“Dr. Catron, then.” I sat down. He did the same, leaning back in his chair, never taking his eyes off me. I kept to the edge of the seat, my back ramrod straight.
He was a slim man in his mid-fifties, with silver hair not unlike the color of my eyes. It was kept carefully in place with pomade, which only increased the shine. Everything about him spoke of elegant refinement. The cut of his suit, his manicured nails, the crisp lab coat . . . right down to the flawless silk handkerchief in his pocket. His voice was soft, his movements graceful.
With a quick glance around the office, I saw a cozy fire burning in the grate. It seemed this was the only room in the asylum where one wasn’t allowed to freeze to death. There was a chaise lounge covered in red velvet, as well as a comfortable armchair where Catron sat. Across from his desk were two other chairs, including the one I was in. These were decidedly less comfortable.
The walls were lined with bookshelves holding medical texts. Framed certificates showed Catron’s degrees from all over Hartlandia. The University of Dryden in the Northernlands, Windley medical school in the Easternlands . . . there was even a certificate for first place in a rifle competition at Dartport.
Certainly gets around, doesn’t he? I thought to myself.
“Satisfied with my credentials?” There was a hint of amusement in Catron’s voice.
“Sorry? Oh, yes.” I worked to keep my own voice steady. “It’s just that . . .” I tried to think of another reason a person might glance around an office. “I noticed there aren’t any windows in here.”
“Right you are.” Catron smiled. “Can’t have patients looking out the windows too much. They might see something that upsets them, or makes them overexcited.”
What would that be? I wondered. The sky? Air? We sat in silence for a few moments. I couldn’t help but think Catron was expecting me to do something.
“Not overly chatty, are we?”
Talk? He expects me to talk? He didn’t expect that from Geraldine. Maybe because her father was with her.
“I was taught only to speak if I felt the need,” I said hesitantly. “And only things worth saying, naturally.” To those worth saying them to, I felt like adding.
“Naturally.” Catron leaned forward and looked at a pile of papers in a folder on his desk. He said my name again. “Se-lu-na.” But this time, it was as he’d known me for years. As if I were returning to him from some long journey.
“Quite an interesting case, aren’t you?” He flipped through the papers, which I assumed were my records. “Seems there’s a history of, shall we say, odd behavior in your family?”
“You might say that.”
“Now, Seluna, I know this can’t be easy for you, but do try to cooperate.” I blinked a few times. Cooperate? I haven’t done anything uncooperative yet.
“Sorry?”
“It’s a pity your family couldn’t be here to see you admitted personally, so I know you must be disappointed. I understand you were dropped off at the train station, and then accompanied on the rail by Nurse Cutter.”
“That’s right.” I’m not disappointed. And it’s not a pity they couldn’t be here to admit me. It’s a travesty they had me admitted at all! A travesty . . . and a mystery.
I had considered running away after my family brought me to the station and put me in the care of Nurse Cutter. But one look at Cutter, and I knew she was the kind of person who’d hunt me to the ends of the earth. Also, at that point, I was more bewildered than anything else. As I sat on the train, I couldn’t fathom why my parents felt the need to send me to Silver Hill. Of course, I had no idea what this hospital was really like. If I had, maybe I would’ve taken my chances and tried to lose Cutter at the station. But if I didn’t know about conditions at the asylum, maybe there was a chance my family hadn’t, either.
“I’m only sorry you arrived so late that I could not see you.” Catron closed the folder and looked at me again. “You must have been very tired.”
“Ah, yes. Yes, I was.” I didn’t want to tell him how much more alive I became at night. It was as if I could feel myself getting stronger, my senses sharper, after the sun set. Even my vision was better, and I could get through the day with less sleep than others. But when the sun was up, as it was now, I felt drowsy. Almost like I was walking around in a fog compared to my nighttime awareness.
“Well, I’m glad you’ve had a chance to rest since then. It will make it much easier to begin our program.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Program?”
Catron leaned over the intercom again and pressed a button.
“Nurse Cutter? I think we’re ready to start with that other new admission.” He looked at me and smiled.
“The standard treatment.”
Chapter 3
I awoke from the dream of my first day at Silver Hill to a loud banging on my door.
“Rise and shine!” shouted Nurse Cutter. “Breakfast in ten minutes.”
I groaned and sat up. Breakfast in ten minutes, stomachache in thirty. Damn the ungodly food here.
But the cuisine wasn’t the worst thing about Silver Hill. I remembered all too well waking up from my first “treatment” with Dr. Catron.
It took a while for my vision to clear, and for the grogginess to dissipate so I could understand where I was. I lay in a bed on wheels at the recovery station—a high-ceilinged room with windows (barred, of course) reaching to the top. My mouth was so dry, it felt like it was full of cotton. I had a pounding headache accompanied by waves of nausea, and my forearm was sore and bruised where they’d inserted a needle. It bled slightly, but no one bothered to bandage it. I was still strapped down.
I didn’t remember if I’d fought, or if they’d injected me before I even realized what was happening. All I knew was that like every other girl here, I’d been drugged—poisoned—in the name of medicine.
I lifted my head and saw long rows of beds on either side and across from me. Girls my age and younger lay in them, not too doing well by the looks of it. Some were crying, others were asking panicked questions. Nurses and orderlies milled about, checking patients, making notes on clipboards. None of them seemed to be doing anything to relieve their charges’ discomfort, confusion, or fear.
I ran my tongue along the inside of my mouth to combat the dryness, and heard other girls whimper, their beds squeaking as they tried to move. There were a few brusque words: “Stop that!” and “Hush, now.” Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Geraldine being wheeled out, moaning. Then I heard heavy, determined footsteps walk up to the left side of my bed. I quickly put my head back down and shut my eyes.
“It didn’t go as well as I’d hoped with this one.” It was Dr. Catron. I made my chest rise and fall more slowly with each breath to maintain the illusion of sleep.
“Her answers were too vague,” he continued. “They could mean anything. We may have to accelerate treatment if we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”
Bottom of what? Accelerate treatment? My head still felt like someone was hitting the side of it with a mallet. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. Then I began remembering other details of the past few hours.
They’d given me sodium pentothal, or what was more commonly known as “truth serum.” They’d asked all kinds of questions. My full name, where I was from, what year I was born. But there had been other inquiries as well. Stranger ones. What did I like to do at night? Did I look up at the sky a lot? Did I ever get the feeling I was different than other people?
My heart began beating a little faster, but I tried not to take deep breaths. Remember, Seluna, everyone in the recovery room thinks you’re still asleep.
In my drugged state, had I accidentally told them something about my reanimation abilities? I don’t know why, but it felt important to keep it a secret, at least from the staff. Even though it was a harmless trick, I didn’t trust them with it. They might misconstrue anything out of the ordinary as a form of madness.
But it was do
ubtful I’d divulged anything. Catron said my answers had been vague. Saying one could make things come to life was pretty specific. Still, it was a disturbing thought. Did the people here have the power to make me reveal information whenever they liked?
“Don’t be too ’ard on yourself, Doctor.” Nurse Cutter’s voice yanked me back to the conversation. “You can’t win them all.”
“True,” Dr. Catron agreed. “At least I got a lot farther with the Wexler girl. A few more treatments and she’ll have this artist nonsense out of her head. Her father will be very pleased. But I doubt she’s the one. Too young. Still, it does help to take in extra patients, if only to pay the bills.
More talk of ‘the one’ again. Who on earth could they be looking for?
“Quite right, Doctor. Quite right,” said Nurse Cutter. “In the meantime, what do you want us to do with Seluna?” From her tone, one would have thought she was asking what to do with leftover fishing worms.
Catron didn’t answer for a few seconds, and it took all I had just to keep my breathing even. “For now, I just want to . . . observe her. If she is the one, then in time, she may reveal herself without us having to do anything.”
“Always the optimist, Dr. Catron.” I could tell by Cutter’s voice she was smiling.
“Yes, well, if one doesn’t have optimism, what else is left?” I could tell he was smiling, too. “Now, about those other patients we were discussing . . .” I heard their footsteps grow fainter as they walked away. Later, I learned that not only were most girls drugged upon admission to the asylum, but some were subjected to it more than once.
One would think that after such horror, the mind-numbing routine at Silver Hill would be a welcome respite. But even though I’d been here only a week, I was already tired of it. After an inedible breakfast, we performed a sort of catechism, though this one had nothing to do with religion.
“All right, ladies, pay attention, now,” a nurse called out. This one was male; short, scrawny, and giving off a sort of intellectual dimness. But he was one of the only other professional men at Silver Hill besides Dr. Catron, so he got a lot of attention from the female nurses. Apparently, they thought the orderlies—most of whom were men—beneath them. Never so much as gave them the time of day.
We were in the solarium, whose barred windows hardly let in any light. We sat on hard, uncomfortable chairs like the ones in Catron’s office. As always, the nurse asked silly questions, which we were expected to answer.
“Who is our doctor?”
“Dr. Catron,” we chorused. Laura, who was sitting on my left, sighed.
“What does he know?”
“He knows how to help us.” Rose, on my right, rolled her eyes.
“And what does he do?”
“He does what’s best.”
It usually went on like this for an hour, during which time I was sure I’d go hoarse. Then we had writing exercises (two hours), where we copied over and over from a textbook describing the “perfect” female. Apparently, this was one who did whatever she was told without question. I failed to see how writing the description till our hands cramped would ever make it true.
Afterwards, we had lunch, and two hours of exercising. Exercising consisted of walking in circles around the main entrance of Silver Hill. It was by far the largest space except for the cafeteria, which wasn’t suitable for walking due to the tables and chairs. Of course, I hardly thought the main entrance was an appropriate gymnasium either, owing to its state of disrepair. It was a wonder more girls didn’t trip over the cracked floors, or get brained by the occasional piece of falling plaster.
The only thing that relieved the tedium, at least for me, was the occasional glance at the stained glass window. And even though I didn’t believe her legend, sometimes, I’d pretend that the goddess Selene was following me with her eyes. That she was my friend, watching over me. At least until I was caught.
“You!” a nurse would bellow, though sometimes, they had an orderly watch us, if the nurses were too busy. “Eyes on the girl in front of you!” And the tedium would continue. I sincerely believed the only reason for this so-called exercise was to exhaust us. That way, we’d have no energy left to do anything remotely subversive.
I couldn’t even practice my animation abilities because we were in constant motion. Typically, I needed to be stationary and concentrating pretty hard to make anything move. And even then, I wasn’t able to do it all the time. I always thought it would be amusing to raise a nurse’s skirt a few feet. When the nurse realized everyone could see her knickers, it surely would’ve been good for a laugh. And it might have gotten us out of going around in circles for five minutes.
I don’t remember exactly when I told Rose and Laura I could animate. It must have been in the first few days after I was admitted. I just felt like I had to tell someone. My family already knew, of course. Was that part of the reason they sent me here? I didn’t see how that could be. What difference did my ability make? It was charming, to be sure, but that was all. A parlor trick, something to break out at Winter Solstice fetes for the guests’ amusement. Nothing more.
After our exercise, we were tutored in womanly arts for the rest of the afternoon. This involved helping in the kitchen and laundry room. Though I didn’t really see why one had to be female in order to peel potatoes and scrub shirts. After dinner, we returned to the solarium for fifteen minutes of supervised socialization. Just fifty or so girls milling around awkwardly, unsure of what to say to one another. Occasionally, we were allowed unsupervised socialization in our rooms. However, I suspected this had more to do with the staff’s desire to sneak a cigarette or tryst than concern over our mental welfare.
Although I’d met a few other patients, I spent time mostly with Rose and Laura. We were enjoying a particularly long session of socializing today in the solarium, courtesy of a pipe that burst in the hallway of the girls’ dormitories. Patients were unable to return until staff finished mopping up all the water. I hoped it would take at least half an hour. I saw Geraldine a few yards away, sitting by herself. Her shoulders were slumped, and she stared dejectedly at the floor. I considered going over and introducing myself, but then, Rose said something alarming.
“These treatments are getting worse and worse.” Rose scrunched and un-scrunched the curls on the side of her head with one hand. We were standing by a set of windows overlooking the moors. There wasn’t much to see; the overcast March skies put the gray hills in a state of perpetual mourning. “Tell Seluna what Dr. Catron did to you the other day, Laura.” Laura looked down at the cracked floors and said nothing. “Tell her,” Rose urged.
“He asked who some famous people were that I admired,” Laura finally said. “I told him, Daisy Cartigad, the explorer, and Pearl Luxembourg, the animal rights activist. And then he shocked me!”
“Shocked you?” I asked.
“She means electrocuted,” Rose explained. “Catron had her hooked up to this crazy machine, with plugs and wires all over. Every time she said something he didn’t like, he gave her a shock.”
“And that hurts?” Electricity was a new and exciting area of science, but I’d never heard of it being used this way before.
“Of course it hurts! It feels like . . . I don’t know.” Rose blew a curl away from her forehead. “Sort of like being burned, but worse.”
My eyes widened. “You’ve had it, too?”
“No, I heard about it from a few other girls. But I’m definitely due.” Rose swallowed. “Apparently, my ‘condition’ is even worse than Laura’s. I’m sure that’s the next step in my treatment.”
I closed my eyes for a moment. Then it’s only a matter of time till they start electrocuting me. Although I had a decent pain tolerance, how did I know they wouldn’t accidentally turn up the voltage too high and kill me?
“Oh, Rose, I hope not!” Laura’s voice grew higher, and she started to cry. “It’s positively horrid. He—Dr. Catron—asked what kind of man I wanted to marry. I said, ‘Befor
e Papa told me I had to get married, I hadn’t really thought about it.’ So he shocked me again! He said the only people I should admire are those my father approves of, and that’s the kind of man I should want to marry, too. Oh, how I wish Aunt Mae were here!” Her cries threatened to turn into wails. Rose put her arm around Laura, partially to comfort her, and partially to calm her crying so she didn’t draw attention to us.
I frowned. “Aunt Mae?”
“My mother’s sister.” Laura ran a sleeve across her eyes. “She divorced her husband the first time he hit her. She’d understand why I don’t want to marry the man Papa picked out.”
I wasn’t surprised that one of Catron’s favorite pastimes was to convince us our ideas were crazy. But his most recent method left me flabbergasted. You may not have a family you can run to, Seluna, but that doesn’t mean others have to suffer. I’d come to a decision.
“This is unacceptable,” I said. “Laura, I’ve got an idea. This aunt of yours, is she nearby?”
Laura shook her head, and tears ran off her face. “No. She lives in Suxby.”
“Where in Suxby?”
Laura squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember. “Twenty-Two Harrow Way. Why?”
“Does she know your parents sent you to the asylum?”
Laura sniffed. “I don’t think so. She and Mum aren’t that close. But she sends me Solstice cards, and packages. She always said I could come to her for help with anything.”
There was little hope of writing Aunt Mae a letter, or getting one from her in return. No patient communication with the outside world was allowed at Silver Hill. No visitors either, not that I ever heard of family members who wanted to visit. I grimaced at the very thought of it. As if my family would want to see how I was, or send me anything. I might as well be dead to them. But perhaps Laura’s aunt was different.
“Maybe we can get a telegram to her,” I said.
“But where would we find a telegraph machine in here?” Rose stopped holding Laura and put her arms out to either side, but kept her voice low.
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