Speechless

“Mrs. Bishop?”

Ashley exclaimed the name of the woman on the other side of the door almost at the same time as her brain actually registered who it was. She’d been expecting the police, come to talk to Victoria, but even Victoria’s parents wouldn’t have been a surprise. Heather or Zack arriving back at the cabin today might have been understandable, but in no scenario had Ashley expected Zack’s mum to be standing on the doorstep to the cabin. Behind her, Chloe was equally taken aback, though Kendra was unfazed, unsure why this mature brunette would be any more significant than anyone else.

“Ashley, hello,” Monica greeted her, lips curled into the same kind smile that her son had inherited. “Is Zack around? I’d like to speak to him.”

“I’ll go check his room,” Chloe offered, making for the hallway when Ashley’s reply stopped her.

“I don’t think he came home last night,” Ashley told his mother. “I spoke to him at the Ravers’ Lake Hotel, and he was going to the police station with evidence to help free Lisa. I was up late last night and he still hadn’t returned at that time, so…”

“Either he’s at the police station, or he’s with Lisa,” Monica concluded her thought, half frowning, having not anticipated talking to her son to require actually tracking him down. “I heard the news on the radio on the way over and I didn’t hear anything about Lisa being released, so the best guess is that he’s still at the station.”

“Doesn’t Lisa have a cabin up here?” Chloe asked, tilting her head thoughtfully. “That’s where he met Lisa again, after her dad hit him with their car.”

“That’s right,” Ashley agreed, nodding, then to Zack’s mother. “That was before everything happened with Lisa and her dad being arrested though. I don’t know if they’d still be there.”

“If I was trying to keep a low profile, I’d definitely hide out at a cabin in the woods,” Kendra suggested.

Nodding, Monica said, “That’s true. I should check it out while I’m up here.” She turned to leave, but paused, looking back at Ashley. “Victoria Walker is up her as well, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah,” Ashley confirmed, shifting her eyes uneasily. “She only just found out what happened minutes before you arrived. She’s still taking it in.”

“Tell her to call her parents,” Monica said gently. “I got a few calls from Olivia asking about her. Apparently, Victoria’s phone is out of service.”

“Yeah, it, um, broke, a couple days ago,” Kendra revealed, remembering that Kurt had told her that Victoria had smashed it in an act of defiance when they were brainstorming ways to stop Shawn yesterday.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Bishop. I’ll make sure that, as soon as Vicky’s ready, she’ll call her parents,” Ashley assured her, turning back to the woman on the doorstep. “Could you let her mum know, until then, that she’s here and she’s safe.”

“Okay,” Monica accepted, though frowning again. “But they will want to see their daughter and find out what happened. I can’t promise that they won’t come here and find her themselves.”

“I don’t know if that’d be a good idea yet,” Ashley confessed as she chewed her lip. “Victoria was really shaken. Her parents might only stress her further.”

“I agree, giving Victoria space might be the best idea,” Monica conceded, then argued, “As a parent though, I know that wouldn’t stop me from wanting to be with my daughter in this situation.”

“Guys!” Madison cried out, rushing into the room and glancing at Monica, before looking around at all the others. “Something’s wrong with Victoria.”

“What do you mean ‘something’s wrong’?” Chloe asked as she stepped closer. “Something more than her privacy being violated, and her dignity being destroyed on the front page of the newspaper?”

“Yeah, it’s more than that,” Madison told them, swallowing hard. “She’s lost her voice or something.”

“Lost her voice?” Ashley repeated incredulously. “Was she screaming or shouting?”

“No, not like that, she’s not hoarse. It’s like she’s trying to speak, but she can’t make the sounds,” Madison tried to explain before shaking her head and waving them to follow. “It’ll be easier if you just see it for yourselves.”

“I’ll come too,” Monica said, not accepting a refusal, as she turned towards her car. “I’ll be there in a second, I want to get my bag from the car.”

Ashley, Chloe and Kendra hurried down the hall after Madison. Along the way, they bumped into Gavin, who was confused by all the commotion. There wasn’t any time to fully explain, except that Shawn had leaked her photos and now Victoria couldn’t talk. All five piled into the master bedroom, joining Kurt who was already there and standing in a half-circle around Victoria who sat on the bed, white as the sheets and watching her friends, doe-eyed and defenseless.

They asked her questions; simple, small questions like ‘how are you?’ and “what’s your name?”, before moving on to even easier questions that only required ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers, but still Victoria found herself unable to give sound to her voice. Her lips moved but nothing came out, like a goldfish blowing bubbles. She kept trying, trying to whisper, trying to shout, both equally silent, until, despondent, she slumped her shoulders and closed her mouth tightly.

Monica arrived soon after with her medical kit in hand. She set about examining the blonde teen, using a stethoscope to listen to her lungs and heart, but heard nothing out the ordinary. She listened as she made the teen cough, and again, this time with her fingers on Victoria’s glans, checking for swelling or irregularities. Still nothing. She moved on to the teen’s head, first feeling for any lumps or spots of tenderness, watching Victoria’s expression for a reaction in case she couldn’t make a sound. Curiously though she could make some sounds, such as coughing or wincing at the cold of the stethoscope. It was only when it came to words that she seemed to be at a loss.

The doctor continued, checking the pupils and making her open her mouth to show her tonsils and throat. She asked a few rudimentary questions, such as whether she had taken any **** or pills in the last twenty-four hours. However, at the end of the entire examination, the only problem Monica could find was another symptom; a headache.

“I’d need her to come to the hospital for further tests, like an EKG, but I don’t think she’d consent to coming to the clinic,” Monica announced, standing back as she finished. “I don’t expect it would produce any unexpected results anyway. As far as I can tell, Victoria is in perfect health.”

“So, why can’t she speak then?” Kurt asked irritably, annoyed at the failure of modern medicine to fix the issue.

“The only explanation I can offer is that it’s psychological,” Monica replied, looking back at Victoria with a sad grimace. “It’s not my field of expertise, but I’ve heard of cases where shock and trauma can cause the brain to act unusually. It’s not impossible that the language center in her brain shut down to protect itself.”

“This is because you were trying to express yourself and can’t,” Kurt said, as he knelt beside the bed, next to Victoria. “You were finally finding a way through this conflict with your own self-nature and then Shawn does this, and you think it’s a punishment, don’t you?”

She simply looked down at him, staring back with teary green eyes, and not even trying to speak since she knew that it was pointless. He lowered his forehead and rested it on her thighs, the heat of her skin radiating against his face as he, not usually religious but bereft of all other options, prayed.

The others left them, ushered back into the hall by Monica, who, once they were clear of the bedroom, asked, “Do you all know who did this?”

Ashley nodded, “It was a guy called Shawn Lewis.”

“Why do I know that name?” Monica asked herself, seconds before her eyes went wide and she turned to Kendra. “That’s how I recognize you. You were friends with my daughter, Taylor Bishop, weren’t you?”

“I don’t know if I would say we were friends…” Kendra mumbled shyly.

“Well, that’s what she called you,” Monica insisted, making the younger brunette turn red. “Kendra McKenzie, right? You and Shawn both used to hang around Taylor at school. You two, Ashley’s sister Hannah, and…”

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Bishop,” Peter said, the last occupant of the cabin approached from the living room. “Sorry to interrupt, but the police are at the door.”

“Perfect,” Monica declared, fixing her eyes on Ashley. “You need to tell them what you know about Shawn.”

“Um, well, it’s complex though,” Ashley replied, remembering everything Victoria had willingly done for Shawn. “They weren’t really together, I guess he pressured her, but it was consensual, at least according to her.”

“It was definitely a toxic relationship,” Madison agreed before noting, “But they had broken up. Clearly, Shawn didn’t take it well, and distributed these photos to punish her. So, they can definitely nail him under some **** porn laws.”

“They’ll want to talk to her now though, and as we’ve just seen, she’s in no position to speak to anyone, and the added stress won’t be good for her,” Chloe said, as she directed her attention towards Zack’s mother. “Do you have any idea when she might get her voice back?”

Monica shook her head. “Unfortunately, the brain is hard to predict. It all depends on Victoria. It could be days or weeks, or even months or years before she’s able to speak again. If Kurt was right about her struggling to express herself, she might never be able to speak until she addresses that conflict in herself.”

“Well, this is all a moot point anyway,” Peter interjected. “They’re not here for Victoria. They want to speak to you, Ashley.”