Read The Syndrome for Free Online Page B

corrected.
    “Right. That’s what they call them—except they don’t really look alive. They look old and dead. And everybody thinks they’re wonderful. Except me.”
    “You don’t like them?”
    “No. I’m scared of them!”
    “Why?”
    “Because …”
    “Because of what?”
    “They’re creepy.”
    “‘Creepy’? What do you mean, they’re creepy?”
    “On account of the cobwebs.”
    “You mean the Spanish moss,” Duran told her.
    “Unh-huh.”
    “And what else?” he asked.
    Nico’s brows furrowed as she thought about it. Finally, she shook her head.
    “Didn’t Deck do something with the moss?” Duran asked.
    Once again, she shifted on the couch. After a moment, she nodded. “Mmmm-hmmm.”
    “What did he do?”
    She turned her head toward the cushions. “He put it in his hair on the shadow-nights.”
    Duran nodded. “‘And it was like’—what was it like?”
    “Cobwebs.”
    He leaned closer to her. “Tell me about Deck,” he said.
    “I don’t
like
Deck,” she exclaimed. Suddenly, her eyes flew open, and she started to sit up. “But—you can’t
tell
him!”
    “I won’t.”
    “Promise!”
    “I will. I do. Now, lay back. Close your eyes. You’re safe here.” Duran could see that she was beginning to hyperventilate. “It’s just you and me, and the wind and the stream and … Okay?”
    She nodded.
    After a while, he returned to the subject. “Why don’t you like Deck?”
    She was silent for upwards of a minute, her chest rising and falling. Duran waited patiently for the answer, his eyes on her lips. Finally, she blurted out the words: “Because of what he does!”
    “And what’s that?”
    Nico squirmed. “He pretends we’re going to church with our friends, but it isn’t a church that we go to—it’s just a tunnel under the basement—”
    “And what happens there?”
    Nico’s body became very still. Then she shook her head.
    “Didn’t you make movies, sometimes?”
    She nodded.
    “Tell me about the movies,” Duran said.
    Nico frowned, then rolled over onto her side, so that she was facing away from Duran, with her eyes on the back of the couch. “I can’t,” she said.
    “You can’t?”
    She shook her head.
    “Why not?” Duran asked.
    “Because I just can’t.”
    “You can’t remember
any
of them?”
    Once again, she shook her head.
    “But … I remember one,” Duran told her. “Wasn’t there one where … where you got married?”
    Reluctantly, Nico nodded and, as she did, Duran saw her stubbornness dissolve into a mix of apprehension and unhappiness.
    “So let’s go back to that,” Duran suggested. “The wedding. Tell me about the wedding.”
    And so she did. Under Duran’s guidance, Nico recounted her older sister’s death in a pornographic film that starred the two of them, with a younger sister playing a supportive role. This was territory that Nico and Duran had visited often. It was the heart of the matter for Nico, and coming to grips with it was vital.
    “I’m all in white,” she said breathlessly. “Dressed as a bride with a long train, and a bouquet of flowers.”
    “What kind of flowers?”
    “Baby’s breath and red roses,” she answered without hesitation. “And ferns. Rosanna is the groom—which is silly, because she’s a girl.”
    “What’s she wearing?” Duran asked.
    “A black tuxedo with a red carnation. She looks so beautiful! Adrienne is the ring bearer.”
    “And how is Adrienne dressed?”
    “She’s
not
dressed. She has a garland of flowers in her hair, that’s all.”
    “And you walk down some kind of aisle?”
    “Ummmhmmmn.”
    “Are there candles?”
    “Yes. Candles and chanting. And then the minister stands before us, asking, ‘Do you take this man …?’” Her voice faded, and she seemed to lose concentration.
    Duran prompted her. “The minister asks, ‘Do you take this man’—and then what? As I recall, that was your cue—”
    “Right,” Nico said.
    “That was your cue