The Beetle and the Satyr

    There was something about a dense wood in fall that made Patrick nervous. The familiar, comforting green was gone and replaced with dying trees and leaf corpses. Burning colors that hurt the eye and cluttered the ground. It was hard to hide, harder to move around quietly. Every step burst with a horrible crunch like he'd stumbled on an exposed corpse.

    His head shook abruptly. Silly thoughts, early stages of paranoia. Imagine someone like him comparing climate change to something as morbid as an unearthed body. He shook again, dismissing the images, and refocused on the young woman ahead of him.

    He'd been following her for half an hour, according to his Rolex. She was behaving just as her file warned, chasing things unseen and giggling to herself. Once, she used both thin arms to grab a pile of leaves and throw them overhead. She stood there with childish joy on her upturned face as they fluttered around her like living rain. He hated the idea of interrupting her. But now she sat contently at the base of a tree, her long fingers running along its raised roots. Her mesmerized stare chilled Patrick to his core. It was a look he'd hoped to forget.

    He edged closer, his arms outstretched for balance. She had to hear him. The leaves made enough noise to wake a child. Still, he managed to crouch beside her (the appropriate arm's length away of course) without drawing her attention.

    "Hello, Veronica," he smiled gently.

    "Vee."

    "I'm sorry?"

    "I respond to Vee," her gaze remained distant. "You pronounce it like the letter but spell it like your ears would."

    "Ah yes, I'd heard that. My name is Patrick. Do you know who I am?"

    At first he wondered if she'd heard him at all. Then he noticed her fingers slowly come to a halt and, instead, wrap around the root like a cripple struggling with a cane. She blinked once, twice. Her head turned before her eyes, shifting like one of those robots at amusement parks. That distant gaze passed over his. Her eyes were enormous, ebony pools that drank in his reflection.

    Suddenly, her gaze sharpened and she beamed at him, "White coat like a butcher but with sleeves. Plus no blood. You're a doctor, not the body kind."

    "That's right."

    "Are you real?"

    That was a new one. He chuckled, trying to mask his surprise. An old trick from his mentor came to mind. When you're stuck, turn the question back on your subject.

    "Do you want me to be real?"

    Her smile could light up a cavern, "Don't know yet. Sometimes things are real that I wish weren't and sometimes things aren't that I wish were. There's an easy test though."

    "Is there?"

    "Yep. This should be fun. I know doctors like tests." Vee's gaze, now astonishingly present, swept the area around them, "Can you see them?"

    "See who?"

    "Them," the hand not gripping the tree waved at the air, "the wood creatures. Fairies, a couple beasts. I even saw a satyr earlier."

    This wasn't how their first conversation was supposed to go. Of course there was nothing around. Vee's antics scared away the usual squirrels and birds and the doctor had refused any security escort. Still, he looked around, buying time. He had to earn her trust, had to be invited into her world to understand her. He remembered some sketches he'd seen in her file.

    "Fairies," he blurted without thinking, "with iridescent wings and...uh...clothing made from foliage."

    The light from her smile faded. Her eyes darkened and shimmered at once, water sliding along her bottom lid. Patrick's stomach churned. She knew he'd lied. He wanted nothing more than to disappear. He prayed the earth would just swallow him whole.

    "You're certainly real," she said softly, her gaze fading away again, "perhaps more real than most. What can I do for you, Doctor Patrick?"

    This wasn't going well. It was a ridiculous mistake, lying to gain trust. Now that he thought more on the sketches, he realized they were based on classic representations of fairies. She knew they weren't real just as he did. He'd failed her test.

    His mouth pulled his face into a scowl. He'd wanted her to like him. Instead of remaining distant, keeping a professional outlook, he was displaying signs of friendship. He was a doctor, not a buddy. What was wrong with him?

    Priority one was getting her focus again. Apologizing would only give her more control. Time to get it back. He abruptly flipped a briefcase into view and dropped it heavily in the dirt, remembering the expensive leather covering too late. Golden clasps clacked with importance, even as the lid opened. There wasn't much inside, only Vee's thin evaluation folder and a thick manuscript covered in red and black ink. In one swift motion, the manuscript sprang from the case to his hands and flipped to a page marked with a yellow tab.

    "She stepped closer as Mother tugged at the dresser," he read from the manuscript. "Strange how little fur the pink thing had. She reached out to feel it, hoping to identify it with touch. Her finger brushed it, a strange rubbery texture, and it started to slip from Mother's shoulders. More hair poked out, then a nose, then eye sockets, then a hand. A human hand. She stared with numb horror at Father's skin draped like a shawl around Mother's shoulders."

    He looked up from the manuscript, hoping to draw her attention again, "This was found in your room. Pieces are missing but there's enough to combine into a book. Do you know what happens next, Vee?"

    The answer came calmly, as soft as a baby's sigh, "She kills Mother, strips the skin from the woman's neck with a bladed whip."

    "Do you hate your mother, Vee?"

    "The words aren't me."

    "You didn't write this?"

    "The words are mine," those ebony pools turned back to him, "but they aren't me."

    "I'm afraid I don't understand."

    Faster than a blink, she focused on him, "The protagonist is not a representation of myself, nor any homicidal fantasies toward those in my life. Rather, she is a manifestation of guilt, a personification of her damaged subconscious. Her crime is the greatest that can be committed: an act of violence against blood relations, loved ones. She is to be pitied, a byproduct of abuse and madness."

    She waited patiently for his response, one that was slow in coming. Patrick hadn't been aware of her intelligence. Everyone passed her off as vapid, one even calling her a child in a woman's body. She was giggly, absent minded, immature. But a child wouldn't have assigned such symbolism to a character. Again, he chided himself for not paying more attention to her file. If he'd read the story more carefully instead of taking it at face value, if he'd done more than glance at her sketches...

    "These are very violent writings, Vee."

    "The words aren't me."

    A question popped out before he could stop it, "Do you think you're crazy?"

    That smile returned. She even giggled a bit. Her bubbling laughter shooed away Patrick's nerves. His body relaxed against the tree, the manuscript sliding to his lap. It was remarkable how she could so easily change the mood of her environment. He wondered if she knew she had such power, if she were manipulating him or just allowing herself to react as her mind wanted.

    "I've never been asked directly before," she chuckled. Her eyes shifted to the trees. They danced from trunk to trunk, finally resting on a tall oak behind the doctor. They climbed the tree, pulling her head back until it eased against the bark of her seat. Patrick wondered if he'd lost her again to whatever world she'd created. Her fingers relaxed on the tree root and began tracing it again.

    "Yes," she admitted softly, " I believe I'm crazy. I see things others cannot. I speak to them and they respond."

    "You walk alone in the forest, playing with leaves."

    "It's strange," Vee's expression saddened. "Everything we do as a child is shunned as an adult. Imaginary friends are hallucinations. Dancing in the rain is mental instability."

    "Children don't dream of blood and death."

    "Sure they do," her eyes poured into his. "They're simply taught to fear them."

    "Veronica, I don't think you're crazy."

    That surprised her. Her dark eyebrows pushed together, narrowing her ebony eyes. Her jaw dropped just enough to reveal a slight overbite. The fingers tracing the roots paused again, barely brushing the splintered wood.

    "I believe you're eccentric," this time Patrick looked away. "I believe you're incredibly creative and imaginative. There's nothing wrong with you."

    "But?"

    "Your family is worried, even frightened. Your behavior and comments disturb the general public as well."

    "A danger to myself and others."

    "That is the phrase we use, yes." Patrick finally looked at his patient again. She stared at her hand on the tree root. She was still aware, still present. In fact her sad expression only confirmed it. Something told him to wait for her answer. He leaned against the tree, his gaze turning to the sky. Overhead, the orange leaves fluttered and waved. For once, they didn't look dead.

    "You want me to be normal," Vee's eyes stayed on her hands.

    "Sane, yes."

    "White picket fence, 2.5 kids, a job with a suit."

    "You'd be good at it."

    "Are you?"

    He grinned for the first time since accepting his new job, "I try."

    Vee's hand raised from the root, slowly drifting closer to her eyes. Crawling along her finger was the bluest beetle Patrick had ever seen. Turquoise seemed to be its natural color but the sun would alter the shades. Midnight blue and a blinding sky blue shifted along the shell as if they were alive. He was so capitvated by the colors, he nearly missed Vee's response.

    "What happens," she asked, her eyes still on the bug, "to forgotten memories?"

    He couldn't find an answer.

    She continued, "You want me to leave everything behind, turn my back on everything I've seen and heard. What happens to them? They exist only in my mind. If I forget them, move on, do they die? Did they ever exist at all?"

    A faint memory tickled the shadows of his mind. Without warning, he saw the dinosaur he would play with as a boy. Like a flood, the memories consumed him. The dino would carry him around the yard and play tag when his brothers wouldn't. It wasn't a large thing, small enough to follow him inside when it was raining or through a department store while his mother shopped. It was bright orange and red, the color of the trees in fall. The memories tore at his chest, ripping at his heart and nearly suffocating him. Gasping for breath, he realized something that cut him to his soul. He couldn't remember his best friend's name.

    Vee didn't seem notice his reaction. Her other hand gave the blue beetle more area to walk on. She passed it back and forth, studying it, committing it to memory.

    "Did I tell you about the satyr I saw here?"

    Patrick's eyes dropped and his shoulders sagged, "You...only mentioned it."

    "He didn't say anything, wouldn't let me close. He must be shy. I'll get him to talk next time."

    "Vee, there won't be a next time. They're going to lock you away."

    Her eyes lifted to his, that smile beaming. The beetle's shell opened, revealing wings thinner than tissue paper. It lifted from her hand and hovered there as if saying good-bye, then soared away, disappearing in the bright colors overhead.

    "Only in your world, doctor."