Hysteria

nitentia foliis

et neonatis

diebus,

ver tempus

filii furum prohibetur

‘to seek honor, but you cannot sir.’

homo induratus ad misericordiam celat daemonium

Libera!

‘Dr. Kazan, become the boy child you actually were.’

[Translation: I. Glistening leaves and newborn days of Spring, are forbidden to the blackguard’s children. II. The man hardened to mercy hides a demon - be free!].

February 5th, 1998

For the past two nights, I’ve been waking up to these foreign words. Do you think that part of the brain might be able to comprehend the old languages, given ancestry? Would come in handy on Jeopardy.

Sorry, sorely avoiding the subject. I’m tempted to win some gameshow jackpot because I want to quit my job again.

You know what's causing all this? Laderach. The second he heard the state was constructing a penitentiary in the county, he requested a transfer. It’s a crackpot building! He had a first class suite at the Nevada institute - the old man is stalking me. Believes that I’m harboring some “content.” He’s a common Egyptian archaeologist when it comes to the personal lives of his doctors, and he thinks I’m the Sphinx.

Last Thursday, he asked me if I’d ever had a magical experience. I told him I’d been to Disneyland once. I know his type. He says if we knew each other when we were younger, we would’ve been two peas in a pod. He went on to describe all of the bonding experiences we could have shared, a fabled timeline of our elementary years. “Yes, and I would’ve even turned you over when you fell asleep overdosing.”

Thing is, with his contacts, this patient likely already has a carbon copy of my birth certificate. I had no idea what more he could want. But tonight, I think I’ve figured it out. Dear laptop, the beginning of this entry is something of a white lie. I know those words. They aren’t exactly foreign.

"Nienta follis" - flashbacks of the oak trees in the park, the new playground. "Filii furum prohibetur" - then the trees become covered in cobwebs. No, that’s not it - they’re being viewed from a dusty window. A window that.. was always shut. My reflection in it. I was somewhere between 4 and 8. Didn’t change much during that time because mom, dad - addicts - diet didn’t exactly call for apple juice and trail mix every day. And God, I’m wearing that Mickey Mouse t-shirt that always smelled like secondhand smoke. Even at that age, I could appreciate the fact that when the playground opened, I’d go positively crazy watching the children play. Like a snow globe. "Homo induratus ad misericordiam celat daemonium" - ;onfhias 🐾

Purrato’s up. Yes my love, that line is complete nonsense anyhow.

I don’t want to write any of this down. “Magical experience?” I’d done such a good job of repressing, nothing clicked when he asked… How does he know? Maybe he’s one of them too. Hm, the sight of Purrato is such a consolation. She keeps binging on midnight snacks, stressed that my repression might come out in the form of a poltergeist. If I confess to Laderach, maybe I can put an end to my insomniac misery.

My name is Dr. Christian Kazan. I have been a criminologist for seventeen years. I attended school abroad in Scotland, U.K., at the University of Stirling, one of the best schools in the world for forensic psychology. Therefore, I was able to quickly attain internships under leading doctors back here in the States. A little too early was that exposure to the exclusive cases. Something about me didn’t make my mentors think twice when they placed me in the rooms of these class-A criminals. “You’re as dark as the ink on the rorschachs,” was the syllogism. Most patients would snuff in agreement, but none were as engaged as Laderach.

Naoise Y. Laderach is a hedonistic serial killer who can’t tell (in his logic, not emotional ignorance) the difference between the ‘hobbies’; the difference between the acts of painting or cooking for pleasure/intellectual stimuli/even ‘valuable spiritual growth’ as he’d once said - and clubbing a family man to death to gain his wits. Most of his victims were from the mountainous west - New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah.

I met him three years ago when he was finally caught after a double decade career. The man is fifteen years my senior. Though he wishes I were his little brother, we don’t get along.

Last week, we commenced our meeting in the cafeteria. No recreation rooms have been installed in the institute yet, and the Napoleonistic superintendent refused to let us use his office. Thus, we were having breakfast at 3:45 AM. The empty air smelled like Lysol and Rockview orange juice; of sickness and of healing. “They make us get up this early to humanize us, say we need the vitamin D. Must be on Hawaiian time.” Laderach let out a long yawn. “I feel about as awake as one of the dew-ridden blades of grass outside.” I was tired, but I had to stay awake and attempt to maintain my customary disinterest with my patient’s novelties.

“Dew? Something making you teary-eyed?” The next two minutes were silent. I’d assumed he wanted to keep shut, and that’s when he asked me, “Dr. Kazan, have you ever had a magical experience?”

Emphasis on the word ‘magical,’ intonated clumsily as if he had just learned the word in a movie. Almost like a sign of dementia. I straightened. “I’ve been to Disneyland once.”

“Not as a child, no?”

“It was my post-graduation celebration in high school.” He nodded, but as in confirmation to something else muddled in his mind. He seemed fixated on my luncheon milk carton, and paid careful attention when I took a sip. His eyes became jelly, which on anyone else is a look that precedes crying. For this guy, pouncing a neck. The session continued, and nothing too significant occurred - except for when director Napoleon absconded me for taking the milk carton.

“Let him have it.” Laderach tried to reason in an almost grandfatherly way. Actually, he was quite offended about the whole ordeal. Supporting guards came around with the cuffs, which he stiffly slipped into. But he was implacable. Not angry, but more like a peonied, helpless mammal. “Why can’t he have his milk?” He repeated the question as he was escorted back to his cell. “Why?”

To Laderach:

I know the answer you’re looking for. Hell, I think you deserve it.

Seven years ago, I took a brief leave from my work after Thanksgiving. Total Charlie Brown Holiday Special to you - I’d tried to find my parents after twenty-one years ago, I quietly walked out of my home, leaving nothing but a grocery note that said not to go looking for me. They were both in retirement communities, separate ones, as far across from each other as they could be. My father acknowledged me, but my mother xxxxxx

God! What am I actually doing? I’m not falling for your spell, Laderach. No, this is about you -

Around that time, I went out to dinner with a friend. At our table, he said he could feel the displaced atmospheric pressure my brain was causing. That it would erupt through my ears if I went back to the penitentiary after Christmas. “Don’t you have any other credits from Stirling?” he asked.

"Technically, I could teach a humanities course.” I replied. “Nothing too advanced though.”

“That’s perfect!” He slapped me on the shoulder. “There’s a position in a high school up north past the border! They’re looking for a history teacher. Administration’s having tons of trouble with it being the middle of the year. They’ll take you, no questions asked.”

“It’s in Canada?”

“Yes, Caddon Catholic High School. Strange town to have a Catholic school.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, it’s a complete Scooby-Doo town. One second. I’m trying to remember the name, it’s on the tip of my tongue!”

“You think I’d make a good Catholic school teacher?”

“You look like a reverent man.” He nuzzled the black curls on my head.

“I’m not so sure, Larry…”

“Hysteria!” Larry erupted. I dropped my knife with a resonant clink. “That’s the name of the town, it’s called ‘Hysteria.’” Our poor, startled waiter put our dishes down. “It’s a French colonial town.”

“I don’t know how I’d be with kids.”

“Don’t dote too much on the name. Think of it as a winter resort. You’d still be getting away.” My friend was right. Stress-wise, I felt like one of those hamsters that can’t stop running on its wheel, the ones that turn into a bundle of gray hairs. I was about to plump up and accept, when Larry turned dark. “There has been some recent news in the headlines, however.”

“A crime in town?”

He nodded. “Involving the high school. But with their religion, they’ve probably done all the praying and gone through the grieving process already. The whole thing will be under the rug by the time you arrive.”

“What happened, exactly?”

"About two months ago in October, three juniors from Caddon were found murdered deep in a wisteria grove.”

“They didn’t find the killer?”

“They can’t tell if there was one.”

“No exterior damage?”

Larry shook his head.

“Were the kids fooling around?”

“Possibly, but what sort of drug… look, it’s a real brain-scratcher but I’m forbidding you from getting involved.”

“You have my word.”

He leaned closer, “Two healthy girls and one boy, who was the school’s swimming champion. All top of the class.”

“So that rules out suicide from depression.”

“The kids died in their sleep. Seems their hearts slowly, gently shut down. The coroner was saying that it looked like their hearts were willed, by some form of bodily self-control.”

“Like the meditational practices of eastern religious people?”

“Exactly. But they’re not sure if the kids did it.”

“That would take a lot of self discipline.”

“It wasn’t a suicide, Christian. The way they found the bodies, it’s as if they’d been thrown across the grove. They were in these collapsed, mangled positions.”

“An untraceable drug?”

“But their faces! They had settled into these terrible expressions. Such agony, as if they were pleading for their lives. And their eyes dilated, like they were looking at-”

“At a k-”

“Shut up. Forget I said anything. You’re going to get the holiday you deserve.” My friend was right, I needed to shock my system. When I called up Caddon later, they shrieked with excitement. I was packed and ready to board the train by that weekend.

Hysteria - Prince Edward Island, Canada

Hysteria was my favorite shade of colored pencil, pine green. When the train hurtled into the straight and chiffon diagonal of falling snow, I felt instantly comforted. From the height of tracks, I could see that the main town cradled an icy, Pyrenees-blue lake. French architecture shouldered this century’s wooden maisons. Sweatered civilians commuted here and there, like drifting lint. Not to mention, far past the human trail was a region that broke the darkness of the pines with its floating lightness - the wisteria grove. White, soft, and swaying delicately. Altogether, quite the postcard. Honestly, it was as if the town’s air density had an extra molecule just for glistening. It… it looked like a snow globe.

The ticket master was an attractive woman in her 30s. She had awny hair underneath the neat conductor’s cap, big round eyes, and an unnerved smile. Pretty, except for the subtly gouge-like red underscoring of her eyelids. Anemia, I supposed. When she extended a pale hand to grab my ticket, I saw on her index a beautiful signet ring, sparkling in the ray of January sunlight. Its face was embossed with an image of a wisteria tree, half caught in flames. “How long will you be staying with us here in Hysteria?”

I was to stay in a cabin half a mile from the school, on a mountain that overlooked the hilltop neighborhood of the school populace. My first class was on the following Wednesday.

I got lost that first day. I especially hated the cafeteria, unable to discern anything from the preppy hooting. I feared that a rogue apple would come flying at my noggin, but the kids paid no attention to me. As a matter of fact, they were completely blind to my presence. See, there was a quiet student in the corner. Alone, reading a book, minding her own business. She could have been me back then, but for the fact that she was of the opposite sex. It wasn’t long before the leader of a female clique came by and brazenly dumped her cold milk on the girl’s lap, ruining the girl’s book and the nice cardigan dress she was wearing. I was worried. It looked expensive, but she didn’t look privileged. Purrato, that was the first time I had witnessed bullying. Yes, me- the criminologist! Before I could pull out my handkerchief, the girl had disappeared.

After lunch, it was my time to shine. Room 405: sophomore American history. The ordinary popping of gum and scuffling of secret notes welcomed me in. A wad passed behind the student from earlier, nearly hitting her head. The surrounding clique giggled, respectively. Thankfully, the nurse had changed her into a clean set of the regular plaid and polo uniform.

“Settle down.” The white noise dampened as I proceeded with lecture. “Class, you can call me Dr. Kazan.” I penned my name in chalk. “Anyone familiar with the criminal justice system? That’s what I regularly do, I’m a forensic psychologist. I usually don’t work with kids,” I laughed, “I’m used to being around some pretty bad people.”

“I’m sure your career in the corrections system has prepared you perfectly for Caddon.” The vice principal walked in, chuckling. The slouchers sat up straight, and the window seats took their work out. Something about their rearrangement was a tad unnatural, as if the students were under a spell. I dismissed the incident upon the school’s stern Catholic ethics.

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Kazan.” She turned to me with blood-lined eyes, like she used rouge for eyeliner. Just like the ticket master. She wasn’t bad looking either. When I saw the hand she’d extended expecting me to kiss, I noticed the same burning wisteria signet.

I took her hand in mine and cordially shook it, “Sorry, my background isn’t French.”

The quiet girl laughed, but the vice principal looked nonplussed. At this point, I’d also noticed that a group of boys - the rowdy sort - were scrutinizing their administrator. It was as if they had caught mutual sight of a ghost. “I’ll see you around.” Once the door had closed behind her, I asked the boys if everything was okay.

"Yeah." redundantly replied one. “Things usually fly around her,” said another. Half of the class laughed.

“Enough.” I didn’t want to waste time, so I picked up the textbook: The Early Republic. An hour later, I had them doing some busy work. I took the opportunity to walk around the classroom. When I passed the quiet girl’s desk, she was deep in her work. Her PVC binder had in its cover the painting of Alexandre Cabanel’s “Fallen Angel.” I turned the binder over so the fallen angel’s famous mad brow was staring at me. Then, the bell rang, dismissing the students home. “Alright, read the next unit!” I yelled behind them. I accidentally used my prisonyard voice, forgetting my proximity to the girl. She rightfully shook in her seat. “I apologize, I’m gonna have to tone that down.”

“It’s okay.” When she looked up, I saw that her face was intelligent, but also permanently wept. Her hair was half up in a French bun, though I could tell that she had learned by her own hands and not after the reference of a loving parent.

“Thank God you laughed earlier.”

“Oh yeah, she’s a cultivated figure. I’ve never seen her break.”

“I felt incredibly awkward.” I managed to get the extra laugh out of her. “What’s your name?”

“Amandine.”

"Amandine, are you a fan of history? I can see you’re into art history.” I pointed at the Cabanel.

“Correct sir, I am interested in the subject. Yes, that subject, and not the subject of the dark angel!”

“But I would have to expect such a thing here.” I mused.

“Ha, I’m not really the rebellious type. I had no idea this was a picture of him.” She looked at her binder. “I just liked the expression.”

“I quite appreciate it too.”

“Well you’ve seen the actual… ‘people.’”

“I certainly have.” We both nodded contemplatively, eyes on the ground.

“Well thank you for the lesson, sir.” She started to walk away.

“Amandine, anything you can tell me about your town? I’m all the way from Boston.” The girl turned back.

“Mm, nothing too special about this place.” She probed her brain for some trivia. “Have you been down to the art museum? They have a little tour about the town’s history.”

“The history of Hysteria.”

“Yep.”

“Seems a little tranquil around here for that name.”

“There’re some spooks.”

Behind the door’s frosted glass, the popular clique laughed. Amandine looked detachedly at the doorknob. “I have to get home, sir.”

“Amandine-”

“Welcome to Romania, Jonathan Harker.” She shut the door behind her and clicking flats ran down the stairs.

I figured that I could finish the art museum’s presentation on the town before dinner that evening. When I entered, I caught Amandine across the room. She was staring at Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”. “You made it!” she beamed.

“Hey!”

“I always come here, so don’t mind me.”

“She’s correct.” said a voice around the corner. The voice was succeeded by the third unusually pretty woman of the week, dressed in academic attire. (She wore glasses over her bloodshot eyes.) She greeted me with a gloved hand, burning wisteria signet on the index. Local Avon?

“He’s not French,” said Amandine.

“A handshake will do.” replied the curator. Her eyes were a little strange, as if she was trying to read me. I shook her hand as warmly as I could.

“I’m here for the town tour.”

“Right this way.” She walked into a corridor. “You can call me ‘Kiply’.”

“Yep, Cindy, Betty, and Kiply.” Amandine fluttered behind us.

“Who’re they?”

“Just about the only three women in town your age.”

“Amandine!” Kiply reproached.

“Just locals,” Amandine explained. “The local cafe goers, history fanatics, the local wisteria gardeners.” We stopped in front of a series of pillars holding sepia photos and rusty artifacts. “Betty’s the vice principal.”

“Oh! Does Cindy by any chance work at the train station?” I asked.

“That she does.” Kiply replied.

“Explains your rings.” I pointed at the signet.

“These? They’re dated from around the same time as these pieces,” she gestured at the exhibition. “From when the first settlers got here.”

“All French?”

“For the most part.” We walked past unexceptional portraits of old mustached colonia disembarking their carriages and beginning to make Hysteria out of wood; their termite-eaten machinery, and some jeweled possessions from the Old World.

“What’s that?” Between walls, I could make out a thin hallway that contained much more interesting, colorful paintings. “We have some more exotic features too.” I slipped in, and the girls followed.

The spook room, I remember thinking. Every piece of artwork pinned to the wall was an extravagant depiction of witches. “Each artist had some family or either lived here themselves during Hysteria’s founding years.”

“Witches are something of a historical motif in town.” added Amandine. “In the past, the ones accused of witchcraft were the ones who first planted the w-” she stopped herself short.

“Wisteria.” finished Kiply. Amandine stared at her feet, feeling reprimanded.

As Kiply began the most intriguing part of the tour, I tried to quietly whisper my comments to my student. First was Albrecht Dürer's “The Witch” from 1500. “Are you enjoying this?”

“I would’ve mentioned our subtle subculture when you asked about the place earlier, but I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

We moved onto José Guadalupe Posada’s “A witch carrying a child on her broom” circa 1880. “I quite like this one.” A few minutes and secret laughs later, we ended with Benjamin West’s “Saul and the Witch of Endor” (1777).

“No, my favorite wins.” We each gave the painting a double finger-pointing thumbs up behind Kiply’s back.

After bidding the curator adieu, I insisted that Amandine join me for dinner at a local lobster shack. “What for?"

“To discuss the fact you don’t think the homicidal activities and accusatory trials of witches would interest a criminologist.”

“Okay, BBC.”

What I really wanted to talk about over dinner was Cindy, Betty, and Kiply. “What’s up with them? They don’t seem like the social type.” Amandine gracefully shucked her lobster while I had to keep apologizing for spraying the table with crustacean juice. “With the exception of Cindy, perhaps.”

“Cindy was just doing her job.” Amandine started to laugh.

“What?”

“They’re total witches!”

I shook my head in polite confusion.

“Everyone jokes they’re the town’s coven. Cindy never stops smiling, Betty’s license says she was born in the 40s, and Kiply doesn’t just teach history, she’s lived it.”

“And they probably come here all the time to kidnap innocent lobsters and extract their anti-aging properties.”

“I’ve thought of that.”

“Why do you seem close to Kiply, in that case?”

“I just try to get on their good side. They’re lonely women and I’m not exactly the town’s social butterfly, so if I convince them that I’m one of them, maybe I’ll never have to see their wrath. Anyhow, something about those women feels warm, familiar.”

“Alright, enough about that. How about you?” The shack was buzzing and her eyes had lit up, like she didn’t get out much. “Who is Amandine?”

“Well, I’m adopted.” My chest felt a dull thud. “I’ve never been out of Hysteria, just in and out of our foster system. Uh, I’m a history fanatic too, but you already know that.” She smiled and I tried to simper one back. “Oh, and it’s my birthday tomorrow!”

“Happy early birthday. How old are you turning?”

“I’ll be 16.” She playfully grimaced. “How about you? Who is Dr. Kazan?”

I finished up my plate. “Someone who’s going to have trouble sleeping tonight with all this talk of witches.”

I dropped Amandine off at a lamppost nearest her house that night.

As foretold, I had a hard time slumbering back in my cabin. Outside, the antagonized screeching of cats would not let down. As well, I could hear the howling wind originating in the distant wisteria. I kept tossing, turning, afraid that my sheets were going to turn into those soft, deadly petals.

At some point, I reached sleep paralysis. I was out of my body, standing beside myself in bed. Every time I blinked, the scene changed like a flashing photograph - from a violently bright Spring day with rustling oaks by the windows, back to the present wintry night of thundering black pines. I felt a long repressed gravity from within my chest trying to raise me out of bed --

The stress of my mind kept going back to Amandine. I didn’t like that clique. I didn’t like that she was adopted. That she had no friends. I certainly didn’t like the fact that she was trying to get close to those three strange women. It all made her such an easy target.

The next thing I knew, I was in a dream, back at the lamppost by Amandine’s house. Three figures approached. At that moment, all reason within me dimmed, leaving nothing but what I always truly felt - merciless instincts of brute force. I charged at the company, intent on grabbing the one in the middle.

I nearly hurtled over when Amandine ran out in her pajamas. “Dr. Kazan!” I became conscious of myself in the dream. That’s when I recognized the three faces behind her - the popular clique. I tried to regain my stature. I huffed up a waft of icy air, and yelled “Leave her alone!”

I stormed off, thinking I was in the right. After all, what were they doing, passing her house at that time of night? Of all, the night before her birthday? I woke up, hoping that no such antics would actually occur.

That noon, my drowsy self tailed past the main office on my way to class. Betty was on her mobile, making a personal phone call. “No, he didn’t get them. We’ll have to go with my plan.” I didn’t think anything of her conversation, nor the “yes, it’s infallible” from her recipient.

When I arrived at the classroom, every one of my students was wide-eyed. Amandine looked at me as if I’d lost some accountability. Then, I saw that the three popular girls had their desks perfectly laid out. Their leader said, “We have to finish reading unit 3, sir.” Whatever, didn’t think twice of that either.

I carried on, finished up my other periods, and drove home under such a heavy cloud of exhaustion, that I passed out on the couch as soon as I stepped in. My last thoughts were that I had a ton of grading to do, but that my doctor insisted I get more sleep anyhow. I wished I had at least cuffed myself first…

The following actions were completely unconscious.

When I woke up, I called Amandine.“Hi, I got you a birthday present. Come over.” I hung up before she could reply.

While I waited, I felt more like myself than I ever had. Every day, I had lived in denial. My body was finally pumping red blood. I no longer believed in self-control. The pines outside looked all too bright.

The unseen cats began screeching again, though it was the middle of the day. I rather enjoyed their song. “Dr. Kazan?” Amandine was outside.

“Come in.” I called from my hiding place. When she came around the kitchen, the cats growled in sharp snaps, almost like canines. Amandine was effectively startled. I took the chance to grab her from behind.

“Mr. Kazan! What’s going on?” I held a knife to her throat.

The sound of singing cats came inside, but with the hard pattern human footsteps - Cindy, Betty, and Kiply, half in their own trance, established themselves in the corners of the room. The witches of Hysteria were meowing! Then, they started to chant in unison -

nitentia foliis

et neonatis

diebus,

I felt my veins recoiling. Maybe I studied murder because in reality, what I wanted to do was..

“Kill her!” Kiply demanded.

ver tempus

filii furum prohibetur

“To seek honor, but you cannot sir!” Betty shouted. All these years of pretending to be a cream-of-the-crop criminologist.

homo induratus ad misericordiam celat daemonium

Libera!

Cindy had the last words, “Dr. Kazan, become the boy child you actually were.”

I thought of the boy who never had any energy to play, who felt such repulsive shock anytime he looked in the mirror because of his malnourishment. I tightened my grip on Amandine.

As the girl struggled, I figured that these three were responsible for the October murders. Killing was a way of preserving youth, draining their victims of energy, or blood in this case. After October, they knew they’d have to resort to a different method so the cops wouldn’t get suspicious. How lucky that the newcomer was a troubled criminologist. Framing me for their dirty work was the perfect solution.

“Dr. Kazan, I don’t know what they’re saying, but I know how you’re feeling! I feel like that sometimes too.” I put pressure on the blade against her neck. “I feel that I should be some terrible person because of what I’ve been through.” My eyes grazed the witches, and all of a sudden I felt unbalanced. “But that inner child is just asking for help, and he got it from a greater, loving being deeper within. That’s you Dr. Kazan! You came to your own aid, and you’re your own hero.” My heart exploded. I dropped the knife, and Amandine collapsed to the floor.

“No!” cried Cindy.

As I regained consciousness, the witches fled. Right away, I dialed the police department. I gave them my credentials and asked that a team go back to the wisteria grove. They had to pull up the Caddon murders’ evidence from the archive and reevaluate as hard as they could.

Amandine regained her breath, and I apologized profusely. Thankfully, she understood.

Days later, the investigators found fingerprints they had missed from earlier. Three perfect matches. Though ultimately inexplicable, the link itself was undeniable. Cindy, Betty, and Kiply were sentenced to a lifetime in jail. Hope it'll do, devil knows how old they actually were. I assured Amandine that steel bars were stronger than their magic. Still, I wanted the girl to feel safer. She hadn’t been with her current foster family for too long, so she didn’t resist when I requested a transfer - outside of Hysteria.

When the time came, I joined Amandine at the station, I to depart for Boston, and her to a new family. Her eyes looked like jelly. She gave me a kiss on the cheek.

Laderach, Amandine is your daughter, correct? What a lovely name.

Maybe she supposed the homicidal witches were like you, and that’s why she initially got close to the historian. I still refuse to believe she’s yours. She isn’t like you. Your daughter saw logic’s fallacy and believed in something else. Something greater. Something actually magical. She believed in her heart. I’m a man of medicine and as much as I hate it, I must state the truth - that heart is yours too.