At last he found his voice. “No. No, I didn’t. I’m not lying. I didn’t touch him.” His whole body shaking again, he began to shout louder and louder. “I didn’t touch him. I’m not lying. Sal threw him in. I didn’t touch him. I saw him. I saw him!”

Walthrop had already reached back to press something on his desk. Seconds later two nurses hurried in.

Six months had passed since Lewis had first arrived at Cedar Hills. He was sitting on the porch in the chair he liked, enjoying the first mild March day, small clouds being tossed about the blue sky. If he were home he would be helping his pop clear the sprouts and rootlings from the soil, building a brush fire to set at night. Under his seat was a little landscape of dried bubble gum. It comforted him to run his fingers over this familiar texture and pattern. Even after the years it had been down there, you could still smell the bubble gum on your fingers. It reminded him of the gum stuck under the desks at school and made some part of his life seem surer. He had killed his brother. He accepted that now. There had been no fire in the forest. He had led Roh up to one of the bluffs above the river and pushed him in. He could almost remember it.

That strange older boy with the rotten teeth appeared again from behind the big sycamore. Crablike, he began to approach.

STAFF NOTES: 3/13/53
PATIENT: Lewis Tivot

The patient has developed a number of obsessive behaviors, most prevalent just after he wakes in the morning. He rubs various things with his fingers and smells them. A pinecone, for example, which he keeps under his pillow. He also follows a fixed route around the sanatorium and appears to be making sure that everything is the same. He was disturbed when they repainted the walls in the shower room because there was a mold mark there that he seemed to think looked like a human face. He did not appear to believe it was anything more than mold, however. He always asks the duty nurse when he wakes up how long he’s been here. Nurse Kolks one morning, in a joking manner, told him he had just arrived. This resulted in a nervous reaction and the patient had to be sedated (see action log). Nurse Kolks was given an official letter of reprimand. The patient has been waking most nights with nightmares. As requested by Dr. Walthrop, the duty nurse encourages him to remember and relate these nightmares and we are recording them.