M Sellars - Perfect Trust

After six rings the phone was answered by a pre-recorded message announcing that I had reached Metro Counseling and that the offices were currently closed for lunch. I felt a wave of relief as the voice continued on, telling me that if this were an emergency I should call the doctor’s exchange, otherwise I should leave a message and someone would get back to me as soon as possible.

Following the high-pitched tone at the end of the message I began to speak, “My name is Rowan Gant and I need to see about making an appointment with Doctor Storm. My number is…”

I was cut off by a burst of squelchy feedback, combined with the fumbling knocks of someone rushing to pick up the phone. A female voice barely overrode the squeal, telling me to hold on for a second. Various warbles and clicks followed then fell quiet as the person at the other end managed to stifle the recorder.

“I am very sorry about that, Mister Gant,” the woman’s soothing voice apologized. “This is Helen Storm. Benjamin told me I should be expecting your call.”

My earlier relief turned to instant surrender when she told me that she wanted to see me late tomorrow morning.

D-E-A-D-I-A-M!

D-E-A-D-I-A-M!

What’s that spell?

Dead I am!

Louder!

Dead I am!

One more time!

DEAD I AM!

I awoke in darkness.

I really wasn’t all that surprised. Nightmares and darkness tend to go hand in hand. I’d grown relatively used to the cycle by now.

The bizarre Seussian chant was still echoing inside my head with a frighteningly excited edge to its morose verbiage. I laid completely still, letting the imagined sound fade to crisp silence, only to have the quiet replaced by a low, repetitious rumble. I slowly turned my head and found myself face to face with one of our resident felines. The paws outstretched to touch me and incessant purring, as my shoulder was being kneaded, led me to believe it was most likely Dickens, since this was the norm for him.

The familiarity of my surroundings was a relief. For once, I wasn’t at a loss for the how’s, where’s or why’s of my situation; and, I also wasn’t forced to deal with the nauseating sense of violation I had come to know so well. I knew exactly where I was-safely tucked in my bed, more or less under a blanket, with one arm hugging a pillow against the side of my head. My other arm, however, had gone thoroughly numb from the uncomfortable angle it was crooked into beneath my body. I shifted the appendage, and circulation instantly took hold full force. I winced as an astronomical number of pinpricks began traversing up and down its length.

In addition to knowing where I was at the moment, I also had a fair recollection of how I’d gotten here. These simple facts may seem obvious and mundane to virtually everyone else, but to me they were comforting revelations.

As to the why I was here, well that was obvious-it was the middle of the night and I was trying to sleep. Unfortunately, there was a perverted mantra running around inside my head that was insisting that I do otherwise.

I rolled to the side, upsetting Dickens in the process, and sleepily scanned the face of the clock. The digital readout showed it to be almost a quarter past four. For all intents and purposes that simply meant 4:00, since my wife kept the timepiece set fifteen minutes fast to avoid being late. The self-imposed mind trick didn’t actually work for her, but that’s another story entirely.

My arm was beginning to regain its feeling, and every moment that passed was bringing me closer to being fully awake. The eerie echo reverberating inside my skull had been absent for a good number of minutes now; however, it had been replaced by my own inner voice repeating the rhyme over and over.

D-E-A-D-I-A-M!

D-E-A-D-I-A-M!

What’s that spell?

Dead I am!

Louder!

Dead I am!

One more time!

DEAD I AM!

The seeming approbation of death was imprinted upon my consciousness with indelible permanence, and it continued to loop like a snippet of a song that you simply can’t get out of your head. If its intent was to keep me from sleeping, it was accomplishing that task with absolute perfection.

Letting out a resigned sigh, I climbed out of the bed as quietly as I could in order not to wake Felicity. My eyes were fairly adjusted, and I managed to pull on some clothes without much fuss and then retrieved my glasses and Book of Shadows-a Witch’s dream journal of sorts-from a drawer in the nightstand. Even though I knew I was in no danger of forgetting the morbid ditty, I figured I’d best make written record of it because I was certain that anything this insistent meant something important.

I just didn’t know what.

“How’ya feelin’?” The left field greeting issued from the handset immediately following my “hello.” Ben’s down to business approach to telephone conversations, sans the typical salutations, was as identifiable as his voice, so I wasn’t at all phased by the abruptness.

“About as well as can be expected, I suppose,” I returned, glancing at the clock in the corner of my computer screen, “considering that I have an appointment with your sister in a couple of hours.”

I didn’t offer the fact that I had been up since 4 a.m. because I was pretty sure I knew where the conversation would turn from there. I was also fairly certain that he wouldn’t accept the uneventful truth for an answer. He would assume I was hiding something then belabor the point, and I really didn’t need any more distractions right now. As it was, I’d been parked in my office for the better part of my somewhat expanded morning trying to get some work done. So far I’d accomplished little more than going through the previous day’s mail and moving a pile of paperwork from one side of my desk to the other. I hadn’t exactly been what you could call productive.

What I really needed to do was return a few phone calls and put together some proposals for clients, but I simply didn’t have the motivation. Even though I was trying, I was still feeling so overwhelmed by everything; it seemed useless to attempt anything more than simply existing.

“Cheer up, white man,” he told me. “She’s good at what she does. It’s not like she’s gonna bite or somethin’.”

“I know, Ben. I know.”

We both fell speechless, him becoming just the sound of someone breathing on the other end of the phone and me turning quietly introspective.

“Well, there’s really no easy way ta’ tell ya’ this,” my friend finally spoke. “But I’ve got some news ya’ prob’ly don’t wanna hear.”

“The handwriting?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s not Paige Lawson’s.”

“Are they sure?”

“No doubt, Row,” he replied. “They don’t look anything alike.”

“Damn,” I muttered.

This latest revelation did nothing to help my overall sense of demoralization. I had been certain that Paige Lawson was trying to communicate with me. Now, I couldn’t even be sure that it wasn’t simply all in my head.

“Graphologist said that based on the slant, the sample was most likely from a left-handed individual,” he continued. “And prob’ly female, although they get a little hinky ‘bout swearin’ to one gender or the other.”

“Well, I told you that much,” I offered.

“Yeah, I know, but like I said, the samples are worlds apart…and yours still ain’t from Paige Lawson. Ta’ be honest, the difference is so obvious I really didn’t even need the crime lab for this. But just ta’ be sure, I had ‘em verify it anyway. Accordin’ to the experts, the buck-fifty analysis is this, and I quote-The moderate left slant coupled with the narrow spacing denotes an independent and possibly introverted individual. The heavy pressure and ornate loops in the letters indicate a secretive personality…