It happened like this.

I have a renewable prescription for my fear pills, which basically means that instead of having to make an appointment with the Doc every time I need more Moloxetine, Mum or Shirley just hands in a duplicate prescription slip at the pharmacy in town. The pharmacy then sends it to the Doc’s office to be authorized, a doctor signs it (not necessarily the Doc), then it goes back to the pharmacy and they get it ready for collection. Each time it’s picked up I get a new prescription slip for another month’s worth of Moloxetine, and three weeks later, the process starts all over again.

We have to allow two working days to get the prescription, and we always put the request in at least a week before I’m due to run out of pills, so even if there is some kind of holdup, I still have enough Moloxetine to keep me going.

On the day before Christmas Eve (Thursday), I had six pills left of my last prescription, and another full bottle that Mum had picked up the week before. So I had more than enough pills to get me through Christmas and into the New Year, and there shouldn’t have been anything to worry about. And there wasn’t . . .

Until I opened the new bottle.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and I was in my bathroom, taking my third pill of the day. While I was there, I thought I might as well transfer the last six tablets to the new bottle. So I took it off the shelf, opened it up, and was just about to empty the old bottle into it when something caught my eye. The pills . . . the pills in the new bottle . . . they didn’t look right. I looked closer, peering into the bottle. The pills in there were small and yellow, like Moloxetine, but they weren’t quite the same. They were just a bit too small, a bit too yellow.

Unless . . .

Unless.

Maybe the pills had been redesigned. Maybe the company that makes Moloxetine had decided it was time to give them a new look. It was possible, wasn’t it? It didn’t make much sense to me — what’s the point of redesigning a pill? — but it wasn’t out of the question.

I looked at the label on the bottle. I couldn’t make out the writing at first because my hand was shaking so much — as was the rest of me — and the only way I could read the label was by putting the bottle down on the counter beside the sink and leaning in close to it.

The wording on the label was exactly the same as it always is.

168 Moloxetine 50 mg Tabs

Take ONE six times a day

I picked up the bottle again and shakily tipped out a couple of pills onto the counter. Now that they were out of the brown glass bottle it was even more obvious how different they were. The yellow was totally wrong. And although they were only a bit smaller than they should be, their overall shape was nothing like my usual pills. My usual pills are kind of saucer-shaped. These were much flatter, like little disks.

I was still clinging to the possibility that there was nothing to worry about, that these pills were just the same old Moloxetine with a brand-new look, but even as I leaned down over the counter for a really close look at the pills I’d tipped out, I knew I was just clutching at straws.

I could feel the truth inside me, and it didn’t feel good.

And when I read the brand name printed on the new tablets, my gut feeling was confirmed.

Mectazone, it said.

Not Moloxetine.

Mectazone.

I straightened up and took a few steadying breaths, trying unsuccessfully to control my racing heart, then I went over to my desk, opened my laptop, and googled “mectazone.”

Mectazone, Wikipedia said, is a proton pump inhibitor that decreases the amount of acid in the stomach. Mectazone is used to treat symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease . . .

I didn’t know what a “proton pump inhibitor” was, and I didn’t know what “gastroesophageal reflux disease” was either, but it didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. The only thing that mattered was that these pills, all 168 of them, weren’t Moloxetine. I’d been given the wrong prescription. Which meant that I only had six fear pills left.

Six . . .

Enough to last me until this time tomorrow.

I could feel it now . . .

The beast.

Deep inside me.

I could feel it beginning to stir.

Mum couldn’t believe it when I told her what had happened.

“They’re supposed to check it, for God’s sake,” she said, glaring at the bottle in her hand. “In fact, it’s supposed to be checked twice, by two people. Look . . .”

She showed me the label, pointing out two little boxes in the top right-hand corner. One was marked DISP, the other CH. Both boxes had been initialed; both sets of initials were different.

“They’ve both initialed to say they checked it,” Mum went on, getting angrier by the second, “but they can’t have, otherwise they would have spotted the mistake.” She shook her head again. “It’s unbelievable . . . it really is. I mean, what if you hadn’t noticed? What if you’d started taking the wrong medication? God knows what could have happened . . .”

She was right, of course. It was unbelievable, and it was perfectly natural for her to be angry. But one of the things about fear that makes it so powerful is that it totally overwhelms everything else — other feelings, other emotions — and although I was angry too, my fear was a hundred times stronger. The fear of running out of pills. The fear of fear itself. The fear of the beast.

So all I cared about then — as Mum carried on ranting and cursing — the only thing I was thinking about, was getting more Moloxetine.

I had six pills left.

It was Christmas Eve tomorrow. After that, the pharmacy would be closed for two days. If I didn’t get a new prescription by this time tomorrow . . .

No.

It was too gut-wrenching to think about.

“Mum?” I said.

Her eyes were still burning with anger as she turned to me, but almost immediately she recognized the look on my face — the look of fear — and she knew at once what I needed her to do.

“I’ll call the pharmacy right now,” she said. “We’ll get this figured out, okay?”

“Right,” she said, after she’d called the pharmacy, “I’ve spoken to the senior pharmacist, and everything’s all right. She was very apologetic about the mistake, and they’re going to give us a new prescription for Moloxetine.”

The snarl of the beast immediately began to fade.

I could still hear it though.

Just as I could hear the slight hesitation in Mum’s voice. It sounded to me like there was a “but” or a “however” coming.

And I was right.

“The only thing is,” Mum went on, “the pharmacy has to physically see the wrongly issued bottle of pills before they can give us a new prescription. Which means I’m going to have to go down there this afternoon.”

“Yeah, but you’re going to have to go down to pick up the new prescription anyway, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes . . . but not today.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

“They don’t have any Moloxetine in stock. They checked with the other local pharmacies, but none of them have any either. So they had to put in an emergency order for it.” Mum paused, giving me a worried look. I could feel the blood draining from my skin, and I guessed she could see it. “It’s okay, love,” she said, putting her arms around me. “It’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning.”

Yeah, but what if it’s not? I couldn’t help thinking. What if the delivery van gets stuck in the snow or breaks down or something? What if the driver gets sick, or the van crashes? What if I don’t get my pills tomorrow?

“Everything’s going to be fine, Elliot,” Mum said, quietly but firmly. She put her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “I know this is really hard for you, but you will get your prescription tomorrow. You have enough Moloxetine for today, don’t you?”

“Yeah . . .”

“And enough for tomorrow morning.”

I nodded.

“Trust me,” she said. “It’s going to be all right. Okay?”

I nodded again.

It was all I could do.

Whenever Mum has to go out, she normally asks Shirley or the Doc to stay in the house with me. But that afternoon, they were both unavailable. Shirley was in York, doing some last-minute Christmas shopping, and the Doc was out of the country. Once a year, he does volunteer work overseas, providing medical care wherever it’s needed. This time he was helping out in a refugee camp in Lebanon. He usually stays away for at least a month, so he wouldn’t be back until the end of January.

“I’ll be okay on my own, Mum,” I told her.

“Are you sure?”

“You won’t be long, will you?”

She shook her head. “Half an hour at the most.”

“I’ll be okay.”

I stayed in my room while Mum drove down to the pharmacy to show them the wrong bottle of pills.

I wasn’t okay.

I could feel the beast pacing around in its cage now.

Its moment was coming.

It was ready . . .

Ready and waiting.

In twenty-four hours, it would have me.

I couldn’t think about it. All I could do was lie on my bed, curled up into a ball, with Ellamay curled up beside me.