Ultraviolet by R. J. Anderson

to investigate, and it had taken two of them to handcuff me and drag me outside, shrieking all the way.
    “Would you say, Mrs. Jeffries, that Alison’s behavior made you fear for your own safety?” asked Dr. Minta.
    “Yes,” my mother replied, wiping her eyes with a tissue. “Very much so. It was . . . terrifying.”
    “Did you believe at that point that she had physically harmed another person?”
    “I—I didn’t know what to think. When she said she’d disintegrated Tori with her mind—I knew that couldn’t be true, but . . .”
    “Do you have any other children besides Alison, Mrs. Jeffries?”
    “I have a son, Christopher.” She twisted her wedding ring around her finger. “He has—he is eleven years. Old.”
    My mother always forgot her English grammar when she was nervous, probably because my grandmother used to punish her for speaking anything but French in her presence. I didn’t know a lot about
Grandmère
; she’d died before I was born. But I knew she hadn’t been an easy person to live with.
    “And would you be concerned for Christopher’s safety,” Dr. Minta asked my mother, “if Alison returned home?”
    She lifted her head then, and those dark, haunted eyes met mine. I returned the look without flinching, though it wasn’t easy.
Please don’t do this to me
, I begged silently.
I would never hurt you or Dad or Chris. You have to know that
.
    My mother bit her lip, and for a moment I thought I’d convinced her. But then she averted her gaze and said, “Yes. I would be concerned.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Jeffries,” said Dr. Minta. “I have no further questions.”

    . . .

    The hearing went on for another twenty minutes, but it might as well have stopped right then. I’d been planning to testify on my own behalf, but what good would it do? I couldn’t deny I’d done all the violent, crazy things my mother and Dr. Minta had described, even if I had a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I’d done them. Like how the high, wheedling ring of the cell phone had sounded, for a horrible instant, like Tori’s Noise. And the psychologist’s tie had been so orange-pounding-loud that it hurt me, and I’d only been trying to make him take it off.
    My lawyer put up a good fight, but the leaden feeling in my stomach told me we’d already lost the battle. And when the board thanked us and asked us all to leave so they could make their deliberations, I felt as though I were staring down a long, dark tunnel with no end in sight. Disembodied voices murmured in the back of my brain, mocking my failure, and suddenly I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open. I gave a limp handshake to my lawyer, and headed for the door.
    “Alison,” said my mother, catching my arm. “Please, try to understand—”
    I stopped and looked at her, knowing what she would see in my face: the expressionless mouth, the dead eyes. “Dad can come to visit me anytime he wants,” I said. “But not you. I don’t want to see you again.”
    Then I pulled myself free of her and walked out.

    . . .

    The Consent and Capacity Board delivered their verdict later that afternoon. In their judgment, I was not competent to make my own treatment decisions, nor was I suited to become a voluntary patient. So for the next four weeks at least I’d have to remain at Pine Hills, and submit to whatever treatments Dr. Minta prescribed for me.
    It wasn’t exactly a shock, but the news still hit me hard, and I spent the next two days in a state of hollow-eyed despair. For the first time in my life, the thought crossed my mind that I might be better off dead. Not that I had any real intention of committing suicide—in fact the idea had barely occurred to me before I shoved it into the dustiest, most cobwebby corner of my mental attic. But it made me realize that if I didn’t find something to do with myself soon, I’d end up falling into a black hole of depression from which I might never escape.
    It wasn’t easy to stop