Read Online Mirrors by Ted Dekker - Free Book Online
Authors: Ted Dekker
Tags: Fiction:Suspense
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despised herself.
Beyond that, she didn’t know too much.
Chapter 12
ON HIS fifteenth birthday, July 10, Austin traded his childhood for whatever freedom his modest trust fund stipend could buy. He was free, and he had an official court document that said as much. No longer a ward of any state, person, or organization.
Paul Matheson, the orphanage headmaster where Austin lived in New Jersey, had insisted on going to the courthouse with him, but after a long discussion, Austin convinced him that he should go alone. Figure it out.
He was an adult now, after all.
The bus trip across town was short. He’d navigated the courthouse halls without getting lost and, dressed in dungarees and a button-down shirt, stood before a judge who was quite taken with the articulate teenager.
All told, the proceeding took precisely fifteen minutes. Fitting.
On the way out, a portly woman in a loud flower-print dress snapped a photo of him that she promised to e-mail as soon as she got home. Just her way of paying it forward, she’d said. “It’s a sad shame that no one had the decency to be here on your special occasion.”
She told him with great enthusiasm how she and her rail-thin husband were there to finalize the adoption of the blue-eyed five-year-old who clung to the man. Sweet Bethany,their angel from God. The kind of child every family wanted to adopt.
The e-mail never came, of course. He didn’t expect it to.
Austin thanked her for the photo and wished her well, suddenly overwhelmed. What family did he have? None. Never had, never would. Sweet Bethany didn’t know how good she had it.
He’d sat on the courthouse steps for a long time, fingering the embossed seal on his document, staring at the world as it flitted by—people coming and going, rushing about like mice in a field. How many of them sensed the meaninglessness of their lives—here today, gone tomorrow, forgotten the day after that? The boredom of such an existence might kill him.
And yet, they all belonged. To someone, somewhere.
In that moment, in every way that counted, Austin had felt strangely lost. Lost to his past. Lost to the world. Lost in thought. He was free, but he wasn’t sure what that really meant.
For a brief moment he considered turning east and just walking until he hit the ocean. Then taking a boat to the far side of the world and walking some more, all the way around in search of nothing, or something. Sooner or later, though, he knew that if he walked long enough he’d end up exactly here again, in the same place he started.
Here.
Here, where he was no longer a child but not yet old enough to be considered an adult. Living in two worlds but belonging in neither.
That thought boiled his emotions until hot tears welled up in his eyes. He’d wiped them with his sleeve before anyone could see and left the courthouse steps chiding himself for breaking down so easily.
Allowing emotions to control him was ridiculous. Irrational. How many times had he explained this to Christy during one of her many emotional tailspins? They were dangerous. Master your thoughts, he’d told her, time and again, and the emotions will follow.
That was then.
Here he was now, drowning in emotion, unable to hold it at bay. Smothered by his own weakness and totally lost to the world, he was without friends or family to even know he was in terrible trouble.
Trouble so deep that he was unsure he could survive it.
Fisher had secured him to the wheelchair with straps and wheeled him down a vacant hall with checkerboard floors to the room adjacent to the morgue, which he’d accessed by pressing his right wrist against a security pad. He’d checked Austin’s restraints and left him without explanation.
Austin found himself in a stark white operating room. Why would a psychiatric ward have a surgical space? Lawson had said they employed progressive therapy, but by invasive means?
Medical equipment on mobile stands lined the far wall. Heart monitors and
Beyond that, she didn’t know too much.
Chapter 12
ON HIS fifteenth birthday, July 10, Austin traded his childhood for whatever freedom his modest trust fund stipend could buy. He was free, and he had an official court document that said as much. No longer a ward of any state, person, or organization.
Paul Matheson, the orphanage headmaster where Austin lived in New Jersey, had insisted on going to the courthouse with him, but after a long discussion, Austin convinced him that he should go alone. Figure it out.
He was an adult now, after all.
The bus trip across town was short. He’d navigated the courthouse halls without getting lost and, dressed in dungarees and a button-down shirt, stood before a judge who was quite taken with the articulate teenager.
All told, the proceeding took precisely fifteen minutes. Fitting.
On the way out, a portly woman in a loud flower-print dress snapped a photo of him that she promised to e-mail as soon as she got home. Just her way of paying it forward, she’d said. “It’s a sad shame that no one had the decency to be here on your special occasion.”
She told him with great enthusiasm how she and her rail-thin husband were there to finalize the adoption of the blue-eyed five-year-old who clung to the man. Sweet Bethany,their angel from God. The kind of child every family wanted to adopt.
The e-mail never came, of course. He didn’t expect it to.
Austin thanked her for the photo and wished her well, suddenly overwhelmed. What family did he have? None. Never had, never would. Sweet Bethany didn’t know how good she had it.
He’d sat on the courthouse steps for a long time, fingering the embossed seal on his document, staring at the world as it flitted by—people coming and going, rushing about like mice in a field. How many of them sensed the meaninglessness of their lives—here today, gone tomorrow, forgotten the day after that? The boredom of such an existence might kill him.
And yet, they all belonged. To someone, somewhere.
In that moment, in every way that counted, Austin had felt strangely lost. Lost to his past. Lost to the world. Lost in thought. He was free, but he wasn’t sure what that really meant.
For a brief moment he considered turning east and just walking until he hit the ocean. Then taking a boat to the far side of the world and walking some more, all the way around in search of nothing, or something. Sooner or later, though, he knew that if he walked long enough he’d end up exactly here again, in the same place he started.
Here.
Here, where he was no longer a child but not yet old enough to be considered an adult. Living in two worlds but belonging in neither.
That thought boiled his emotions until hot tears welled up in his eyes. He’d wiped them with his sleeve before anyone could see and left the courthouse steps chiding himself for breaking down so easily.
Allowing emotions to control him was ridiculous. Irrational. How many times had he explained this to Christy during one of her many emotional tailspins? They were dangerous. Master your thoughts, he’d told her, time and again, and the emotions will follow.
That was then.
Here he was now, drowning in emotion, unable to hold it at bay. Smothered by his own weakness and totally lost to the world, he was without friends or family to even know he was in terrible trouble.
Trouble so deep that he was unsure he could survive it.
Fisher had secured him to the wheelchair with straps and wheeled him down a vacant hall with checkerboard floors to the room adjacent to the morgue, which he’d accessed by pressing his right wrist against a security pad. He’d checked Austin’s restraints and left him without explanation.
Austin found himself in a stark white operating room. Why would a psychiatric ward have a surgical space? Lawson had said they employed progressive therapy, but by invasive means?
Medical equipment on mobile stands lined the far wall. Heart monitors and
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