by Libba Bray
“Swell. I can’t wait to try the tapioca,” Sam said.
“Say, it’s not so bad,” Theta said, shaking the damp from her cloche as she took in the room’s homey decor—several fat chairs, a thick carpet, and a coatrack. Two hissing radiators kept the cold at bay. An upright piano occupied the far wall. “I expected worse.”
“‘Expect the worst’ is my motto,” Evie said, hanging her coat on the rack. “Saves on disappointment.”
“When did you become a cynic?” Sam asked.
Evie smiled. “When I found out I was a little girl.”
Sam and Memphis set up the Metaphysickometer on a side table. Sam flipped the switch and thumped at the dials with a flick of his finger, but nothing happened. “Terrific. It doesn’t seem to be working. I think the damp got to it.”
Henry sat at the piano, plinking out a tune on the tinny keys. “There’s things in the night, out of infernal dreaming,” he sang. “Can you hear it now—my internal screaming?”
Isaiah made a face. “What song is that?”
Henry kept his fingers tripping along the keys. “It’s from a new show I’m working on, called I’ve Been Eaten by Ghosts with Big Teeth and I’m Very Upset About It.”
“Nobody’s getting eaten by ghosts,” Sam promised Isaiah, because he looked worried.
“I told you, all we have to do is interview a few of the patients and poke around a bit, make it look on the level. Once we’ve talked to Luther, we can leave,” Evie assured everyone.
“Well, let’s get this show on the road, then,” Theta said, peering out at the gloomy, wet skies. “The sooner we can get outta here, the better.”
They started with the patients first.
“What is your name, please?” Sam asked a nervous woman about his mother’s age. She had graying hair done up in braids across the top of her head.
“Mrs. Evelyn Langford,” she said. “I’m only here because my husband wanted to be with another woman. He didn’t want me anymore. So I stopped eating. And then I couldn’t start. It frightened me to eat. The doctors say I have to eat or I won’t get any better. I’m trying.”
Sam flashed Evie a what do I do look over his shoulder.
“Just talk to her,” Evie urged.
“You, uh, seen any ghosts, Mrs. Langford?” Sam asked.
“Oh, yes!” She leaned forward. “It was eight nights ago. I was playing Spite and Malice—that’s a card game, dear—with Mrs. Lowell, who cheats at cards, but beggars can’t be choosers. The lights winked on and off. And I saw a host of spirits standing outside the room, watching us. It got very cold. There were things that happened on this land. Savage, sinister things,” she said in ominous tones. “Murder and worse. The land runs with blood. Its heart beats with violence. I can feel it. The spirits rise up from that land. They want us to know! They don’t want us to forget!”
“I’ll be sure to send a card at Christmas,” Sam joked.
Mrs. Langford’s face went stony with wounded dignity. “Everybody needs a little help now and then, young man.”
“You shouldn’t’ve been so mean,” Isaiah said after the nurse had escorted Mrs. Langford back to her room.
“Aw, come on. I was just making a little joke,” Sam scoffed. The others stared at him.
“It wasn’t funny,” Henry said.
“Gee, this is fun,” Sam grumbled. “Anybody else having a swell time here at the old asylum?”
“Just call in the next person,” Theta said. “I want to get out of here as soon as we can.”
They interviewed a nurse named Molly next.
“I was here the night Mrs. Bennett…” Molly looked away. “The night she killed Miss Headley and herself.”
“Gee, I’m sorry. That musta been awful,” Theta said, patting Molly’s hand.
“That’s how you behave like a human,” Evie whispered to Sam. “Take notes so you can remember.”
“Did you know the nurses very well?” Theta asked.
“Oh, yes. Neither one of them would’ve hurt a fly! We’re all terrified now. We won’t go anywhere alone. That fog comes around most nights—you can’t even see your own hand in front of your face. The patients say there’s ghosts inside it. I’ve heard noises late at night when I’m trying to sleep. The lights blink on and off and the warden says it’s the blasting, but who can say?”
“Have the patients said or done anything out of the ordinary?” Ling asked.
“The drawings,” Molly said. “They all draw the same thing.”
“Could we see those drawings?”
Molly led the Diviners to the art therapy room and opened a drawer, taking out a batch of patients’ sketches. The scenes were eerily similar: They all showed the man in the stovepipe hat leading an army of the dead. Above him, the sky crackled with lightning.
“Okay. Now I’m really scared,” Theta said.
“There is one patient…” Molly stopped. “Oh. I don’t know if I should say.”
“Oh, you should say! You should pos-i-tute-ly say,” Sam cooed. “I mean, a girl as pretty as you? If I can do anything to keep worry from your door.” He grinned and took Molly’s hand.
“Charming,” Ling muttered.
Molly blushed. “There’s a patient. A very disturbed young man, but he’s quite a talented artist. Conor Flynn.”
“Conor Flynn,” Isaiah said. At Memphis’s silent urging, he lowered his voice. “Memphis, that’s who Mama said we had to protect.”
“Tell us about Conor,” Evie said to Molly.
“Conor was there in the room when Mr. Roland killed Big Mike and Mary—drew the whole thing even though he said he never turned around once. And he drew what happened with Mrs. Bennett and Miss Headley, too, even though he was upstairs when the murders took place. He’s always drawing frightening things. I put some of them away for the doctors to see,” the nurse whispered.
“We’d better take a look at those,” Evie said.
From deep inside a locked cabinet, Molly retrieved a shirt box. Inside were an array of drawings. Conor was indeed quite talented. He’d drawn a detailed view of the Hell Gate Bridge as seen from a barred window and a study of a chair where the wood grain was so finely rendered it practically leaped from the page. But there were other, more disturbing pictures. In one, a great cloud with the face of an angry skull bore down on the island. In another, he’d captured the ghoulish moment with the two nurses. One of the nurses held a hook, and it seemed as if several bodies fought inside her at once. Evie paused at a drawing of the all-seeing eye symbol. It loomed in the sky like the eye of a god, and all around, floating in its beams, were the bodies of soldiers. There were also several drawings of Luther, and Evie had to wonder: Why was Conor Flynn so interested in Luther Clayton?
“Memphis!” Isaiah said, picking up one of the drawings, a sketch of an old farmhouse with a sagging porch. “I’ve seen this before. In a vision.”
“Excuse me, but could we speak to Conor Flynn?” Evie asked.
Molly shook her head. “I wouldn’t recommend it, Miss O’Neill.”
“Why not?”
“Conor is a very troubled young man. Before he came to us, he’d been in the boy’s refuge from the age of twelve. He lies. He hears voices. He even tried to take his own life.”
“Poor kid,” Theta said.
“Don’t let him fool you, Miss Knight. There’s a reason he’s in the violent ward.”
“What did he do?” Ling asked.
“He killed Father Hanlon.”
Memphis’s eyebrows went up. “He murdered a priest?”
“Father Hanlon worked at the refuge from time to time. One day, he tried to take one of the younger boys for an ice cream. Conor was jealous of the attention shown the boy. He attacked Father with a slice of broken bottle he’d hidden up his sleeve. Sliced clean through his throat. Make no mistake: Conor Flynn is quite dangerous.”
“Why would Mama want us to protect a murderer?” Isaiah asked, and Memphis shook his head.
“Still. We’d like to speak with him, please,” Evie said.
“Very well. I’ll see to it.”
An attendant brought Conor to the interview room, and Evie immediately recognized him as the boy who’d spoken to her when she’d come to see Luther. The one who’d tried to warn her about the fog. He was skittish, Evie thought. Like a fawn catching the first acrid warning of an approaching forest fire.
“Hello, Conor,” Evie said. “We met once before. Do you remember?”
Conor nodded. “You talked to Luther.”
“That’s right. Conor, when we were here last time, you said, ‘They come in with the fog.’”
“The Forgotten,” Conor said.
“Who are the Forgotten? Are they ghosts?”
Conor frowned. “Yeah. But not regular. They can hurt you. They want to hurt you.” Conor twirled and tugged at his hair. “When the fog comes in, they comes in wit’ it. Late at night, after all the boats’re gone and we’re alone out here. When it’s dark. When he tells ’em to come. They crawl in t’rough your mouth like spiders. Spiders laying eggs in your brains. Can’t shake ’em out. And then the whisperin’ starts. They’ll make you do things. Terrible things. They made Mr. Roland kill Big Mike and Nurse Mary and Mr. Potts.”
“Why did the Forgotten want to do that?”
Conor shoved his hands beneath his armpits, hugging himself. “He makes ’em do it,” he said in a paper-thin voice.
“He? Who is he?”
Conor shook his head. “Won’t say his name.”
“Why not? Does he live on your floor?”
Conor shook his head harder.
“Is it Luther Clayton?” Evie tried.
“What happened to those nurses?” Theta said, redirecting. “Was that the Forgotten, too?”
“Yeah,” Conor whispered, fidgeting in his seat, one hand tapping against his thigh in an almost hypnotic rhythm.
“Gee, sport, how do you know that if you weren’t there?” Sam said.
“I can hear the dead. In here.” He tapped the side of his head. “I hear the dead and I hear the lady’s voice, telling me what to do.”
“The lady’s voice,” Sam repeated, glaring at Evie. He motioned to the others to huddle up away from Conor, who was performing some sort of ritual, counting objects over and over. “The lady’s voice tells him things? The dead talk to him? Buncha hooey.”
Ling frowned. “Don’t forget, Sam—I can hear the dead, too.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?” Ling challenged.
“You think he could be a Diviner, like us?” Memphis asked.
“It’s possible,” Evie said.
Sam shook his head. “I don’t think we should get off the trolley. We came here to find out what we could about Luther. That’s all.”
“But what if Conor is onto something?” Evie said.
“Or what if Conor is just plain crazy?”
“Just because he’s sick doesn’t mean he isn’t telling us the truth, or his version of it, anyway,” Henry said, his voice tight.
“Okay, okay. Don’t get hot.”
“Then don’t tell me what to feel,” Henry said through his teeth.
“Why’re you so keen on believing this fella, huh?”
“I’ve got my reasons,” Henry said, stepping up to Sam. “Why are you being such a jackass?”
“I wasn’t being… say, what’s eating you, Henry?” Sam growled.
“I happen to think the people in here are very brave,” Henry said, full of fire. “Imagine living each day and not being able to trust your own mind. Imagine having it lie to you, trick you, tell you you’re worthless or that the world would be better off without you in it. It would be like… like always hearing an awful radio playing inside your head, one that you can’t seem to turn off.” He glared at Sam. “Or maybe I’m just ‘crazy’ for feeling sympathy for them.”
“Gee, Hen, I’m sorry—”
But something had come loose inside Henry. He backed away from the others, hands up. “I need to calm down. Going for a walk.”
“Hen!” Theta called as Henry stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
Memphis put a hand on her arm. “Might want to let him cool off a bit. At least, I know when I’m sore I need time to myself.”
“I really am sorry,” Sam said.
“I told you to take notes,” Evie chided. “You can make it up to Henry later. Let’s get back to Conor.” Evie left the huddle. “Conor, can you tell me more about the lady in your head?”
“She’s the one tol’ me to draw the pictures. Sometimes I can hear her. Other times, I can’t. Like something’s keeping her from talking to me. She tol’ me about keeping him out.”
“Is the lady’s name Viola?” Isaiah said hopefully.
Conor shook his head, and Isaiah’s heart sank.
“Is she talking to you right now?” Ling asked.
“Maybe. Maybe.” Conor’s demeanor changed like a sudden wind. “What’d they tell you about me? Did they tell you I was a liar? No. I don’t care. I don’t care, I don’t care! I ain’t sorry I cut up Father Hanlon. I know I’m s’posed to be, but I ain’t. I watched the blood pour over his collar, and I wished him dead a hundred times.”
The air felt charged. Dangerous.
“Told you this was a bad idea,” Sam said to the others in what he thought was a soft voice. “He doesn’t know anything.”
“I ain’t no liar!” Conor’s eyes flashed. And then, quick as a panther, he was up and rushing Sam, pummeling him with fists until Memphis could pull him off and hold him in the chair. Conor’s breathing slowed. A glazed look came over his face.
“I’ll get the attendant,” Theta said, throwing wide the door.
“Conor?” Memphis said, but it was as if the boy had turned the lights out inside himself and was refusing to answer the door.
“Conor?” Isaiah tried, but he wasn’t answering. Isaiah took his pencil from his pocket and tucked it into Conor’s pocket. “For later. When you need it.”
The attendant, a big, burly man, had arrived. “All right, now, Conor. Time to go,” he said gently. He helped Conor from the chair, but Conor resisted, balling his fists.
“He’ll come tonight—they’ll all come! You’ll be trapped here and he’ll come for you one by one! One by one. All seven. One, two, t’ree, four, five, seven!”
“Let’s go, Conor. I know you don’t want the restraints.” The attendant led Conor by the arm, but he locked his feet and splayed a hand against the doorjamb, refusing to move. He was like a boy all of a sudden, wide-eyed and beseeching.
“Miriam!” he said.
“What did you say?” Sam said, stepping into the hall as the attendant hauled Conor away.
“The lady in my head! Her name is Miriam.”
“You think it could be my mother?” Sam asked Evie.
“We might’ve had a chance to ask if somebody hadn’t been so eager to get rid of him,” Evie said.
“I object!”
“On what grounds?”
“On the grounds that I hate to be wrong,” Sam said. “But you’re right.”
Evie smiled. “Music to my ears, Sam Lloyd.”
“So the ghosts can possess people, make them do things,” Memphis said, mulling over Conor’s story. “Why? What do they want? And why are they haunting this place?”
“Pretty sure it’s not for the beef stew,” Sam said, patting his stomach and wincing.
Memphis made a face. “You ate that?”
Sam shrugged. “I was hungry.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Now I gotta figure out a way to talk to Conor.”
“Well, you can figure it out after I talk to Luther Clayton. That’s the whole reason we came here, don’t forget,” Evie said, pacing.
“Well, thanks to you, they’re not gonna let us back in that ward. Could you stop with that back-and-forth? You’re making me dizzy. And you remind me of your uncle.”
Evie glared. �
��That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“So: Don’t. Pace.” Sam held up his arms in a shrug.
“I can’t help it. It’s being cooped up in here.” Through the barred windows, Evie looked out at the dismal weather. She could see the tinsmithing shop and the barn where some of the male patients tended peacefully to the animals. But that hadn’t always been the case here on Ward’s Island. Evie could sense it in the walls, like a stifled scream waiting to explode.
Down the hall, singing drifted out of the music therapy room, and Evie was grateful for the distraction of it to drown out the asylum’s secret confessions. She wandered down and stood just outside the room, observing. The shell-shocked patients were there. Once again, they faced one another, holding up their hands and staring into their empty palms. As Evie watched, fascinated, one of the men placed an imaginary object on the table. Without pause, another of the patients put his hand on the “object,” and after examining it, he transferred it to his left hand. Evie watched for another minute until she realized exactly where she’d seen this scenario before: It reminded her of those soldiers playing cards in her dreams. And then, as one, the men turned their heads toward Evie.
“They never should have done it,” they said in unison. They fell to the ground, screaming and writhing as if in great distress. Nurses rushed in to help the men back into their chairs. The men still reached their hands toward Evie. “Help us. Help us. Help us.”
Evie staggered down the hall, desperately in need of air. She stumbled outdoors and sucked in a lungful of cold mist. The rain was a solid wall. Evie couldn’t even see the pier through it. “Miss O’Neill. Are you all right?”
One of the nurses had followed her outside.
“When is the next ferry back to Manhattan?” Evie asked.
“I’m afraid no one’s leaving.” The nurse nodded toward the heavy rain. “The storm’s getting worse. They’ve canceled ferry service until tomorrow. You’re all stuck here for the night.”
Theta sat in the window seat, staring out at the incessant rain. “What’s the one thing I made you promise me?” she said on an angry plume of cigarette smoke.
“How was I to know there’d be a storm?” Evie asked. She’d taken up pacing again.