Time Warped

By Tracey L. Pacelli

In her Bible-thumping town, Lanie Landry is a teen misfit without a cause. After a tragic accident that kills her adopted mother, Lanie escapes from the hospital where she was admitted for psychological observation. At a service station she accepts shelter from a kindly old woman. The next morning she awakens to find herself in the violent ward

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gypsy Shadow Publishing
• Release date: Mar 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781619505872

Tracey L. Pacelli

Tracey lives atop a beautiful mountain in Asheville, NC, with her talented teen daughter, and her seafaring husband, Daniel, who is a vessel captain. She spends much of her time chasing after their marble-mouthed parrot, Blackie, and King Charles puppy, Oliver Dudley, who is indeed king of their beautiful castle.TIME WARPED is Tracey's first teen novel, but there will most certainly be more to come, she promises, as she looks forward to a long and fruitful relationship with Gypsy Shadow Publishing.Tracey has had extensive face time with the paranormal, as a journalist and editor for PsychicAccess.com. Over the years she's investigated many unusual topics and was Chief Editor for The Psychic Times Newsletter, which she ran for over two years. More recently, she has become an avid student of astrology, and offers readings to friends and family.Her work in the entertainment arena is vast, and includes administrative positions at CBS Networks, HBO, The NBA, New Line Cinema, and The Fifi Oscard Agency. She's also worked in several law firms, in New York and in Charleston, SC. and was even a ballroom dance teacher for a very, very brief time, before she shuffled off to Asheville, NC.Who knows what she'll be up to next. But you are welcome to investigate by checking on her website: www.timewarped.net, following her daily blog, becoming a friend on facebook, or perhaps by reading some of her fan fiction at fanfiction.net. If you're a fellow Gleek, you'll be sure to find her there.

Book preview

Contents

Copyright Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

About the Author

Time Warped

by

Tracey L. Pacelli

All rights reserved

Copyright © September 2011, Tracey L. Pacelli

Cover Art Copyright © 2011, Rachel Pacelli

Gypsy Shadow Publishing

Lockhart, TX

www.gypsyshadow.com

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Gypsy Shadow Publishing.

ISBN: 978-1-61950-587-2

Published in the United States of America

First eBook Edition: September 24, 2011

Dedication

To:

Rachel: my teen muse and cover artist

Daniel: my dashing sea captain and loving partner

Mom, my go-to woman on all things and, more importantly, my attorney

Jackie and Henry: my angel, my jester

Matt, Greg and Steve: my tennis partners in-crime

Jack, Yelena, Tyrone Sloane, Diane, and all my wonderful Pacelli in-laws:

How lucky can a girl be?

Dr. Rosenberg and NIH Gang: I’d willingly give up a spleen to you, if I still had one.

Thanks for saving my life

Thanks to Denise and Charlotte at Gypsy Shadow Publishing for recognizing my genius…

or was it my sense of humor?

Dad, hope you're smiling.

Chapter One

Looking back, I can’t believe a small red box would be my ticket to the Twilight Zone. It was an old fire alarm with its cover half-off, hanging on the wall just beyond a row of lockers. An ancient relic in a worn-out high school, but there was still some magic left in it.

When someone screams Fire, everyone comes running. And when the fire alarm is pulled at school, all hell breaks loose.

For those few frenzied minutes, the flow of everyday life is disrupted. I guess that’s what I was ultimately going for when I pulled the alarm. I wanted shocking change, the kind that leaves permanent marks. And man, did I get it.

The instructions on the box were clear. Pull Down, the handle read. And it even had an arrow, pointing the way. Jolene would later say it was Satan guiding me. I don’t know; maybe she was right. There had definitely been a devil sitting on my shoulder for some time.

Now it was urging me to move forward. The lure of the box had been strong for months; almost an obsession, really. What would it feel like to release the siren? To hear the mad shrieks of chaos, the smattering of running feet in all directions, the pounding of my heart bursting through my chest?

I’d just come from Language Arts class. Nothing important happened. No earth-shaking events to cause the devil to win today. Maybe that’s when the worst happens, when you least expect it. When your guard is down.

I was on my way to my locker, walking slowly in heavy boots, dressed all in black. My Joan Jet raven locks swung loosely down my shoulders in spiral waves. It was a great hair day, and I felt pretty. You know: the kind of pretty that empowers you.

The box called to me. As always, I stared at it, blocking out everyone and everything around me. My locker beckoned only a few feet away. I knew when I reached it, the trance would be broken. I’d open the lock and forget about the box, at least ’til next period. But not today.

I never did reach my locker. I just kept moving forward, faster now, with an urgency that felt inspired. The handle grew larger in my vision, and the arrow became the hero’s journey for me. Pull it, and you’ll be set free, it seemed to say.

Without thinking, I let adrenaline be my guide. The rush fueled my decision, though it never felt like one was ever made. Today, on this most ordinary day, an extraordinary event happened.

I pulled the fire alarm and in doing so, I blew the lid clean off of Pandora’s box. My life was about to change forever.

#

Unfortunately, change doesn’t always come as swiftly as we’d like it to. Punishment most definitely does. While I waited in the principal’s lobby for my mother to arrive, I caught the secretary staring at me. Her repeated sighs and head shakes reeked of judgment. I was withering under her gaze, and needed to compose myself. I asked to go to the bathroom with a P-p-p-please, may I be e-e-e-excused?

The embarrassment spread to flush my skin like poison ivy. I thought my stuttering had gone the way of the dinosaurs. Either my speech teacher lied, or the dinosaurs had not all been eradicated, either.

The secretary denied my bathroom request, and I was forced to stew in my own humiliation. Fortunately I hadn’t long to marinate. My mom, who I’d recently taken to calling Jolene, arrived like Atlas in polyester drag, with the weight of the world resting on her synthetic blend-covered shoulders.

We were unceremoniously ushered into the principal’s inner sanctum, but not before the secretary clucked and mimed her disapproval of me one final time. I could feel myself verbally combusting, but clamped my mouth shut. I was determined to grit my way through this year and next and, upon graduation, leave the Footloose, Bible thumpin’ devotees behind me forever.

Inside Principal Frost’s office, I plopped myself down on an unforgiving wooden seat, feeling trapped in its cushionless confines. Though my body was tethered, my mind roamed free. I was the Harry Houdini of mental escapism.

Jolene shot me dirty looks as Principal Frost belittled me. He was a grotesquely tall man who smelled like embalming fluid. A giant behind a tidy desk. On it, you couldn’t miss the stuffed vulture staring lifelessly. I assumed all taxidermists were closet psychos.

Frost was rifling off the list of my more recent offenses: inappropriate attire, sleeping in class, and smoking clove cigarettes in the boy’s bathroom.

I couldn’t help but goad him as I sat with my ankle crossed over my leg, slyly inching back my sock to reveal the eight-legged tat I secretly inked there last summer. At the sight of it, an unnerving fire burned in Frost’s eyes. I quickly covered up the offending ankle with a hand. As I did so, a terrifying image of Jack and the Beanstalk flashed in my mind’s fertile theatre. I knew another giant, more sly and sinister, sat before me now in the guise of my principal.

Pulling fire alarms is a serious disciplinary violation requiring immediate suspension and possible expulsion, he said. If you want your daughter to continue attending Weaverville High, I’m recommending she be put on Ritalin. If you don’t already have a doctor to prescribe it, I can recommend a good one for you.

I lived in a hick town, but this was positively surreal. Frost wanted to put me on lobotomy drugs. Why not just whip out a scalpel and slice off my frontal lobe right then and there?

From the depths I wailed, Jolene… no…

Unfortunately, the plea stuck in my peanut butter-coated larynx, muffled beyond recognition. My favorite school lunch betrayed me.

Jolene’s lips quivered in holy indignation. Aren’t those drugs for hyperactive children? Lanie has never had a problem learning. You even suggested she skip a grade, remember?

As Jolene babbled on, seemingly unaware of the importance of this life-altering moment, I naively thought I’d been too hard on the woman who raised me. We’d never had anything in common before, and yet here she was fighting toe-to-toe on my side against the giant.

"Of course, I said no to the grade hopping, she continued. It’s my belief kids who are accelerated through the school system suffer socially in the end. You know the type, all brains and no boyfriends."

Jolene was forty and still wired to think only about guys. When would her estrogen-soaked brain ever stop pumping? Come on Jolene, stay on track, I urged telepathically.

Situations change, Mrs. Landry, and this morning’s shenanigans signify trouble, the giant replied.

Though I agree Lanie’s actions warrant punishment, what you’re recommending seems far too drastic, Jolene countered.

Hope waned for me. I needed an offensive linebacker with a titanium backbone, not a jellyfish.

In answer to my call, Jonas, a make-believe ally with moonlit hair and a spiked attitude, popped in to lend support. He came from a place inside my head, where magic could create entire universes. My imaginary, hot rebel sat beside me now, so coolly above it all. He was sticking it to the giant with such a bemused smirk, I nearly burst out laughing.

But no one in my family has ever been to a psychiatrist, Jolene argued, as she wielded her axe at the giant.

I feel I must point out, he said, enunciating each syllable, "Lanie is your adopted child, and we have no way of knowing what runs in her family."

She’s not my real mother. I rolled the phrase around over and over in my brain ’til I felt dizzy. I’d known I was adopted from the start, but it felt different hearing it from the giant.

Jolene was thrown by it too, and her head cocked in a funny way as she said, It’s strange, but I’d nearly forgotten the truth. As an afterthought, she added, Of course, she’s no less a Landry.

The words were touching, but not convincing. Though she sat only inches from me, she seemed beyond my reach.

The giant, sensing weakness, leaned forward in a conspiratorial way, and a familiar chill shimmied up my spine. This was the closer, I was sure of it.

Certainly she’s your child, he said. "No one is disputing your guardianship. But as a mother, you must agree what Lanie needs most right now is the help of the Lord. On His behalf, I appeal to you to get this child the medicine she needs."

Behind Principal Frost’s desk hung a painting of Jesus with a halo lighting the backdrop. I saw Jolene’s eyes fasten on it, and knew instantly hope kicked the bucket with one perfectly placed mention of the Lord.

The giant, as sly as a Fox newsman, reached in his drawer and wrapped his long fingers around a tiny business card. I could see a doctor’s name and phone number displayed in bold Arial font. The card dangled for only a moment before Jolene snatched it up.

Excellent, I’ll let my sister know she’ll be receiving a call from you right away, he said.

His sister? Too shrewd. What a stunning display of nepotism, I thought. Well, if Frost insisted on playing dirty, I’d fight fire with hellfire. My principal, the Lord’s spokesman? I think not. I’ll convince Jolene he worships the devil in secret. No way, in heaven or hell, will I ever go to a shrink’s office.

#

A few days later, I was on my way to the shrink’s office. Round one went to the giant. But the war was not over yet. Today I was desperate and would use any trick to keep from becoming a morbid, stuffed display on the principal’s desk.

Though this first meeting was to be a family session, Jolene opted out. She dropped me off at the front of the office building and sped out of sight, before anyone could possibly identify her distinctive canary-yellow Camry. Maybe her absence was for the best. Jolene’s axe wasn’t sharp enough to lop off the giant’s head, let alone the brainy noggin of a trained psychiatrist.

I entered a waiting room with sparkling floors and a pile of unread magazines. Seemingly out of place in these bright surroundings, a homely old crone with frizzy, blue hair sat behind a receptionist’s desk, observing me through enormous thick lenses. My nose twitched as I got a whiff of her mothball-scented perfume. In a phlegmy voice she warbled something about the doctor not being ready to see me yet.

While I waited, I ran through a list of viable excuses to avoid pharmaceutical poisoning: taking legal action, telling the shrink I had severe drug allergies, and if all else failed, I’d say the Lord told me not to go on Ritalin. Though I was lost in planning my strategy, I could feel the crone’s stare burning a hole in my forehead, and I looked up just as she hissed, She’ll see you now.

On the walk to her office, the office door shrunk to unwelcoming proportions. Terror made my legs heavy as I dragged them along.

Inside, a giant of a different color greeted me with a soft, soothing voice, inviting me to take a seat. This blonde-haired Amazon appeared gentle. But I would not be taken in. The office was light and happy. I detest happy. I saw a comfortable-looking couch, the kind you could sink your body into, and instead chose the straight-backed chair beside it. I needed to remain vigilant.

I’m Doctor Lilith. It’s nice to meet you, Lanie, she said.

Hearing her name, I instantly felt betrayed by it. Lilith was a dark moon goddess I’d adored since birth. Would this shrink turn me against everything I loved? All at once, I felt doomed and desperate. The Lord said he doesn’t want me on Ritalin! I hastily declared. There went my last-ditch excuse.

Her quick assessment unnerved me as she took in my raven hair, black fringed jacket and jeans. I dressed right out of the medieval catalogue for my appointment with death.

I see you like goth, she said. I waited for the inevitable scowl to follow, but it never came. This lady was good; and apparently not at all moved by my ridiculous outburst.

Doctor Lilith delved into her alligator bag, deftly removed a photo and handed it to me. It was of herself—as a teen—in full goth regalia.

All my carefully laid plans to hate her on sight were now suddenly up for review. I’m not a goth, I explained. I wanted her to know there was more to me than she knew. Was it was possible there may have been more to her, too?

I see. You prefer not to be pigeon-holed, she said.

I don’t see the point in assigning labels.

She nodded, approvingly. Nor do I. Please forgive me.

Did the giant’s sister just apologize? Maybe this was all part of a game to lull me into a false sense of safety. I get it, I said, You’re trying to relate to me.

That’s what dialoguing is all about. If I can come to understand you better, we might find a way to avoid medication, she said.

But you’re a shrink. Isn’t prescribing drugs what you do for a living? I challenged.

Are you the one assigning labels now? she answered, with an ease that threw me.

So, if you’re not going to disembowel me, what then? I asked.

I’m going to help you. Aptitude tests aside, it’s plainly evident you’re a bright girl in search of an identity. But every time you assert your independence, some authority figure slaps you back down. Am I correct in my assessment of you?

It was like she was seeing through to my soul. I should’ve lined my jacket with lead. It’s possible you’re somewhat right about me, I conceded.

"You know, Lanie, I can see a lot of myself in you. I was raised by a mother who didn’t get me, and was tortured by a brother who always was, and still is, holier than thou."

Sounds to me like you resent your brother, I said.

For a moment, Doctor Lilith’s face went blank. Then she regained her composure and smiled. No, Lanie; I actually love my brother, despite our differences.

Instant guilt, the kind mothers sprinkle over their kid’s morning cereal, filled me with uncharacteristic remorse. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest Principal Frost is your enemy, I said.

Forget it. I admire your gumption, Lanie. But I do think our time would be better served if you allow me to be the psychiatrist and you the patient.

After one of those thoughtful pauses, the kind to make you scratch a sudden