Veritas

by Quinn Coleridge

  “What was that?” Roy yells.

  I scramble forward to the blanket, snow scraping my fingers, and grab the knife. It doesn’t have the perfect balance of a throwing blade, but I still like my chances.

  “Put that down, sweetheart,” he says, moving closer. “You don’t want to hurt no one.”

  Oh yes, Roy. I really do.

  Rising to my feet, I judge him to be at ten paces. His pants must be around his ankles, since he’s shuffling awkwardly. I put a mental target on the spot I want to strike, step back, lift my arm at an angle, and throw. Hard. Roy sounds like a slaughterhouse on butchering day. Except that would be an insult to the pigs.

  “You cut me,” he screams. “You really cut me. Help, Titus! I’m bleeding.”

  “What’s all the ruckus?” The other guard crashes through the trees and hurries over. “It’s just a flesh wound. Stop causing such a fuss.”

  Making himself scarce, my eye. Titus was right there, ready to watch.

  “I’ll be a eunuch,” Roy sobs. “Look at all the blood.”

  “Pull yourself together, man. It’s just a hell of a nick.”

  “How’ll I explain it to Lucille? She’ll kill me.”

  I hear all this as I’m running away. Actually, running might be too strong a word. I am walking quickly, hands extended, bumping into every blasted boulder, shrub, and snow bank in Northern Colorado.

  “Rip off a piece of that blanket and wrap it around the wound,” Titus tells Roy. “Where’s the woman?”

  “How should I know, you moron?” Roy answers. “I’m busy here bleeding to death. Anyway, she can’t be far.”

  Immediately after this comment, I hear Titus sprinting through the brush and increase my pace, tripping over a log several steps later. He reaches my spot and slams his fist into my jaw. Deus misereatur! My back tooth cracks and the bones in my face feel like they’ve caught fire. I can’t breathe properly and fall backward, over the same damn log but in the opposite direction. Titus squats by me and holds my body down with one arm, punching me again. Hot blood runs from my nose and fills my mouth. I nearly choke on it.

  Thunderation…

  I come to under the wagon tarp in a haze of pain and wish I’d remained unconscious. Lying across the filthy-smelling blankets, I test the movement of my jaw several times. Bruised, enormous in size, but not broken. My left eye is swollen shut, though, and my ribs ache, like I was kicked a few times after passing out. I can’t bend one of my fingers. Curses but it throbs! Must have been stomped on, too.

  Roy is moaning loudly from his seat next to Titus, and I can’t help thinking that my injuries are worth his present torment. Roy may still have the inclination to molest, but his equipment won’t perform. A temporary solution, but better than nothing.

  A ball of wadded up material pushes against my ribs. Criminy, it hurts. With all the discomfort going on, I’m surprised I even notice. Is it another dirty blanket? I reach out to shove the material away and grasp the silk liner of my mink cloak. How soft and lovely it feels. Thank you, butler at The Revels. For bringing me my mink cloak when I was being kidnapped. It makes me dislike you slightly less for not stopping them, you bloody idiot.

  I rub the silk lining with my thumb, as though it is the cure to all injuries, and find there’s a bulge within the cloak pocket. Could it be? Is the purse still there? I lift my hips a half-inch and use my good hand to yank the cloak free of my weight. This is no easy task with my hands cuffed near my belly.

  Reaching into the cloak pocket, I catch a silken tassel and pull. My drawstring purse! I tucked it into the pocket yesterday after leaving the mausoleum, worried I would lose Mama’s belongings. I’d completely forgotten the purse was still inside my cloak. After setting it on my stomach, I remove the jewelry. Nothing has been lost, not even the tiny pearl earrings I grew tired of wearing and slipped into the bag. And here are my lucky pebbles. Hope blossoms inside me as I feel the cool, smooth stones in my palm. How can I hide the purse? Surely Roy and Titus will want it.

  My drawers have two pockets, just above the knee, concealed behind panels of lace. They were designed to store emergency items of the feminine kind, but I’ll use them today to smuggle treasure instead. I kiss Mama’s ruby necklace with my swollen lip and put it, and Grandmother’s bracelet, into the pocket on the right. The pearls, wedding set, and lucky pebbles go inside the left one.

  The cloak still smells of cedar shavings and potpourri, of my life before this nightmare began. I pull a section of it up to my face and rest my battered chin on the soft folds of mink. How surreal that I am in this state. I stroke the fur, hugging the symbol of my past and trying not to weep, afraid that I’m not up to the challenges of the future. We travel for some time along a country thoroughfare, and then turn onto a sloping road. Gravel crunches under the wagon wheels.

  “Sure would like to drive into the city,” Titus says. “I could use a drink.”

  Roy snorts. “You and me both.”

  What city? Where are we?

  I hear the distant bustle of carriage wheels rolling down streets, a train whistle, and a smithy at work with his hammer and anvil. Yet new sounds capture my attention—twittering birds, wind gusting through tree branches, softly falling snow, and the mournful call of a mountain lion. Every time I hear a big cat make that sound, it reminds me of a human baby crying for its mother. This notion destroys what little composure I possess. How could Mama leave me without some sort of protection? Didn’t she guess what Father would do? Were there no provisions made in her will on my behalf?

  Tears sting my eyes, and I summon a borrowed memory. Butterflies dance and float with brilliant color across a blue, cloudless sky. Like a gift from the gods to the world below.

  When Tom was young, he saw these very monarchs—a cloud of orange and black flying across the sky—and years later transferred the image to me with a tender wave of emotion, saying I love you for the first time. They bring assurance on a deeper level than even my lucky stones can.

  As the butterflies dance, my stinging eyes cool, and my brain begins to calculate. Breathe and think, that’s it. What can you do to survive?

  But the wagon takes a turn and gravity rolls me toward the right. My ears pop with increased altitude. I’m being taken into the wilderness?

  Count to sixty, Hester. Good, now begin again.

  It takes over an hour to reach the top of the mountain. Seventy-two minutes by my count. But the wagon went so slowly at times, I think I could have passed it on foot. We come to a lurching stop, and I hear the squeak and groan of a pulley system lifting something heavy. A door? A gate of some kind?

  “Enter in,” a man says.

  Titus talks with him for a moment, and then drives the wagon through the entrance and parks it. The canvas is drawn away, and Roy pulls me upright, crushing my throbbing hand. I squirm in agony, close to fainting.

  He puts his stinking mouth next to my face. “I’ll be back in a few weeks. You think on that.”

  Titus fastens leg irons around my ankles and puts his hand on my back, pushing me out of the wagon. “Ironwood Lunatic Asylum. Welcome to your new kingdom, princess.”

  21

  Infernus.

  Hell.

  What did he say? Where am I? No, no… I can’t have heard right. Titus and Roy are playing a trick, that’s all. I’d rather die than be at Ironwood.

  But what they tell me feels true, and I can’t escape the testimony of my own senses. I pound at my ears and shake my head, trying to block out reality. No, no. Not Ironwood, not that place. Yet I’m surrounded by half a dozen men. They chew tobacco, walk around Titus and Roy, and talk about Faust’s newest patient—who is she? Is it I they speak about? No, no. It must be a joke. Blast you, Titus. You’re too cruel to laugh at me like this. After fearing the asylum most of my life, my brain can hardly process the possibility I might actually be there. Didn’t Father say it would happen, that I belonged at Ironwood?

  One of the men brushes against the back
of my dress. I whirl around and slap at him. Don’t touch me, filth!

  “Come on, princess spitfire,” Titus says. “Let’s go.”

  He takes my arm, but I claw at him and fight like an animal despite my shackles. Biting, butting against the guard with my head. I won’t go inside. You’ll have to kill me first.

  Titus doesn’t punch like he did when I tried to escape. The other guards are laughing, and he is the center of attention now. Roy tells them about my shenanigans on the trip to Ironwood as Titus grapples with me. Right shoe squeaking, he evades my fists and sharp-toed boots, but grows tired of it quickly, despite the cheering men. Done with entertaining the masses, Titus throws me over his shoulder, walks up a flight of stairs, and crosses the threshold. Unclean humanity assaults my senses, along with the metaphysical stench of fear, sadness, anger, shame. People murmur behind the thick walls—some of them pray for death, some hallucinate and laugh wildly, and others despair of ever leaving this place.

  No. Not here. Never Ironwood.

  Then I remember Cordelia reading from an English translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. It was years ago, on a rainy afternoon, and I was bored and being difficult so Cordie turned to the Inferno. “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” she recited dramatically, expounding upon the nine circles of hell.

  Limbo. Lust. Gluttony. Greed. Anger. Heresy. Violence. Fraud. Treachery.

  All exist in this place—completely overlooked by the outside world—for Colorado boasts a Bedlam of her own. Hell is here on earth, here in Ironwood.

  Trying to ignore the sounds of the broken and insane, I slow my breaths and concentrate on my own heartbeat until two women approach. Who are they? Titus puts me down and one of the women excuses him and leads me into another room. Will she be kind? Will these women help me?

  “You need to change,” one says, sounding old as dirt. “Don’t give us no trouble.”

  Both women discuss my clothes and grab at the cloak, untying the ribbons at my neck. I step back, shocked by the boldness of their hands. These women do not ask if they can touch or take. It’s as though I am a subhuman species, and they need not bother with such courtesies.

  Removing the handcuffs, but leaving my leg irons in place, they peel away whatever dignity I have left. It is the final straw, as they say, and I lose my fighting spirit. My gown, bustle, petticoat, and corset are taken. Yet I can’t seem to scratch or kick the nurses as I did Titus. Rude and ignorant though they may be, we are of a gender. I don’t wish to hurt another female.

  “Never seen a real mink cloak before,” the old as dirt one says. “Matron should get a handsome price for it at resale.”

  “Thank goodness the fur is brown,” the younger nurse replies. “There’s spots of blood everywhere.”

  “Didn’t your mother teach you? Cold water removes blood stains. We’ll clean the fur real carefully.”

  They’re gentle with animal pelts but unfeeling toward humans? It makes no sense.

  Young Nurse sighs with longing. “Her cameo’s sure nice. I’d buy it if I had the means.”

  Take the cameo, I plead silently. It’s yours. Only let me free.

  “Hush, she’s coming!” Old Dirt barks.

  The new woman’s step is fast and hard, like she’s crushing grapes instead of walking into a room.

  “Good afternoon, Matron Latham,” both nurses say together.

  The matron walks around me. “Strip off her underclothes and cut her mane. The wig-maker will like that whitish blonde color.”

  My braid hangs down to the middle of my back, and Old Dirt strokes the length of it before hacking across the top with a pair of scissors. “Finish this for me?” she asks Young Nurse. “My arthritis is bad today.”

  Between them, they get the job done. I reach up and feel my jagged hair, judging it to be an inch or two below my ears. I don’t mind overmuch, I guess. Could be rather liberating, and hair grows back. I do mind when they try to take my camisole.

  Get your hands off me. How can you do this to another woman? You should be better than a man. Old Dirt repeatedly slaps my bruised cheek, and the young one pinches hard enough to break the skin on my arms and legs.

  No tears now, Hester. Don’t let them win.

  “Everybody’s the same at Ironwood,” Young Nurse says. “Right down to their drawers. No lace and satin for you here.”

  She grabs the drawstring ribbon on my drawers, and I remember the treasure in the pockets. Bending over myself, I hold the underwear firmly in place. These she-devils won’t touch Mama’s things! Old Dirt smacks my back now, until she’s breathing heavily. “Foolish, foolish girl.”

  Latham steps in from the hall. “What’s all the fuss about? Dr. Faust will be here soon.”

  The nurses tell her that I won’t surrender my drawers. “Well, let the girl keep them then. We don’t have time for this. Get her dressed.”

  I exhale in relief as a linen shift is thrown over my head. It smells of soap flakes, hard water and iron laundry kettles. The neckline exposes the top of one shoulder, but at least the coarse material covers my legs completely. I receive a pair of canvas slippers and put them on, too. Dr. Faust enters a few minutes later, on a waft of verbena, and Matron encourages him to inspect the new me.

  “Doesn’t look so haughty now,” observes Latham. “We’ll sell the hair tomorrow.”

  “Excellent,” Faust replies.

  He leans close, but doesn’t touch any part of my body. “You used a knife on Roy this morning, Miss Grayson. What shall we do about that?”

  I turn my face toward Faust, as though I am looking right at him with my sightless eyes. If I’d meant to kill Roy, Doctor, he’d be dead.

  “Is that defiance I see? How unwise,” Faust murmurs. “I’m putting you into the Pit for now, but tomorrow, we’ll begin therapy. You won’t be so proud then. In fact, I think I’ll have a new pet by suppertime.”

  New pet? I don’t think so.

  Faust leaves and another set of guards march me to the basement. They secure my handcuffs to an iron ring attached to the wall. A scraping noise hurts my ears, like a heavy lid being lifted off a pot. One of them unhooks me from the wall, and I back away, nearly plunging through an opening in the floor. He turns me around and tells me about the stairs before us. My foot misses the first step, and I begin to fall, mouth open in surprise, until the guard grabs the back of my shift.

  “Careful,” he says, releasing my shift once I’ve found the step.

  His voice is gentle. The type one could imagine calming a wild colt or a lost dog. He leads me down the stairs. My bones grow hot, and I have a vision, a testament of truth. Unlike my clothes, the nurses cannot strip me of my psychic gifts. This revelation is brief, a mere glimpse of a gangly young man saying grace over Sunday supper, eating his meal in a sunny kitchen surrounded by family. He’s younger than me by a few years and still has the face of a child. Ginger hair, blue-green eyes. New to Ironwood, this fellow is a decent person. I know I need not fear him, unlike Roy and Titus.

  “The bucket under the stairs serves as a toilet,” he says, bringing me out of the vision. “And that table over there is what most people sleep on.”

  He removes the cuffs from my wrists. The metal loops have rubbed my skin raw, and I wince and blot the sores against my sleeves. Oh, blast. They sting something awful.

  “Doctor Faust hasn’t used this place in months, but the female wards are all full. You’ll be stuck here for a while, I’m afraid. Take it from me, the conditions up there aren’t much better.”

  The guard kneels and frees my feet from the irons. “I know how Roy is. He deserves what you did to him.”

  I hold my painful jaw and nod. His kind words weaken my resolve to be strong. I am so weary of fighting tears and grief, but I keep nodding like a fool, hoping to regain control.

  “We’re not all like that.” He turns for the stairs reluctantly and pauses on the bottom step. “Leave the table by the south wall. It gets the heat from the ovens in the kitch
en, and the stones are toasty.”

  Don’t go. Please don’t leave me here. Removing my hand from my jaw, I point to him, hoping to learn his name.

  “It’s Davis.”

  Thank you, I sign.

  This gesture means nothing to the guard. He climbs the stairs and steps out of the Pit. The iron cover is slid back with a hard thud. It is an intimidating sound, and I panic, rushing up the stairs. I pound on the lid but no one answers or even yells at me to stop. Exhausted and sore, I fall asleep, slumped over the top two steps.

  My bladder brings me fully awake, and I climb down into the Pit to search for the bucket. It smells as though it hasn’t been emptied in months, and I’m suddenly grateful it’s December instead of July, when the odor would be worse with the warmer weather. Yet the bucket’s acrid scent competes with the overriding essence of mildew, and the air feels dank, like the old cellar at home that I was afraid to enter as a child.

  After relieving myself, I investigate my new surroundings, using my hands and feet to gather information. The floor is liberally covered with straw, and former tenants have left other debris—small, hollow bones, a pile of corncobs, a torn shoe, and filthy-smelling blankets.

  The wooden table feels rough, but I scramble on top and sit cross-legged. Something must be done about my broken finger. It inhibits the movement of my entire hand. What would Kelly recommend? The doctor had the same injury after fighting with Tom, and he tore off a piece of his shirt and wrapped his hand with it. I rip some lace from my drawers, and push my aching finger straight, using the lace to tie it to the next healthy digit.

  Terribly painful, but I hope it works.

  Leaning back against the warm stone, I sigh and enjoy the heat for a moment, until I feel something strange in the area of my shoulder blade. I turn and reach out with my good hand, touching the wall. Letters? Carved in the stone? I slowly trace them, the curves and the straight lines. Thank you again, Kelly—for insisting I learn the alphabet.

  I get down from the table and touch other parts of the wall. Carved words are everywhere. The writing varies in style but the overall theme is the same. The Pit is steeped in wretchedness, past atrocities screaming from its very stones.