A/N: Please review for me. It would mean the world to me. Thank you very much.

.. Raven’s Ridge ..

When Nora’s dad died, she stopped talking and started cutting herself. Admitted into a mental health facility, she must come to terms with her problem while striking up a friendship with another patient who just might be more messed up than she is.

Theresa Parker stood in the doorway of the bedroom, watching as her sixteen-year-old daughter reluctantly packed the open suitcase on her bed, folding each sweater and shirt with slow, meticulous care before giving her blue jeans the same careful treatment. Neither were too certain what Nora should pack – the hospital not being too helpful with details – and neither even knew how long she would be gone for. Theresa hoped that it would only be for thirty days, the least amount of time a patient could spend at the hospital before being released, but she knew that her daughter needed more time than that.

She had offered to help Nora gather her things together but the girl had declined with a shake of her head. Theresa knew that Nora was upset and angry with her but she didn’t know what else to do. It had been eight months since Nora last uttered a word to anyone. At first, Theresa had thought that it was just her way of dealing with the sudden death of her father and she hadn’t pushed her into conversation and talking about how she was feeling. It was fairly obvious how the girl was feeling in terms of the loss of her father. But then, one day, Theresa had been putting clothes away in Nora’s bedroom and found a small tin box in the top drawer of the dresser that had a collection of geometry compasses and razor blades, all with dried blood on the sharp blades. It only took one look at Nora’s arms, shoving the sleeves of her hooded sweatshirt up to her elbows, to realize what she had been doing.

A mother never liked to admit that she couldn’t help her child but Theresa honestly had no idea what to do for Nora. She didn’t know the first steps to take in helping her and she continued not to know until one of her coworkers, and close friends, was talking about her sister, who was a nurse at Raven’s Ridge, a health facility located about two hours south which specifically handled teens and young adults like Nora with similar problems. Theresa, at first, was skeptical. She did not want to admit her daughter into a mental institution. She had problems, yes, but what sixteen-year-old girl didn’t? She wasn’t dealing with it in the best way but they could get through this – together. Theresa could help her. Couldn’t she?

Her mind had quickly changed however when she had returned home one evening after work and found Nora floating in the bathtub in the upstairs bathroom, the warm water now stained a light pinkish hue from the blood pouring from her wrists. Theresa had taken away all of the razors and knives, hiding them in a locked drawer, and had thought that there were no more sharp objects anywhere left in the house. Apparently, she had been mistaken though and she saw a cheap pin BIC razor on the tiled floor next to the bathtub that Nora had went and bought from the Walgreen’s.

When Nora returned home from the hospital four days later, her wrists wrapped in heavy white bandages, Theresa called Raven’s Ridge and asked if there were any available beds. Her mind felt completely numb when she informed the nurse over the phone what Nora was doing to herself. Her daughter had tried to kill herself. Her beautiful, intelligent, sweet daughter had just tried to end her own life. Theresa could hardly believe it even as she looked at Nora – a ghost of the girl she used to be. She didn’t know what else to do for her and she prayed Raven’s Ridge would be able to do something, anything, to help her. Nora desperately needed help or Theresa feared that she wouldn’t live to see her seventeenth birthday.

Nora Parker sat in the front passenger seat of her mother’s Ford Escape as Theresa drove down the highway towards their destination. The hospital was purposely located in the middle of nowhere – for both the patients’ and everyone else’s benefits. No one particularly wanted to live near a mental institution and the patients needed to be isolated to be cured. Or, at least, that was how the doctors at Raven’s Ridge felt. It used to be an old farm mansion but had been converted in the late 1960s to house troubled youth. Nora had read the pamphlet her mother had given to her a few nights earlier during dinner and taking one look at the hospital, Nora was convinced that she had seen it before being used as a setting for a horror movie.

She subconsciously pulled at the bandages around her wrists as she stared out the window, ignoring her mother, ignoring the annoying music playing over the radio, ignoring the relentless sun beating down from the sky and shining into her eyes. She shut everything out and lost herself in the endless miles of cornfields they passed. She hadn’t spoken in eight months but in her mind, her thoughts never stopped. She thought of everything – of her father, of her mother, of their family when they had been happy. She thought of her friends at school and how they had all slowly drifted away from her as she slowly pulled herself into dark corners of the room and hid there. Her friends were juniors in high school and had far more important things to worry about – such as prom and ACT scores – to worry about their friend and her mental breakdown. None of them had tried and save her as she sank further and further beneath the waves swallowing her whole.

Her mother had tried to help though she had started working more and more hours every day and would be gone when Nora woke up and usually returned home at eight or nine o’clock at night. Nora wasn’t sure how being alone of the time would help her. Theresa had taken her to a psychiatrist but Nora didn’t talk to him. She would sit on the couch, staring at the clock on the doctor’s desk, counting down the fifty minutes until her session was over. The doctor had told Theresa that Nora was expressing her grief over her father’s death by living inside of her mind and telling herself that her family was still happy and whole. Nora had rolled her eyes to herself when she had heard that. Thank you, doctor, Nora had thought wryly to herself. Here is 400 dollars for your astute observation since a stranger on the street could have come to that conclusion as well.

Everyone was looking for some great biblical answer as to Nora’s sudden muteness and self injuries but Nora wished that they would just stop poking and prodding her and insisting that she explain herself. The simplest explanation was usually the correct one. Nora no longer spoke because she felt such a crushing sadness over her father’s death, she didn’t know how to deal with it and she began cutting and burning herself because for those few minutes when the pain screamed through her body, she felt oddly better. She knew she wasn’t dealing with things in the best manner but if she knew that and admitted it to herself, did she really have to be locked away in some insane asylum?

So she cut herself. So what? At least it was her way of showing how she felt unlike her mother who simply dived into work and pretended that nothing was wrong with their lives. Nora felt self-conscious about her scars and took great care in hiding them from everyone’s eyes but she did not feel guilty for what she did. She simply didn’t know what else to do with her grief.

Theresa glanced down at the GPS system to see that she was still following directions correctly before looking over at Nora. The two lane highway was nearly deserted except for an occasional car of semi truck. Their car was silent, the radio having long ago lost a signal. Nora had been looking out her window the entire drive and Theresa mentally pleaded with her to say something. She missed hearing her daughter’s voice and sometimes, she would get so frustrated, all she wanted to do was slap Nora across the face until she opened her mouth and spoke. But she never did and Nora remained silent. She glanced down at the bandages wrapped around her wrists – once scar-free – before sighing and looking back out the front windshield, paying attention to her driving.

“I spoke with Carol’s sister who is the nurse there and she said that for the first week, I can’t send you anything or call but after that, I was going to start sending you those chocolate chunk cookies you love so much. Have a bit of home with you,” Theresa informed her, wringing her hands around the steering wheel, her fingers gripping so tightly, the knuckles were beginning to turn white.

“Turn right in 1.2 miles,” the electronic woman’s voice of the GPS announced.

The cornfields turned into a dense thicket of trees and Theresa hesitated before making the right hand turn and guiding the car down the road that was as narrow as a one-car driveway. The trees were so thick on either side that they couldn’t see pass them and Theresa began to wonder if this possibly could be the wrong way. It wouldn’t be the first time that a GPS system got turned around.

“Will arrive at destination in 0.5 miles,” the woman announced further as if sensing Theresa’s doubt and Theresa pushed down on the gas pedal a bit more so they could get out of the woods. It was making her slightly uncomfortable and claustrophobic.

Nora was still looking out her window but when the trees suddenly ended and the road turned into a circular driveway, she couldn’t help but lean forward and peer out the windshield to see the infamous Raven’s Ridge and if possible, it looked even worse than it had in the pamphlet. It was a massive three-story cobblestone building, with large windows and what looked like a tower in the front and large black double entrance doors, antique lion head’s knockers attached to each. Nora could just image how grand it had looked as a country mansion. Now though, it looked dark and uninviting. Trees surround the sides and back of the hospital – thick foliage that almost looked impossible to pass through.

A heavy stone settled in Nora’s stomach as Theresa pulled the car to a stop near the wide front steps leading up to the door. She couldn’t stay here. This place was haunted. She could tell. She had read stories about old country homes like this and in those stories, houses like this always had a hidden dark past. She couldn’t stay there. She just couldn’t. Why was her mother doing this to her? She began to wish that she hadn’t failed that day in the bathtub. If she hadn’t and she had in fact bled to death, she wouldn’t have to ever see this place, let alone live there for god knew how long. She was going to go crazy if she stayed there.

One of the front doors opened and a doctor with black graying hair, wearing dark blue scrubs and a white lab coat, stepped out and despite his warm smile, Nora nearly shrank back at the sight of him. There was nothing wrong with her. She didn’t need to be there. She didn’t need this doctor or this place or her mother for that matter. She hated all of them and quickly looked around. All she saw were trees and an arrow pointing to her head that said “You are here in the middle of nowhere.” There was nowhere to go. She was trapped without possibility of escaping.

Theresa went to go shake the doctor’s hand as Nora reluctantly slid from the car, staring up at the monstrous building in front of her. A warm breeze blew through the air, rustling her dark brown hair and the strings of the zipped hooded sweater she was wearing despite temperatures being in the mid-seventies that day.

“And you must be Nora,” the doctor greeted, the same warm smile on his face, as he and her mother walked down the steps back down to her where she remained standing by the car. “I’m Dr. Tracey, the head doctor here at Raven’s Ridge. It’s very nice to meet you.” He didn’t extend his hand, seeming to know that if he did, Nora wouldn’t take it. She wondered if anyone being admitted there would actually shake the hand of the man who was in charge of their mental states so to speak. “We’re going to get your things and show you to your room and then we have to do a physical. Just for our records,” he added, staring at Nora as he spoke.

Nora looked at him before looking at her mother with a plea in her eyes. She wanted to go home. Theresa only smiled faintly at her before sliding an arm around her shoulders, hugging her to her side.

“Let’s go see your room, honey,” Theresa said, trying to make the best of a situation that felt so surreal to her, it almost seemed as if it was a dream.

The first thing Nora noticed as they stepped into the main, nearly cavernous, front hallway was how quiet everything was there. She heard a television faintly from one of the rooms to her right but the volume was turned down so low, it was just a mere buzzing as if it was an insect. There was a reception desk in front of the large grand staircase that reminded Nora of “Gone with the Wind” and she couldn’t help but look around at her surroundings as she and Theresa followed Dr. Tracey upstairs. She didn’t hear what her mother and the doctor were talking about and frankly she didn’t care. The building was beautiful inside but that hardly made it tolerable to stay at.

“Everyone has their own individual bedroom but bathrooms are shared and to conserve space, men and women use the same ones,” Dr. Tracey was explaining as they made their way further down the long hollowed hallway, patients’ rooms on each side, the doors painted white with a small window. “And here is your bedroom, Nora.” He pushed open the door of the last door on the right and Nora hesitated before Theresa tightened her arm around her and guided her inside.

The room was small, painted completely in white with a small window overlooking the front driveway of the hospital. Nora went to that window and glanced out, crossing her arms, hugging herself, before looking at the rest of the room. There was a single bed, a desk and a dresser. Looking above the dresser, Nora saw the outline of something that had been hanging there but had been taken down.

“There was a mirror there but we took it down for your safety,” Dr. Tracey explained, seeing what she was looking at. “We feared that you might break it and use it to injure yourself further.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Theresa said quietly, gratefully.

“I know it doesn’t look like much but before you know it, you’ll have this room feeling just like home,” Dr. Tracey said, smiling at her and Nora avoided his eyes, looking out the window again. Nothing but trees and beyond that, cornfields. “Your bags will be brought up shortly. I’ll show you and your mom the rest of the facility and then we can do your physical. Dinner is served every night at six in the dining hall and you’ll start your group sessions tomorrow. You’ll also be assigned a therapist which you will go see three times a week and another general physician who monitors everyone’s health here. You’ll see him once a week.

All of this was said as he showed them around – the dining hall, the kitchens, the common rooms where patients could go to watch television, play board games or read one of the books on the shelves. Nora felt as if she was in a haze and couldn’t remember anything. She saw the hospital wing and the doctors’ offices. She saw some of the rooms where group sessions were held and she saw some of the rooms where activities such as dancing and cooking were offered.

“Nora always used to love helping me in the kitchen when I was making dinner,” Theresa said, smiling upon peeking in through the open door from the hallway. There was a class in session and pairs of two stood at small counters, mixing together ingredients as they listened to the instructor at the front of the room.

“Our patients are allowed up to three different activities a week of their choosing,” Dr. Tracey explained and as he and her mother discussed those, Nora looked at some of the other patients in the cooking class. They were all allowed to wear street clothes. For some reason, she had pictured everyone in straitjackets and she noticed that they were also all wearing a plastic medical band around their wrist.

Noticing that one of the patients – a young man who looked just a few years older than her – began walking towards her, leaving his station and his cooking partner behind. He was taller than her with black curly hair, pale skin and dark brown eyes. He was wearing green cargo pants and a black tee-shirt. Nora immediately took a step back closer to her mom as he walked straight towards her, a smirk on his scruffy face. She saw dog tags hanging around his neck and they clinked and clanked together as he drew nearer. He was handsome – in a dangerous sort of way – and Nora cast her eyes downward so she wouldn’t look at him further.

“Hey, doc. Fresh meat?” He asked, clapping a hand down on Dr. Tracey’s shoulder.

“Ah. This is Joe, one of our more… outgoing patients,” Dr. Tracey introduced. “This is Nora. She just arrived and will be staying with us for a while.”

Nora’s ears pricked at the words. For a while. She thought she would only be there for thirty days. That was what her mom had said as they had looked over the pamphlet. For a while wasn’t thirty days. For a while was… a long time.

“Well, it’s obvious why you’re here,” Joe said, glancing down at her wrists and she had forgotten that she had pushed the sleeves of her sweater up. She quickly pulled them down again, hiding her bandages again, but he laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I have schizophrenia and I’m also just too damn charming.”

“And you also need to going back into your class,” Dr. Tracey advised. “You can talk to Nora during dinner if you want.”

Joe continued looking at Nora, the same easy grin across his face, but Nora refused to lift her eyes to him again. He almost laughed then nodded his head. “Sounds good. She seems like she will be a fascinating conversationalist.” With that, he turned and strutted back into the classroom.

“Joe has been with us for nearly a year. He may seem abrasive but he is actually quite harmless and is one of the most liked here amongst the other patients,” Dr. Tracey explained as he ushered Nora and Theresa away from the classroom door and further down the hallway. “Now, Mrs. Parker, all of our patients here are on medication of some sort. We usually give distribute medicine in the mornings after breakfast and in the evenings after dinner and before bed. After Nora’s physical and also the psych evaluation she will take tomorrow, we can determine what she needs to take in order to start getting better.”

Outside, it was getting darker. The wind was blowing in strong gusts now and storm clouds were slowly rolling across the sky from off in the distance. Theresa felt her eyes well with tears as she looked at Nora, their matching dark hair blowing in the blustery air. It was time for her to go. It would be the first time they would be apart since Nora was born. Theresa had to do this though. She had to be strong. Nora needed this and this was something she couldn’t do holding Theresa’s hand.

“Alright. I’ll call you next week as soon as they let me,” Theresa said, wrapping her arms around Nora’s frail shoulders, bringing her into a near bone crushing hug. She couldn’t help it. She began to cry. Her body wracked with sobs as she clung to her daughter and she felt Nora slowly lift her arms and hug Theresa in return. “You’ll be okay here, baby. You are going to be just fine and you’ll be out of here before you know it. I promise. I just want you to get better,” Theresa whispered in her ear, her voice shaking as she wept.

Nora nodded her head but she didn’t speak. She wasn’t going to start speaking after all of that time while her mom was dropping her off at a mental institution. She couldn’t believe that this was happening to her. She wanted to grab her hair and just scream as loud as she could. She wanted to jump back in the car and refuse to get out until her mom promised her that she would take her straight back home. She wanted to run to the top of the tower and jump. She wanted this all to be a dream. But as Theresa pulled away from her and as Nora stood there, watching the car disappear down the driveway, the red taillights eventually disappearing through the trees, Nora realized that she was very much awake. And that she was stuck there.

The food looked less than appetizing as Nora collected her tray from the food serving line in the kitchen later that evening. On the mint green plastic tray, there seemed to be some sort of round brown piece of meat covered in gravy, a slopped serving of white mashed potatoes and a small serving of overly-orange carrot slices. She took a bottle of water and with the manila envelope underneath her arm that Dr. Tracey had given her, a welcome packet to Raven’s Ridge that had all of the information she would need, Nora headed into dining hall. There were three long tables – almost running the length of the entire room – with chairs on each side. Nora looked around the room, looking at the other patients. There were at least thirty others eating dinner and she knew that there were more behind her in the kitchen, getting their dinners. There was a soft hum of chatter and Nora wondered where she should sit.

She just wanted to be alone.

She jumped slightly when an arm suddenly slipped around her shoulders and turning her head, she saw that it was Joe. He was grinning at her, holding his own dinner tray in his other hand.

“Hello, again. You’ll eat with me,” he informed her then keeping his arm around her shoulders, he guided her to the table to the left and walked her down to the chairs at the far end near the large doors leading into the dining room from the front hallway.

Nora tried to step away from him but his hold on her tightened until he removed his arm to pull the chair out from the table for her. She hesitated, not knowing if she wanted to sit with him. He was a strange boy, unlike anyone she had ever met. For some reason, he was talking to her as if they had known one another their entire lives. It didn’t make any sense and neither did he. Then again, she was now officially a mental patient, thanks to her mom, so who knew what made sense anymore?

Joe went to sit on the other side of the table across from her and grinning at her, he pulled his plastic fork and knife from the clear plastic wrapper they were in. “Food sucks. You’ll get used to it.” He stabbed his piece of round meat and picked it up as if on a spear. “I call these elephant moles. It actually is supposed to be meatloaf. Sure as hell doesn’t look like my mom’s meatloaf though.”

She frowned, looking down at the meat in question, before taking her water bottle and twisting the cap off, taking a small sip.

He shook his head. “They make you eat. Won’t let you leave the dining room until you eat enough to their liking. They think if you don’t eat, you’re developing another problem and using food as some type of psychological outlet.”

Nora stared down at the tray of food, not at all hungry. How could anyone expect her to eat? She had just been admitted there less than four hours ago? Hadn’t she been through enough that day without expecting her to eat this food? She just wanted to go to her room, curl into a ball and pretend she was somewhere else. She picked up the plastic knife and couldn’t help but stare at it. Was this sharp enough? It didn’t look like it but maybe she could file it down somehow. She needed to find something that would help her. She didn’t know how she was going to get through this.

“Here,” Joe said, chewing on a piece of his meat. He swallowed and then reached over, plucking the plastic knife from her hand before she could stop him. “Let me show you.”

She stiffened and tried to pull her arm away when he grabbed hold of it gently but his grasp was too strong. He pushed up the sleeve of her sweater, not even blinking at all of the cuts – both fresh and scarred – and pressed the knife to her arm, dragging it across her skin. It didn’t do anything except leave a faint white trail in its wake. He handed it back to her before grabbing his fork and scooping up a helping of his mashed potatoes.

“They make sure that it’s not sharp enough for us unstable people,” he explained. “I wouldn’t try taking it with you either. They search our rooms every night.” He chewed on his mouthful of food, staring at her. “So… a cutter, huh? There are some others like that here. Fairly certain you’re the only mute cutter here though.” He reached over and stabbed her piece of meat and dropped it onto his tray. “I’ll eat this if you eat my carrots. Deal?”

Nora hesitated for a moment before nodding her head. He grinned and transferred the orange vegetable slices onto her tray. She took another sip from her water before picking up her fork. The sooner she ate, the sooner she could get out of there. She would have to force herself but she supposed that it was better than the alternative option of sitting there for hours while her food became cold and even worse than it already was. She began picking at the carrots one slice at a time and chewing on them slowly, her eyes avoiding Joe’s as she felt him watching her as they ate their dinners. She didn’t know what his game was but she didn’t want to find out.

“Whenever I went off my meds, I would get these really violent outbursts,” Joe said suddenly. “And I would trash rooms, break windows, hurt myself. I carved words into my body too. The same word over and over again in the same spot. They would stitch me back up and I would go right back and cut it again.” He smirked, popping open the tab of his can of Coke. “Having a mental illness really sucks, doesn’t it?”

She almost smiled at that but she contained herself and continued eating her now double helping of carrots. She didn’t have a mental illness – not like these people.

“Not much of a talker, huh? That’s cool. People in here talk too damn much anyway,” he said, talking through a mouthful of meat. “They said there was a new patient getting here today. Some of us took bets on what was wrong with you. I guess obsessive compulsive disorder. I owe Mark five bucks so I actually should be mad at you,” he grinned and Nora had to sip from her water bottle to keep from smiling. “I was able to get out of one of the nurses some of your basic info and for some reason, most white middle class girls that come to Raven’s Ridge either have OCD or an eating disorder. Most I’ve met here don’t have the guts to permanently mar their skin for some reason like you.”

“Hello, Joe. Hi, Nora. How are you settling in?” Dr. Tracey asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down next to Nora.

“Hey doc,” Joe grinned. “She’s not much of a talker but I’ve taken her under my wing so I wouldn’t worry about her.”

Dr. Tracey smiled. “Well, that’s very kind of you, Joe.” He looked at Nora. “Nora, after dinner, myself and another orderly are going to take you up to your room and we have to go through all of your belongings. If you have anything that is forbidden, we’ll have to confiscate it. Do you understand?”

Nora nodded her head, not knowing what she was supposed to be confused about what the doctor had just said. It all seemed pretty straight forward to her. She tried to remember everything that she had packed before arriving there but she didn’t know what the hospital would deem inappropriate for her to have while there though.

After dinner, she followed Dr. Tracey and the orderly up the stairs again to her bedroom, walking behind them as if marching towards certain doom. She had one suitcase and one duffel bag and she watched uncomfortably from the doorjamb as they went through every last thing – touching her things, sifting through her bras and underwear, glancing at the pictures of her father and mother from years earlier when both had been happy and Dr. Tracey was the one to take the photos from the frames. He turned and handed her the pictures, keeping the frames.

“We will give you tape so you can put them on the wall but we can’t allow the frames,” Dr. Tracey explained. “You can use the wood… or the glass to cut yourself.”

Nora nodded, looking down at the floor, hugging the photos to her chest. It wasn’t as if she could argue. She was stuck there no matter what. She might as well just keep her head down and try her hardest to just get through the next thirty days. She had to get out of there in a month. There was no way she could survive this place for any longer than that.

“Alright, Nora. Lights out at ten o’clock and breakfast is served from seven to eight every morning. I will find you tomorrow so we can go over your schedule,” Dr. Tracey said and Nora nodded her head again, her eyes still focused down on the white floor speckled with dark maroon dots. “We’re going to do our best to help you, Nora. I promise. You are going to talk again and you will never want to hurt yourself again,” he said.

She didn’t nod her head this time. She didn’t even look at him and he left the room, leaving her alone for the first time she had arrived. A low rumble of thunder vibrated in the distance and Nora, still clutching her photos to her chest, went to the window to look out over the darkness. She couldn’t see much though except her reflection in the glass from the lamp behind her. A fork of lightning split through the sky, illuminating the land for a moment, and Nora remained standing there as the first of the raindrops began to fall.

Thirty days. She was going to be there for thirty days and not one minute more – no matter what she had to do.