Jeb and I look at each other. I unfold the paper so we can see what’s written inside. I know after the first sentence that it’s something I wish I’d never laid eyes on. Yet I can’t look away …
November 14, 1934: On the date of mental evaluation, Alice Liddell Hargreaves is an eighty-two-year-old woman of petite height who was brought in by concerned family members. According to relatives, her mental state began deteriorating months ago, when she awoke one morning with no recognition of her whereabouts and only a vague sense of her identity.
The psychologist conducting the interviews notes that the patient is preoccupied with inner thoughts, often brooding and overwhelmed by the size of the room. She occasionally crouches in a corner or perches on a chair when being interviewed. She is inattentive and vague, and has lively interactions with inanimate objects but detached human exchanges.
Patient is not oriented in physicality or place, with a marked impairment of time, inclined to melancholy dissertations over the loss of the seventy-five years she claims to have been locked in a birdcage in “Wonderland,” having been “seduced by a statue boy at the age of seven to dive into a rabbit hole.”
The examining psychologist attributes this to a grandiose delusion originating from a childhood given to vivid imaginings that were fed by the Liddell family’s close friend Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll. Patient has fallen back on these fantasies to account for her selective memory loss.
Inasmuch as the patient exhibits the following symptoms: (1) grandiose delusions and selective amnesia, (2) marked diminished interest or pleasure in social interactions unless socializing with bugs or plants, (3) absence of appetite; prefers only fruit and desserts and refuses to ingest nutrition unless drink is served in a thimble and food on a birdcage tray—she is diagnosed as suffering from Mania and Schizophrenia.
Recommended treatment: electroshock twice daily—natural voltage administered by applying an electric eel to the head. Supplement with psychiatric counsel until all delusional lapses are contained, memory is reinstated, and mood of the patient is elevated.
I shove the report at Jeb.
He watches me. “Are you okay?”
How do I answer that? My great-great-great-grandmother tripped so far into her psychosis that she couldn’t remember her past or present. The thimble and birdcage-tray idiosyncrasies are too close to Alison’s teacup fetish. The consistency disturbs me.
Could something else be going on … not a delusion but a manipulation? Is that why Alison is so into the Alice charade? Whatever it is, it’s obvious that she’s headed for the same fate as my other ancestors.
“Do you see why I can’t let her go through with those treatments?” I point to the paper. “The date of Alice’s death. She died just two days after the report. The shock treatments must have killed her!”
I yank my dreadlocks out—ignoring the rip at the roots of my hair—and fling them into the ocean. I’m done fighting my resemblance to Alison. Since we’re teammates in this bizarre game, we might as well look the part.
Jeb pulls me off the seat to sit me beside him, but the boat rocks, and I end up falling into his lap. We both freeze. When I start to ease off his legs, he holds me there. My heart hammers; I can’t deny how amazing it feels to be so close to him. Ignoring the alarms going off inside me, I give in and press my cheek to the soft knit of his tank, my arms folded between us. He strokes my hair as I snuggle beneath his chin, legs curled in the fetal position.
“I’m scared,” I whisper. For more reasons than I can say.
“You have every right to be,” he answers softly. “But we’re going to get back home. We’re going to tell your dad everything. With both of our accounts and this lab report, he has to believe.”
“No. This only proves that Alice was as crazy as he thinks Alison is. In the end, she didn’t even remember getting married and having a family. Even with the living evidence of children and grandchildren around her, she still didn’t remember.”
Jeb is silent.
“I don’t want to end up in a straitjacket,” I say, holding back a sob. “With every memory I’ve made lost … or so meaningless it could belong to someone else.”
Jeb’s arms tense around me. “That’s not in your future, Alyssa Victoria Gardner.” He’s never called me by my full name. He says it like my dad would, loading power into every syllable, which is exactly what I need.
“What, then?” I ask, hungry for any crumb he can spare.