a couple of newspaper items about the accident, police doctor’s report… Jennifer’s entire short life was housed on several sheets of official paper.
Having shot a quick glance at the folder, Jenny started to examine toecaps of her shoes, having no desire to take part in that “doctor-patient” game thrust upon her against her will.
“Jennifer Parker, age sixteen. Witnessed her parents died in quite mysterious circumstances,” the doctor said, savoring every single word as if it really pleased him. “A car crash. Mental disorder resulting from experienced stress. Well… Our experts will help you become healthy again…” Suddenly he got behind Jennifer’s back with lightning speed and his voice was now flowing from above like a viscous resin: “Do you still see monsters, girl?”
Jenny shuddered; but as soon as she lifted her eyes, the doctor moved back to his seat and was now making some notes in her documents with his pen.
Did she simply imagine this instant motion and his last words? However, his scent – a gruffish fragrance of expensive male cologne – still seemed to soar beside her.
“Nurse, take Miss Parker to… the ward eighteen,” he added matter-of-factly, without paying any more attention to Jennifer.
A heavy swarthy hand with shortly cut nails rested on her shoulder. Obeying, the girl stood up and followed the nurse into a long corridor filled with hospital scents – of medicines, disinfectants, fear, pain and hopelessness.
Chapter 7
Ward 18
Moving down the corridor in the company of the nurse, Jennifer noted to herself that the chief doctor’s office was probably the only place here that bore signs of luxury. A rather gloomy corridor looked pretty obsolete with its walls painted in muddy-blue and creaky floor boards. Narrow windows were just as old, letting in poor light of a dreary autumn day.
A tall keeper walked down the corridor towards them. He was pushing a wheelchair in front of himself, with an elderly, estranged-faced man wearing hospital pajamas crooked in it. Another two patients in patient gowns and slippers laid their eyes on the nurse and flattened themselves against the wall fearfully, as if wanting to become integral with it.
Hiding her own agitation, the girl followed the medical worker in silence, trying to figure out where her fate had cast her.
White ward doors with paint peeled off here and there had no sign-plates and looked absolutely identical. Having reached the middle of the corridor, the nurse stopped in front of one of the doors and pushed it open.
“Come in!” she nodded Jenny in.
The girl stepped across the threshold… and instantly found herself at gunpoint of four pairs of patients’ eyes that had switched their attention to her.
On narrow hospital beds, in the ward with walls just as grayish-blue as in the corridor, she caught a sight of two young girls and two lads – to her own great surprise. Some of them were sitting and some were lying. All of them were wearing green hospital pajamas with loose sleeves.
“Here’s your bed,” the nurse grumbled, pointing at an empty bunk near the only window in this room.
Five old beds with small bedside chests next to each of them made the entire furnishing. Jenny approached the empty bunk. It had a thin striped mattress, a shabby blanket and a pillow that had already seen its glory days…
The nurse had already turned to leave when the girl made up her mind to stop her, having uttered humbly:
“I’m sorry… But isn’t that supposed to be a women's ward? Why are there men here?”
“You are no men and women here, you are patients,” the nurse snapped and sailed proudly outside the door like some oversized ship.
Having sat on the edge of the bed, Jenny squeezed her eyes shut tightly. “God, let it all be just a nightmare,” she asked inly, forcing herself to swallow up her tears. “It’s so simple for you to make one small, tiny miracle…”
But, of course, no miracle happened – having opened her eyes, Jennifer saw she was still in that somewhat gloomy ward with high ceiling and cold walls, in the company of people just as cheated of their happiness as she was.
Chapter 8
New Neighborhood
“Who are you?”
The sounded of a voice in breathless silence made Jenny shudder. It seemingly belonged to a short young girl – perhaps, even her age-mate – with tumbled black hair and deep dark eyes that seemed quite sensible to Jennifer.
“I’m Jenny,” she replied.
Instead of an answer, her ward-mate uttered a short laugh and wound her head round sharply.
“I’m not interested in your name, I asked – who are you?”
The question somewhat puzzled Jenny. How should she answer it? How else could she tell about herself? And what had she had of her old life, except her own name?
“I’m an ordinary girl, Jennifer Parker.”
The black-haired patient snickered once more, as if she had heard something funny. Her laughter sounded and faded abruptly, but her face remained absolutely serious.
“An ordinary girl! It doesn’t work like that… Or else you wouldn’t have got here. For example, I sell flowers, uncommon flowers!” Her eyes flashed with feverish fire for a moment, and then instantly faded, bringing back their previous thoughtfully sad expression. “Only no one buys my flowers, because everybody here are paupers… Paupers, paupers, paupers!” she suddenly screamed, gave a wave of her hand and turned to the wall. It seemed the girl was at the edge of bursting into tears any moment.
“Stop weighing her down with your flowers!” the lad from the bunk standing in the middle against the opposite wall snapped. “Or else she will think we all here are mad indeed,” he added quietly and Jennifer shifted her surprised gaze at him.
Indeed, the lad didn’t seem mad at all: he looked at Jenny with calm and sensible eyes.
He was averagely tall and skinny; his straight dark hair was falling on his forehead in a long fringe. He could have been called handsome, if it hadn’t been for something elusively weird in his face. Only after she had a closer look at him, Jennifer realized that the right half of his face didn’t quite agree with the left one and looked slightly skewed. But that defect wasn’t too repellent at all.
“Are you not? Are you… normal?” she wondered quietly, risking to cause any kind of response with her indelicate question – all in all, she was at a clinic for mental patients.
The patient that had called herself the uncommon flowers seller and had been going to cry a moment ago turned to everybody and burst into laughing again.
“She thinks we are mad!” the girl exclaimed.
Meanwhile, the lad didn’t give any notice to her yelling.
“Well, perhaps you wouldn’t call us absolutely normal.”
He smiled slightly and Jenny instantly felt good about
