She didn't understand the words, but she knew they were all disappointed in her. She'd done something wrong again.
"Go back to bed, Selena. We'll try again tomorrow." He looked at her. When she didn't move, he sighed and rolled his eyes. "Do you understand? Go back to bed now."
She swallowed the thick lump in her throat. She understood. He was disgusted with her. She was bad. Stupid.
He turned away. "Edith, take care of her."
"... God ..." She wanted to know what she'd done wrong. How to make him smile at her again.
He gave her a weary look. 'Tomorrow you'll be fine," he said, but she could see that he didn't believe it.
And neither did she.
Ian walked through his silent forest cathedral at the break of day. Pinprick streams of sunlight spilled down through the evergreen ceiling, danced in golden patches on the brown-needled forest floor. It was quiet here, as it always was at dawn, the only sound the low, even breathing of the sea.
He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, feeling the sting of the wind against his eyelids as he came to the water's edge. The smooth wool of his black cape whipped out behind him, flapped softly in the salty air. Overhead, a gull wheeled and cawed.
He sat down on a hulking square of granite and pulled out his journal. Flipping to a blank page, he put on his spectacles and began to write.
Twenty-first, April, 1882.
Ran visual, auditory, and touch tests today on patient. Consistent failure on patient's part to recognize
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familiar items, to name such items, and to exhibit any understanding of function. Patient had no realization that glass was solid or that fire was hot. Exhibits almost childlike innocence of everything around her.
On the question of mental impairment?
He stopped midsentence, unable for a second to write the next words. Images hurled themselves at him. Selena, unable to put the square peg in the square hole, mouthing an endless string of nonsensical words. Crying, pleading wordlessly, touching fire ...
The tests had gone on and on, failure building upon failure. And the hell of it was, though she couldn't pass a single one, she seemed to understand her ineptitude. She wanted to succeed, wanted it as badly as he wanted it for her. It was like Maeve all over again, wanting the moon and getting nothing.
Except that he'd stopped wanting anything from Maeve years ago.
Selena was different. He needed to believe in her future. If she had no future, he had no future. It was as simple, as devastating, as that. Without her as a patient, he would be nothing again. A forgotten man in a forgotten place.
No. He refused to consider failure.
She was damaged, yes. More so than he'd thought. But he was Ian Carrick, the great Doctor Carrick to whom lesser surgeons had genuflected for years.
He could cure her, and when he re-created a whole human being from the fragments of her broken brain, he would be more revered than ever. She would be his greatest triumph.
He closed his eyes, drawing forth the dream, wrapping himself in its seductive warmth. The watchful eyes of his colleagues as he leads her onstage. The astonishment as he reveals her scar. The hushed murmurs of awe as he recites her case history . ..
When he didn't need it anymore, he let the fantasy fade and brought his pencil back to the paper. On the
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question of mental impairment, there can as yet be no determination. It would be precipitous to infer mental deterioration from a mere inability to form words.
Yes, he thought. Yes.
It was still early in her recovery. All she needed was time, time with people and time alone. Time without pressure.
Perhaps then her memory would float gently to the surface. As difficult as it would be for him to keep his distance, he'd give Selena some time to acclimate herself to the strange world in which she'd awakened. It would be difficult, but he wouldn't test her again for a while, wouldn't invite her to fail so repeatedly.
He'd sit back and study her, watch and record her every move until the time was right. Then, slowly, patiently, confidently, he would begin to work with her, heal her mind as he'd healed her body.