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“You’ve been struck by my guard, and you’re not yourself,” he said.
“On the contrary,” I said. “I am exactly myself, which is why I won’t sing for you.”
His eyes were cold again—colder than they were when he stood on a wall above Otto’s swinging corpse.
“Then go,” he whispered furiously.
CHAPTER 46
Buzzed on coffee and mildly hungover from celebrating the A on his Organic Chem exam, Jordan Hassan thumbs through theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, a.k.a. theDSM-5, while he waits for the morning staff meeting to start. Excited to have been invited to observe the meeting, he showed up ten minutes early. Trichotillomania: when someone can’t stop pulling out their own hair. Frotteuristic disorder: when someone gets off on rubbing themselves against strangers.
Creepy, he thinks, before he reminds himself not to judge. No one wakes up and chooses to like that sort of thing, any more than they would choose to suffer from kleptomania.
Or, of course, schizophrenia.
Although schizophrenia affects only about 1 percent of the population, it’s one of the most disabling diseases known to humankind.Jordan can still remember writing that sentence in his Psych 101 notebook.
For his current class, Abnormal Psychology—an unfortunate name, he now realizes—his notebook is full of observations about life on a locked psychiatric ward. He’s written about Brandon’s seizures, Sean’s violent outbursts, and Indy’s portfolio of intricate, astonishing drawings. He’s noted mealtime habits, med pass routines, and the weird popularity of old John Hughes movies: theminute an aide puts onThe Breakfast Club, the whole ward shows up in the TV lounge.
But mostly he’s written about Hannah. Her intelligence, her love of books, her beautiful singing voice—and her unshakable belief that she travels hundreds of years back in time.
He drains the last of his coffee and turns to the schizophrenia page. Hannah’s page.
Delusions, it says.Hallucinations. Disorganized speech.
He’s never heard Hannah using so-called disorganized speech, but others on the ward use it.See the moon. Rune. Tune. I used to sing opera because God told me to. Toodle-loo!That’s how Brian H., in Room 19, sounds.There’s a ledge. It’s alleged that I’m dead. I’m dead twice over, it’s all part of the plan. I know they’re watching. They’ve infiltrated the ceilings. They want to kill me again and again.
Jordan never quite knows how to respond to it—to what the staff call “word salad.”
“Learning anything new?”
Dr. Klein has just entered the staff room, with Amy, Mitch, and the rest of the morning shift behind her. Jordan snaps the book shut.
“Yes and no,” he says. “I mean, it’s just symptom after symptom. Where’s the part about how you’re supposed to help deal with them?”
Dr. Klein sinks heavily into a chair. “You’ll note that the title says ‘diagnostic manual,’ not ‘treatment protocol.’”
Mitch snickers. Feeling stupid, Jordan puts the book back onto the shelf. “Right,” he says. “Of course.”
They roll through the meeting, going down the list of patients and how they’re doing. Jordan’s scrambling to keep up, but he snaps to attention when he hears Hannah’s name.
“—and Ian said that Hannah did agree to an increase in medication,” Mitch is saying, “so we’ll see how that goes.”
“So she’s back from the castle?” Amy asks.
That’s how they refer to Hannah’s episodes:going to the castle.
Mitch nods. “I wonder how long we can keep her here.”
What Jordan can sense—but which no one has said out loud—is that Hannah is getting worse. It seems like every time she comes to the hospital, she spends more and more time caught inside her fantasy, oblivious to anyone’s attempts to help her. But there’s something about that fact that perplexes him. He raises his hand. Mitch snickers again, but Dr. Klein nods at Jordan to speak.
“I was wondering … is it common for a patient’s hallucinations to be so consistent?” Jordan asks. “I mean, sometimes Andy thinks his hand doesn’t belong to him, and other times he insists he doesn’t have a face. Sean saw giant bugs crawling all over his dinner the other day, but now they’re gone and the TV’s talking to him. Whereas Hannah—all she ever talks about is that one world.”
“There probablywerebugs on his dinner,” Mitch mumbles, clearly hoping for a laugh.
“It’s extremely unusual,” Dr. Klein says, ignoring him. “Coherence is not a hallmark of the schizophrenic mind, and I’ve never seen a patient with hallucinations so consistent, as you say.”
“That’s kind of what I thought,” he says. “So—do you think there’s a chance that this castle is a real place?”
