Open Heart {Under Revision}

Chapter 10- Inferno

Eight and half years ago...

I don't know how she was doing it but Dr. Ulna Rosenstein made progress with me like none other. I didn't need wheelchair anymore. Five months it took. Five months it took her to make me walk with help of crutches. Wobbly steps but they were my steps. My firm steps feeling earth under the ground.

My mom was shocked. Aunt Mia was shocked. My grandmother was shocked.

But the only person who wasn't shocked was Dr. Rosenstein.

There was a steady gushing estuary cutting through the property in Manchester and every day, the shrink would take me there and she would narrate me stuff which were deemed unreal by science but actually worked because I walked. She would show what our body was capable of, and every work of hers was related to water as if she herself was a broken droplet who came to quench my misery and put balm on my wounds. My mind wounds.

"It's so cold and misty, doctor." I shivered, bringing my crutches closer as we padded towards the stream, "Are you sure today we should exercise?"

Her sharp face was stoic, "There have never been better times like these, little flower."

"But I can barely see anything!" I protested, knowing that this area was not quite stable when visibility was not proper. There were holes, even swamps and one wrong foot would send anyone straight into the estuary which was deep.

"It can see you, Charlotte." She replied, keeping a hand on my shoulder.

I looked around, "Who?"

Dr. Rosenstein's hands twirled around mist and like magic, it seemed to move around her palms, "Have you seen mist talking to water?"

"Uh...no?"

A small but fierce smile appeared on her face, "We will see that now, and you will talk to this mist. They hold numerous answers which they obscure in their thick veils. And if you ask them, you will be rewarded."

Knowing she used metaphors of nature to explain her deeds, I nodded, "Okay. What do I have to do?"

"Just stand here...and I am going to leave you." She stopped us near a boulder which was sunk deep into moss-covered land and pointed to a distance which was all same because of mist, "Don't worry, I'll be nearby but you have to ask the mist the right question and wait for it to answer."

Gawking, I mumbled, "But its, not living. How can it talk?"

Her black brows slanted, "How does water talk?"

"It doesn't talk...I talk and I answer myself." I replied, having done it many times before. It felt refreshing to be in water because I felt connected like I used to back in San Diego.

"The same. And together, mist and water will give you the final strength." And with those words, she suddenly vanished as if the mist swallowed her whole.

She left me alone and I waited in the cold isolation, feeling the icy touch of mists billowing all around me. Added to that was I wore any a plain nightgown which allowed the cold to take heat from soles of my feet. I kept standing there like an idiot, waiting for something to happen but it didn't and that forced me to speak out.

"Hello? Dr. Rosenstein?"

"Yess........" a hissing voice rasped.

I jumped, heart leaping, "Whose here!"

"You caallllled usssss." It replied and the tone was almost like being spoken through helium.

I cried out in fear, "No! Stay away! I called for my doctor! You aren't real!"