Photo by Kan Tri on Unsplash
“I’m not crazy.” Even if the writing on the walls, the gibberish, but it’s not gibberish, might suggest otherwise. I know how it looks to them. To my friends staring at me in a padded room I’ve decorated with insanity chic. Tera looks at the walls then back at me. Jordan pretends he’s getting a text message because he doesn't know how to cope with this. I know he didn’t get a text because the only people that would text him are in here right now. And Maurie, my childhood friend and biggest cheerleader just looks like she’s going to cry. It'd been two weeks since our spelunking trip and my diagnoses of psychosis.
The asylum’s PA system announced that supper is being served in the cafeteria. Only I’m not one of the lucky one’s that can go to the cafeteria. Not after the jello incident. “You have to get me out of here.”
“I’m sorry, but, i don’t think that’s safe.” Tera fiddles with the hem of her dark blue shirt. It suits her dark skin. “You’re here for a reason Anne.”
"I’m not hearing voices. It’s real. There were beings in that cave and they asked for help and I said yes.” And then I'd passed out, did a lot of odd things, and ended up here. I've only really had any clarity for a few days. Maybe I had been crazy. But I wasn't crazy now, was I?
They exchange glances, dubious glances. Glances that said our friend is insane and we wish she weren't.
“We live in a world with fairies, dragons, ghosts and magic, and the voices in my head being something other than brain damage is unlikely to you?” I raise an eyebrow at them, trying so hard to give off sane human vibes. My glances at the corner of the room where one of the shadows is whispering insults about my friends doesn't help.
“But what do they want, other than jello?” Maurie asks. I knew she’d be the first to come around. To see sense.
“They want to go home.” I point to a tree, a nightmare of a tree I’d drawn on the padded wall with a crayon. One of those kids ones that are non toxic because the staff thought I would eat it. And maybe they were right to be concerned. “There’s a tree like that in the Embren woods. I need to go there.”
“I’ve walked all over those woods and never seen anything like it.” Jordan finally speaks, the first time since they arrived. He always was a quite one.
The shadows on the wall whisper. I try not to listen as they call him stupid and worse. “You’ve never been haunted by shadow beings from the realm of night while walking there under the light of an absent moon.” Tonight was that night. If I couldn’t get there it’d be another month. And if I had to deal with these things for that long I might not be sane.
“I say we try it.” Maurie says, she smiles and I feel better. “Do you have a plan?”
“Get me out of this thing.” I nod down at the straight jacket. The staff had fastened it tight when I had guests. “Then the shadows can do the rest. The staff wont’ see me. Not if I’m in a group.”
“I’m not sure this is a good idea.” Terra has taken a half step back, like she’s considering running. The shadows call her untrustworthy, cowardly. I ignore them. She’s my friend. And she's only known about the magical part of the world for a little while. It's easy to forgive her.
“If she’s right," Marie says, and she’s already started undoing the bindings. “This is my fault. I'm the one who said we should go into those caves.”
The shadows hadn’t liked the cave. They didn’t like the cold and dank. They liked the dark but they liked stars to. A flash of their world, a world of obsidian and silver with a sky of stars and streaks of colours like the Aurora Borealis. Trees made of starlight and darkness with fruit of glass. Their homesickness for it. Their anger at having been stolen from it by a power hungry occultist.
“How does getting them to a scary tree help them?” Jordan asked. He hadn’t stopped staring at the drawing.
“It’s magic. That tree, it’s in both places at certain times.” They’d shown it to me, explained it in images and whispered words. “It’s here on nights of the new moon. Then when the moon sets it’s gone back to thier realm and they can ride it back home.”
You could come too. The shadows whisper. Become like us.
“What was with them and jello though?” Maurie asks as the last buckle is undone and i’m released. I’m in the pyjama like patient uniform underneath, and I have no shoes but it doens’t matter I want out of here.
“It looks like something from their home.” It was the only time they’d gotten loud. And she’d gotten loud, then everyone had gotten very loud. “Come on lets go.”
Terra knocks on the door and the staff let us out. My heart races as I move out with them, sock feet silent, the shadows detaching from the walls and surrounding me. Obscuring me. The security guard didn’t see me. Didn’t see in the room to notice I wasn’t there. I wanted out of this place. Away and out and gone. Through the checkpoints and the stairs, and into the parking lot. No one gave a second glance. Like we weren’t even there. Shadows kept us safe. No one spoke. My escape was proof enough that I was not just hearing voices.
My friends kept glancing at me in the car, as if to make sure I was still there. I just leaned back and enjoyed not being in an institution that smelled of bleach and depression. The shadows hid in the corners of the car, tired from the time in the last light of the evening sun. From the work of hiding me. They still whispered. There was thanks and praise, and hope in the words.
Then we were at the park. It felt like no time had passed even though it was a three hour drive. Even though in the shortened winter days it starting to be night. It still felt like we’d just left the parking lot. I led the way into the trees, the whispers leading me from the shadows. My friends followed, worried, maybe scared, or maybe just cold.
And then there it was. Black and glorious. Dark branches melding with the nightsky and gleaming like glass, reflecting star light and an Aurora borealis that wasn’t there. The shadows took shape around it. Animals, but never the same one, sometimes a cat, sometimes a rabit, or a bird. Like an entire woodland menagerie in one.
Come with. They said. Taste light and be free.
I shook my head. My friends stared, seeing the shadows as they were. Creatures of dark and light that weren’t evil weren’t malignant. Just desperate. and I’d felt it. That’s why i’d agreed to help them in the cave.
We stood and watched as they played, chasing each other around the tree that was as much light as it was wood or maybe glass. And watched it disappear as the morning sun shone threw it leaving a normal, if majestic, oak tree behind.
"No more creepy caves, okay." I say. Everyone nods in agreement.