A Deadly Fortune

by Stacie Murphy

  Someone was pulling her away. “Amelia?”

  Elizabeth. Elizabeth had her. Good.

  “The fire,” Amelia said, her voice rough and low. “We’ll burn. We have to get out—”

  Another step back and the heat and smoke were gone. Amelia shivered in the sudden chill and dragged in a lungful of blessedly clear air. She blinked, her eyes still tearing. Her throat felt scratched and raw as her eyes darted around the ward, seeking the blaze that had been there only an instant before. There was nothing.

  Elizabeth was still holding her by the arm, leading her back to the cots, her face worried. The woman who’d given her the bun—now crushed into a doughy mass in her hand—appeared momentarily alarmed before seemingly deciding such behavior was to be overlooked in a madhouse. She turned to another patient and dipped her hand back into the basket. Mrs. Brennan’s eyes followed Amelia and Elizabeth as they retreated, but when they made no further disturbance, she seemed to dismiss them.

  Elizabeth led her to the cot beside Janey. “Here.” Elizabeth handed the girl the bun before turning to Amelia. “Lie down for a moment.”

  “I’m fine,” Amelia said, shaking and embarrassed. She tried to pull away, but Elizabeth held firm.

  “You’re not fine. You’ve gone white. Lie down. What was that about a fire?”

  Weak at the knees and abruptly exhausted, Amelia submitted. “It’s nothing,” she lied as tears slipped from her eyes. She brushed them away with the back of the hand holding her own mangled bun. “I don’t know what happened. I…” She forced herself to stop talking before she said more. Before she blurted out what she’d seen and what she feared it might mean. Perhaps she should speak. Probably she should. But the warning of a madwoman would mean nothing. Mrs. Brennan would punish her for it. Elizabeth would believe her no better than any of the others who raved and shouted. They all would. And perhaps she was wrong. She had to be wrong.

  She lay on the cot until the visitors left, unable to look at them again. Elizabeth sat with her. Amelia fell asleep with the destroyed bun in one hand and Elizabeth’s hand in the other.

  * * *

  Two days later, Amelia and Elizabeth reentered the ward after Promenade to find a pair of nurses poring over a newspaper.

  “It was the whole family?” one asked as they neared.

  “Yes. I can hardly believe it,” the other replied. “That pretty young girl, here just two days ago, then gone like that.”

  “How did it start?”

  “The furnace, they think. It was in the basement. Whole house went up in the middle of the night.”

  Amelia stopped in her tracks, her blood gone cold.

  An angry shriek at the other end of the ward attracted the nurses’ attention, and they left their paper on the desk. Almost against her will, Amelia picked it up, the blaring headline leaping out at her: OVERNIGHT BLAZE KILLS FAMILY OF SIX.

  Amelia tore her eyes away from the words, sickened. She had known. Not exactly what was going to happen, but enough. She should have said something. Tears pricked at her eyelids.

  She lifted her gaze to find Elizabeth frowning at the newspaper. After a moment, she looked at Amelia, her expression thoughtful.

  “You saw it,” Elizabeth said. “You knew.”

  Amelia hesitated. “Some of it.”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  Amelia nodded. Elizabeth said nothing, plainly waiting for more. Amelia swallowed. Here was what she’d been trying to avoid. She put down the paper and made her way to a relatively quiet spot along the wall. Elizabeth followed. When they’d seated themselves on the bench, Amelia related her story. How she and Jonas had always used her modest abilities, how things changed after her injury, and how she’d come to be in the asylum. It was a relief to finally tell someone.

  Elizabeth was silent as she finished.

  “I’m not mad,” Amelia insisted after a moment. “You have to believe me.”

  “I do,” Elizabeth said finally. “I wouldn’t if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. But I did see it. So no, I don’t believe you’re mad.”

  Amelia sagged in relief.

  “Why do they call you Carolina?”

  Amelia explained about the cloak. “I tried to tell the nurses that first day, but my head ached so, and I decided it didn’t matter. So I stopped trying.”

  Elizabeth laughed, and the sound was bitter. “It wouldn’t have mattered even if you’d kept on.”

  “Anne Fox?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “My name is Elizabeth Miner, but I gave up arguing about it months ago.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “More than a year.”

  “A year,” Amelia repeated, dizzy with horror at the idea. “Why? How did it happen?”

  “It happened because I am a very great fool.” Elizabeth looked away for a moment before she continued. “A bit over two years ago, I met Daniel Miner at a dinner party. He was very charming. Very polished. He began courting me. Around that same time, my father became ill. My mother died when I was a child, so it was just the pair of us. I used to go to his law office to help him. He called me his best assistant.” A smile flickered across her face at the memory before her expression sobered.

  Janey wandered over and sat on the floor, leaning against Elizabeth’s legs. Elizabeth stroked the girl’s hair.

  “Looking back, I think he’d been ill for some time and had been hiding it,” she continued. “He’d seemed tired for several months, but he brushed it off whenever I mentioned it. He never wanted me to worry. But whatever the truth of it, the doctors said there was nothing to be done. Father had a few months at most.”

  “I’m sorry,” Amelia said.

  Elizabeth gave her a small smile. “Thank you. It was a horrible time.” She shook her head. “I could blame the circumstances for what happened next, but it’s my own fault. I confided in Daniel, and he shocked me by proposing marriage. He said he knew it was sudden, but he’d already made up his mind and had only been waiting to speak for propriety’s sake. He suggested we marry as soon as possible—it would give my father comfort to know I was taken care of, and if we waited, it would be a year or more before we could marry, since I would be in mourning.

  “And, Daniel pointed out, once my father was gone, I wouldn’t be able to live in the house without a chaperone. I’d have to find an older woman to come stay with me. I couldn’t bear the thought of having some stranger in my home. It hadn’t occurred to me yet,” she added in a sardonic tone, “that Daniel was still essentially a stranger.

  “I should have seen what he was,” Elizabeth said, “but I was grieving, and lonely, and so tired with caring for Father. Father gave his permission, and we married at once.” She paused and looked away for a moment before continuing. “Father died only a few weeks later. He’d left everything to me. Not a fortune, but a comfortable estate, and all in my name. I let Daniel manage things. I’d been accustomed to Father looking after the money for me, so it felt natural for Daniel to do it. But only a few months in, Daniel suggested we sell the house. I refused. I’d lived there my whole life. He argued. It worried me, his insistence. It woke me up. I looked at our accounts.”

  Amelia grimaced, already knowing what was coming.

  Elizabeth caught the look. “Yes. He’d gone through the money like water. He’d presented himself as well-off, but he brought in almost nothing. Everything was purchased on credit. There were bills from the tailor, the wine merchant. We didn’t even own my wedding ring outright. The house was the only thing left. I confronted him, and we quarreled.

  “He insisted we sell the house. I told him he could insist all he liked, but it was in my name, and I would never consent to selling my home to dig him out of a mess of his own making. He alternated between railing at me and sulking for weeks, but I didn’t budge.”

  “Good for you,” Amelia said.

  “Perhaps not, given what happened next. Daniel came home one evening acting as if nothing had ever hap
pened. Kissed me on the cheek and said not to worry, he’d handled everything. The next week was the nicest since we were first married. He was so thoughtful. He brought me tea in bed every morning.” The next words were precise, almost bitten off. “The last morning, it was quite bitter. He apologized for making it so strong and brought more sugar. I drank it. I fell asleep. And I woke up here, with everyone calling me Anne. I didn’t have any idea what had happened. I thought at first there had been some terrible mistake. I hadn’t realized what Daniel had done.”

  “The tea?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “He’d laced it with laudanum. I realized it the first time they dosed me here. We’d never kept it at home—my father didn’t like it—so I didn’t recognize the taste. I was here for a week before I saw a doctor. I thought when I explained—”

  “That they’d let you go home.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “But Dr. Klafft—he was the doctor I saw—said my file stated I was unmarried. He said my insistence that it was wrong was a sign of my illness. He said I was suffering from the Old Maid’s Disease. That I wanted to be married so much I imagined I was. It had disordered my mind.”

  “Of course,” Amelia said with a disgusted roll of her eyes. “And so you stopped trying?”

  “Not completely. There was another doctor—Dr. Blounton—who I think might have tried to help me. But he died only a short time after we’d begun speaking. None of the others seemed likely to listen. For a time, I hoped Daniel meant to teach me a lesson, that he’d come for me after a few weeks. I’d have agreed to sell the house by then. I would have agreed to anything he wanted. But he never came.”

  Amelia opened her mouth to say something comforting, though she had no idea what.

  Before she could speak, a nurse entered, holding a list and pushing a cart full of files. Mrs. Brennan followed, a scowl already creasing her wide face.

  “Patients will move to the left side of the room!” the nurse shouted. “When your name has been called, you will sit and wait until the head count is finished.”

  The weekly head count was a tedious exercise at the best of times, and Mrs. Brennan’s malevolent presence would hardly improve it. Amelia stood. Elizabeth tried, but Janey, still on the floor beside her, flung her arms around Elizabeth’s legs.

  “Janey dear, it’s time to get up.” Elizabeth untangled the girl’s arms with some effort.

  Janey resisted, a mulish expression on her face.

  “Please? For me?” Elizabeth tried again.

  Amelia cast a quick glance at Mrs. Brennan and found the woman looking at them through narrowed eyes. Her mood seemed even more sour than usual. Amelia tried to help Elizabeth pull Janey to her feet, but the girl remained obstinate.

  Mrs. Brennan strode toward them. Janey went still, her face blank and her mouth dropping open in a wide O of fear. Mrs. Brennan took the girl by the arm and yanked her to her feet.

  Janey went wild, struggling to pull away and making fearful, wordless noises. One of her flailing hands caught Mrs. Brennan with a glancing blow on the cheek.

  The matron’s reaction was immediate. She fisted one hand in Janey’s hair and swung her around, clouting her about the face and shoulders with the other. The girl cowered and tried to cover her head with her hands. A wet patch spread on the front of her dress, and the sharp smell of urine wafted through the air. With a noise of disgust, Mrs. Brennan threw her to the floor. Janey landed at Elizabeth’s and Amelia’s feet.

  Elizabeth bent to help her as Mrs. Brennan aimed a sharp kick at the girl. Her foot connected with Elizabeth’s ribs instead, and Elizabeth let out a surprised oof of pain.

  Amelia helped her friend to her feet, then looked at Mrs. Brennan. Something of her feelings must have shown on her face. Mrs. Brennan casually raised her arm and dealt Amelia a backhanded slap.

  She spun and fell, and the side of her face struck the edge of the wooden bench where they’d been sitting. Agony flared white-hot across her cheek. She thought she cried out, but perhaps it was only in her mind. She heard the nurse’s voice from somewhere far away, garbled words Amelia heard only as an echo, understood only after they ended.

  “I’ve no time for any more nonsense. Get them out of here and get on with it.”

  11

  Some unmeasurable time later, Amelia opened her eyes to find she was back in her cell on the third floor. She had an instant to wonder where Elizabeth and Janey were before the pain roared to life and drove every other thought from her mind. Her face throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and she reached up with careful, shaking fingers to touch it. Her cheek was puffy, and the eye above it was nearly swollen shut. Hurt like quicksilver ran in channels down into her jaw and up around her eye.

  Her stomach roiled, and she fought not to be sick, afraid even to imagine what it would feel like in her current state. Finally, the nausea receded. With exquisite care, Amelia eased herself over, laying the uninjured side of her face on the mattress. Mara’s familiar sobbing echoed through the hall. In the cell beside Amelia’s, the haggard woman called for her cat. Amelia stared at the wall, counting her breaths and watching the light fade.

  When the evening meal arrived, she slid the tray toward herself with desperate hope. She dipped her little finger in the mug of water and watched a droplet dance on the tip before she touched it to her tongue. Bitter. She nearly wept with relief. She tipped the vessel to her mouth and drank, one tiny sip at a time. She consumed most of the cup and lay back, closing her eyes and waiting for the angry little darts to stop shooting through her head.

  As night came on, Amelia fell into a stuttering sleep, skipping in and out of consciousness like a stone across a pond, bodiless and floating between jolts of hurt.

  Trapped somewhere in the space between dream and waking, she ran across a foggy plain, her chest heaving, pursued by apparitions she knew were there but could not see. She was safe in her cell, but something caught her and dug its claws into her face. She fought a damp, clinging creature shaped like the blanket covering her. She thrust it away and shivered in her victory. Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside the cell, and Amelia let out a soundless scream of terror. She fled as their echoes died behind her.

  She blinked. A towering being cloaked in mist stood at her door. It floated, then melted away with a metallic shriek. Clouds passed over the moon. A shadow thinned and lengthened across the floor. A threat swelled in the air, and Amelia tried to call out a warning, but the drug stole her voice. The words died in her throat. Something rustled. There was a flutter in the air like a halting exhalation. It brushed past her face with a whisper.

  A distant, lucid sliver of her mind chattered, trying to be heard. There was something here to be marked, it said. Something significant. Amelia sought to follow the thread, to track the feathered thing through the air, but it turned to smoke, dwindled, and vanished. She let go of the thought with regret as she floated away again.

  In the morning, cries of alarm from the hallway roused Amelia from a fitful doze. She wrapped herself in the blanket and wobbled to the door, her head pounding, the deep ache in her cheek already promising another day’s misery. Dull and listless, Amelia leaned her forehead against the cold bars. She watched as a stretcher was carried from the cell beside hers, bearing a still form wrapped in a gray blanket, the ragged stuffed cat perched on top. As it was borne away, something tickled at the back of her mind—the nagging unease of something important, forgotten.

  12

  Jonas pushed away from the tree he’d been leaning against and took a final pull from his cigarette, the burning end bright in the predawn darkness. He tossed the last inch to the ground and gave it an emphatic grind with his heel. The things tasted like death, and he was heartily sick of pretending to smoke them. But most of the other orderlies smoked, and along with a brief break for lunch, these twice-a-shift gatherings were the only time they clustered away from the eyes of their supervisors.

  It was worth it. He’d found her.

  Jonas had stayed
clear of his and Amelia’s apartment for the better part of two days after stalking away in the wake of their argument. When he came back, something crunched beneath his feet as he walked through the door—shattered bits of crystal, some ground to powder under his shoes. He frowned, recalling the crash he heard as he left. It wasn’t like Amelia to leave a mess sitting for so long.

  It was the work of a moment to determine she was not in the apartment. Alarmed, he crossed the yard to the club to ask if anyone had seen her. No one had. He went back to the apartment and sat fidgeting, hoping she would return. By nightfall he was certain: something had happened. He considered the possibilities. All were terrifying.

  Jonas spent a long and sleepless night making a list of places Amelia might plausibly have gone; every shop she liked, every café. There weren’t many, and the next morning he set out to check them. He found where she’d eaten the day they fought, but no one had noticed where she’d gone afterward.

  The following morning, he placed an advertisement in the newspaper with her description and the offer of a reward. He was struck, when he went to the newspaper office, by how routine his request seemed. The clerk barely looked up from his form as he wrote the instruction. How many people disappeared in this city without ever being found? He suspected the number would appall him and promised himself that, whatever it took, Amelia would not be added to the tally. He would bring her home. The vow sounded pretty in his head, but it didn’t help with the strangled panic thrashing in his chest.

  He inquired at every police station and hospital in Manhattan. When he found nothing, he steeled himself and checked the morgues. God save me from ever having to do such a thing again, he thought as he trudged home afterward. The things he’d seen would stay with him forever. He bathed twice afterward, but the smell, or the memory of it, clung to him like a fog.

  It was all the more difficult because he was facing it alone. Sidney delayed his trip—twice—hoping Jonas would be able to go with him, but he couldn’t delay it a third time without a good reason. Sidney’s male lover’s psychic sort-of sister being missing didn’t precisely qualify. He offered to find some excuse, some reason to stay, but there hadn’t been anything Sidney could do. Jonas finally told him to go, unable to avoid a pang of regret and feeling immediately guilty for it. He thought he would be too busy to miss Sidney once he left, and for the most part he was, though in Jonas’s rare quiet moments—the in-between moments—he was aware of a particular strain of loneliness he’d never known before. Sidney cabled once a week, asking for updates. For far too long, Jonas had nothing to tell him.