“Jane, every word, every sentiment was true. Please, I cannot stop thinking of you. I am to be fabricating her escape, devising a plan. But my mind keeps returning to you. Please, help the both of us and just say you forgive me. And that things can … progress as they were.”
I feel a burn behind my eyes. Tears. Asking to be let free again. I blink.
“One outing cannot be where this ends. I … I will not have it. Please, Jane, put me out of my misery.”
A massive fear grasps my heart and squeezes—but I ignore it and swallow.
“Of course.”
“Mason.” The fear in Ginny’s voice rings down the hall. I hear the panic in it.
Frost. He is come.
“Go, Jane.” Mason turns, heading for the exit. “I will see you soon.”
I nod and walk quickly for my seat, having just enough time to arrange my skirts as the door opens.
His eyes instantly find me. “Ginny. Let us see what the girls have accomplished thus far.”
But I manage a smile, even under Frost’s pinning gaze. Mason still cares for me. There is hope, after all.
Frost cocks his head at my expression, one eyebrow rising in silent question.
Jules
“And where, pray tell, have you been?”
I stop short in the entryway; my heart turns to glass, shattering in my chest.
Father.
I was out. Unsupervised. Unescorted.
“I … I went down to asylum to collect the paintings I purchased.”
I stare down at them, covered in brown wrapping paper. I will my hands still, but they tremble and the resultant rattling echoes off the vestibule walls like an indoor, fear-induced thunderstorm.
Father’s eyebrows knit. I cannot yet discern his demeanor, and I hold my breath.
“I see.” His voice. I hear the horror; my knees go to water.
His eyes are bottomless.
I walk slowly for the stairs.
The hard lines of his face, the storm in his eyes … He is dangerous.
He is Mad Papa.
I try to slide past, but he grips my arm so tightly I issue a little cry.
I halt beside him on the stairs, refusing to meet his eye. Like an animal, if I do not challenge him, fight him, the confrontations will lessen.
“I suggest you spend more time on your music, and less at that infernal hospital. It is no place for a young woman of your stature, of your—”
The front doorbells rings, and I start, nearly crying out with relief.
Our butler, Mansfield, shuffles past, ignoring us, to open it.
“Mr. Willis Graceling, sir.”
Willis. Oh, thank the heavens, Willis.
Willis’s slightly plump face is ruddy with the cold as he taps his boots, shaking off the snow. I gently extricate myself from Father’s grasp and step to the landing, smoothing my hair back into place.
“Willis. How are you? It is so very good to see you.” I hear the falseness of my tone, but Willis smiles. He believes, hears only what he wishes.
Father tips his hat. “Good day, Graceling. I’m off.”
He sweeps onto the porch, black traveling cape swirling behind as he alights into the waiting carriage.
I breathe a sigh of relief, only to inhale in anxiety once again. Time to face the music.
“Shall we go sit? I will ring for tea.”
After a few moments, we’re arranged in the parlor, and the maid places the pot and teacups on the table. “Might I bring you anything else?”
“No, thank you, Anna.”
I bend to pour the tea into his cup, and his warm hand envelopes mine. I halt and take it in my own, forcing myself to stare into his light blue eyes.
“I think … we need to talk, Jules.”
“About the wedding, of course. So many decisions. I know you preferred pink for the girls but really—”
“I … know you do not return my affection in the same fashion, but I had hoped it would grow as we spent time together. And honestly, we have rarely seen one another the past fortnight.”
If Willis breaks the engagement, I shall never return to the asylum. Father is only kept at bay knowing my charge will soon be turned over to another. But I must find out about that painting. I push the images of strapping Grayjoy out of my mind as guilt sears my cheeks.
“I am so very sorry, Willis. I tend to get over involved. In everything. I will clear my schedule today. Can you … spend the day with me?”
His face lights up and my guilt surges. I feel ill. I am going to deeply wound this man. And he does not deserve it. He deserves someone much, much better than I.
“That would be capital.”
The knock on my door is quiet, but I startle anyway.
“Jane?” It is Ginny. “Might I come in?”
She pokes her head inside, and I smile. “Of course.”
It is one of the reasons I love Ginny; she acts as if I have the right to refuse her entry, when we both know full well I do not.
My smile falters when I see her face. Something wicked my way comes.
“They have found you another roommate.”
I sigh and take a last look at the pictures. Chances are good my roommate will be uncontrollable, and to save my sketches, they will have to be removed, unless I want them trampled, torn … or eaten.
“Should I begin taking them down, then?”
Ginny looks sheepish. “I think that would be wise.”
I clench my fists. I cherish the solitary periods between roommates. “How bad is it?”
She won’t meet my eye. “Should I help you then?” She reaches to start unfastening one.
I touch her hand to halt her and shake my head. “No, I am fine. I will do it. It’s bad, isn’t it?”
She finally turns to look at me, her eyes pinched on the sides so she nearly looks in pain. “Yes, it is intolerable. I shall petition Dr. Grayjoy to have you moved to Ward One, posthaste.”
My laugh is harsh. “As if Frost shall agree to that notion.”
I begin to carefully collect the drawings. My eyes steal over the sheet music, and it begins to trill in my head. Two turtledoves.
“I was not going to tell, because it isn’t official, but I believe you are sorely in need of good news.”
I stop, my heart surging with fear. “What … What is happening?”
“Frost has been permanently pulled from your case.”
My mouth pops open, but I quickly shut it. “Why? How?”
“I know not the particulars, only that if Grayjoy is now in charge, we most certainly agree you belong on Ward One—and we shall both fight the board for your transfer.”
It is as if a prayer has finally been answered.
I look around the room, a massive lump clogging my throat as I feel the prickle and burn in my eyes.
I may actually depart this ward.
Expectation postponed makes the heart sick. This scripture struck a chord with me. When one has prayed, long and hard, to a creator you feel certain has forgotten you—or worse, may not know you exist—to have your heart’s desires finally answered …
I swallow, again and again, as I continue to remove my sketches, one after the other. I pretend I am not moving to another room, but preparing for my wedding. To leave this place on Mason’s arm.
It is a more mature fantasy than the ones of my youth—when I would pray deep into the night for a family. A long-lost relative to come and collect me.
Each day my dream slipped further away, my heart shrank—shriveled, really—till I thought it a dormant black seed in my chest.
“Twenty-Nine, are you alright, my dear?”
Ginny lays her hand on my arm to halt my fervent packing. I, indeed, have begun packing, despite no idea when I shall move to Ward One. “There is naught to fear. It is normal for one such as you to have misgivings about leaving. It’s called the institutional mind, and happens to most
everyone. It—”
“I am not afraid.” Rage heats my cheeks. “Whatever lies outside these walls, whatever perils, whatever poverty. I shall be free.”
My chest heaves, and Ginny looks mortified to have further upset me.
I stride to the window and press my hands against the cold pane. “I shall flourish or perish by my own hand. My own wits. So please, do not insult me that I am afraid. I am many, many things, but a coward is not one of them.”
“No. Of course not.” She sounds horrified.
She spins me to face her and holds my shoulders tight. “Jane. You are the bravest person I have ever met. Do you understand me?”
She continues to utter my name, breaking a rule for me. To encourage me.
My eyes prickle, and my shoulders give way, the anger draining. I nod.
But in my chest, a tiny sprout of hope begins pushing its way out of the shriveled remains that are my heart.
Grayjoy
“I go down where? This is the way to the library?”
Chloe refused to show me, so I figured I would go to Jane. I believe the girl knows the asylum better than anyone.
Jane’s face is a mix of fear and excitement as she tugs hard on my arm. “Here.” And pulls me into a bloody broom closet.
I hold the lantern up, squinting in the darkness, but all that meets my eye is a myriad of bottles, liniments, and bandages. It is the nurses’ closet.
Jane places her hand over mine to swing the lantern toward the back and indicates I follow. I acknowledge the bolt of electricity, the attraction. It was there from the first moment I laid eyes on her, but I knew it to be wrong, that she was not whole. Guilt flares in my chest as I admit to myself … if I would’ve taken her for my wife, she would’ve been free of here, free of Frost. But my fear of condemnation from my family, from my colleagues, stayed my hand. As well as my own consuming pride—that she might not fit into my highly academic, highly sought-after life.
But this Mason, he seems to care not for this fact, the fact that stayed my hand these four years. He wants Jane anyway. Insists he will find a way to get her released.
I swallow and taste the bitter truth. That despite my training, my years of building a reputation, this orderly apparently is more courageous and noble than I.
I swallow again. You are a coward.
“Hurry, Dr. Grayjoy. Do watch your step.”
But now, it is as if Providence has finally smiled on me with … Jules.
She … is Jane. Too eerily Jane. They look very similar. Not twins, but much too close to be discounted. The eyes are identical.
I need to know how that is possible.
How the life of a physician’s daughter and the life a life-long patient of this asylum intersect. Because intersect they must.
Which is why I now risk my appointment, digging into secrets that may well have been better off buried.
Jane stoops, sliding aside a rug and, “Viola!” she says, her feline eyes dancing in the lantern light.
A square-shaped trapdoor lies in the floorboards.
“Tunnels, sir. After you reach the bottom of the ladder, go straight, six sconces. There is then a Y. Here, bear right.” She stops, discerning my face, assuring herself I am listening.
I nod. “Yes, Jane. Go on. We haven’t much time till the shift change.” When I shall be expected to return to the doctors’ wing. Frost had a seemingly uncanny sense of when I would depart and return. I am now discerning that may very well be by design. I suspect he follows me.
“The tunnel will look like it is caved in, but it is not. Merely make your way round the rubble, and you will see it.”
I slide myself into the opening, and she clutches my arm, her fingers twining into my sleeve in fear. “Please be careful, he is often down there. Many a night have I played cat and mouse with him in the dark.”
“Frost?”
She shakes her head. “No. Dr. Cloud.”
Grayjoy
I descend carefully, rung by rung, my mind debating what I reckon to be Jane’s supposed illness versus … a frightening possible truth.
Frost’s case notes insist Jane has hallucinations—that she sees and hears voices and music that do not exist. This has been the cornerstone argument of keeping her a Soothing Hills resident since her admission.
Dr. Cloud.
There is no Dr. Cloud on the hospital roster.
Granted, the Soothing Hills staff is massive, 900 employees. Naturally there are staff I have never met. When first I met Jane, I used to think Dr. Cloud a personification, her fear of men come to life in her psyche. A compilation of whatever trauma had befallen her in childhood, presumably from a male.
But then, other patients under my care mentioned him. This doctor who only kept rounds at midnight.
I have questioned every physician, even the physick-superior, to no avail.
My questions were met with cocked eyebrows, which seemed to call my own sanity into question. I decided to continue my search for him in private—till I had concrete evidence to present to the board.
“Are we, perhaps, catching our group psychosis, Dr. Grayjoy?” Their stares seemed to imply.
I never again brought up the subject of Cloud.
I slide my way into the tunnel’s blackness, the feeble light of my lantern barely keeping the darkness at bay.
Group hysteria? I have read of the concept, of course, but have never seen it on display.
I inhale deeply, and my lungs seize in a coughing fit. The dank smell of the tunnel permeates my nostrils, and I cover my mouth with my arm. I hoist the lantern above my head to spy a creeping black mold spiraling and swirling on the ceilings and walls. I pull out my handkerchief, plastering it over my nose.
I shall have to warn Jane. These molds can be quite dangerous.
In the distance, so it is barely more than a pinprick, a lantern hangs. At one time, these tunnels were a main source of transportation for the staff, but they closed a decade prior, after the disappearance of Patient Twelve. They are supposedly off-limits, with various cave-ins and disrepairs, but apparently someone is using them.
Someone—
I stop, dead still, and lift the lantern to extinguish it.
The shuffle of stones.
I bite my lip, hard, trying to remember the shape of the tunnels before me. It is dark as death. The Y Jane spoke of was visible from where I stood, before the light extinguished.
Step, shuffle. Step, shuffle. Step, shuffle.
Footsteps hobble forward, like the beat of a faltering heart. Growing louder and louder as they make their way toward me. Off beat, but rhythmical just the same.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise in intuition, and I finger the tiny pistol in my belt. A sweat breaks around my hairline at a sound, a sound that in any other place would be familiar, normal.
Sniff, sniff.
This man, this creature, is tracking me. Smells me in the dark.
I carefully slide off my overcoat, which I am certain is a virtual olfactory mish-mash of my life. My own cologne, ladies I have escorted, the woodsmoke of my fireplace office, medicines spilt and long forgotten. I lay it on the ground and slowly slide away from it, clinging to the wall like a spider.
Shuffle, step. Shuffle, step. It halts. Directly across from me in the dark.
The tunnel is large, but I know him to be very close. My heart beats so fast a wave of blackness ripples through my thoughts. I bite through my lip to clear my mind. Glorious, orienting pain drives back the mist of my mind, refocusing me.
I slowly pull the pistol, but do not cock it.
If this creature can smell me, its senses are highly overdeveloped for a human. The quiet click of the trigger would resemble a gunshot in the dead quiet of this tunnel that may soon prove to be my tomb.
Dr. Cloud. This is Dr. Cloud. I know it to my core. He does exist. Jane is not hallucinating. My mind whispers, Is this the monster of Soothing Hi
lls?
Step-shuffle-step-shuffle-step-shuffle. The sounds move away, hurrying toward the smell of my jacket. This is my solitary chance.
I slide as quietly as I am able till my fingers feel the wall give way. The Y.
I turn right, hurrying down the corridor as quickly as I can. I reach the rubble and ease my way around it, as Jane suggested. The smell of the cave-in—dirt, plaster, mold—should conceal my scent. I ease my way around it and halt, fighting to keep my breathing even.
An inhuman growl.
My hands tighten on the pistol, jamming it out before me into the pitch-black.
Shuffle-shuffle-shuffle-shuffle. Off-kilter running. Like a hunchback.
I picture the ambulation pattern in my head.
He is retreating, furious I have thwarted him. I wait several minutes, till I am certain he is gone, before relighting the lantern.
I see it, down the corridor. The abandoned library. As I hurry forward, I do not know which frightens me more—that Dr. Cloud is real, or the fact that Jane is most likely not insane.
And has been imprisoned here … her entire life.
The library is frigid, and I furiously rub my arms in a feeble attempt at warming them.
I have been searching nearly a half hour to no avail. Novels, non-fiction on everything from nature to politics to psychology, but no missing Jane chart.
The room is so odd. It is nearly clean. The wood floors remain, the bookcases intact. Even two wingback chairs, with just the beginnings of mold snaking up their legs, have stood the test of time.
I walk over to one and see … a blanket?
I pick it up, rubbing the material through my fingers, and smell it. My stomach instantly tightens. It smells of Jane. Clean, with a tinge of flowery underlay.
“Meow.”
I startle, my head jerking backward to smack off the heavy mahogany bookcase, instantly smarting. I rub the spot and curse.
I whirl to spy a very large cat, tail swishing madly, yellow eyes staring, in the corner. It takes off, flying into the tunnels. I roll my eyes, feeling ridiculous. I’ve barely caught my breath when another tumult erupts.
The Requiem Red Page 16