“I have asthma?” he said.
Jet handed him the vial they had prepared for him. “You do now.”
He explained to William that he had to go alone, but William wouldn’t hear of it. “I thought we were ruining our lives together.”
William hailed a taxi and they secretly held hands as they traveled downtown, and then on the corner of Whitehall Street, Vincent had the cabbie pull over. William was so honest and forthright, Vincent couldn’t share with him the plan his sisters had come up with. It was somewhat dangerous, and he knew William would disapprove of him putting himself at risk, which made Vincent love him all the more.
“You’re coming back,” William said, leaning in close. “I have the sight, too. I know we’ll be together.”
Vincent walked the rest of the way to the induction center. He had brought along the official letter written on the stationery of the chief pulmonologist at St. Vincent’s that stated that he had severe asthma and could not serve his country. The stationery was real, stolen from the chief’s desk while he was at lunch, but the letter itself was forgery, written by a resident whose last radical act had been to chain himself to a rack in the cafeteria of his high school. Vincent was wired and jumpy; he could barely stay seated when brought into the spare office of the MD who would examine him. He was such a good liar, the best of the best, so why was it that his tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth? Why, when the doctor walked into the room, did he fall silent?
Franny and Jet had decided to go to the induction center to wait outside for Vincent. They both were as nervous as birds. “Fuck Richard Nixon,” Jet said.
“Agreed,” Franny said.
“We’re doing the right thing, aren’t we?”
“Of course we are. He can’t go. I’ve always seen his life would end too early. It’s right there in the palm of his hand. We have to do everything we can to protect him.”
They’d given Vincent wolfsbane, grown in their tiny greenhouse. He’d been advised to consume it with great caution, for the herb was dangerous, and could affect the heart and lungs with lethal action, interfering with his breathing. Just a pinch, Franny had told him. We don’t want you to actually be dead. Unfortunately, his emotional good-bye with William had caused him to forget the vial in the backseat of the taxi, something he didn’t realize until he was already sitting in the doctor’s office.
His lungs seemed fine when the MD had him breathe in and out. “Clear as a bell,” he was told. “How long have you had the asthma?”
“At least five years,” Vincent said. Having been in a rush he didn’t bother to fully read the letter, which stated his asthma had begun at the age of ten.
“And what medications have you used?” the doctor asked.
“Various ones,” Vincent said. “Mostly organic.”
“But you don’t know the names of any of them?”
“You know, my sister takes care of my health. She’s the one who knows everything about my medications.”
“But your sister isn’t here, is she?” the doctor said.
Vincent waited in his underwear while the doctor went to confer. When he returned nearly half an hour later, a soldier in uniform accompanied him. The pulmonary specialist at St. Vincent’s Hospital had been phoned. He’d never heard of a Vincent Owens and the files at the hospital had no information about such a patient. Did Mr. Owens wish to recant his story? Or perhaps he’d prefer prison? Actually, Vincent said, he’d prefer a psychiatrist.
“Are you saying you’re mentally ill?” the doctor asked.
“That’s for others to decide,” Vincent responded, sick at heart but not seeing any other choice. He was desperate to get out of his service.
By now, hours had passed and Jet and Franny were freezing on the sidewalk. Men who had walked into Whitehall at the same time as Vincent had already left. They had no idea that their brother was being interviewed in the psychiatry department, where he explained that he was a homosexual, and that he couldn’t serve because he was also a wizard and he would do no harm to anyone if they tried to send him overseas.
Franny finally went inside at six that evening. Her footfalls echoed, for the building had emptied. It was a place of fate and the scent in the hall was that of fear and sorrow and courage. Outside, the sky was dark blue, threaded through with clouds. There was a chill in every breath you took. Jet stayed out on the street shivering. On this day she wished she still had the sight. She had developed a fear of crowds and stayed away from public spaces.
At the front desk, Franny was told there was no information. Her brother was no longer in the building and they were closing for the night.
“That’s not possible,” she declared. “I’ve been right outside waiting for him all day. If he had left I would have seen him.”
“Back entrance,” she was told, “used for expedited departures.”
The sisters and William were worried sick. It was as if Vincent had disappeared from the face of the earth. Franny went to the Jester to search for him, while William checked Washington Square and Jet stayed at home in case he should call.
“Maybe we should phone the police,” Jet said when they had all failed to find him.
William phoned his father, then came back with his report. “No police,” he said. “We just wait.”
The following week, an official letter finally arrived. The three sat around the kitchen table that had been in the family’s home, the one that had been tilted ever since Franny and Vincent first experimented with their powers. Jet was the one who finally opened the letter, and she read it aloud in a small voice that shook with emotion. Vincent had been examined and found to be psychotic and delusional. He had been admitted to Pilgrim State Hospital. There was no need to hear more. They needed a lawyer, and Franny called the only one she knew, Jonas Hardy in Boston, who had always handled the Owens family business. He would do the best he could, but once he acquired the hospital admission documents he conceded that getting Vincent released would be a problematic and lengthy process. Their brother had incriminated himself, signing a document that stated he was a homosexual and a wizard who had planned to defraud the U.S. government and avoid military service.
“First things first,” William said. “They won’t allow me to see him because I’m not family.” He turned to Franny. “You go. They’ll let you in.”
“Me?” Franny said.
“You’re straightforward and honest,” William insisted. “And you won’t burst into tears.”
“You’re right,” Jet agreed. “It has to be Franny.”
“When you come back, we’ll sit down with my father and put together a plan,” William said. “We’ll get him out.”
Franny took a cab to Long Island that same day. Before leaving she’d had to lock the dog in the bedroom and make sure the windows were shut, so Harry couldn’t leap out and search for Vincent. He’d been distressed ever since Vincent’s disappearance, pacing and whining and refusing to eat. “I’m going to find him,” Franny told the dog. “You just stay.”
It was a misty day, and the hospital was shrouded in fog. It was a dreadful looming place, built between two highways, made of brick, with the bleak look of an old factory. There was a great deal of fencing, and bars over the windows. The lights flickered and the hallways were painted a foreboding shade of green. Franny felt intimidated standing in the waiting room. She tasted metal, for this was a place that was dangerous, made of metal that diluted her power. There was no way anyone could make use of the sight here.
At last a social worker came to speak to her. She was a well-meaning woman, but there wasn’t much she could do. Vincent was in the wing the army used and no visitors were allowed.
“Why would that be?” Franny asked. “I only want to see my brother. What harm is there in doing so?”
“Only army or medical personnel,” the social worker said. She had a heart and patted Franny’s shaking hands. “Trust me, it would be too upsetting for you to see him.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
It meant he was no longer in a straitjacket, no longer fighting or banging his head against the wired-shut window, but viewing the effect of the drugs could be disturbing. He had been too uncontrollable to be in the dormitory with the other patients and had been taken to a single room. He was disheveled and hardly alert, suffering from confusion, trembling whenever there was a loud noise. There would be a report at the end of the month.
“You mean weeks?”
“Unfortunately, yes. We’re dealing with a bureaucracy here. Things take time. Sometimes months.”
Franny walked out knowing that her brother would not last that long.
They drove out to Sag Harbor. It was early spring and the trees were budding, but the air was still cool. It was a clear, bright, beautiful day, the air tinged with salt, the climbing roses blooming. They were in William’s car, and they all wore black. They barely spoke, especially when they drove on the Sagtikos Parkway, past Pilgrim State.
“It’s dreadful,” Jet did manage to say, and they all agreed.
Once in town, they stopped at the liquor store, thinking they would need the fortification. They needn’t have worried. Alan Grant had wine opened on the table, and took a whiskey for himself.
“My advice will set you against the laws of our country.” Mr. Grant’s expression was somber. “And I’m also afraid that in saving Vincent, I may endanger you,” he told his son. “You can be arrested if you aid a deserter.” He gestured to the sisters. “All of you can.”
“We’ll take that chance,” Franny said.
“Then my suggestion is that Vincent must run. He’s already made it clear he won’t serve. He needs a passport and a plane ticket.”
“Pardon me?” Franny said. “He’s in a hospital. He doesn’t have a passport.”
“Then find him one, and get him the hell out of that place,” Mr. Grant told them.
“And then what?” Jet wanted to know.
Mr. Grant smiled and shook his head. “Then, my dear, prepare to never see him again.”
When they left the sun was on the water and everything seemed to gleam as they walked across the wide lawn to the car. They were all saddened by this day, and by knowing what they must do. When they reached the car, they lingered, as if trying to avoid the inevitable return to real life.
“You cannot lose someone you love, even if he is no longer beside you,” William said. “So we’ll do as my father suggests. It’s the only logical choice.”
“Are you willing to?” Franny asked. “No matter the cost?”
Franny had her arm around William’s waist. Jet walked close beside them. They were in this together, this perilous, wonderful business of loving Vincent.
“We’ve already decided we would ruin our lives together,” William said. “So here we go.”
Franny phoned Haylin that same night. When he heard what had happened he left work before his shift was over, something he never did. He was committed to his patients, but this was different. It was urgent, it was Franny, the only one who could give him a feeling of recklessness. He got to Greenwich Avenue in no time, and she was waiting for him. She was so worried and so pale that he lifted her into his arms. They went upstairs, pulled off their clothes, then got under the quilt together. Haylin was too tall for the bed and he always banged his head against the wall. He had such long limbs it seemed he might fall onto the floor at any moment.
Whenever Hay was there, the crow made himself comfortable on the bureau. Otherwise he spent his time in the kitchen, near the radiator. Lewis preferred to stay in the house. Long flights were past him, still he seemed full of cheer when Haylin visited, flapping around joyously before he settled down. Hay always brought Ritz crackers, which were the crow’s favorites.
“I need your help again,” Franny admitted.
“I suppose once you start breaking the law, it gets easier and easier to do,” Hay said. “I could lose my medical license over the asthma incident. Now what?”
“Now we have to get Vincent out of Pilgrim State.”
Hay had always thought Franny smelled like lily of the valley, which grew in wild clutches in the woodlands in Central Park each spring. He missed the past, but now that they were together again, he missed it less. Franny stroked his torso and his broad back, always amazed to find that he was now a man rather than the boy she’d first fallen in love with. But this wasn’t love. They’d agreed to that. It was simply everything else.
“It’s a secure facility,” Haylin said. “Should we think about this?”
“There’s nothing to think about,” Franny said. “We have to get him out.”
“It’s we, is it? But isn’t this when I go to jail?” he asked with a grin.
“It’s when you rescue someone.” Franny entwined her legs with his. She understood why ancient monsters were often made of two creatures, with two hearts and minds. There was strength in such a combination of opposites.
“Not you, I gather,” he murmured. “Because I wouldn’t mind rescuing you.” He held her beautiful red hair in one hand and told himself this wasn’t love. He had to keep reminding himself of that. All the same, he knew he would step blindly forward to do whatever she asked. That had always been the case.
“Before you, I was the Maid of Thorns. I had no heart at all. You already rescued me,” Franny said right before she asked him to risk everything, unaware that she had been asking him to do so ever since they’d first met, and that he had been willing to do whatever she wished him to, even during the time they’d been apart.
In the hospital, Vincent’s thoughts were cloudy, fragile things. They’d shaved off his hair and had him wear a uniform that barely fit his tall frame. He was not allowed a belt or socks, lest he try to commit suicide with them by hanging. He had gone berserk in the dormitory and was then shot up with medication and plunged into a cold bath. Then they tied him up so they could carry him down the hall to this small room. There were mice, he could hear them. He could hear footsteps in the hall. Here were the things to stay away from: metal, ropes, water, fear. He felt himself weakening by the second.
His face was bruised from the altercation in the dormitory, and he had lost a good deal of weight. He was a wraith, a shadowy creature. He was thankful William couldn’t see him, didn’t know what he had become. They continued to feed him medication that caused him to be plodding; it was Thorazine, a wretched pill that made him descend into a woozy state of mind. The Vincent he had been previously had been banished to some distant part of the past, but not completely. He still knew how to play the game, and soon realized he could pretend to swallow the pills, even open his mouth to show they were gone, while keeping them tucked up along his gum. He would then spit them out when the nurse left him alone, then he’d hide them under the radiator. The first clear thought he had was a memory of an interview he had read with Jim Morrison, a singer and poet he admired for his rebellion.
Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.
Freedom was the instinct of every mortal being, even those who thought they had no hope. This was his deepest fear, to be trapped and jailed, like his ancestors. If he hadn’t been surrounded by metal he could have willed his window to open and climbed out, then dropped to the ground. He then would have stopped traffic and hitchhiked to the city, slipping into a car with any stranger who would have deposited him on a city street, so that he might disappear into the crush of people at Forty-Second Street and call William from a pay phone. But he could not reach that part of himself. He had lost himself in this place, as had so many others before.
All he could do was keep his eyes closed and do his best to get through the day. I’ve tried before, I’ve locked the door, I’ve done it wrong, I’ve done it right. He did not eat or fight back. He shivered with cold even when the heat was turned up high, the old metal radiators pinging. He still had marks on his wrists from being bound when he
’d thought he could fight his way out. At night he tried to get back the piece of his soul that had disappeared when they brought him here in irons.
He went over the spells he remembered from The Magus, doing his best to recall the magic that had once come to him so easily. He was convinced Aunt Isabelle’s story of Maggie the rabbit was meant for him when he was hiding from himself, denying who he was. Now in the glinting half-light of the hospital room he practiced spells he had memorized. Although the newspaper on a cabinet fluttered and fell off the shelf, and a bowl and a plate rattled when he muttered curses, the aura of the place soon overtook him. It affected his brain and his soul alike. He couldn’t even turn off the bright light that was kept on through the night. He was a rabbit in a cage. For most of the day he sat on a mattress on the floor. His feet were bare, long white feet that didn’t look at all familiar, the feet of the dead.
To make himself aware that he was still alive, to save himself in some small way, he made himself think of the lake in Massachusetts, how cold and green it was, and of the garden where he’d played his first songs, and of April Owens standing in the grass in California, hands on her hips, telling him not to make promises he couldn’t keep. He remembered Regina tagging after him, and the surprising swell of love he’d felt for her when she said she wanted to remember him. He transported himself to that moment, and he stayed there, in California. He no longer smelled the Lysol the janitors used to clean the floor, but rather there was the woodland scent of eucalyptus, so fragrant it made him dizzy.
He heard the door to his locked room open, but he was too far inside his head for it to matter. He had perfected the ability to hover somewhere outside of his own body, something he had learned from The Magus. He was in California and the grass was golden. Nothing else mattered. He could stay forever if he wished. Would you like some flowers? Regina was saying. All of the flowers were red, and in the center of each, a bee drowsed. Someone sat down on the chair. Likely a nurse with his medication. Best ignored. He stayed inside his mind, fading into the tall golden grass.