The Schizophrenic

Chapter 7: Discovering Alana

What Jade saw in there, was something that she couldn’t have imagined. As the sparkle cleared, a small, silver star locket sat above little chits of paper. A single fountain pen bordered one side of the chest and a ring made of gold peeked from under the papers.

Jade picked up the silver locket and found out that it opened. A tiny picture of Alana, the girl in the portrait, was shaped to fit into the locket. She was smiling yet again. On the other half of the locket was a picture of Aunt Dory and the man who I saw, the one Momma called Roy. The intensity of blue in his eyes had a shuddering effect on Jade. Her breathing became shallow and she had to keep away the locket from her eyes. She looked beyond the chain and picked up a piece of paper that had been folded to a tiny chit.

‘I played tag with Jade today. But while I was chasing her I stumbled and fell. I got hurt on my head and it hurt. It was bleeding and Mum was very worried. She keeps fretting for the tiniest hurt I get.’

That’s where the writing ended. It dated back to twelve years. The other sheets of paper had dates that went a little further in the same year and plus one. It was like Alana’s diary.

Jade looked at Eileen and asked, “How old was she when she wrote all this?”

“Between five and six,” Momma said, quietly.

Jade found this amusing. At the age of six, Alana seemed to be pretty advanced with her writing and framing of sentences.

“She was special; she had abilities that were rare, she spoke way fluently than a child of her age. Alana was a brilliant little girl...” Momma said, suddenly.

Jade unfolded another paper.

‘My head bled for the next two days. It seemed to clot slowly. I liked to think that my wound took its own time to heal, like it wanted to heal so strong that I wouldn’t ever be hurt again. Mum smiles when I tell this to her. But she always seems edgy, like her dream, her perfect dream, would shatter any moment. Jade was very concerned. She’s a year younger to me, but she understands me without a word.’

Jade smiled faintly. So there was someone who liked her and liked spending time with her. She looked at Momma, who was reading the paper above Jade. She was still reading.

Jade looked around a little more. Alana’s huge portrait was distracting, so she observed her bed. Purple sheets, a soft, pink pillow and just beneath the bed spread, Jade spotted a book peeping out. She kept aside the little chest, making a mental note to get back to it after she had surveyed the book.

It was tattered and dog-eared. The cover read ‘Mickey Mouse’ and on the first page was Alana’s name written in neat cursive. Alana seemed to be even more intriguing. At the age of five, she had exceptionally tidy and clear handwriting. What was behind her mind? What exactly was the power responsible for her advanced mental growth? Because this was barely a trivial occurring.

She returned to the tiny silver chest and fingered the gold ring. It was delicate, like golden web coiled in a circle; a web of dreams and hopes that Alana was deprived of... by her own mother.

She looked at the other two papers in the chest.

‘Mum was worried today. She kept murmuring to Dad about me though I couldn’t catch her words. Something like ‘hay-more-Phil’. It didn’t make sense. But she was anxious and was more protective. At first it was okay. But then she began to drop me to school and would stay till the time the final bell rang, and then took me home. I began to get uncomfortable. She’d sleep with me every night. Even that wasn’t a trouble, till the time Dad started to fight. The way they fought was awful.’

Hay-more-Phil? What was that supposed to mean? And Alana was exposed to the fights her parents had, when she was so small? Jade shuddered; her cousin was far too young to see such unpleasant moments. And Roy? Why did he fight with Aunt Dory for this?

The next paper revealed more.

‘They are taking me to hospital! I don’t want to go. I told Mommy I don’t want to because hospital’s a scary place, but she said, “Oh, but you must, Allie, it’s for your good.” I’m scared. My head began to bleed again, that’s why Mommy did this. I hate getting hurt. It makes Mommy so worried and then she and Dad fight so much that I cry, only then they stop. I hate it that Dad gets mad at Mommy because of me...’

Jade looked up at Eileen. She kept quiet for a few moments, and then the strange word hay-more-Phil began to wrap around her mind.

“Hay-more-Phil? What’s that?”

“Haemophilia,” Momma said, unwillingly.

The word took away Jade’s breath. She knew what haemophilia was: profuse bleeding resulting due to slow clotting of blood. Alana was a haemophiliac?

Her eyes went wide. “That couldn’t be, Momma...”

But they both kept quiet after that. The silence wrapped around them like a thick blanket, refusing to let any cool comfort pass through. Their minds were exposed to the horrifying reality of Alana’s disease.

“What happened…after they took her to hospital?” Jade dared to ask.

Momma pursed her lips, framing appropriate sentences. “The bleeding didn’t stop. She’d been hit at the same place, twice.”

“What do you mean by ‘been hit’? somebody hit her!” Jade gasped.

Eileen wished she had spoken that way. But she had to face Jade with the truth. Enough of mysteries.

“Yes. Roy and Dory had a terrible row, and Roy got so angry that he stormed into Alana’s room and hit her with the chest you’re holding now, right on her forehead.”

Jade’s fingers let go of the chest. She couldn’t touch anything that harmed Alana.

“Roy reasoned later that Alana had been the cause of their fights, and in his frustration, he swung at her.

“Alana had been sleeping then. She woke up with a cry, thinking she’d fallen off the bed and hurt herself. She wailed and Dory ran in, only to realise that she was late and the blood was oozing out like an open dam. She screamed at Roy and ran out of the house, into their car, because Alana needed to be taken in the I.C.U, or she wouldn’t survive for long.

“The doctors said they’d try, but they were not sure; miracles in the case of haemophiliacs as rare. They operate on Alana’s head for over two hours, by which time your  father and I had arrived. Dory was drenched in tears and Roy was nowhere.

“ ‘She’s in there, Eileen. Alana’s in there, she was so frightened and refused to come here. I forced her into this; God will punish me, for going against such a pure soul,’ Dory said to me. I began to weep, and told her that Dory had done a good deed in saving Alana from Roy’s wrath.

“She tried believing what I told her,” Momma said, and paused, a pained look rioting on her delicate, porcelain face.

“Momma go on, tell me, I can take it,” Jade whispered, though she knew that the rest of the tale was horrifying.

“Alana didn’t survive. Her bleeding head caused a large deficiency in her body, even after blood transfusion. Her body refused to accept the new blood, almost like it wanted her to die. That poor child!,” Momma wailed. “She went through all the pain with a broad smile on her face, just so that we wouldn’t worry! Oh, Good Lord, rest her soul in peace.”

There were tears in Jade’s eyes, filling up to such an extent that Momma was a blur in front of her.

“Dory was outraged! She carried Alana out the hospital and took her corpse back home. She laid her, here on the bed, and stormed to her room. Roy was there. He looked at her, apologised and asked if Alana was okay. She screamed at him, blaming him for the loss of happiness in her life. She shrieked so loud that Martin and I had to run up to see what got her temper high.

“We saw her with the same chest he had struck Alana with, raised in her hand, and Roy’s face was deeply marred, the blood spilled all over the floor and his blue eyes rotating involuntarily into space. Then they stopped, and we knew he had died.”