Insanity

by Susan Vaught

  “I already told you, I don’t need his permission to do what’s right,” Addie said. “Despite what he might think, I don’t need his permission for anything, and neither does Trina.”

  “We look like dime trees,” I said as I lifted my badge to the sensor outside the door. “If we get caught, Security probably won’t call the police. They’ll just take us to Admissions.”

  Ms. Hyatt grunted at that, then laughed.

  The lock clicked, and I pushed open the door to let us into Lincoln, into the basement four floors beneath Unit C.

  We walked in single file, me in the lead, Forest next, and Addie and Ms. Hyatt bringing up the rear. The door swung shut too fast, and the heavy metallic clank made me flinch.

  “What is this place?” Forest whispered as we took in the long hallway stretching out before us. It had brown stone walls and a brown stone floor, just like castle dungeons in fairy stories. A yellowish glow rose from a strip of emergency lights positioned where the floor met the wall on the hall’s right-hand side, and on the left—

  “That’s a cage,” Addie said in low, tense tones as we studied the steel mesh making up most of the hall wall on the left. The door to the cage was padlocked, and gurneys and wheelchairs filled the cobwebbed space inside it.

  “Storage,” Ms. Hyatt said. “Now, anyway. I don’t want to think about what it might have been a hundred years ago.”

  Something thumped above us, and we all jumped. When I looked up, I saw long pipes running the length of the ceiling. Hot water? Gas? Crazy juice? Who knew?

  “I’m not finding a light switch,” Forest said as she felt among the various boxes at our end of the hallway. “When I worked here, they kept the emergency lights in nonpatient areas on at night. The basement was always deserted, except at break time, when people hit the canteen machines four halls over in that direction.”

  Forest jerked her thumb toward the hall door closest to us, but it was even darker than this one.

  I glanced at the ceiling and remembered something from my social-work supervisor’s chattering orientation about the thickness of the stone walls, and how many feet of steel and rock separated each floor. The old hospital doubled as a storm shelter, a fallout shelter, and a disaster center. It was built to be a fortress, back when fortress-building was still an active art. It was nearly impossible to escape, with so many locking doors, and because so many patients used to yell twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the engineers had made it pretty soundproof, too. Noises didn’t carry very far.

  In space, no one can hear you scream, my brain unhelpfully offered, in Darius’s voice, no less. I hated him for making me watch Alien.

  Addie bent forward and rummaged in her bag. She came out with a long black flashlight, which she handed to Ms. Hyatt, who switched it on and let the beam drift up and down the stone walls. Cool air chilled my cheeks as the flashlight chased shadows to the ceiling, then back down to the floor again. The air smelled like wet rock and bleach.

  The door rattled, and the bunch of us jumped again.

  “Wind,” Ms. Hyatt said, focusing her beam on the wheelchairs and stretchers. “We need to stop being silly and find the elevator to get up to the floor where Trina saw the ghost—oh, dear God.” Her hand shook, making the light dance.

  She had stopped on a silver gurney covered with sheets. There was something under the sheets—long and human-shaped and definitely not moving.

  I swallowed hard and tried to breathe, but my throat wouldn’t cooperate. All I could manage was a tight, wheezing gasp. Forest caught hold of my hand, and the both of us stared at the sheets.

  “It’s too small for a body,” Addie said with the confidence of someone who worked at a mortuary. “An adult body, at least.”

  “Is that supposed to make us feel better?” Ms. Hyatt swung the light to Addie’s face. “Are you crazy?”

  Forest let go of me, took the flashlight away from Ms. Hyatt, and walked slowly toward the cage, shining the beam through the gloom of the cramped space. I wanted to grab her and pull her back, but I glanced at the dime around my neck. Still silver, as best I could tell in the low light. And I’d been to the mortuary, too, a lot of times. Whatever was on that gurney under the sheets, it didn’t stink like a dead thing. It didn’t have the cold, empty feel of a dead thing. So it was either alive, or it was—

  “Plastic,” Forest said. Then, kind of amused, “It’s Harold.”

  We all stared at her as she turned, directing the flashlight to her left.

  “The first-aid dummy,” she clarified. “When I trained here, they used Harold to teach us CPR, how to apply bandages, that kind of thing. The training nurses liked to leave him sitting around in odd spots in the hospital, just to freak people out.”

  “What a lovely tradition,” Addie said, her voice as frosty as the air in the hallway.

  “The elevator is that way.” I pointed to where Forest had aimed the flashlight. “Past the cage.”

  Nobody moved.

  Something human-sized ran across the hall entrance, flashing in the bright beam.

  Forest yelped and dropped the flashlight, and I pounced on it and picked it up, shining it left and right and up and down, but there was nothing. My heart rate accelerated, and the hairs on my body seemed to stand up all at the same time.

  It had gotten colder. I could see my breath.

  “Patients used to be able to walk around down here,” Forest said, puffs of white fog shooting out of her mouth with each word. “Do you think that was one of them?”

  “My supervisor said everybody stays on their wards now.” The flashlight beam jittered as I tried to keep my hands steady. “Why is it colder? And everybody saw that, right?”

  Addie pushed Ms. Hyatt past us and held out her hand for the light. “We saw it,” she said as I passed it to her. She did a quick check of our dimes, all of which glittered brightly in the strong beam.

  Then she swung the flashlight back toward the hall entrance.

  We all sucked in a sharp breath.

  Someone was standing there wearing jeans and a red hoodie. The hood was pulled up so we couldn’t see the shadowy face inside, but wisps of dark, curly hair spilled out from the open neckline.

  The hair looked a lot like Forest’s.

  “You have to get out,” said a soft, frightened-sounding woman’s voice—Forest’s voice, but not Forest. The jeans and hoodie faded, then got more solid again. “You have to run away from here.”

  Desperation seemed to lace each word, and I felt it like a current in my own thoughts. It was so cold in the hallway my teeth started to chatter.

  Run, my brain urged, or at least I thought it was my brain. The inner voice didn’t feel like my own.

  I checked my dime again. Still silver. Addie turned her head, just enough to catch my eye, and I saw her hand move to her jeans pocket. Ms. Hyatt was reaching into Addie’s bag, slowly so her movement wouldn’t be noticed. My hands crept into my pockets, and I gripped the willow charm with my left and the bag of dust with my right.

  Run!

  “It’s time for me to stop running,” Forest said, sounding almost as scared as the apparition in the light. “I have to stay and fight.”

  “There’s too much bad around this place,” not-Forest whispered, out loud and in my mind at the same time. The sensation made my eyes water. “You can’t win.”

  Addie kept her flashlight fixed on the apparition as Forest said, “Then I’ll die trying.”

  The hooded head came up at that, and the figure pushed back the cloth to reveal a face so much like Forest’s that I blinked, even though I knew to expect it.

  “Don’t say that.” The woman’s tone was absolutely pitiful now. “Never say that.”

  Forest approached the figure, hands at her sides, and they circled each other in the hallway entrance.

  “You’re my mother,” Forest said, and the apparition didn’t argue with her. “You’re not a shade, because you’ve never been to the other side. You�
��re what Imogene calls a haunt.”

  Forest reached her hand out, but her fingers passed through the spirit, making a light mist where the woman’s elbow should have been. I had seen the ghosts of Darius’s grandmothers, but this one was different. It had a slight glow to it, with colors even in the blank spaces, and motion, almost like molecules zinging around at a thousand miles per hour. What I was seeing reminded me more of Darius’s white eye than the ghosts of his dead relatives.

  “What’s your name?” Forest asked.

  “Bridgette,” the woman answered. “I was born here, just like you.” She covered her mouth then, like she shouldn’t have spoken.

  Forest stopped walking around the haunt and faced Bridgette, still keeping her arms down, obviously trying not to threaten her. “Who was my father?”

  Bridgette grimaced and brought a finger to her lips. “Ssshhh. Don’t ask. He might hear.”

  My grip on the dust tightened. Somehow, I didn’t think “he” was Forest’s father. I was pretty sure the haunt was talking about Mahan.

  “Is my father alive?” Forest asked. “Could he help us?”

  The haunt glanced at the ceiling, then looked sad. She didn’t answer.

  “Why did you give me up?” Forest tried again. “Why did you leave me to be found and raised by other folks?”

  “Because darkness needs light, and light needs darkness. It’s the only way.” Bridgette reached for Forest’s wrist.

  Too late, I understood what she was doing as she reached for the carved rowan bracelet that Forest had worn all her life, the one with the smooth iron beads that repelled and burned Madoc essence.

  “Watch out!” I yelled, but Bridgette made contact with the bracelet even as I yanked the dust out of my pocket.

  “Darkness needs light!” Bridgette cried as Forest froze in place and jerked like she was being electrocuted.

  Addie started a spell and I raised my dust, but Forest shrieked, “No! Don’t hurt her!”

  Bridgette’s hoodie and jeans burst into flames.

  So did her eyes.

  “Light needs darkness,” Bridgette moaned, and orange fire licked out of her mouth with each word. “The only way!”

  She stared at us with those terrible, burning eyes, and then she screamed.

  My hands flew to my ears, and I pressed the bag of dust against the side of my own head. I couldn’t help it. Addie and Ms. Hyatt had covered their ears, too. Their mouths were open like mine, and I knew they had to be yelling from the pain like me, but I couldn’t hear them.

  Forest kept shaking like electricity was filling her whole body, but the flames blasting off the haunt didn’t come close to her. This time, the scream at the end of the hall seemed like it would never end.

  A dark square opened behind Bridgette, framing her, drawing her backward, sucking in her fire and distorting the edges of her body.

  I felt rooted, hypnotized. Forest—

  But Forest wasn’t struggling, and she wasn’t being pulled toward the black square. She seemed to be trying to hold on to what was left of her mother—and then Bridgette burst into bright sparkles. The sparkles flew into the black frame and it snapped shut, cutting off the terrible sound of her cry.

  Forest sagged backward, her shoulders hitting the wall, the arm with her bracelet held toward the now-closed crossway. I crammed the dust back into my pocket and ran to her as smoke settled all around us. Heart hammering, I grabbed Forest in a hug and held her. She was ice-cold and shaking and she was crying, too.

  “Her mind was overwhelmed by too much power,” Forest whispered against my shoulder. “When she touched me, I could share her thoughts. Bits and pieces of the past, and the present—the future, too—but I couldn’t heal her.” She drew a shaking breath. “She’ll be on the other side now, scared to death because it’s strange to her.”

  “Nonsense.” Ms. Hyatt and Addie had reached us, and Ms. Hyatt patted my side and Forest’s arm at the same time. “There’s bound to be women on the other side, just like us here. They won’t let her suffer.”

  She sounded so sure of what she was saying, it was hard not to believe her without questioning. But this wasn’t heaven we were talking about. It wasn’t hell, either. I had no real idea what the other side looked like or how it felt or how it smelled, or how people acted there, or if there were any people at all. What if it was just clouds—or monsters like Darius’s psychotic childkilling grandfather and Carl Mahan?

  I kept my arms around Forest until Addie gently pulled us apart. Forest stepped back, and I couldn’t see her face in the shadowy light.

  Addie gave my shoulder a squeeze, then turned to Forest, took hold of her arm, and lifted it to check the skin around the rowan bracelet. “No burns,” she said, letting go of Forest’s wrist and lowering the flashlight.

  “Thank the good Lord,” Ms. Hyatt said, raising her right hand in praise even as she turned her wheelchair and pointed it toward the exit door. “Now, let’s—”

  “Your God never visits Lincoln Psychiatric Hospital,” said a boy’s voice from directly behind us. “Only the mad come here.”

  Addie swore and swung the flashlight beam toward the sound as we all whirled around to see what was talking to us. Forest caught my hand and squeezed my fingers as the flashlight revealed another figure in jeans and a red hoodie. This one was a lot taller and more substantial than Bridgette had been. No flickering movie effects. No super-chilled air. In fact, the air around us felt hotter than it should be, and it was starting to move.

  “Trina,” Addie said, and the flashlight beam touched the dime around my neck.

  The coin had gone black as char.

  The figure giggled, and the sound echoed in my guts. My entire body clenched with terror. The figure flicked his fingers, and wind tore the flashlight out of Addie’s hand. It burst against the rock walls, batteries and casing and lens cover flying in different directions. The emergency lights in our portion of the hallway winked out at the same moment.

  Even through the thick walls of Lincoln Psychiatric, even over the drum of my own pounding heart, I heard thunder and the distant ringing of bells.

  A red glow drifted out from the figure, the only light, sick and menacing. I couldn’t see much about him except the crimson shadow of his hooded head, but I didn’t have to.

  I knew that when he pushed back that hood, he would have a little boy’s face.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Deserted.

  Soundproof.

  Dark.

  We were locked in the basement of a fortress asylum with a monster.

  Forest and I moved together, on instinct, forming a wall to block Mahan’s access to Addie and Ms. Hyatt.

  Darius. An image of his face flickered through my mind, stamping itself across my heart. I’m so sorry. You were right after all.

  If I ever got to see him again, he’d probably kick my ass.

  Wind howled into our hallway, rattling the padlock on the cage and sending stretchers and wheelchairs spinning inside the metal mesh. My hair and cheeks felt plastered to my skull, my employee badge flapped against my chin, and the monster in front of us glowed a darker red.

  I let go of Forest’s hand to reach for my dust, but she said, “Don’t.”

  I had no idea how I heard her through the whistle and screech of that wind, but I stopped my hand. She was right. I didn’t need to waste my only real weapon. Had to choose my moment.

  My eyes watered as I stared at the top of Mahan’s lowered head, then at the iron shanks in his hands.

  “Get away from me,” Forest hissed underneath the blasts of wind. “Let me handle this.” She tried to step in front of me, but I inched forward right beside her.

  “Trina, I mean it.” Forest sounded scared. “Go back to Addie.”

  “Not happening.” I was two parts terrified and one part pissed, but I wasn’t leaving Forest. Addie was behind me doing something to get us out of this mess, I had no doubt.

  Colors seemed to sprout fr
om the walls, bleeding silvers and golds and blues and reds down the stone. The wind didn’t touch the power coming out of the rocks, or oozing up from the floor.

  Was Addie calling the power out?

  I wanted to turn around and see where she was, what she was doing, but I didn’t dare.

  With my left hand, I drew my willow charm out of my pocket and aimed it at Mahan. I willed the power I was seeing to strike me the way lightning had the first time I fought him. I wanted to throw fire out of my charm again, but now nothing happened.

  “Percello!” I yelled over the wind.

  More nothing.

  Mahan raised his head, straightened to his full height, and finally pushed back his hood. His boy’s face wept crimson light, like it was covered with blood, and his eyes gleamed red.

  I expected him to giggle, or call me a witch.

  He didn’t make a sound.

  He just got bigger.

  And bigger.

  He filled the doorway now, and space seemed to bend around him, letting him grow. The wind focused itself on him, pulling back into him, feeding him, and I realized Forest had her eyes closed. She was humming.

  Something exploded behind me, and I screamed and ducked, holding the willow charm over my head.

  Mahan twitched, and as I raised up again, I saw a small, dark hole in his left shoulder. A second or two later, it closed like it had never been there.

  “Did I hit him?” Ms. Hyatt called.

  “I don’t think guns will help,” came Addie’s tense reply.

  “You got a bigger caliber in this bag?” Ms. Hyatt asked, but I didn’t hear Addie’s response, because Forest started humming too loud.

  Mahan lowered his head again until his awful face was almost level with Forest’s eyes. He seemed to be listening to what she was humming. The tune didn’t make any sense to me. It was giving me the shivers, like nails grating down a chalkboard.

  The monster’s red eyes flared, focusing fully on Forest. He raised his iron shanks slowly, but he seemed wary of her.

  All the wind stopped, and between the notes of Forest’s tune, I heard Mahan sniffing like he was trying to get her scent.