by Ilana Waters
Maybe that was why, sometimes, I’d catch Mother and Father exchanging worried glances over me. Or they’d have hushed, late-night conversations where I’d overhear my name. They never did such things when it came to my brother or sister. But I never thought I’d done anything that warranted being hauled off to an asylum.
I could only assume they knew something I didn’t. Was my strangeness destined to morph into madness, or worse? If it was, why hadn’t they at least told me, so I could prepare for or prevent it? Was it because there was no way of doing so? The uncertainty only made it all the more dreadful. Maybe when Aurora started talking to animals, they decided something had to be done about me before it was too late.
Anyway, it was pointless to ruminate on it too much. I had more pressing matters of survival at hand, like eating. Pity the garden wasn’t alive; otherwise, I might have found something edible in it. But nothing grew there that I could put in my mouth, unless I wished to feast on dead vines. Though they did look a little greener every time I visited, which was odd. I’d heard of gardens blooming again in the spring, but not dead plants coming back to life. Unless, of course, I was reanimating them.
There were other odd occurrences during the week of my confinement. For instance, I had the strangest dreams imaginable. I mean, I’d always had vivid dreams. Some I dreaded, and some were so beautiful I dreaded waking. But recently, my dreams were no longer of my earlier days at the asylum. Instead, they showed me the moon, the ocean, and the tides. I couldn’t remember the dreams exactly, but they seemed to consist of places I’d been, past lives I’d had.
It was funny; though most people described their dreams as being illogical, incoherent, I always felt there was an order below the chaos. I rarely had nightmares. Although some of my dreams were unpleasant, I always knew they were nothing to be afraid of. Sometimes, I dreamed of Dym swimming underwater, all wavy dark hair and supple limbs. It was terribly vexing. By slipping just underneath my awareness, he’d found a way to irritate me even when he wasn’t there.
I managed to disguise the door to the secret staircase by hanging an old sheet over it. It was a good thing, too, because one of the junior nurses almost discovered the door when she came to end my isolation.
“What’s this bedspread doin’ ’angin’ up ’ere?” She went to pull it aside.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” I blurted out. “There’s a hole in the roof. You never know when a wild animal might get in and bite you.”
The nurse yanked her hand back and stepped away from the sheet. “I don’t fancy bein’ bitten, I don’t. But tsk! Puttin’ an ’ole in the roof? That’s destruction of property, that is. Dr. Catron’s property.”
“I didn’t put the hole in the roof,” I said indignantly. “It was there when I got here. Why would I put a hole in the roof?”
The nurse tsked again. “You askin’ the wrong nurse, girlie. Why would you loonies do anythin’?”
I was fairly certain the staff wouldn’t be interested in repairing the fictional hole, and I was right. As I dutifully followed the nurse down the garret steps for the first time in a week, I knew my secret was safe, at least for a while. Unfortunately, things hadn’t changed for the better at Silver Hill while I’d been “gone.” Not that I expected them to.
I met up with Rose and Laura in time for late-morning lessons. “Seluna!” Laura cried hoarsely when she saw me. She waved her hand hard back and forth. Rose broke into a smile and accidentally kicked the empty wooden chair in front of her. Fortunately, they were both sitting at the back, so Nurse Cutter at the head of the classroom didn’t notice their outbursts.
As I slid next to Rose on the triple row of seats, I noticed that both she and Laura looked a bit paler, their hair duller. Even Rose’s curls seemed limper. I pushed my satchel full of lessons under my part of the seat. I’d put the book I found in the stairwell in with them, hoping to have a free moment later to sneak a look at it.
“We were so worried for you!” Rose whispered.
“We thought they put you in the Hold,” Laura said.
I leaned my head towards her. “No, they just locked me in my room.”
“In that freezing attic?” Rose asked. “Crikey, that’s nearly as bad!”
“And all on account of me,” said Laura. Now, she looked as if she was about to cry.
“Don’t.” I took a handkerchief out of my satchel and handed it to her. “It was not your fault. I’m only sorry I got caught and couldn’t reach your aunt. I don’t think we should try that again. It’s too big a risk.” The comment was intended for both of them, but I was looking at Rose. “Say, why didn’t they put me in the Hold?”
“Many girls, only a few rooms in the Hold,” Rose explained. “I suppose those rooms were occupied. Sad to say, but they usually are.”
I was very tempted to tell the girls about the secret staircase, Dym, and the garden. But it was probably a bad idea. They might try to sneak into the passage, or out to see Dym. It was safer if they didn’t know. Another part of me—a more selfish one—wanted to keep it all my own little secret, especially Dym. And there he is in my thoughts again.
Nurse Cutter was writing something on the blackboard. From the sharp, forceful way she moved the chalk, I presumed she wasn’t happy about it. Staff here often had to pull double duty, fulfilling whatever roles Dr. Catron saw fit to assign. I doubted Cutter had any real teaching credentials. I wasn’t even sure she had nursing credentials. The chalk made a terrible screeching sound as her hand went up and down.
“Did you move anything while you were in your room?” Laura whispered.
“Move anything?” I squinted to see what Cutter was writing, but her large body blocked my view. “No, I keep the furniture where it is. There really isn’t that much of it.” I stopped trying to see the board and turned my head to Rose, who was giving me a look.
“No, she means move anything.” Rose lowered her voice. “Like, you know . . .”
It finally dawned on me. Curse this daytime mental fog. “Oh, as in . . . no.” I didn’t mention reanimating the vine, because it would have involved mentioning the garden, and possibly Dym.
“Maybe you can do it for us later,” Laura said breathlessly. Her eyes shone, and she looked more excited than I’d seen her in a while. “If we get some time to ourselves.”
“Yeah. Did you ever think your powers might be our ticket out of here, Seluna?” Rose asked. “You could use them to pick a lock or something.”
“Rose, even if I managed to work that trick long enough to unlock the front door, we’d step out into nothing but a frozen wasteland. How would we get from there to someplace livable? Trust me, I’ve thought about it enough to—”
“Pay attention, Seluna!” I hadn’t even noticed Nurse Cutter staring darkly at me. “No extraneous conversation! Out of solitary for all of one ’our and already you’re makin’ trouble. You’d better start shapin’ up, unless you want to go crazy the way your sister did.”
There were a few giggles around the room, and I willed myself not to blush. Why did Cutter have to say that? And how does she know? Maybe she saw it in my file. She gave me one last glare and went back to writing on the board.
“Is that why you were admitted?” Laura asked, her voice even softer than before. “Because of hereditary madness?”
I closed my eyes. “I think so. Or something like that.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re mad.” Rose’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Though I can see now why you didn’t tell us the reason you’re here. Family reputation and all.”
“Ah, yes.” I nodded quickly, opening my eyes. “That’s it exactly. Family reputation.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Laura reached across Rose, slipped her hand into mine, and gave it a squeeze. “Every family has problems.”
But not every family uses them as excuses to banish their daughter, I thought. But I said nothing of this, and just squeezed Laura’s ha
nd back. “You are too kind,” I murmured. She really was.
“All right, everyone, eyes to the front.” Cutter put down her chalk. “We ’ave a treat for you today. We’re goin’ to read and discuss books.” She indicated the blackboard, where she had written “Appropriate Lessons for Young Ladies.”
“Not just textbooks, mind you, but actual fiction. These books was all written by Dr. Catron ’imself,” she said reverently. “So you know they’s going to be very, very special.”
The girls broke into excited titters. Books! We hadn’t been allowed to bring or read books during our entire stay at Silver Hill. But our enthusiasm was quickly squashed when we realized the type of books Cutter had in mind. Each short story we went over was about a different girl who bucked convention and did what she wanted with her life. In the end, each met with ruin and disgrace. I wondered if Catron spent a long time writing these volumes, or just dashed them off in his spare time for the joy of it.
We were done reviewing the stories and were starting to pack up for lunch when one girl raised her hand. I didn’t recognize her; she must have been a new admission who arrived while I was in isolation.
“Excuse me, Nurse Cutter, but when is music class?”
There were a few murmurs from the others, and I saw Rose frown. This girl was definitely new.
“Music class?” Cutter’s eyebrows shot up. “There’s no music class at Silver ’ill!”
“But when will I practice my violin . . .?” The girl’s voice trailed off.
Cutter stared at her. “We cannot ’ave you girls listenin’ to or performin’ music. It might lead to your feelin’ things, or gettin’ ideas.”
“What a Greek tragedy that would be,” I muttered.
“I’ll ’ave to make a note of this in your case file for Dr. Catron.” Cutter shook her head. “Now, all of you—line up for lunch. Quickly!” she barked, and everyone rushed to collect their things.
As I hurried to put papers in my satchel, the book I’d found slid out and onto the floor. I managed to jam it back in, but not before Rose and Laura spotted it.
“What’s that, Seluna?” Laura asked.
“Seluna, do you have a book?” Rose’s eyes darted back and forth, watching for Nurse Cutter.
“A real book?” Laura’s jaw dropped.
“Let’s see it!” Rose breathed.
Blast. I was caught. There’d be no hiding it from them now.
“I’ll tell you at lunchtime,” I said, then put my finger to my lips.
#
“Where did you find it?” Laura sat hunched over the circular wooden table where the three of us had gathered to eat. Rose was on my other side. She was also hunched over to obscure the view of the contraband in my lap. With its tiny windows and dark, paneled walls, the room resembled a tavern—or even a dungeon—more than an asylum cafeteria.
“Ah, near the garret,” I replied. It was half-true, at least. And although I’d gone back over the stairs thoroughly on my hands and knees with a candle, I still hadn’t found anything other than the mysterious book.
“It says ‘Property of Queen . . .’ ” Rose squinted at the faded inscription, but had as much trouble reading it as I did. “ ‘Queen Sophia,’ et cetera. Who’s Queen Sophia?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know.” I couldn’t remember if we’d studied Queen Sophia in history class. Looking over my shoulder, I could see the nurse/cafeteria monitor directing girls to bring their empty trays up to the lunch window. Mealtime was nearly over. We’d already deposited our trays, so hopefully the monitor wouldn’t be back this way.
“Wow, a queen?” murmured Laura. “Like a real queen?”
Rose bent her head to get closer to Laura, making her curls bob up and down. “No, like a fake queen.”
Laura ignored Rose, running her fingers over the book’s cover. “I heard Silver Hill used to be the royal palace,” she mused. “It was where Hartlandia’s kings and queens lived in ancient times.”
“I think that’s just a myth,” I said. Like the story about my name.
“Who cares who it’s by?” said Rose excitedly. “What’s in it? Is it a diary?” She carefully pulled back the cover, but couldn’t read the first few pages.
“Hey, is this Old Hartlandian?”
“Some of it is,” I explained. Then, after another moment, “I know a little.”
“What does it say?” the girls asked in unison.
I kept turning the pages, trying to find something Rose or Laura might recognize. “Well, my Old Hartlandian isn’t the best, and there are a lot of pages missing. So, it’s hard to tell exactly what the book contains. But I think it’s a grimoire.”
Rose’s brow furrowed. “A grim what?”
“That sounds scary,” Laura said.
“It’s not, really,” I said. “It’s sort of a cross between a witch’s diary and a recipe book.”
“A recipe book?” Laura cocked her head. “What do witches cook?”
Rose made a fist and lightly bopped Laura on the head. “She means spells, silly. Witches cook up spells.”
I told them a bit of what I’d found and managed to translate during the past week.
“Here’s something interesting.” I put my finger on a page with a large moon at the top, its beams coming down onto the text below. “It talks about the cycles of the moon.”
“Interesting? That doesn’t sound interesting,” said Rose. “I think you meant boring.”
I continued explaining. “The new moon is for success, blessings, and planting. Waxing moon is for working hard on projects you hope to see completed by the full moon. Full moon is for fortune-telling, protection, and banishing. Waning moon is for healing, breaking habits, and releasing negative emotions.”
“Dr. Catron and his foot soldiers need a waning moon,” Laura snorted. “They’re full of negative emotions.”
“I think they’re just full of it,” said Rose.
I looked over my shoulder again and put my fingers to my lips. The cafeteria monitor was still several tables away, but her eyes were moving back and forth, looking for the slightest sign of trouble.
“Say, what moon cycle are we in now?” asked Laura.
I tried to remember the date. “I think we’re in the waxing moon.” I wondered if what Dym said about the moon in other places was true. Did it really change shape as it went from waxing to new to waning to full? It must have been convenient to look at the sky and know the moon phase. In Hartlandia, if one lost track of phases, one had to go to an almanac.
“What’s this part?” Rose pointed to the figure of a woman on the page. The woman had her back to the full moon and was pointing at something out of frame with her index finger. Light streamed from the moon to her finger to the unseen object.
“ ‘Drawing Down the Moon. Must be done with a full moon,’ ” I read slowly. It was part Old Hartlandian, part New. Oddly enough, this made it harder to translate than if it had just been Old Hartlandian. “ ‘Done to honor the Moon Goddess or employ her power. Results in a trance state combined with a power surge that radiates through the body. Make . . . ’ some kind of circle.”
“You mean walk in a circle? Draw a circle?” Laura peppered me with questions.
“I don’t know. It just says ‘make a circle.’ Open your chakras—”
“What’s a chakra?” Laura asked.
“Take your wand—”
“You’re supposed to have a wand?” Rose asked.
“—in your . . . something hand, and point it at the moon. Say . . . damn. This part’s been nearly rubbed out. I think it was a rhyming incantation. Wait—there’s more. ‘You should feel the moon being absorbed into you. Slowly lower your wand. You now have the power of the goddess.’ ”
“Pretty wild stuff,” said Rose.
“I wonder if we could draw down the moon, Seluna,” said Laura. “Maybe then we could get out of here.”
I shook my head sadly. “I d
on’t think that would work. We’re not witches. We don’t have wands, we don’t know the incantation, and so on.”
“Too many don’ts,” Rose agreed, frowning.
“I did look in the book for something that might help us get away from here, or incapacitate the staff,” I said. “I thought at the very least, I might find a way to immobilize Catron so he’d stop torturing us.”
Rose’s frown disappeared, replaced with an eager smile. “And did you find anything?”
I shook my head again. I hated to keep disappointing them. “I haven’t translated the whole thing, but most of the spells are for those with advanced skill in the Craft. Witchcraft, I mean.”
“Then what good is this stupid book, anyway?” snapped Laura.
Rose and I looked at one another. It wasn’t like Laura to be so angry. “Well, it was a fun diversion, right?” Rose put her hand on Laura’s arm, but Laura turned her head away. “And it’s really old, which is kind of neat.” Rose fingered the spine, glancing down where gold leaf flaked off on her hand. Then there was the terrific noise of a tray hitting the floor and several plates and bowls smashing.
“Dammit to ’ell, you imbecile!” the cafeteria monitor screamed in the face of a terrified girl. “I told you she needs ’elp. She can’t feed ’erself no more. She sure as anythin’ can’t bring up a tray on ’er own! You have to do it for ’er!” The girl was trembling, her hands clasped so tightly in front of her I could see them turning white.
The patient she was supposed to be helping stared at the ceiling, mumbling. Her eyes looked almost as white as the other girl’s hands, and filmy, as if someone had poured milk over them. Her dress and hair were askew, as if she’d had trouble getting ready in the morning. Or perhaps someone had trouble helping her, if they’d even bothered.
“I know that girl!” hissed Rose. “That’s Thomasina. She was admitted the same day I was.”