A small rubber hammer. A flared silver tube. Several brown, glass vials of stoppered, hand-labeled medicine.
And a half-empty metallic syringe, the attached needle dark with dried blood. As I knelt next to my afflicted friend, one of the vials rolled and came to rest against my skirts.
My eyes trailed across the label’s fancy script. Tincture of Coca. 80 percent.
I picked up the vial.
The contracted pupils. The rapid breathing. And that spot of blood on Doug’s neck.
I got slowly to my feet. My mouth moved, though at first no words would come as my gaze wandered from the syringe to the puncture wound, finally settling on Dr. Carson.
“What did you do to him?”
Chapter 23
THE DOCTOR DIDN’T SPEAK. HIS KNEES SNAPPED AS HE got to his feet. A thickset man whose florid jowls overlapped his tabbed collar pushed his way to Carson’s side. His hoarse drawl sounded like humidity and cicadas and cotton fields baking in the sun. “This girl here went and kissed that mulatto, Doc. Just kissed him. Right here in front of God and everyone.”
“It’s true,” someone else in the crowd confirmed. “Saw it with my own eyes, Doc Carson. Kissed that darkie right on his black lips.”
“Despicable.” One of the snide women who’d been slamming her friend in the Ladies’ Reception room held a lace hanky to her mouth. “Shameful. She must be mad to carry on so.”
A murmur of agreement from the crowd at that.
A toothy young dandy in cravat and lace sleeves made a crude remark.
“Shut up,” I snapped. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
A malevolent mood burgeoned amid the thickening mass of spectators. They shoved in closer. My chest tightened as their criticisms grew increasingly vulgar. The tide of revulsion and hatred began to build as it swept through the crowd.
“Call the constable,” someone suggested, with a response of general approval.
“Hold it,” Dr. Carson called out. “Hold on now. Do not judge the girl too harshly. She has but lost her sensibilities and become overwrought. I believe, however, that I can help her.” He raised his voice. “Dupree! Josephson!”
Two men in flat caps and navy tunics moved into the circle. Brass buttons gleamed as they laid a canvas stretcher beside Doug’s nearly still form. One grunted as they leaned down to grasp his feet and shoulders. “He’s a big ’un.”
“Don’t touch him.” Ignoring me completely, the two men lifted Doug and laid him on the litter. I took a step toward them, but as I did, I saw the doctor gesture to the attendant standing at Doug’s head.
“Just come quietly now, miss.” The man spoke through a mouthful of brown teeth as he stepped toward me. “No one needs to get hurt here.”
Panic had begun to seep from my pores. Ambush. Ambush. Ambush.
The word pulsed through my brain. This “doctor” had—for reasons I couldn’t begin to fathom—injected my friend with cocaine. Enough to bring on seizures. Enough to stop his heart. If I hadn’t been here . . .
But. Why?
“Please.” Desperate for the slightest twitch of sympathy, I looked from face to face. I might as well have been begging the marble pillars. Tiny, icy fingernails of dread clawed their way up my back.
With a practiced movement, the attendant snatched my elbows and whipped me around, pinning them behind me. Pain shot through my shoulders as my arms were practically wrenched from their sockets.
“Now, now,” Carson spoke softly, palms raised as though I were a raging animal who would go after him with teeth and nails. “There’s no need for all this. We’re here to help you. You’ll feel better soon, I assure you.”
He dug around in his bag. Soft light from the chandelier glinted off a syringe.
I went perfectly still in the attendant’s grip. “No.”
“Hold out her arm.”
A second, beefy attendant joined the first. Thick fingers dug into the flesh at my elbow and wrist as he wrenched my arm from the other man’s grip and held it straight. The sea of spectators blurred as Carson wrapped a short leather belt around my bicep and cinched it tight.
“Don’t do this,” I spoke quietly. Sanely. “There’s no need. I was only trying to save his life.”
Humming under his breath, the doctor only thumped the tender inside of my elbow. Like a traitor, the antecubital vein rose, blue and pulsing beneath the surface of my skin.
Only a couple of the transfixed onlookers would meet my eye. Several were laughing. Apparently, this had become the day’s entertainment. A circus, with Doug and me as performers in the center ring.
The doctor filled the syringe and tapped the glass to rid it of bubbles.
James, the bellhop who’d brought our meager bags up to the suite, jostled through to the front of the crowd.
“Doc Carson,” he said. “Perhaps we should wait for Miss Randolph’s people—”
“Not to worry, James.” The doctor smiled as he cut the man off. “We shall, of course, send word once we get these two settled at Greenwood.”
Though James nodded, a frown crinkled the skin between his graying eyebrows.
“Wait!” I called after him. But he’d already disappeared into the crowd.
Carson oozed concern as he stroked my hair. “Oh, you poor, poor dear. What a burden it must be to be female. Ruled by emotion.” He sighed. “Thank the stars God, in His infinite wisdom, has given man dominion over you. To censure you—gently, as one would a beloved child, of course—when tender feelings overcome reason. Not to worry, though. I am here. I will help you.” With no warning, he jammed the large-bore needle through my skin, piercing the vein. I screamed through clenched teeth.
When I felt the sting of the drug, I went crazy. Pins flew from my hair, pinging on the marble as I flailed like a trapped rabbit. When I lunged a kick at Carson, the goon behind me shifted. His hand clamped down on a muscle at the right side of my neck. From shoulder to fingertips, my arm went numb, and a red line of agony shot up my neck and into my head.
“Whatcha giving her, Doc?” one man called. “If it shuts her up, I might take a batch home for the missus.”
Several men snickered in agreement.
“This,” Carson lectured as he emptied the contents of the syringe into my arm, “is a brand-new derivative of morphia, only recently discovered. Called ‘heroin,’ when administered intravenously in the proper dosage, I’ve found it quite effective at bringing on a state of euphoric quietude.”
Carson withdrew the needle. A line of blood streamed from the hole to pat-pat-pat upon the clean white marble.
As a melty, delicious calm filled my chest and began to roll through my limbs, an article I’d once read flickered from the files inside my mind.
Heroin (diacetylmorphine) was first synthesized in 1874 by the English researcher C.R. Wright. The drug went unstudied and unused until 1895, when Heinrich Dreser, working for the Bayer Company of Germany, found that diluting morphine with acetyls produced a drug without the common morphine side effects. Heroin was touted to doctors as stronger than morphine and safer than codeine. It was thought to be nonaddictive, and even thought to be a cure for morphine addiction or for relieving morphine withdrawal symptoms. Because of its supposed great potential, Dreser derived his name for the new drug from the German word for “heroic.”
There was a question I meant to ask. Something impor-tant. But my lips had started to go tingly. I tried to focus. There’s something I need to do.
Suddenly, I couldn’t quite bring myself to care. As the effects of the drug slipped down my legs and back up into my head, my knees turned into rubber bands.
“Rubber bands,” I said to no one in particular. “Rubber. That’s a fun word. Rubbery rubber.”
Is that me? Am I talking? I wondered. “Another fun word is numb. Num-bah.” I looked over at an old lady with hunched shoulders who was sneering at me with disgust.
“You kind of look like a turtle,” I told her
. “But I like turtles, so thass okay.”
The doctor’s face appeared before me. Huge. Blearing in and out.
“Naughty.” I tried to cluck my tongue at him, but it had swelled inside my mouth.
The attendant’s arm slinked around my torso as my legs gave. Two attendants grunted as they lifted the stretcher and began to carry Doug from the lobby. I reached out toward them, knowing somehow that it was a very bad idea for them to take him away. But with the drug dragging on my limbs and eyelids, I couldn’t really remember why. After all, Doug was lying down. And lying down sounded like a really great idea.
A nap. Yep. A nap would be awesome right about now.
Dr. Carson nodded to someone behind me. I was lifted off my feet, hoisted into someone’s arms. Whoever was carrying me began to push through the crowd toward the open door of the lobby. Though it felt great not having to use my legs anymore, a little voice inside me spoke up, telling me not to leave with these people.
“Wait,” is what I wanted to say. But the hunk of meat inside my mouth wasn’t cooperating and all I could manage was a soft “W-w-w-w.”
We emerged through the brass doors into the brisk late afternoon. Sunshine slanted across the buildings, leaving our side of the street in shadow. We crossed the sidewalk and I was deposited inside a spacious carriage. My jelly spine no longer wanting to hold me upright, I slumped sideways. Wind streamed through the open windows, carrying a faint scent of smoke and frying meat. The doctor climbed in after me and ordered the driver to take us to Greenwood Institute.
My head bounced against the velvet interior as we began to move. Out the window, I saw the people who’d followed our little drama to this point begin to disperse.
I struggled to sit upright. Hold on. This isn’t right.
Half a block from the hotel, I saw two familiar, red-haired figures hurrying down the sidewalk. Gripping the door handle, I dragged myself over until my chin rested on the bottom of the open window. The figures stopped dead in their tracks. Both their faces crinkled with confusion.
The last thing I recall as the coach sped by and the darkness pressed in is Collum’s voice fading into the distance as he shouted my name.
Chapter 24
THE BOY HELD TIGHT TO THE GIRL’S HAND AS THEY RAN.
He’d promised her grandfather that he’d take care of her until her Poppy came for her. But when the other children veered away toward the forest root cellar, the boy had circled around to the back side of the huts.
“Stay here,” he said as he concealed her behind a large holly bush. “I have to go back and help my mum.”
“No!” She’d grabbed at his hand, but he was already running.
The girl wasn’t sure how long she’d knelt there, behind the bush. But at the sound of shouts, she jumped to her feet. She wanted to flee. But she knew not in which direction safety lay. And besides, her grandfather . . .
She stole up to the rear of one of the wattle and daub huts. When she peered around the corner, she saw the large Spaniard on his horse, looming over the boy’s mother. The boy was trying to wedge himself between her and the rider. Just as the woman pushed the boy behind her, a flash of silver.
Red droplets arced into the air, glittering like rubies in the winter sun. They boy cried out as his mother went to her knees, then toppled into the dirt. He covered her body with his own.
“Poppy. Poppy. Poppy.” The girl whispered the name over and over, but did not see him.
“Search every hut,” the Spaniard called to his men as he wiped the dripping sword on his sleeve. “Then burn it. Burn it all down.”
The other riders dismounted. Naked swords gleamed, torches flamed as they began to kick in doors.
The old man with the staff shambled forward. The Spaniard jerked his head and one of his men cut the old man down with one stroke. Women screamed. Smoke choked the air. At the center of it all, she thought she saw her grandfather, his little-used sword raised as he charged toward the Spaniard.
The girl crumpled. Tears and tears and more tears. She saw the boy kneel beside his mother. She watched him brush the hair back from her blood-streaked face. A final bow of his head, and then his quick hands removed something from her neck.
The boy stood very still amid the chaos. His eyes roamed over his ruined, burning village until they finally met the girl’s.
Much later, she kept slipping on frost-tinged leaves that littered the forest floor, but the boy never let her fall. When night crept in, he told her they’d better not build a fire for fear the bad men who killed his mother might find them. The boy covered them both in branches and leaves. They huddled together. And sometime during that long and terrible night, he must’ve wrapped his skinny arms around her. For when she woke in a pink and gold dawn that glittered through the treetops, the boy was holding her.
Though I fought to hold on to it, the memory receded in a whirl of white. Still half in that other world, I whispered to the boy. “Oh, Bran. Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Ah.” A man’s voice, close to my ear. “You’re awake. Delightful.”
One of my lids was peeled open. A candle flame thrust close to my eye. A drop of hot wax dripped onto my cheek and scalding a trail toward my ear. I wanted to recoil from that tiny blaze that seared through my addled mind, but I was too tired to move.
I think I groaned as the candle passed back and forth, back and forth, the finger peeling back my other lid and performing the same routine.
“Nice,” the voice said. “I believe our patient shall be back with us very shortly.”
Nearby, a woman spoke quietly. I swallowed, my throat so dry my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“Mom?” I croaked.
Silence. My nose was itching something fierce. When I went to raise my hand to scratch it, something stopped the movement. I tried the other hand, but the same thing happened. When I shifted my legs, I felt something wrapped around my ankles, holding them in place.
I tried again, struggling weakly against the bonds.
My breath started to come faster then. A snake of iron wrapped itself around my ribs, squeezing, squeezing as I fought against the force that tried to pull me back under. I’m tied down. Why am I tied down? Oh, no. No no no! This is . . . No. Trapped! Help! My eyes shot open as I wheezed for breath. Above me, a huge, primitive light bulb dangled from a white ceiling. I squinted against the incandescent glow as the socket swayed on its cloth-covered cord.
“Wha?” My tongue still refused to form words. “Who . . .”
“Good evening.” The voice preceded the middle-aged woman’s face by only an instant. Her head moved into my field of vision, blocking the light as she stared down at me. “Welcome to Greenwood Institute, Miss Randolph.”
Panic began building, building inside me as I took in the woman’s poofy, upswept hair. The tiny white nurse’s cap. A spotless apron covering her dark, high-necked gown.
Deep lines bracketed either side of her small mouth as she said, “I am the hospital matron, Mrs. Harp. Follow the rules and there shall be no problems. Do you understand?”
Recent events began to click into place, one after the other, with a rapidity that choked me.
Doug, on his back in the hotel lobby. Not breathing. The needle, plunged into my arm by someone . . . the doctor . . .
I tried to jolt upright as I remembered. Carson. He drugged me. Oh God, he drugged me and took me away. And now . . .
I twisted against the restraints. The back of my head banged once, twice against the hard, cold surface beneath me.
“Let me go,” I demanded through gritted teeth. “Let. Me. Go!”
“Now, now,” Dr. Carson spoke. “Calm yourself or I shall have to sedate you again.”
“Where’s Doug?” Carson’s pseudo-concerned face appeared to my left. “Where is my fr—” My brain snapped the right words in before I could completely mess up. “Where is my servant? Why am I here?”
“Miss Randolph.” The matron was too close. When her sta
le breath washed over my cheeks I turned my head away. She grasped my chin and jerked me back to face her. Her saccharine tone made shivers roll up my spine. “The poor dear doesn’t even remember having the episode, Doctor.”
“I didn’t have an episode!” I shouted into her face, causing her to recoil out of my line of sight. “Let me go. Let me out of here!”
As I bucked against the four-point restraints, Dr. Carson loomed over me. “Young lady,” he snapped. “If you cannot manage to calm yourself, not only will I administer the full contents of this . . .” He held up a metallic and glass syringe like the ones I’d seen at the Waldorf. “But we shall also be forced to put you in a more secure restraining device. I believe you may have heard it called a straitjacket?”
I froze. Angry tears pooled at my hairline. My teeth ground together so hard I was sure the enamel would shatter. Cool it, Walton. Just calm the freak down. ’Cause that? That would be bad. That would be like dying. Worse than dying.
“Good girl,” Carson said. “Much better.”
I wanted to slap the smugness off his face. I wanted to tear that syringe out of his hand and jam it into his eye.
“Where is Doug?” I said, jaw clenched against the rage and fear that pounded through my blood. “Is—is he all right?”
“The young man is resting comfortably,” Carson said. “He is no longer in any danger.”
My body relaxed minutely as I released a long breath. Thank God. Thank God.
“When can we leave? You see I’m supposed to travel to—”
“I’m well aware of your travel plans, Miss Randolph. Very aware indeed.”
My eyes shot to his. Something about the way he’d spoken the word . . . travel . . . made my already uneasy gut turn in a slow revolution. He patted my shoulder and disappeared from my sight.
Several of what must have been Thomas Edison’s early bulbs dangled at intervals, illuminating the small room. Turning my head as far as it would go, I could just make out the top of a rapidly darkening window.
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