Chapter 2

Harvey slowly pulled into the gravel driveway of the house that had once belonged to Jayashree’s father, Dr. Raymond Atkinson. As the tires rumbled over the frozen mud and gravel, Harvey remembered the first time he had ventured out to Dr. Atkinson’s home and the surprise he had felt at seeing how isolated it was. It was only after becoming friends with the professor that he realized such a man would have been unable to live anywhere else. It was a quiet place for intent study, a hermit’s retreat, and Jay’s father had been nothing if not a hermit. It was that very quality that had drawn Jayashree’s mother to Dr. Atkinson.

Out of the corner of his eye Harvey watched Jay stare out the window, lost in her own thoughts. “We’re almost there,” he said and then wished he hadn’t.

“I know,” Jay replied stiffly. She glanced at him briefly, the barest glimpse of a smile playing across her mouth, before turning to the window once again.

Of course she knew they were almost there. Jayashree had lived in this house for the better part of her childhood. She had been committed at thirteen; her memory wasn’t so short that she would have forgotten this place altogether. Harvey had kept the house much as her father had left it and, as he pulled into the final turn of the long driveway, he hoped that would help with the readjustment process that lay dauntingly before them.

He parked the car in front of the garage, stepped out, and waited for Jay to join him. She exited the car slowly, glancing around, a look close to disbelief on her face.

“Here we are,” he said bluntly, waving his right hand about. He walked through the front door, hoping she would follow him. The door opened into a short hall that fed into a living room with dark hardwood floors. Massive bookcases surrounded an overstuffed chair and a small table topped with a tiny black and white TV. The only wall space left in the room was a doorway the led to a small kitchenette.

Jayashree moved past Harvey, pressing her left hand against one of the shelves of books. “I remember these. I think I had read them all by the time I was twelve.” She gazed dreamily around the room, a stark figure still dressed in gray hospital scrubs. Harvey eyed the raven hair that swept past her shoulders, a few strands sticking to the back of her top. This was where she belonged, with him, on the outside. How could anyone have ever thought differently?

Jay’s voice broke his reverie. “It hasn’t changed at all,” she said quietly, glancing nervously at him. “My father left it to you?” She pulled a book from the shelf and began to leaf through it.

Harvey looked at the cover of the volume. A simple red paperback with an image of a brunette woman: “Persuasion by Jane Austen.” He smiled to himself. In this moment of awkwardness she had gone straight for the comfort of a novel she had read in childhood. It was a normal human reaction and it gave him hope that her road to recovery may not be quite as long as he expected.

He glanced up at Jayashree. “He left everything to you,” he replied simply. “He named me the trustee so I could watch over it for you. I was his grad student while working on my master’s degree and worked with him on some of his Nordic folklore research. We became close.”

Jay slowly removed her fingers from in between the pages of Persuasion and glanced up at him, a twinge of disbelief in her eyes. He could tell she wanted so very badly to believe him. She wanted to believe that the man who had all but ignored what was happening to his daughter had done something for her benefit. “He left me everything?” she asked softly, looking at the floor instead of him as she spoke.

Harvey walked towards her and leaned forward, awkwardly trying to place his face between hers and the floor. “Everything,” he repeated. “The house, any money he had, his research…everything. It’s all yours.” He stood back up, fighting the temptation to cup her chin with his hand and raise her haunted eyes to his. Shrugging, he added, “All yours once you kick me out. I’m sort of sleeping in your father’s old office.” Harvey continued to study Jay and lowered his head, letting his dark hair partially conceal his face.

Her multicolored gaze snapped to his face, her uncertainty readily apparent. There was no reason she should let him stay here, this was her house. He had busted her out, sure, but she didn’t know him. Living with a complete stranger for any length of time was something most people had no desire to do, even sane people. Would she see him as a friend, a protector, or would he simply be a student of her not so loving father who had decided to crash at a dead man’s house?

She ignored his unspoken question and asked one of her own. “How long have you been staying here?” she asked lightly.

Harvey looked at the floor. “I’ve been here a few years, ever since your father…left.” He couldn’t bear to look at her, afraid of what the response might be.

“Then this place is more your home than mine,” she replied. He saw her feet move slightly forward between the strands of black hair covering his face. “Besides I couldn’t kick you out after what you’ve done.” He closed his eyes as he listened to the soft lilt of her voice.

Suddenly a hand was upon his face. His eyes flashed open and her feet were much closer. Harvey jerked backward, tripping and knocking the easy chair over before falling to the floor. He swept his hair from his face to see an equally startled Jayashree.

“I’m sorry, I was just…” she sputtered. Her eyes flashed around the room as if searching for an escape before they returned to his face. “You have a scar.”

Harvey suddenly felt very ashamed. He hadn’t been prepared for this to happen. He had thought she would be terrified of him, averse to any physical contact. He had read many journal articles about helping the mentally ill recover from traumatic hospital experiences and they had all failed him. He had somehow forgotten that she wasn’t actually mentally ill and there was no reason any of the same rules should apply.

“Yes, an old wound,” he replied quietly, tracing his finger down the left side of his face and the white line of scar tissue there. “I guess I’m just a little nervous. I’m not used to being around other people.” He moved into a more normal sitting position, deciding his awkward position on the floor was certainly not helping the situation any.

Jayashree smiled softly. “That makes two of us.” She stepped back and placed her book back on the shelf. “Alright, no touching,” she said, turning back to him. “And here I thought I was supposed to be the crazy one.” Her voice was almost cheerful as she tried to lighten the mood.

One eyebrow rose slightly as she began to laugh. It was a wonderful laugh, unlike the laugh he had heard in the hospital, and Harvey reveled in it despite its brevity. Perhaps she would be alright, she was certainly more lucid than he ever would have expected. If he could only control his own spastic behavior they would be in good shape.

“I would help you up,” Jayashree was saying, “but perhaps that’s something its best you do yourself.” She gazed at him queerly but a small smile still played across her lips. He noticed she had clasped her hands behind her back, a sign of her commitment to not help him. Harvey found himself smiling too as he grabbed the back of the brown chair and pulled himself to his feet.

Brushing his hair from his face, Harvey searched for the next logical question to ask. He glanced past her into the small kitchen. “Are you hungry?”

Jay followed his gaze before looking back at him. Her smile was gone and she was pulling on the frayed ends of the scrubs she wore. “Yes, but…”was all that came out of her mouth. She glanced back down at her feet with a look of uncertainty.

“Yes, but, what?” Harvey asked, struggling to not be annoyed by her sudden shyness. He couldn’t afford for this to not go well; he needed Jayashree to be a full and complete person for this to work.

She was looking at him once more. “I was wondering if I could change first. This outfit isn’t particularly warm.” She eyed the black hooded sweatshirt and jeans Harvey wore with longing.

Harvey breathed a sigh of relief. It was something simple, something he could handle. “There are some clothes in your old room. Your father bought them, I think, before…everything.” Harvey looked toward the back hallway as he said this. He heard a sigh of relief escape Jay’s lips before he was able to face her once more. She passed his left shoulder heading back to her old bedroom without any comment.

Jay halted suddenly at the entrance to the hallway, her gaze locked on the floor in front of her. “You were here that night weren’t you?” she asked, her voice raspy with unshed tears.

Harvey breathed in sharply. Jay was standing in front of the spot where her father’s body had been found five years ago and while any trace of blood was gone now, Harvey knew he would never forget what he had seen that night.

“Yes,” he replied softly. “I had come by to drop off some late papers when I found him…and you.” Harvey had knocked on the door repeatedly that night but no one had answered. Finding it unlocked he let himself in, calling Dr. Atkinson’s name as he stepped into the house. The house had been completely silent except for the sound of keening and small repeated cries of “no” coming from the teenage girl he found huddled in the living room covered in her father’s blood. He had started to approach her, worried that someone had tried to hurt her, but then he had spotted her father’s body. It was also drenched in blood, so much blood that for a moment Harvey wasn’t sure it was Dr. Atkinson at all. It had been a terrible night, his shock so great at what he had found that for a brief time Harvey had also thought that he may be losing his mind. Now he shook his head, clearing away the unwelcome memories, and looked back at Jay.

Jay nodded slowly, her gaze still held by that particular spot on the floor. “I knew you looked familiar,” she said softly before walking slowly down the hall toward her bedroom.

Jayashree sat gingerly upon the familiar bed. The corn silk blue bed spread patterned with daisies was soft and worn beneath her fingertips. This place almost felt safe, a reminder of her life before; a life with her father, a life before the nightmares. She glanced up at the window beside the bed, her eyes focused on the white wicker night table in front of it. The top of the table was littered with the detritus of her past: the plastic cases of some horrible pop CD's, a beaten up Anne Rice paperback, a tube of garish pink lipstick, and, in the center of the heap, a silver picture frame. The picture and the frame had been a gift from her father on her thirteenth birthday. It was the only image her father had of her mother. The woman in the picture was tall and voluptuous. Her hair was black and thick, falling past her shoulders and down her back. Dark gray eyes stared out of the frame furiously, framed by sooty lashes. Her mother smirked sadly at the camera.

Her father had explained away her mother’s angry expression with an excuse about how she didn’t like having her picture taken. But Jay had always known it was more than that. Her mother had abandoned Jay and her father before Jay’s first birthday. For Jay, that was explanation enough for the expression in the photo. Her mother hadn’t loved her and her father enough to stick around. It was a simple fact. However, the simplicity of that fact didn’t make it hurt any less. Jay felt a tear drip down her cheek. She had spent every lucid moment of the last five years dreaming of being back here, of starting over. Only dreams weren’t real and all that was left of her life before the hospital were relics in an old bedroom and a mysterious young man who had been there on the worst night of her life.

Harvey. Who was he and why had he freed her? Why had he risked possible imprisonment for someone who had murdered her own father? Who had murdered the one thing that linked them? He should have believed more than anyone else that she had ended up where she belonged. No one rescued almost complete strangers out of state hospitals without a good reason. Which begged the question, what did he want from her? And what the hell was a mara? It sounded vaguely familiar but she couldn’t quite place it. Had she been mistaken when he said he was one too? Was he just as crazy as her? Terrible rape and murder scenarios raced through Jay’s mind before she was able to pull herself back from having a full on anxiety attack. She was fresh out of the funny farm, and whoever this Harvey was, she didn’t want to give him any reason to send her back. She may be paranoid but she was tough. She could take care of herself.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Jay glanced down at her famished form that five years living on the brink of insanity had given her. Well, maybe she couldn’t take him in her current physical state but he had offered to leave. It seemed unlikely that a man willing to leave her to herself was a man who wanted to hurt her.

Jayashree lay back on the mound of pillows at the head of the bed, gazing at the white ceiling, idly scratching her right cheek. She would give this Harvey a chance. He had rescued her from a life of endless misery and that made him a hero in her book. Plus he was cute, a definite bonus for a girl whose only contact with the opposite sex had been with schizophrenics or sociopaths who were not capable of normal human contact. Maybe he could be her friend and she would be able to rebuild this shambles of a life. For just a moment, Harvey’s presence in her life was making her forget the horrors of her living nightmares and she held onto that feeling.

Her stomach rumbled loudly and Jay sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She glanced toward the sliding glass doors of her closet and wondered what clothing horrors her father had left within and whether any of it would even fit. Rising from the bed, she set on a course of action. She would shower, change into something that did not smell of hospital, hope that there was something edible in the kitchen, and, finally, set about interrogating the mysterious Harvey about what exactly was going on here. Jayashree smiled softly and began to rummage through the closet.

Harvey was bent over a pot of boiling water in the kitchen when Jayashree found him in the kitchen a half hour later. As she moved into the cramped space she spotted a sauce pan bubbling with marinara sauce and noticed the delicious smell of seasoned beef.

“Spaghetti,” she said, her stomach rumbling. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had real food. Lakewood had not been known for its fine cuisine: their specialty was a soup that tasted like chicken stock mixed with a jar of iodized salt with a couple of sad vegetables thrown in.

“I hoped you’d like it,” Harvey replied, glancing up from his cooking duties. A few strands of black hair had stuck to his forehead from the steam and he wiped them away as he set down the large wooden spoon he had been holding and turned to her. “I’ve been told I’m a decent cook but it’s been a long time since anyone was in a position to judge.” He smiled, and Jay noticed it didn’t quite reach his gray eyes. He was hiding something behind his self-deprecating humor and she suspected it was more than long term single hood.

Jay moved to sit on one of the bar stools opposite the range. They were the same stools she had eaten on as a child, only now her feet could almost reach the floor. She ran her hands down the thighs of the slightly too large but too short jeans she now wore. “Well, I shall judge you to the best of my ability. Besides, any food is appreciated heartily after the slop I had to eat at Lakewood.”

Harvey smiled again, as if he couldn’t but help it when he looked at her. “I believe I am up to the challenge, Ms. Atkinson,” he said, a sarcastic tone entering his voice. He turned away from the range and began to pull some dishes out of the cupboard directly opposite it. “Would you like to set the table?”

Jayashree turned away from the bar to look at the card table and folding chairs that had served as her father’s dining room table for as long as she could remember. It was just as she remembered it: one chair pushed against the far wall, table covered in books and papers. Her father would sit at this table for hours, writing longhand and squinting at rare Norwegian texts.

“Here,” Harvey said from behind her. She turned to see him handing her a set of plates and mismatched silverware. She took them with a slight smile and set them on the only empty corner of the table. Then, just as she had when she was thirteen, she scooped up the papers and books with one arm and moved the massive pile to the floor beside the table. She half expected to hear her father admonish her for it, just as he always had, and a chill ran down her spine. Instead Harvey came up from behind her with a large pot of spaghetti.

“Bon appétit,” he said, setting it in the middle of the table. This was soon followed by two glasses of water.

“Looks great,” she replied and set the plates in their appropriate positions on the table. She sat in the chair closest to her and grabbed the pot, scooping large amounts of noodles and sauce onto her plate.

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, listening to each other chew. Harvey stared at his plate as he ate and Jay stared at him. Jay shifted in her chair and scratched her cheek, hugging her over arm to her chest. Harvey glanced over at the kitchen and then back at his food.

She stabbed a meatball with her fork and asked, “So what’s a mara?” As soon as the words were spoken, she shoved the meatball in her mouth. It was his turn to say something.

He glanced up at her in surprise. Harvey watched her for a moment and then smiled. “I’m surprised it took you this long to ask.” He set his fork down, and wiped his mouth on the napkin in his lap.

“So, are you going to answer the question?” she asked, crossing her arms and shifting in her seat. She wanted to know so badly, but the possibilities of what the answer could be made her extremely uncomfortable.

“The mara is the living embodiment of a nightmare,” he answered simply, giving her a small self-assured smile.

“Well done, I’d figured that much out on my own. Remember, daughter of a folklorist over here.” She was growing more and more agitated the longer he sat across from her with that half smile on his face. While she hadn’t entirely remembered why the term mara had sounded so familiar, she could make him feel bad for underestimating her. She scratched her cheek once more. “What is a mara really? What is this thing that you claim that I am?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Well technically you’re not a mara.”

She leaned forward. “What? But you said…”

“You’re half,” Harvey said. “Your father was human, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, and your mother was a mara. If you were full mara you wouldn’t be in the situation you’ve been in for the last five years.”

“Which is?” she asked, uncrossing her arms. She needed to know and she was tired of playing these words games with him. Jay decided that thinking Harvey was cute didn’t make him any less annoying.

“A mara is a nightmare in what can best be described as a human form. Their power is in creating human nightmares. However, as you’re half human, you seem to only give yourself the nightmares you should be able to create for others. And while you’re awake as well, which I find absolutely fascinating.” He was studying her closely now, his voice taking on the scientific “I want to study this” tone she had heard from various psychiatrists.

“So my mother was a mara? Is she dead? Did you ever meet her?” Jayashree knew very little of her mother, apart from what her father had told her about the brutal end of their relationship and her departure from their lives. Perhaps the key to a very important piece of her past was sitting right in front of her.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “Your father didn’t talk about her much.” He stopped, staring at his half eaten plate of spaghetti, unable to meet her eyes.

Jayashree inched her chair forward until her stomach hit the edge of the table. “How did you come to know my father so well anyways? He never really made friends with his students from what I remember.” Her mismatched eyes fixed on Harvey’s face, now partially hidden by his dark hair.

Harvey shifted in his seat, still silent. Jayashree thought she spotted a blush in his cheeks, but she couldn’t be sure with all of that hair in the way. What did he not want to tell her? What was really going on with him? Maybe she hadn’t been far off earlier with her anxious daydreams of crazed murderers.

“We just got on, that’s all,” Harvey said gruffly, breaking the silence.

“But that doesn’t explain why you saved me, Harvey. My father would never have asked that of anyone and I’ve never met anyone who would even if someone did ask them to. I need to know, Harvey. Why did you come to get me?”

“It’s not important,” he said quickly, standing and grabbing his plate. He moved away from the table and back into the tiny kitchen.

Jay stood suddenly, almost knocking the table and the pot of spaghetti over. “It is important, Harvey, it is. I spent five years in Lakewood thinking I’d be in there for the rest of my life. If someone saved me from that fate I want to know why!” The words came rushing out and she felt tears start to slide down her face. Couldn’t he see how important this was to her? Couldn’t he see how desperate she was to know that somebody cared, stranger or not?

“It was nothing, Jay. You needed to be out of there so I took care of it,” he replied matter-of-factly. He set the plate he was holding in the sink and turned on the faucet.

Pushing her hair back from her face, Jay willed herself to not start crying. “That’s it then?” she said so softly she wasn’t sure if Harvey had heard her.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he replied. He sounded as if he could barely get it out. “Why don’t you go to bed, Jay? It’s been a long day.” He started to wash the single plate, ignoring the rest of the dishes that still sat on the table.

“I guess I will. It’s not like we have anything important to talk about.” She felt a blush cover her face and she could barely hold back the tears that continued to spring into her eyes.

He glanced at her briefly, but his long hair still masked his expression. “No, I guess we don’t,” he said. “Good night, Jayashree.”

“Good night,” Jay said before she stormed off to her bedroom. She was grateful she was able to slam the door behind her before the tears began to pour out.