Is he serious? Good god. He’s trying to be delicate.
I guess there's no point in pretending now. “Oh. Are you asking me about my first documented hallucination, Dr. Gillespie?”
Hallucination. That’s how all of the adults in charge refer to him now. When I was a kid, my foster parents called Nine my imaginary friend. When I was old enough to know better, he became a hallucination.
To me, Nine was always just the Shadow Man.
My earliest memories involve Nine. Without a family of my own, he became the one constant in my life. He followed me from foster home to foster home, almost as if he could track me anywhere. He didn’t always come to see me, though. Nine had his own life, his own responsibilities, and he could go weeks at a time between his sporadic visits. But when he did appear? It was as if no time had passed at all.
I don’t know why I loved him so much. He was cold and he was distant. Firm. He had no patience for my tantrums, and he threatened to not come back whenever I begged for him to stay. That was just Nine, though. In his own way, he showed me how dedicated he was to me. Only visiting at night when the shadows came, vanishing long before the sun rose the next morning, he spent years teaching me, coaching me, taking care of me in the guarded way he had.
No mom. No dad. Nine was the only one I could count on until I made it to the Everetts and I bonded with Madelaine.
I don’t want to talk about my sister. But Nine?
I can talk about Nine.
Before Black Pine, that would’ve been impossible. I mean it. Before I came to the asylum, I was so twisted up inside. I was convinced that the Shadow Man who visited me my entire childhood had to be kept a secret. Nine insisted on it. He warned me that, if I told anyone about him, there would be consequences.
I was a kid. What did I know?
So I blabbed, and he disappeared. I haven’t seen him since I got tossed inside of Black Pine.
The doctors told me it was because they finally got my medications regulated. For the longest time, I was convinced it was because I spilled all of Nine’s secrets at my hearing. Then I eventually accepted that he was just a figment of my imagination and I was glad that I banished him from my brain.
At least, I thought that he was gone for good. For the last six years, I worked with my psychotherapists, my techs, my mental health counselors, and my social worker to accept that Nine was nothing more than a
figure in my mind.
So why did I hear his voice again last night?
No. Not going there.
Didn’t hear a voice.
Nope.
Okay. Dr. Gillespie wants to talk about Nine? Sure. Fine. I’ll talk about him. Maybe that will send the Shadow Man away again.
Two weeks, two days now, and a couple of hours before I’m out of the asylum. This is not the time to imagine that Nine’s back.
I rub my forehead, pushing my bangs out of my face. “What do you want to know about him?”
“Everything you can tell me. From the beginning. How far back can you remember him being around? What’s your first memory of him?”
That’s… that’s an unusual approach. Most of my doctors feel like they have to convince me over and over again that Nine was never real. After a while, it sunk in—rational thinking tells me that there’s no such thing as magic and the fae and an otherworld called Faerie where anything can happen.
Still, even all these years later, sometimes I ask myself: what if? What if it was all real? Nine and his shadows, and the golden-eyed fae with the power to control fire?
Is Dr. Gillespie doing the same thing? Seems like it. Who knows? Maybe this is some new form of therapy, humoring the patient, actually believing that their hallucinations and their delusions are true.
I decide to go for it.
“I was very tiny, three or four, or maybe even younger. I’m not sure—it’s like he’s always been there. He always came and sat with me in the nursery at the Thorne’s house, singing strange songs to help me fall asleep.” I don’t mention that the songs weren’t in any language I’ve heard since then, or that I would stay up and listen because having him near made me feel safe. “He didn’t come every night. Didn’t expect him to. Busy guy, but he always said someone sent him to watch over me.”
I almost add that, when I was little, I used to think he meant my mom. I don’t anymore. Like forgetting the threat of the fae, I long ago accepted that my mom never wanted me.
“Really?” He sounds surprised. “Three or four? That soon? And you remember it?”