesn’t belong with these crazies,” Ashling said, her voice quivering as we passed a particularly bad screamer, one that threw himself at the door over and over again, banging and freaking out about the doctors; that they were using him as a test monkey.

I reached out for her hand and, for the first time in a long time, she took it, her petite fingers wrapping around mine. Not one to throw her fear in her face, I said nothing.