Chapter Text
Thursday, June 8, 1961
The bright glow of the sun beamed down onto the streets of Derry on the first day of summer vacation, children running and laughing together like an orchestral lullaby meant to spread through the air and reach all the other kids, encouraging them to enjoy their summer vacation as well. Still, that sentiment did not reach the 1959 Esdel Ranger or its silent inhabitants, one of whom was 12-year-old Lilly Bainbridge.
She sat slumped in the front passenger seat, her slate-blue eyes staring out of the windshield to watch the houses pass by, skin and eyes so pallid that even the bright sun can't saturate the grey that has settled deep into her being from yesterday afternoon. The visuals of this glorious summer day are completely lost on her; a thick fog has claimed dominion over her brain, leaving her in a borderline catatonic state and effectively numb.
Her memories from Wednesday were shrouded in static like an old TV glitching in and out of signal, only able to recall small pieces of the trauma that she experienced just a day ago. Her mother sat in the driver's seat, her posture tight and almost motionless, except for her arms turning the steering wheel with precision. Her knuckles were almost white from the hard grip on the leather rim, and she glared at the road as if it were the reason everything had gone wrong.
Neither Lilly nor her Mother had spoken much since Wednesday, and even if they had, Lilly's brain probably shoved it far back into an obscured memory, but what Lilly did remember was where her mother had told her she would be taking her today.
Juniper Hill.
The mental asylum built on the easternmost border of Derry, a place where people took their 'Loved Ones' to get 'mental treatment', even though everyone knew it was a prison that most people wouldn't ever get out of, no matter how much they genuinely improved or didn't deserve to be there in the first place.
When she heard her mom say that, Lilly didn't fully comprehend what it meant; her mind went blank as her mother got her up early to do her hair and get her dressed, her limp body offering no resistance as she was treated like a child's doll. She heard fabric fold and a zipper close, then blinked and found herself in the car, already miles from her house.
Her mother gulped as the withered archway welcoming them to Juniper Hill came into view, rust intruding on the black metal like an incurable disease. The quiet patter of the car tires on the newly paved roads devolved into a sharp crackle when rubber met the fractured asphalt of the old asylum; the rigid shift of sound seemed to have sent a jolt back into Lilly's mind to clear the cognitive fog, and her dull eyes blinked back to life rapidly as confusion crossed her once blank face as she looked over the new landscape.
The petal-yellow car pulled around the circular driveway and stopped at the front door. Lilly's mother quickly put the car in park and took out the keys. Lilly's body perked up at the car stopping and the metal keys clinking together, her head turning to look at her mother with a puzzled expression.
"Mom...?" Lilly's voice came out a bit hoarse, a sad plea for comfort or explanation, or both
"Come on, Lilly." Her mom said, not even glancing at her dazed daughter before she opened the car door and stepped out.
Lilly opened her mouth to say something else before the door slammed back into her face, making her jump at the sudden noise amid the quiet discomfort. Lilly took a deep breath, albeit shaky, as she turned to exit the car, brown leather tassel loafers softly hitting the ashen asphalt as she stood to shut the car door and made her way around the car's front to meet with her mother at the grand staircase at the entrance of the institution, eyes scanning the small parking lot filled with expensive-looking cars painted in bright colors.
Her mother stuffed the car keys into her small purse and quickly smoothed her appearance until she spotted Lilly approaching, then grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her closer. Her daughter winced at the rough grip as her mother bent down to fix her hair, slicking it back into a tight ponytail with dark chestnut curls and thick bangs swept to the right, neatly brushed together without frizz or gaps. Lilly stands hopelessly still as her mother's sleek finger glides over her hair and clothes to make sure her daughter's appearance is just as perfect as hers, even though the place they're in the process of entering doesn't pay attention to that.
As her mother harshly tugs at her clothing, Lilly gets a good look at her for the first time since yesterday afternoon. Her mother's makeup was halfway applied, thick and textured in a way Lilly had never seen before; the incomplete makeup couldn't conceal the dark circles that made her appear as if she hadn't slept in months. Seeing her mother like this made her stomach twist; she was such a put-together woman that prided herself on tidy presentation, so much so that many housewives in Derry envied her conviction, but now she looked worn out and drained.
With one final tug on Lilly's blouse, her mother let out a deep sigh before standing back up and turning to start up the stairs towards the front doors of Juniper Hill, with Lilly following in tow. The black steel of the doorknob twisted in the older woman's grip as the left white door creaked open to reveal the entrance room; it had eight thick white pillars with black stumps at the very bottom, seemingly to hold up the indoor wrap-around balcony on the second floor. Three benches with navy blue cushions and tawny wood trim, two of them by the pillars closest to the door and one by the door to the left that was Identical to the one the two just entered through; it had a plaque that read 'Juniper Hill Waiting Room' at the top. A grand piano, made of pure mahogany, sat against the right pillars closest to the three archways that welcomed you into the main hallway, two slightly smaller ones flanking the grand one in the middle. The wall was painted eggshell white with some white trim to complement it; the floor was a pristine and polished taupe and made out of linoleum, made evident by the signature clicks it made whenever Lilly's loafers and her mother's heels came down on it. And it was quiet, weirdly quiet for a mental institution.
It was not a bad sight, not by any stretch of the tales people told of this place; the soft colors helped put the two women at ease, one more than the other, though.
"Wait here." Lilly's mother said, her voice still a bit rough but with a slight twinge of nervousness, evident in her fidgeting with her purse before she strode toward the biggest opening in the middle. Steps came in quick succession of each other, sharp heels barely able to touch down on the floor, showing clearly how much of a hurry the older woman was in. Lilly watched from the entrance as her mother leaned forward through the large opening, her head turning to each side as she looked around the hallway for any staff who were walking around to help them.
The firm click of well-built shoes came from the right; Lilly instinctively leaned to try and get a glimpse of who it was and what they looked like.
"Oh! Miss, could you please help me?" Lilly's mother asked, posture straightening as her voice rose a couple of octaves. "Do you know where I can admit someone here?"
"Yes, the admitting room will be the first room to your left." The nurse's light voice flowed through the pale corridor with a slight echo as she came into view. She was a bit taller than her mother, with her toffee hair pulled up into a bun; her periwinkle nurse uniform under a white apron was clean and ironed straight. "A doctor should be in there, and he will answer any questions you have."
"Thank you so much," Lilly's mother said. The nurse nodded and offered a polite smile before walking back down the hallway, presumably to go back to whatever she was doing before Lilly and her mother arrived. "Lilly." The young girl flinched slightly; the way her mother's voice went from sweet with the nurse to flat when addressing her was jarring, but without saying anything back, her feet started towards her anyway, always listening to her mother immediately, like a good girl.
As Lilly neared the thick archway, a shiver ran through her as soon as she entered the hallway; the cold air finally bit into her skin that was left vulnerable by the thin, cap-sleeved blouse and shorter skirt that fell just below her knees her mother had dressed her in that morning. She heard her mother swing open the door as the hinges creaked, the shrill sound stabbing into Lilly's ear harshly as she followed her mother through the threshold of the 'Admitting Room'.
The room was expansive, with wide wood cabinets and tall shelves decorating every wall with miscellaneous folders that were probably filled with documents of all the patients.
"Oh, hello, miss. What are you in for?"
A doctor called from the other side of the room, turning around from a long table, one seemingly made for meetings that sat parallel to the second door.
"Yes, I would like to admit my daughter here, please." Her mother's voice rose in octaves again. "Well, we can sit over here and get it situated." The doctor's gravelly voice works as a nice opposite to the shriek of the door hinges; he adjusts his long white coat and clubmaster glasses as he gestures to the two plaid couches that sat parallel to each other with a table in the middle.
Lilly's mom quickly makes her way to sit on the couch, leaving Lilly to shut the door and then follow her lead. The doctor grabs a clipboard off the elongated table, goes over to the wide shelves to the right and snatches two pieces of paper, one big and one small, attaches the bigger one with a sudden snap of the metal clip, and walks over to sit down opposite the mother and daughter with an exasperated grunt.
"Alright, we're gonna start with some standard questions, just what we do here and what you would and wouldn't be comfortable with us treating her, ok?" The doctor asks, looking at Lilly's mother sincerely as he grabs a pen off the table.
"Yes, go ahead." Lilly watches as her mother shifts slightly, getting ready to answer whatever questions this new doctor is going to ask, who hasn't even introduced himself yet.
"I'm Dr. Emerson." Never mind. "I'm a clinical psychologist who has been working at Juniper Hill for 18 years, and you are...?" The doctor trails off as he slowly brings out a hand to point at Lilly's mother.
"Theresa Bainbridge."
"Ok, it is nice to meet you, Mrs. Bainbridge. Why would you like to admit your daughter to Juniper Hill today?" A shudder goes through Lilly as she hears the question and looks over at her mother; her jaw clenches, and her grip tightens around her purse, obviously feeling the effects of having to recount the harrowing ordeal that happened yesterday afternoon, just as her daughter will have a hard time hearing it from her mother.
"Well..." Theresa's voice shakes slightly, eyes darting down for a quick second before swallowing hard and returning her gaze to the doctor. "Yesterday was my daughter's last day at school, and my husband just so happened to get off work early that day as well, so I told her that we could spend the rest of the day with each other." The doctor leans over the table a bit as he clicks the pen to push out the tip, ready to gather every detail of this story on his blank sheet of paper.
"So, I picked her up from school and then drove to my husband's place of work to pick him up too." Theresa took a deep breath before saying where her husband worked; it was uneven, but all she could muster in a situation like this.
"He worked at the pickle jarring factory." The words were sharp and laced with tears that stung her mother's eyes. Lilly almost let out a cry, but she held it for her mother's sake, tears welling up into her lash line that threatened to fall as she hung her head low, not able to see her mother in pain as she told the doctor what happened to her father.
The doctor exhaled, a sound that conveyed he knew what happened. It was probably all over Derry's newspaper and on the channel by last night; I mean, how couldn't it have been?
"And my daughter was so excited about it, I decided to send her into the factory without me because she'd never seen where her dad worked before, and I thought it'd be a nice thing for him to show her around a little bit." Lilly's fists curl around the fabric of her plum skirt. Her knuckles almost glow white with how hard she's trying not to totally break down.
"She um, she went in and apparently..." Lilly hears her mother's voice become weak and waver as her composure becomes harder and harder to maintain. "Apparently, when her father was showing her the machinery, she had set down her mood ring near one of them, and she forgot about it, and it clogged one of the machines."
Lilly’s teeth grind against each other as her eyes shut tight, her jaw and eye muscles straining to be kept in place.
"Her father went to get it, and he..." The grip on her purse has seemingly ceased as Lilly hears her mother through her hand up and lands almost limp in her lap. "He got caught by one of the gears, and he died."
The doctor hums, "I am sorry for your loss, Mrs. Bainbridge. Death is always hard to deal with." Theresa can only nod in response. "Was your daughter a witness to his death?"
The tears flow freely down Lilly's cheeks, pouring out like Derry's sewer drains when it floods. She tries to suck in breaths through her nose, but the snot that is bubbling up won't allow her to do so; she just resorts to taking short heaves in her mouth to make the least noise possible as her mother and Dr. Emerson have a conversation. It was a futile attempt.
"Yes, yes, she was," Theresa says simply, staring straight ahead and not glancing over at her crying daughter. "How was your daughter after this happened yesterday?" Dr. Emerson asks as he writes down what the older woman had just told him.
"I heard a scream before she ran out of the factory crying. I could barely get her to tell me what happened because she was hysterical" Theresa gestures wildly to convey how erratic her daughter's behavior was. "Then, after we got home, she was still crying and didn't want to go to sleep, so I sat up with her in the living room until 4 A.M." The doctor nods; the sounds of fast scribbling could be heard as he gazes down at the page intently.
"Then, when I woke up, she was basically catatonic," urgency bleeding into Theresa's voice. "She wouldn't move, she wouldn't eat, she didn't even speak to me until we pulled up here, and I even had to dress her myself this morning!" Her voice rose in octaves as her speech sped up; her light hazel eyes were wide while she gestured wildly, as if the realization of everything that happened suddenly settled in her mind.
Dr. Emerson didn't even look up from the page at the frantic older woman or the crying young girl, his pen gliding along the lines while the ink curves into letters and words before he hums and nods like everything was perfectly normal.
"Ok, how long do you want us to keep your daughter?" The older man finally looks up as he runs a hand over his grey hair. "Would you prefer until she's fully cured, until she's manageable, or has a scheduled stay?"
The question makes Theresa blink a few times, adrenaline evening out as this conversation turns back to normal. "What- What is a scheduled stay?" She asks, her voice a bit gravelly due to the intensity with which she spoke just a second ago. Theresa Bainbridge is not a loud woman; she never was, and she never thought she'd ever be.
"A scheduled stay is when either the doctor or caregiver gives a set amount of days the patient will stay," Dr. Emerson says matter-of-factly, adjusting himself on the couch as he keeps his gaze on Theresa. "The most popular ones for young children that have no prior history are 3 days, 30 days, or 90 days."
Theresa shares the doctor's gaze, staring at his deep steel eyes while the options she was given run through her head. "3 days is usually for a general evaluation to give an accurate diagnosis without multiple appointments, 30 days is for a change of scenery for the child as well as a chance for the caregivers to have a break, and 90 days..."
"90 days is most commonly used for when the child is on summer vacation."
No. No, her mother would never do that to Lilly; 3 days should work just fine-
"I'll admit her for 90 days." Her mother's voice cuts through Lilly's tears, making her react automatically. She lets out a wet gasp as her facial muscles go slack, making her slate-blue eyes burst open, and her jaw hang ajar. "Alright then, I'll take this report down to the evaluation room and tell the nurses to come and take her to her room."
Dr. Emerson says as he slaps his knees, "Here's the patient admission form for you to fill out as your daughter's documentation, as well as the things you do or do not consent us to use as treatment for your daughter..." He trails off as he slides the page over to Theresa on the oak table and sets the pen down beside it. "Also, have you brought anything for your daughter to have while she stays here?" Dr. Emerson asks as he gets up, adjusting his glasses on his face.
"Yes, I have a suitcase of her clothes in my trunk." Theresa nods as her hand grabs the pen and she shifts closer to the table, ready to write the admission form too eagerly for Lilly's liking. "Ok, I'll let them know." The doctor tugs on his coat before holding out his hand for a shake.
"We'll take care of her, Mrs. Bainbridge." Dr. Emerson affirms with a grin on his face, one that makes Lilly's breath hitch as she looks over to her mother, hoping she wouldn't return his gesture. "Thank you so much, Dr. Emerson." A slow smile grew on Theresa's face as her manicured hand reached out to grasp his in a firm shake.
That was it, the nail in the coffin.
Lilly's now knew she was staying here, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Lilly's ears rang as she heard the doctor's dress shoes patter against the hard wood flooring and the shrill sound of the door hinges swinging open, then closing shut, but Lilly could only look up to stare at her mother. She wanted to say something; she wanted so badly to tell her mother that this wasn't needed and they could just go back home and she'd be fine, but her body wouldn't let her. The young girl was stuck watching her mother read and sign the piece of paper that would send her away for the whole summer, cheeks cold and damp from leftover tears while she choked back breaths to try and not have snot drip down her chin pathetically.
But she got here by being pathetic. She was too pathetic to just go to sleep last night; she was too pathetic to wake up normal and forget about yesterday; she was too pathetic to even oppose her own mother, and she was too pathetic to just forget about that damn mood ring.
So, Lilly just sat there and waited. Her mother's bent posture and concentrated expression burned into her eyes while the sound of scribbling tore into her ears as she said next to her mother, waiting so patiently like the good girl her father always praised her to be.
As Theresa finishes up the last letters on the final line, she sighs and raises back up as she sets the pen back down on the table beside it before she turns to her daughter.
"Lilly." Her voice was calm while her expression was unreadable. "I hope you know I'm only doing this to help you." She stared at Lilly, her daughter's face blank like earlier but more drained and affected by everything. The older woman's heart clenched a little; was she hoping for her daughter to be happy? Say that she understands? She just wanted something, anything.
But Lilly couldn't give it to her.
She just shared her mother's gaze, tears staining cheeks and jagged breathing being the only remnants of emotion. All that was left were the two drained and blank faces staring at each other; oh, how strong the genes were.
The door suddenly creaks open, a young nurse stepping in with a soft smile, but Theresa and Lilly didn't look back or even flinch. They sat still, staring at one another, hoping that they could somehow telepathically communicate what the other one was feeling.
"Be nice to them, Lilly; they're only trying to help you." Her mother says simply, slinging her black leather purse over her shoulder before grabbing the admission form off the table and standing up to hand it over to the nurse, who kindly accepted it.
Lilly, with her body being on autopilot, stood up as well and followed her mother's lead. Floorboards straining with each step she took until she reached the doorway, swallowing hard as the nurse looked down at her. "I'll be taking you up to your room, miss." Her tone was cheery; how could you look at either Lilly or her mother and still be cheery?
"I love you, Lilly," Her mother said as she pulled Lilly into a hug, but it stung. The cold nipped at her skin once again as she felt her mother's nails dig into her back. Lilly calmly closed her eyes and hugged her back, knowing it would be a long time before Lilly ever saw her mother again.
The mother and daughter break apart, and almost immediately, Theresa turns away and walks back through the entranceway, leaving Lilly with this unknown nurse to hear the front door swing open and click shut.
"Come on, I'll show you to your room now"
The young nurse said; she couldn't be much older than 25. The snap of her thick white heels against the linoleum sounded in Lilly's ears, making her closely follow in tow.
They walked for a good bit, Lilly quickly glancing at all the rooms as she passed by them. Seeing a plaque that read 'Day Room' and one that read 'Assessment Spaces' with a bunch of smaller plaques for the patient rooms, she presumes. The nurse leads her to a stairwell; a glass double door with elaborate cyan trim greets both girls as the nurse pushes it open and starts up the stairs.
The stairs go on for what seems like forever, winding up like a spiral as their shoes slap against the concrete. They finally arrive at the second floor, even though Lilly thinks it should be the 4th with how long it took, and the nurse pushes open a door Identical to the last one. "And here we are." The bubbly nurse says as they turn out of the stairwell and take a few steps to a door, with a small plaque on the doorframe that reads '227'.
The nurse gleefully turns the doorknob and pushes open the door, revealing a small room with two twin beds in either corner and a window at the room's center. White bed frames made of metal that looked like the bolts could come out at any point, and thin mattresses made with a mist-blue blanket that looked like paper. Lilly slowly steps through the doorway to enter the room, eyes immediately landing on the suitcase her mother packed for her at the foot of the bed to the right.
"There's a bathroom right across the hallway if you need it, and a closet to put your clothes in." The nurse points to the right when mentioning the closet. Lilly turns to look and sees a built-in closet with spruce doors. "Your evaluation is tomorrow morning; a nurse will come up to lead you to where you'll need to be."
"Thanks..." Lilly says solemnly, her voice quiet and still a bit wet from how hard she was crying earlier. The nurse just grins at her before going to close the door.
"Oh! I almost forgot, your roommate should be arriving in a short bit." The nurse quickly swings the door open once more, holding a hand out as her eyes go wide, swiftly inserting that Lilly will be sharing a room with someone else now.
Since the room had two beds, it would be confusing if she didn't have a roommate, really.
The nurse gives an apologetic smile before nodding her head somewhat awkwardly and actually shutting the door this time, giving Lilly no time to respond with any questions.
Lilly just sighs, taking her hands to wipe her face that was cold with tears and snot. Looking around the room once more, it resembled more of a prison cell aside from the closet to Lilly, before she grabbed her suitcase and began to unzip it.
She might as well unpack to make herself a bit more comfortable.