I start to sway, and I could swear that I’m almost horizontal, but I don’t fall. Only because Barnaby grabs my shoulder.
“What’s wrong with you?”
The fear in my brother’s voice snaps me back to reality. I can’t faint, not here, not in front of him, and not when I’m so close. So close to how it all started.
“Barnaby,” I say in a firm, calm voice. “I want to meet your friend.”
Guarded, but clearly pleased to play intermediary and make an introduction, Barnaby agrees. “Follow me,” Barnaby says, shoving the last bit of chocolate into his mouth. “Luba’s kind of like the grandmother we never had.”
If I wasn’t concentrating so hard on staying conscious, his comment would definitely have sent me reeling to the floor. Grandmother?! Maybe to Satan, but not the Robineau kids.
Barnaby makes a right at the end of the hall. I fall in step behind him and let my fingers graze along the wall, touching the edge of the black stripe, to make sure I stay upright. If Barnaby suspects my request is anything but aboveboard you would never know it by watching him walk; he’s practically bouncing down the hall. It could be the sugar from the chocolate bar he just devoured invading his bloodstream, or he’s just proud because he thinks I want to meet this so-called friend of his.
We turn another corner, a left this time, and there are so many questions wreaking havoc inside my head, there’s no way I can keep them to myself.
“So, Barn, how do you know this woman?” I ask.
“Class project,” he replies.
Even if I were in full control of my faculties, I still wouldn’t understand what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”
“Sociology.”
As if that’s supposed to clarify things. “Could you maybe try to answer in a complete sentence?”
A heavy sigh is finally followed by an explanation. “Once a month we have to come here to volunteer and help out. One student gets paired up with one patient,” he explains. “And I lucked out and got Luba.”
Okay, so that connects a few of the dots. “So she’s a patient here?”
Stopping in his tracks, Barnaby turns to face me. “Duh. I just told you it’s a student/patient project; if I’m the student, she must be the patient.”
I fight the urge to shove my fist into Barnaby’s mouth, twist upward, and pull out every bit of information stored in his brain. What does he know about this woman? Has he ever told her anything about our family? Is she filling his imagination with stories about curses and werewolves and boys who accidentally shoot men in the woods? I force myself to smile and keep all of my questions about Luba to myself until I can ask the witch in person.
“Well, then let’s go see your classmate,” I say instead.
As we continue down the hallway, it finally dawns on Barnaby that this is a very odd thing for a brother and sister to do. “Why are you so interested in Luba anyway?”
Thinking fast, I use what is quickly becoming my go-to technique for when I’m in a jam: I mix the truth with a lie.
“I’m worried about her,” I answer. “She looked kind of frail. I just want to make sure she got back to her room okay.”
Laughter fills the hall. It isn’t mine so it must be Barnaby’s. “Oh, sis-dude, Luba may look frail, but trust me, she’s anything but.”
“What do you mean?”
Finally, Barnaby stops at Room 48. He places his hand on the doorknob, but instead of giving the door a push so we can enter, he turns to me.
“Luba always says, ‘Only a fool judges a person’s spirit by its surface.’ ”
I smile even though my mind is consumed with ugly thoughts. Of course Luba would say that; it’s because she’s living proof that evil can exist in the unlikeliest of places. First my father, then me; I can’t believe that she’s now gotten to Barnaby too. Well, her influence ends right now. I don’t know how, but I’ve got to put an end to this relationship before she poisons his mind any further.
“It’s an old Native American Indian proverb,” Barnaby explains.
His words bombard my ears; I hear them, but I can’t comprehend what they mean. All I can focus on is the door. It’s slightly ajar, and the open sliver of space is illuminated by the same fluorescent lighting that brightens the entire facility. Just on the other side of this door is the woman who ruined my father’s life, the woman who put a curse on my soul, and the woman responsible for my best friend’s death. Why isn’t Barnaby going inside? Why is he looking at me and still talking?
“She’s got this other saying too. It’s hilarious; it’s about . . .”
“Why don’t we go inside and let Luba tell us herself,” I say, interrupting him. “Give her a chance to spread some of that ancient wisdom.”
Yes, I must learn to trust my gut instincts more often; this is precisely what Barnaby needed to hear to motivate him into action.
“Hey, Luba,” Barnaby chirps, pushing the door open. “I brought company.”
But two people standing in an empty room can hardly be called company.
“Are you sure this is her room?” I ask. I’m back in control of my body, and I’m trying to manipulate my new heightened senses to see if I can pick up a clue as to Luba’s whereabouts. Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing, but it feels better than just standing still.
“Of course I’m sure it’s her room,” Barnaby snaps, sounding like his old self. “What do you think I am, a ’tard?”
If I want my brother to think that everything is status quo and I’m not freaking out because Luba is still free, I have to sound like my old self too. “Maybe Luba got tired of being your patient and she’s in hiding.”
“Fat chance,” Barnaby replies. “She’s the one who chose me in the first place. She told the orderlies that she overheard me talking and liked my sense of humor.”
Thankfully, Barnaby walks back out into the hallway, so he doesn’t see the look of dread grip my face. It wasn’t coincidence that Luba connected with another part of my family; it was intentional. But was it another plot to try and destroy us or was she just trying to prove to us that she’s the one in control? There’s no way that I can find anything else out tonight without giving my own intentions away to Barnaby. Or is there?
As expected the Sequinox is waiting for us outside with Caleb smiling behind the wheel. Just as we’re approaching I toss my bag behind a bush. “Oh I forgot my bag in my mom’s room,” I pout.
A quick glance at Barnaby then back at Caleb, and my boyfriend figures out I’m lying.
“Want me to drive Barney home and come back for you?” Caleb asks.
“Would you mind?” I say as if that was the sweetest and most unexpected thing I ever heard.
“Not at all,” Caleb replies, perfectly on cue. “Okay with you, Barney?”
“It is if you stop calling me Barney.”
“Sure thing,” Caleb says as he pulls away. “Barney.”
Running back, I retrieve my bag and have to consciously slow down so I can appear natural when I reach Essie’s desk. Not that she’d even notice; her face is once again buried in some dumb celebrity magazine that doesn’t use sentences longer than five words.
“Hi, Essie, I forgot to give you back our passes,” I say, pulling out the gray index cards from my bag and handing them to her.
Without looking up at me she takes the cards, looks at their numbers, and places them in the appropriate section of the metal card-holder box on her desk. Then it’s back to reading an article about some rich person’s divorce or a reality TV star’s most recent botched plastic surgery. I know Essie isn’t going to be happy, but I have to interrupt her anyway.
“So my brother tells me he’s friends with some woman named Luba.”
No response.
“Turns out I think she’s got a little crush on him, because she’s always giving him gifts.”
No response.
“I don’t think my father will consider it appropriate for one of your patients to be givin
g an underage visitor some of her medication in return for keeping her company.”
Finally, Essie places her magazine on the desk and looks up at me. She’s trying to act disinterested, but it’s as if one of her tawdry articles just came true in front of her eyes. She’s rabidly engrossed.
“Luba’s done what?” she asks, pulling her glasses down to the tip of her nose so she can see me clearly.
“Obviously the old lady’s confused, and she thinks Lexapro and Prozac are proper thank-you gifts for a minor.”
Essie pushes her glasses back into their proper position and then turns her head from side to side to make sure no one is in the vicinity to overhear. “Between you, me, and the lamppost outside, that woman has been trouble since the first day she got here,” she spills. “I told Mr. Lundgarden. He’s the director here, very nice, but preoccupied with troubles at home. His daughters . . . Well, don’t get me started on those two hussies; they are a father’s nightmare if you know what I mean. And his wife! She spends more money on clothes and Botox than all the women in my magazines combined. I told him that he should get rid of her—Luba, not his wife; it’s not my place to interfere in anyone’s personal business, but work, that’s a different story. Luba’s no good; that’s what I told him. But what does he do instead? He lets her come and go as she pleases.”
It’s as if Essie has been saving up her words all these years; she’s said more to me just now than she has in the decade I’ve been coming here. Maybe all it took for her to respond with more than a grunt was for me to engage her in a conversation that made her feel like a person instead of an employee. Whatever the reason, for once Essie’s unprofessionalism proves to be beneficial. She’s giving me more information on Luba than if I tried to steal the woman’s personal records.
“What do you mean ‘come and go as she pleases’?” I ask. “Barnaby said she’s a patient.”
“Honey, she’s a patient like I’m a registered Republican,” Essie says, laughing at her own remark. “And if you spread a word of that, I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that you’re a lying Democrat.”
Typically political humor escapes me, just not something I care about, but I’m guessing that Essie is trying to tell me that she’s a closet-Democrat and that Luba isn’t a real patient.
“So what do you mean? She just shows up and plants herself in an empty room when she feels like it?”
“Not just any room,” Essie says. “Always the same, Room 48.”
So they keep one room vacant just for the psycho? “But isn’t that illegal?” I ask. “I know the red tape we had to go through in order to get my mother moved into a better room. How can a room be kept vacant for someone who may or may not show up?”
“That, my girl, is the $64,000 question.”
No, the real question is how much power does Luba really have? “Is Luba holding something over on Lundgarden?”
“You didn’t hear that from me,” Essie replies. “But it sounds to me like somebody just won a game of Bingo.”
It’s getting increasingly difficult to follow Essie’s turns of phrase, but I think this time she means that I’m right. But how is that possible? This is a state-run facility; don’t they have checks and balances in place to avoid corruption and scams like this? Could Lundgarden be a pawn in Luba’s game? Or does he just not care that an extra crazy woman is wandering the halls? Well, if Luba doesn’t live here full-time, she’s got to have a place where she goes home to. And if that’s true, there’s also the chance that she might have some family.
“Do you have a home address for her?”
“Now, Dominy Robineau, you know that information is classified,” Essie says, acting as if she’s insulted and sounding, for some reason, as if she’s Southern.
“Now, Essie . . . whatever your last name is,” I reply. “I thought we were friends. Are you seriously going to act all professional and by-the-book after we’ve known each other all these years?”
Then I do something I am not at all proud of. I pull out the almost-dead mother card.
“Weren’t you on duty the very first day my mother was brought here?”
I can see that specific memory flash right before Essie’s eyes.
“Yes,” she says slowly.
“And what did you say to me on that day when I was only six years old?”
Mortified, she replies, “That if you ever needed anything, you just ask your Aunt Essie.”
I completely disregard the fact that since that time Aunt Essie has morphed into an apathetic stepmother, but it seems that Essie is feeling a bit sentimental. She looks like she’s about to cry, and I almost feel bad, but not bad enough to back down.
“Well, the time has come, Aunt Essie, and I’m asking,” I say. “How can I find out where Luba lives?”
Leaning forward, Essie gets so close to me I can see the vertical lines all across her lips. They seem to bend and elongate like a picket fence in a windstorm when she speaks. “I don’t have an address, but her next of kin is listed as her son,” she says. “Thorne St. Croix.”
My nose crinkles as if to say “that’s an odd name.”
Essie must have gone to the same psychic academy that Caleb graduated from; she can read my mind too. “You know those Indians and their crazy names.”
I know them better than you think.
“Thanks, Essie, I really appreciate it,” I reply. “And don’t worry, I’ll never reveal my source.”
Just as I’m about to enter the main lobby and leave, I’m overwhelmed by the fragrance of the moonflowers. I know my senses have improved, but this is different. This is like the smell is calling me, like there’s a hook on the end of it that has latched into my spine and is pulling me toward its source. It’s an invitation I can’t refuse.
Quietly, I turn around and head toward The Hallway to Nowhere. Essie’s hunched over, her face buried again in her magazine, and I quicken my pace. I have no idea where this scent will take me, if it’s leading me to Luba or if it’s just my imagination getting the better of me, but whatever the final destination, I have to follow the flowery perfume.
At the end of the hall I make a right, then a left. I look into Room 48 to make sure it’s still empty, and then continue on until I reach a dead end. The sign on the metal door reads, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. I’m about to turn back when a whiff of moonflowers hits me in the face, rising from the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor. Despite the imposing appearance, the door is rather easy to open, not because of a flaw in its design, but because it isn’t locked. Unless the rest of The Retreat’s employees have the same work ethic as Essie, I can’t imagine someone carelessly leaving this door unlocked. Other forces have to be at work. And by other forces, I mean Luba.
I walk into a long, narrow section of the building that looks to be the medical supply department. Behind locked glass cabinets are tons of shelves housing everything from the syringes Nadine swipes to bedpans to plastic applicator things to oddly-shaped devices made of metal and rubber that I’ve never seen. One in particular looks like a boat engine with a flexible hose attached to it that ends in a long, thin needle. I pray to God I never have to find out what that one does.
The next section of the room is a huge walk-in linen closet. Towels, robes, dressing gowns, sheets, blankets, and pillows line the walls, all neatly folded, collectively giving off the aroma of bleach that almost overpowers the fresh lilacy smell of the moonflowers that’s still tugging at me.
The door at the other end is also unlocked, but this one leads to a stairwell that only goes down. Unusual, but at least I don’t have to make a choice. It takes me three flights to reach the next landing and when I see what’s printed on the door, I literally take a step back. FIRST WARD. I know that that’s fancy jargon for The Dungeon.
The impulse to leave is very strong. I tell myself that I should retrace my steps and go outside to where Caleb has got to be waiting for me, but just before I can give in to reason and common sense, a breeze erup
ts in the stairwell, creating a small wind tunnel that’s jammed with the scent of moonflowers. It’s calling me to the other side, but this door looks even more impenetrable. Plus, didn’t Nadine say that The Dungeon houses only the most dangerous patients? Even if I could get inside, is it really a place I’d want to be? And is it really a place I want to risk getting trapped in? But it isn’t possible to become trapped when there’s nothing keeping you locked in.
Like a dream sequence in an old movie, the door begins to ripple and grow transparent, until it disappears entirely. Gone, as if it never existed in the first place. Maybe it’s just an illusion, a hologram, but when I tentatively step forward and extend my arm, I touch empty space where the door used to be. If I wasn’t convinced the psycho was behind this latest stunt, I’d think it was really cool magic. But soon all thoughts of magic are replaced when the sounds begin.
From within the closed cells that populate this area I can hear muffled cries, sobs filled with anguish and despair, indecipherable shouts, screams that cascade right into maniacal laughter. Nadine wasn’t kidding; I don’t know how anyone—insane or completely in control of his or her sanity—could spend more than ten minutes in this place without wanting to rip his or her ears off. I’m about to lose my mind, and I’ve only just stepped foot in here. Then I realize with utter horror that this is exactly what my life has become.
I’m exactly like these unfortunate and unseen souls rotting away in these rooms; I’m trapped just like they are. The only difference is that their cells are made of padding and come with unbreakable locks, while mine is made of flesh and blood. I look around and wonder just how long it will take until this curse becomes unbearable and it breaks me like whatever disease or misfortune has broken these patients and I wind up in a cell next to them.
The only thing that stops me from succumbing to the panic rising in my stomach is that I see something on the floor at the end of the corridor that’s bathed in moonlight. I don’t know how natural light is getting into this space until I get closer and see a long horizontal window running across the top of the ceiling. It’s only a few inches wide, and the glass looks to be inordinately thick, so using it as an escape hatch would be impossible. But the window can be used as a way for the moon to capture my attention.
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