The Mind's Eye by K.C. Finn Read Free Book Online Page A

approaching
us. I twisted my neck to see Blod ambling down the cobbled path in
her heels.
    “ Don’t be so rude in front of the doctor, Blodwyn,” Mam
chided, and this time it was a proper chide, one with no amusement
in her tone.
    “ It’s quite all right, I was just leaving.” The words came
rushing out of Bickerstaff’s mouth faster than Leighton had moved
when he thought he might be sent to Hell. He said good day to us
all, put his head down and moved off at his usual brisk pace back
towards his shiny white hospital car. I watched him go; already
regretting that the next time I would see him was so close at
hand.
    “ Honestly I can’t take you anywhere,” Mam grumbled at Blod,
“Make yourself useful and push Kit back up to the house. It’s not
fair us letting your Bampi do it both ways.”
Blod
grumbled, contorting her pretty face into a dramatic frown. She
gave me a nasty look and put her hands on her hips.
    “ What have you got a face on for?” she demanded.
I opted for
honesty since I didn’t actually care what Blod thought of me.
    “ I really hate that doctor,” I answered bitterly.
The beauty
queen cracked a little smile on her made-up lips. She came round me
to grab the handles of my chair, letting out a little laugh.
    “ Well that’s one thing we have in common,” she
observed.
I found
myself a little happier too. We had bonded, if only for a moment.
Nevertheless, Blod pushed me over every large or jagged cobble she
could find as we made our way home.

It was
Thursday night that I started to worry about the appointment.
During the week I kept telling myself that if I practised with the
chair I’d improve, but as Friday drew nearer and nearer I had
managed only two inches of distance before it felt as though my
shoulders had been ripped from my body like a ragdoll caught in a
bulldog’s teeth. I had to tell myself firmly that any distance was
better than no distance and if that didn’t impress Doctor
Bickerstaff then he could lump it for all I cared. I wasn’t sure if
I’d be brave enough to tell him that to his face, but I supposed
that when the time came to challenge him I’d find out.
That was how
I came to be thinking about him at bedtime, most especially when
Mam strapped my arms and legs into the torturous splints that were
slowly turning my joints a regal shade of purple. I had gotten used
to sleeping with them as the nights wore on; it was the pain in the
morning that I’d begun to dread, especially that first agonising
moment after taking them off. I tried not to think of it as Mam
tucked me in with her kind, rosy face, leaving me the water and the
biscuit that Leighton would come and steal in the morning. She put
out my light and left me lying in the dark where I tried not to
think about tomorrow.
I expected,
as I always did, that I would probably visit somewhere interesting
on my way to sleep, but I was most confused in my half-slumber to
find myself staring directly at Doctor Bickerstaff’s movie star
face. It took me a while to realise that I was looking into a
mirror, at which point the horror set in. I was in his head.
Bickerstaff was looking at himself in the polished mirror of a very
pokey little bathroom with grey tiled walls. His blue eyes were
bloodshot in the harsh light from the unshaded bulb and his chin
had a dark, stubbly shadow growing on it.
It was
strange enough seeing him in his navy pyjamas, but as the doctor
started to brush his teeth it was the strength of his emotions that
disturbed me the most. He had a very peculiar feeling hanging about
him; he kept stopping in his night time routine to stare at his
face again in the mirror, like there was something about his look
that troubled him deeply. It was like that feeling when someone
takes the last cake off the plate just before you go to grab it,
except that it consumed him completely. He was Leighton when he’d
finished a particularly good dessert, staring at the empty bowl. He
was me when I watched people