Agatha: Where She Keeps Them

Anxiety plagued Savannah as hands from her past wrapped tightly around her throat, threatening to steal the breath. Pushing a thick, black curl back behind her ear she swallowed hard hoping to ease some of that tension as the door in front of her was unlocked and held open for her.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, she knew no matter what she did, it would never quiet enough for her to stop hearing it in her ears. She had to be okay with that sound, ignore it, drown it out until this was over and she was driving away from this place.

She took a hesitant step into the room, then another. As soon as she walked past the threshold, the door closed behind her. The heavy steel of it sinking into its counterpart before the lock echoed through the room.

Taking in a deep breath, her eyes looked over the room.

It was a large-ish room, but quaint. The furniture was minimal, metal, and seemed cold in the stark white of the room. The linoleum floors were white, the walls were white, even the thin curtains hanging in the large, barred windows were white.

In the furthest corner of the room, in a white rocking chair facing the window, a woman with hair as white as the room sat. She rocked slowly, humming to herself, her hands moving busily in her lap. A thick grey wool sweater hid the frail shape of the woman beneath it.

She didn’t turn to see who just came into her room, just continued to rock and hum to herself.

Savannah closed the space between them, sitting on the padded seat under the window to look at her.

The familiarity of her face almost had Savannah gasping. They had the same big brown eyes, the same almond-shaped face, the same curly hair although hers was as white as Savannah’s was black. The same deep brown skin. She sat there, staring at the familiar woman unsure of what to do. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than to reach out, cover the woman’s hand with her own and smile at her.

After all this time, she didn’t know how she would react if she did.

“You’ve come to talk to me about Agatha, haven’t you, Savannah dear?” Her voice was hoarse but soothing. Her brown eyes looked up from the tangled balls of yarn in her lap to take hold of Savannah’s. The corners of her mouth lifted up for a moment, before dropping down into a frown. “I can smell her on you.”

Unable to hide her surprise, she gasped.

Letting her wise eyes fall, she looked back down at her busy fingers. “There was always this scent to her, like cedar and rosewater. I remember at a time, finding that scent almost comforting… in the beginning. It’s such a comforting blend.” She clicked her tongue in thought. “I used to wonder how Agatha had kept her days filled. What caused her to smell that way? I remember daydreaming about the life she must have led in the beginning, as I tried to make peace with her company.”

Those hands had a firm grasp around her throat, and Savannah found it impossible to push any words past them. All she could do was watch the hands of this woman as though she were in a trance, and listen to the soothing sound of her voice.

“My mother told me she could always smell the scent of a baby. There is nothing more wondrous than the smell of a new-born. I remember the first time I held my daughter in my arms.” She looked off, raising the yarn to her chest as though she were back in that moment, holding her baby girl. “I pressed the slowest kiss to the top of her little head, just inhaling her. I had never smelled anything so…” She trailed off. “Well, I can understand why Agatha is drawn to the scent. Your daughter… not quite two.” Her big, brown eyes met Savannah’s for a moment. There was such power in those eyes, she felt the strength of the gaze, as firm as if someone had grabbed her by the front of her shirt, holding her close and forcing her to look at them.

The way she spoke reminded her of the oracles from old Greek legends. Her words were precise, statements more than questions with a wisdom that made Savannah wish she could reach out and just hold onto it.

Unable to do anything else, Savannah slowly nodded.

Pursing her lips, she nodded in turn. “It was slow at first, a weight on the end of the couch, on the side of the bed. A curtain that blew just a little too far away from the window, hovering in the air a moment too long. I could have sworn I could see a woman through the thin cotton, my husband had always laughed it off. The tricks of the tired mind of a new mom, that is what he would tell me. I never thought myself an imaginative woman, could never quite shake how the air always smelled like cedar and rosewater.”

There wasn’t a corner of her home that didn’t smell exactly like she was describing. Hearing that from her did little to slow her angry heartbeat.

“When my daughter turned two, everything seemed to intensify. That comfortable presence became eerie, those little happenings became jarring and scary. Suddenly that scent was enough to shake me down to my bones. I felt a prisoner, unable to convince anyone all of this was happening outside my own mind.” She shook her head, sadness transforming her face. “The mind is such an interesting thing, wouldn’t you say? The power of thought, of a single scent. Sometimes I feel as though my mind is more a prison than this room.”

Her words were sad, they seized Savannah’s heart for a moment, causing it to ache. Swallowing hard, she attempted to ease some of the tension in her throat, knowing now more than ever, she needed to speak to this woman, to get the words out of her head and into this room. “My mother told me stories of how Agatha seemed more myth than a reality at first. Her long flowing hair, gentle face, the way the thin cotton of her gown seemed to always sway at the bottom, somehow being lifted and pulled by a wind she couldn’t feel.” Savannah took in a deep breath, remembering the way her mother’s voice used to sound so far away, like she was never really there, sitting with her.

The woman pursed her lips, her eyes closing in a long blink. “I often wondered what my mother would have told me of Agatha, had she survived her.”

Those words had Savannah’s eyes wide, fear gripping her completely.

“Would she have told me what had happened in those final weeks, when madness took hold of her and she was completely at the mercy of Agatha. When the comforting scent of her daughter was removed from her, for her own safety…” She paused. “When you have a child, that scent of them, it clings to you. Every so often that scent swirls around you. Some would say that memory is enough to push them forward, but when they’ve been taken from you…” A thick tear broke free from the corner of her eye, slowly trailing down her cheek. “It’s enough to completely break you.”

She knew all too well what she was talking about. Her own daughter had been taken from her, the memory as real and vivid as the woman sitting across from her now.

Reaching out suddenly, she grabbed Savannah’s hands tightly. Her hands were like ice, her grip painful as she sat forward in her seat. Her dark eyes were black pools she couldn’t help but fall open, her mouth agape to say something but the words trapped as she sat helpless.

“Your love for your daughter has strength far much stronger than Agatha. That is why she does it, why she has to slowly weaken you and your mind. She can’t break it if you’re strong. If you hold onto that bond with everything inside you… you can do it. You can be better than me… than your mother.” Letting go of Savannah’s hands, her grip whipped up to quickly grab hold of her face. “Only you have the strength to overcome Agatha.”

Her hands were gone from the sides of her face just as quickly as they had arrived. She sat back in her chair, her humming resuming as she busied her hands in her lap. She turned her gaze away from Savannah, gazing out the window as though she couldn’t even see her any longer.

Savannah sat there, letting the quiet build up between them. She felt as though she knew more than she did, but not enough to feel confident enough to get up and leave this room. Instead, she just sat there. Her eyes searching over the woman and the room looking for some clue on how to survive this ominous presence in her house.

Her eyes paused on a flimsy frame sitting on the bedside table, metal and bolted to the floor. In the photo was a beautiful woman with warm brown skin, her eyes cast down as her arms wrapped around a smiling, bright little girl who looked identical to her. The happiness in the photo was overwhelming and Savannah couldn’t keep her eyes from glossing over as she looked at it.

“How is she? Your mother.” She said finally.

Swallowing hard, she reached up and casually brushed away the tears from beneath her eyes with folded fingers. It did nothing, the thought of her mother only causing fresh tears to roll down her face. “Do you not get to see her?” She asked.

The woman’s brow furrowed at the question. “I wish she would come and visit me. I feel like my whole life has passed since I saw her last.”

Savannah got up, touching a hand to the woman’s face as she moved to walk past her and eave the room.

Her hand shot up, grabbing her hand once more. “Agatha is as real as you or me. In order to look forwards to a time when she is no longer in your future, you have to look back to where she was in your past.”

“What?”

“Everybody has a past.”

The words hung there in the air as Savannah left the room, turning back to give her one last look before knocking lightly on the metal door and being let out.

As she walked down the hall towards the exit, she paused for a moment. “Where is my mother?” She asked him.

Stopping, the guard tapped on the glass window. When it opened, he whispered something to the man behind him. Several moments passed in silence before a door opened to her right and a man stepped out.

The man was thin and tall, he wore a white coat over pale blue scrubs and had an air of authority about him. When he saw Savannah he smiled, but there was a pity there that kept her from giving him a smile of her own. “I understand you have questions about your mother?”

Nodding, she fell into step with him as he turned and walked back down the hall she had just come from. They stepped into an elevator and he touched a black box with his ID badge before hitting the selected floor. “My grandmother mentioned never getting to see her. Wouldn’t it be beneficial to both of their recovery to interact with one another? The whole reason we have them in the same facility is because that was recommended by the psychiatrist.”

She had done all she could when she had turned eighteen to try and get her mother and grandmother out of the mental facilities they had both spent most of their lives in. Unfortunately, the doctors said they hadn’t made enough progress to be integrated back out into the world. She had been assured having them both in the same hospital could help them both recover enough for that to be a possibility.

It had been over ten years since they had both been moved here, ten years with no interaction. Savannah was barely able to hide her frustration.

The elevator stopped and they both stepped out. “When your mother had arrived here, we had such high hopes for her recovery. However, it seems she had been less and less lucid as time progresses.” Stopping in front of a door, he turned to look at her. “You won’t be able to speak with her. She has harmed quite a few orderlies and because of that, unfortunately, we have to limit who has physical access to her.”

“What?” The word was a gasp slipping from her lips as he slid the small window open. Taking a step forward she looked into the small, white room.

The walls were padded, the woman in the room bouncing around. Her hair was a mess around her head, her eyes wide and bloodshot as she jerked her head around. “Get away from me! Get away, you thief! Thief! Give her back!” She howled as her nails dug into the padding.

Tears streamed down her face as she watched her mother, the name Agatha carved in every inch of the padding that surrounded her as she screamed. Her arms were secured at her sides, a white vest strapping them there as she dropped to her knees and pressed her face against the padded floors, her back rising and falling.

“What happened to her? My grandmother…” They both just seemed so different to be plagued by the same thing.

“We’ve had to keep her restrained for the past few years when she isn’t sedated. She seemed as though she could be recovering and then about a year and a half ago she had a huge setback.”

“In August?” She asked him.

Taking the folder from its spot outside her mother’s door, he flipped through the thickness of sheets before nodded. “Yes. August-”

“5th.” She interrupted him.

Frowning, he looked at her. “Yes. How did you know that?”

Her brows furrowed as sorrow took hold of her. “August 5th. That’s my daughter’s birthday.”