Blue Aspen

  Table of Contents

  Blue Aspen

  Prologue

  1.Dulcee Elder’s Autobiography

  2. Dr. Patricia Verell

  3. Psychobabble

  4. A house made of straw

  5. Enter Lyle Archer stage left

  6. Mirror Membrane

  7. The Horns of a Dilemma

  8. Sleeping Arrangements

  The End

  Blue Aspen

  Blue Aspen

  By Tenaya Jayne

  Copyright © 2009 by Tenaya Jayne

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ISBN-10: 0615534260

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2009934583

  For Nick, the greatest of loves,

  and Amanda, the greatest of friends.

  "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is

  desperately sick; who can understand it?"

  Jeremiah 17:9

  Prologue

  Patricia Verell had not cried in years. She held people at a distance, and trained herself not to care much for them. For a woman, she was decidedly emotionless. However, on this night, she most certainly did cry. It was after hours at the hospital, the halls were quiet, and the mentally disturbed were all tucked safely in bed. She cloistered herself behind the door that bore her name and title, and sat hunched over her desk, trying to heal herself. The tears running from her eyes collected at the tip of her nose before they fell onto the notebook in front of her. Everything she had been so proud of was turning into a throbbing pain inside her head.

  Patricia looked around her office, trying to figure out why she suddenly hated it. It was a nice office on all accounts, the best furniture, a large window, a whole wall of bookshelves. But the walls—the walls were oppressing. Covered with large frames of degrees and awards, her name was plastered everywhere. But could theses gilded pieces of paper tell her who she really was? Could anyone? She was known to her friends as Pat, and to everyone else as Dr. Verell. Since she only had two friends, it seemed to her that she had no real first name at all. This was not why she was crying.

  Down the hall and through the corridor was a long row of identical doors, heavy steel doors with little reinforced glass windows. Capsulated behind the third door on the right side, was a seventeen-year-old girl, Dulcee Elders. Dulcee was crying, also. The two women were connected in ways that neither one understood. Even the reason why they were both crying was connected. One cried because she had lost the other because she had found. They were both in a prison and were about to battle over the means of escape. It seemed to Dr. Verell that she had the upper hand, the power of a doctor over a patient. But Dulcee’s madness was the vehicle that she longed to climb into, and go for a ride. Dr. Verell was riddled with weakness, weak with wanting, weak with jealousy. She had found the very thing she wanted, but it already belonged to someone else.

  The day Dulcee was committed a battered notebook was confiscated from her. Every page was filled with the girl’s writing. When Dr. Verell was assigned to Dulcee’s case, the notebook had been given to her. After reading it, she asked Dulcee what it was.

  "My autobiography," Dulcee had answered plainly.

  It was not an autobiography, however. It was not a diary or a journal. It was the intricate hallucinations of a schizophrenic with post-traumatic stress.

  It was a love story.

  Dr. Verell was nonplused with the hurdle before her. How was she to give Dulcee the best therapy when she was a case like no other? At first, Dr. Verell had been diligent, caring, but jealousy crept in, and her concern had vanished. It vanished not only for Dulcee, but for her other patients as well. The quality of her work was disintegrating. All she cared about was the notebook. Dulcee’s fantasies had fueled some of her own, but these fantasies were only giving her frustration.

  Dr. Verell wiped her eyes, looking down at the notebook, now spattered with tears. On the cover, Dulcee had drawn a heart with the name Vincent written inside it. She slowly traced each letter with her fingertip…longing, such terrible longing. She sighed heavily before opening the cover, once again to be swept up into Dulcee’s fantasy.

  1.Dulcee Elder’s Autobiography

  I will tell you my story. I could begin with my childhood, but I will spare you learning the things I want to forget. This story is true, the only truth I know, and it begins in the car. It was a journey I had no control over and no idea when or where it would end. I had been trapped in the car for two whole days with nothing to do but wonder where we were going. I passed the hours with my forehead resting against the window, watching the world slip by.

  Occasionally, I glanced at my mother driving. She didn’t speak or look at me, if she could avoid it. She just stared out the windshield, blowing her cigarette smoke out through her nose, like a dragon. My toes were tingling, my butt had gone numb, and my lungs were contracting in agony from all the secondhand smoke in the car. Looking at her profile, I noticed her cheek tighten. She knew I was looking at her. I contemplated if I dared ask her again where we were going. I thought better of it. Anger etched deep lines into her face. She didn’t like me looking at her. She wanted to pretend I wasn’t there.

  I sighed, taking in the smoke, and turned back to the window. And there I was, staring into my own reflection on the glass, so very different from my mother. I was pleased at a very young age that I looked more like my father. I knew there was nothing about my appearance that was unattractive. But the boys never seemed to notice me much because I looked more smart than fun or at least that’s what I told myself. I had only ever been on two casual dates and had only one actual boyfriend. When he and I broke up, he told me I was too serious.

  My mother, on the other hand, I was sure had looked fun when she was young. She was still trying to hang onto her youth in a miserable, pathetic fashion. I think I hated her the most when she would raid my closet, stealing my clothes to wear them. Maybe that was when she hated me the most, too. I always felt it was a shame she didn’t put me up for adoption. No matter. I would be rid of her soon enough, one way or another.

  I looked through my reflection to the world outside again. I had not been outside of the grubby city I grew up in since my father died. He used to take me places, but he died when I was six. I was afraid of where my mother was taking me. She was going to dump me somewhere. I knew it. I just hoped it wouldn’t be the next truck stop.

  The end had come between us. The only thing we still shared was DNA, and that meant about as much to her as it did to me. I’m sure she was glad it was over. I say that like we were getting a divorce. As though the two of us being connected was something we chose, and therefore could be dissolved entirely. I wished that was the truth. I wished that not one shred of her personality could be detected in me. If she ever had any tender feelings for me, they were gone. Without feelings, there was no guilt. I think she would have had a harder time leaving an unwanted kitten by the side of the road.

  The looming uncertainty of where I would be sleeping that night was making me crazy. Maybe it was some sort of orphanage she was taking me to, or perhaps she was going to sell me to the madam of some backwoods whorehouse.

  The landscape outside was changing. We were moving through high desert into mountain range, and a light snow had begun to fall. Under different circumstances, the sight of snow would have thrilled me. It was the first real snow I had ever seen.

  When I was five my father gave me a snow globe for Christmas, it was the last gift he gave me before he died. It wasn’t until I was much ol
der that I realized just how special my snow globe was. It had been special to me always, but especially after he died. It cost him a lot of money and was worth even more now. Of course, I would never sell it, but my mother would have. She went on a rampage, searching for it when I was eight. But I had hidden it in the heater vent under my bed the same day as my father’s funeral. I knew then, someday, she would try to take it away from me.

  I only took the snow globe from its haven when I was all alone. I would pull it out and remove my father’s old shirt that I wrapped it in, sometimes sneezing from the dust. That was how I grieved my father. Holding the beautifully crafted object with both hands, making it snow for hours on the little cabin inside the glass. I would imagine I could see my father standing next to the little log house, and sometimes that I was there with him. I imagined that snow was magical and if I could someday live in it, the snow would make me whole again.

  I looked at the snow that was hitting the windshield now and felt only fear. Was this snow going to be something wonderful, or was it going to kill me? It was beautiful, but a dangerous beauty. I knew I must always respect it. Ugh! Where were we going?

  I grabbed the armrest on the car door instinctively as the car slid out of control on the ice. Mother swore loudly, over correcting and losing even more control before she slowed down. That was when we crossed the New Mexico state line into Colorado.

  My brain lurched around inside my skull. A deep, almost forgotten memory was coming back to me. Bits of mental puzzle pieces were sliding together. Colorado, who did I know in Colorado? I exhaled in a shallow, momentary relief, as the blurry memory became clearer.

  There was no way my mother would drive all this way to sell me when she could have done that back in California. No. She was going to leave me with my Uncle Jack. I was almost sure of it. All I could remember about him was that he was a widower who lived in the most rural area of the LaPlata Mountains. My father had taken me to visit him when I was four years old. I was not in a complete panic only because he was my father’s brother. Had my mother been taking me to one of her relatives, I would have rather taken my chances at the truck stop.

  An hour crept by and the snow had grown thicker. We moved steadily north toward Silverton, on icy country roads. After two days of nothing but smoke and silent hostility, we had reached the last leg of our journey. Unfortunately, the last leg is always the longest. I wanted to have confirmation that we were actually going to Uncle Jack’s house badly enough that I decided to ask.

  "Are we going to Uncle Jack’s?"

  Mother jerked her head around so quickly you would have thought that she had forgotten that I was there and my voice had startled her. I thought at first that she was not going to answer.

  "Yes. We’re almost there. I’m not going to stop either, so just grab your stuff and get out when I pull up."

  I didn’t reply. I pulled on my coat and placed my duffel bag on my lap. Through the snow, I could see a garage up ahead. My uncle was standing next to it, waving. Mother pulled the car up. I hesitated for only a second, looking at her face. It was blank.

  "Goodbye," I whispered.

  She blinked and decidedly said nothing. I got out. The second I shut the door, she began backing down the sloped driveway, skidding again. I stood in a state of apprehension, a stranger in a foreign land, and watched the tail lights of the car disappear. I wondered if I would ever see my mother again. I wondered if I would want to. Turning to face my uncle, I hoped my future would be worth something.

  He looked like my dad. Only, Uncle Jack had the appearance of a person to whom life had been unkind. The lines on his middle-aged face made him look wise and experienced. He smiled at me, looking quite as uncomfortable as I felt.

  "Hi, Dulcee," he said, nervously scratching the back of his neck. "I’m your Uncle Jack."

  "Yeah, I know. I remember you, a little."

  Goose bumps surfaced on my skin as the freezing wind penetrated my ratty jean jacket. Uncle Jack surveyed my attire, disapprovingly. He was bundled in a puffy parka, gloves, and snow boots.

  "Well, come on," he said. "We can talk when we get to the house. You’ll freeze out here dressed like that."

  He gestured for me to follow him as he stalked off around the side of the garage. I followed slowly, trying to not slip and fall on the ice. I discovered it was useful to step in my uncle’s footprints.

  I expected the house to be behind the garage, but there was no house. There was a snowmobile on a snow-covered trail that disappeared into a vast abyss of forest. I stopped in my tracks, unable to suppress the trepidation I felt about getting on the snowmobile. It was cool, to be sure, but entering the alien world of the forest frightened me. Had it not been for the fact that there was no alternative in sight, I would have asked for more time to consider what I was about to do.

  "Get on," he said, throwing his leg over the large machine.

  I pulled the strap of my duffle bag over my head and under one arm, the way I did with a purse sometimes. Once I had lumbered up behind him, he turned the engine over. We began a swift, freezing ascent. Impulsively, I threw my arms around my uncle’s middle to keep from falling off. This forced physical closeness with an almost total stranger made me even more uncomfortable. I had never been a very tactile person. Uncle Jack’s hair brushed my cheeks and he smelled like sap and wood smoke. The harsh wind made me feel that my nose and ears were going to fall off.

  Even though we were moving upward, it felt like we were tunneling into the earth. It just kept getting darker and darker. The trees were getting taller and closer together. I was full of fear of the unknown, fear of my uncle, fear of the forest, fear of the quiet that hung heavy over our heads like the smog of the city. The snowmobile was loud, but I could feel the silence beyond its rattling. Silence so thick, tangible, it was alive with its own inaudible pulse.

  "How much farther?" I yelled over the noise of the vehicle.

  "Just another minute or so. You’ll be able to see the house when we turn the next corner," he shouted back over his shoulder.

  I looked ahead, thinking my uncle’s house was surely some sort of hunting cabin, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. We turned the corner and I forgot to breathe. Not far ahead was a mansion demanding its space majestically through the trees. It was the largest house I had ever seen, and by far the most beautiful. I was sure it had to be four stories. Windows spanned thirty feet high and opened whole walls. Balconies and terraces clung to the exterior overlooking the lake that lay still and reflective as a mirror off to the side of the house. It was the most beautiful and ornate craftsmanship and yet looked organic. The expansive exterior was constructed of interlocking logs that gave it the look of a log cabin, only immense and not at all rustic. I was shocked and amazed and overwhelmed all at once. This was my new home.

  We approached the house slowly and a large garage door opened and welcomed us in out of the cold. We pulled up into the garage and stopped. There were no cars in this garage.

  "Uncle Jack?" I asked timidly, getting off the snowmobile. "Why don’t you have any cars in here?"

  He chuckled. "That’s because in the middle of winter you can’t just drive to and from the house. I keep my truck down by the road. That way I never get stranded."

  I felt a little silly for asking. "I guess that should have been obvious. I’m just a city girl, you know."

  Uncle Jack chuckled again, shaking his head, and led the way into the house. I felt my eyes widen. I was trying to see everything at once and that was a bit challenging. I followed my uncle up a flight of stairs and through a long hallway, until we came to a living room. One whole wall was nothing but glass. The view was absolutely staggering. Being under the trees was quite a bit different than looking out over them. A clear sky hovered over the majestic mountains and forest. What struck me most was the lack of man, only God had walked here. There were no houses, no structures at all that I could see; we were alone in an ocean of trees. I shivered and turned away from the vi
ew, the sight of it was making me nervous.

  I went back to looking at the interior of the house. There was a large rock fireplace harboring a blazing fire, and the room was filled with cushy, oversized furniture. Every detail was of the finest quality. The whole house was totally surreal to me. Three days ago, I had been in a grubby two-bedroom apartment in the middle of the ghetto.

  Uncle Jack sat down in a large armchair by the fire and gestured for me to do the same. It must have been obvious to him how uncomfortable I felt. I looked into the eyes of my uncle and knew profoundly that I had crossed a point of no return. I thought back to the sight of the taillights of the car driving away. My path was unknown to me but I had no choice. There was no going back.

  "You are so grown up," Uncle Jack said. "The last time I saw you, you were four or five I think. Now look at you, practically a woman. You look a lot like your father. You have his eyes. When we were growing up, I was always jealous of his eyes. He got the cool color changing hazel while I was stuck with the boring brown. Your eyes are every bit as intimidating as his were. Can you do that one eyebrow thing like he could?"