Sparks of Light

by Janet B. Taylor

  “He said he’d convinced the head doctor at Bellevue to come watch him perform some ‘procedure.’ Said it was like what he did to that poor Miss Allen. But that he wouldn’t have to cut through the skull no more.”

  A shiver skimmed across my shoulders as every piece of research and information I’d shoved back the night before roared into my head. Articles and pictures and reports. Flashing and flashing.

  He’s talking about the transorbital lobotomy. That’s it, isn’t it? Oh dear God.

  They’d called it a miracle cure. Almost a fad. The young field of psychiatry had blown up and been ablaze with the news of the new phenomenon.

  Tens of thousands of the procedures had been performed.

  The inventor was even considered for the Nobel freaking Peace Prize.

  People with haunted eyes lined up in a hallway, awaiting their turn.

  Black-and-white image of a supine patient. Men in old-fashioned suits gather around, watching as a surgeon prepares to drive his mallet down onto the slender steel protruding from the patient’s eye socket.

  A magazine cover, upon which an aproned wife with rose-painted cheeks serves pie to her family, the ad inside promising a permanent cure for “moodiness,” “female maladies,” and “disobedience.”

  Close-up of a twelve-year-old boy, his eyes blackened and swollen shut, his mouth stretched wide in a scream.

  But I knew, I knew that the procedure was not due to be invented for another fifty years. Fifty years.

  Suddenly everything began to lock into place.

  Snap. Snap. Snap.

  The needle mark in Doug’s neck. Carson’s insistence on taking the two of us with him. Locking us up.

  He was one of them. A Timeslipper. Or . . . at least involved with them in some way. Had he been here this whole time? If—​once contact is made—​time runs on parallel lines, from 1983 to the present was more than thirty years.

  And now he was . . . what? Stealing credit for what would one day be a banned and barbaric procedure, fifty years before its true creation?

  Of course he is, I realized. Because it will make him famous. It will make him rich.

  “Time’s running short, Miss Walton. We should be going.”

  I looked up at Sergeant Peters’s lined, earnest face. I tried to swallow, but my throat had gone dry as bone. “Of course,” I managed. “Let’s go.”

  Lila was watching me. I could see the hurt and betrayal forming in her eyes, and I knew I couldn’t just leave them here to fend for themselves against that monster. I hurried to her and whispered quickly. “Listen, I’m going to find a way to get you out of here,” I told her. “All of you. Who can I contact? Tell me, please.”

  Lila looked away. “Just go,” she snapped. “You don’t know us. You owe us nothing. Just leave.”

  The other women turned their backs on me, making me feel like slime scraped from the bottom of their shoes. Only Annabelle smiled as she hugged her kitten to her chest.

  Then Peters was gripping my arm, tugging me toward the door, talking low and fast. “Boy’s in D-14. I’ll bring you up there. There’s a laundry chute at the end of the hallway. You two’ll slide down while I run around and meet you in the laundry and unlock the back door. Your people will be waiting for you there, but we must go quick-like. Carson, he won’t put up with no trouble in his establishment. Once he hears about this—” He waved a hand at the broken window. “No tellin’ what he’ll do to you, miss. He—”

  “What” ​—a deep voice boomed through the room—​ “in the name of all that is holy is going on here?”

  Dr. Alexander Carson strode in, his sharp eyes missing nothing. The shattered glass. The discarded, broken piano bench. Peters’s grip on my arm.

  “Good man, Peters,” Carson said. “Take Miss Randolph to the isolation cell. It appears she has become violent. Which means we shall have to reevaluate her treatment plan, after all.”

  “Yes, sir.” Peters’s eyes bored into mine. “Come along quietly now, miss.”

  I shot a look at the other patients, praying they’d go along with our desperate little farce.

  Priscilla and Mrs. Langdon looked away. Lila Jamesson’s troubled gaze locked on mine. For an instant, I thought she might give me up. But as I passed, she gave a quick nod of acceptance. Sorrow struck me then at leaving them. But my mission was clear. Get Doug. Get out.

  Then I’d try to find a way to help them, before Carson started carving up their brains.

  I went along, acting cowed as Peters marched me across the room. We were nearly to the door when Annabelle Allen suddenly piped up.

  “Oh, Dr. Carson,” she said in an eerie little-girl singsong. “Sergeant Peters is taking Miss Randolph outside. He’s taking her from your lovely hospital to meet her friends. I think he is being awfully naughty to disobey you like that. Don’t you agree?”

  Carson spun toward us. His eyes narrowed in suspicion as they darted back and forth between Peters and me.

  I froze, but Peters didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, what notions these patients come up with, eh, Doc? It’s enough to put you off your feed.”

  Chuckling, shaking his head in amusement at the insanity he had to deal with every day, he continued herding me toward the door.

  The doctor held up a hand. “Hold a moment, Sergeant.”

  Though the command was quiet, the threat was clear enough. The other guards stepped into the room. I tried not to flinch as Peters dug his fingertips deeper into my arm.

  Carson knelt before Annabelle. “My dear Miss Allen,” he asked, sweetly. “Is this true? What you said about Sergeant Peters helping Miss Randolph to leave?”

  She nodded ardently, baby-doll ringlets bouncing against her shoulders. “Oh yes, oh yes! He said he would take her away from here, just like you do when my kitties get too sleepy.” Annabelle raised the small tabby for the doctor’s inspection. It drooped, limp and lifeless, from her fist. “I hugged her and hugged her, but she will not wake. May I have another, please?”

  Carson blinked, hesitating for an instant. “And how many kitties will this be for you, since you’ve been here, Miss Allen?”

  “I think . . .” The girl frowned in concentration. Then she beamed at the doctor. “Sixteen!” she told him. “This is kitty number sixteen.”

  Behind me, I heard Lila Jamesson gasp.

  “And do not forget,” said Annabelle, wagging a finger at Carson. “She must have yellow stripes and a gentle face. She must look exactly like my first sweet Bootsie. Naughty Papa, taking her from me like that and twisting her little head so that she became so tired. I was quite put out with him.” Annabelle cuddled the dead kitten to her chest, rocking it back and forth as she crooned, “Pretty kitty. Sleepy kitty.”

  My stomach squeezed tight against my spine as the doctor smiled at Annabelle. He patted her knee as he stood. “Well, then,” he said. “Number seventeen it shall be.”

  Chapter 30

  THE LITTLE GIRL COULD NOT WALK ANOTHER STEP. How could her feet pain her and feel numb at the same time? She’d not eaten all day, unless one counted the bitter acorns that had made her stomach rebel.

  She thought longingly of the scant bites of stringy, half-grown rabbit the boy had trapped the day before. He’d cut himself skinning the small creature. The girl had ripped off a piece of her petticoat and tied it around his injured hand.

  He’d worked so hard to sear the meager meal. But the wind that roared through the forest kept rushing down from the treetops to snuff out their pitiful fire. The boy was patient, starting over again and again, but the flames had barely licked at the dripping chunks skewered on a green twig before another cruel gust would undo his endeavors.

  Now she could no longer feel the tips of her fingers or the end of her nose. Night was closing in, in shades of silver and gray. When she slumped onto a fallen log, her doll clasped in her arms, the boy perched beside her.

  “I think we shall soon find my uncle’s village,” he told her. “And he will help us
.”

  Though the boy sounded certain, she’d seen his face as he searched the ground and the trees overhead. Though he never admitted it, she knew they were lost. When he heard howls moving closer the night before, he’d woken her and made her run. Stumbling through the darkness, he hadn’t allowed her to slow until they’d left the savage sounds far behind. Finally, he’d helped her into a tree and secured her to a thick branch with his own hempen belt before settling in beside her.

  When dawn broke through the icy treetops, they climbed down together. He held her hand as they walked, chattering of his uncle’s warm hearth and his aunt’s rich squirrel stew. Her mouth watered when he spoke of the butter and soft cheese his aunt would smear on piping hot bread. How they would soon be tucked under quilts beside a roaring fire.

  He hadn’t stopped talking all throughout the short day. But now the sun was setting again and he’d gone silent when no village appeared.

  More snow was falling. And though the thick trees blocked the worst of it, flakes still snagged in the girl’s hair and collected in her lap where she huddled against a great tree. When her stomach twisted and growled with hunger, she curled in over the pain.

  “You are hungry,” he said, slanting a glance toward her. “And—” His head bowed. “I—​I lost the flint when we fled the wolves.”

  The little girl’s heart sank as she thought of spending another cold and dark night without a fire. Though he’d tried to encourage a blaze by rubbing a stick between his palms until they bled, the wood was too damp to take spark.

  When the boy’s head bowed again in defeat, she wanted to weep. But she forced her shoulders straight. Was she not the granddaughter of the great Dr. John Dee? Had she herself not had audience with the mightiest queen in Christendom? Small she might be, but weak she was not. She raised her chin, and though her voice was raspy from the cold, she said, “Do not worry. We shall survive this. All will be well.”

  “No!” The boy shoved to his feet, twisted about, and dropped to his knees before her. “We are lost. And I shall pretend no longer. I—​I am sorry, milady. I have failed you.”

  When the troubled boy looked up at her with eyes of lake-water and summer grass, something seemed to crack open inside the little girl’s heart. She reached out and placed a cold palm against his cheek. “No,” she said. “Never that.”

  A grating sound tugged me awake. My eyes popped open. At first, I couldn’t move. Adrenaline spiked through me, making electricity dance across the back of my tongue. I realized I was lying face-down on a hardwood floor, my arms trapped beneath me. Groaning, I heaved myself to my side, and tried to shake some feeling back into my numb arms.

  A cold spear of pure and utter panic tore through me when they wouldn’t move. Slowly, reluctantly, I angled my head down to see the canvas contraption that encased me from hips to throat.

  No. I closed my eyes, breath coming faster. Oh, no. No no no no. This is just another nightmare. Just a dream.

  A scream began to build deep in my throat as I struggled to rip my arms loose, but the straitjacket that held them wrapped around my body was too tight.

  Wrenching and jerking, I somehow managed to pull myself to a sitting position. Beneath the coarse material I was still wearing my own teal and silver gown, which a sullen maid had dressed me in that morning. The whalebone corset—​combined with the straitjacket—​constricted my chest. Beneath my skin, it felt as though each rib was collapsing in on itself. I could almost hear the slim bones giving way, piercing my lungs with their jagged ends. Crack. Crack. Crack.

  All was white inside the spartan isolation room. Walls. Ceiling. Floor, though that painted surface was now scratched and dull. Sets of iron rings were bolted to the wall, and a slop bucket sat in one corner of the windowless cell. A single bulb dangled on a frayed cord above my head. When it crackled I shoved with my feet, until my back hit the wall.

  What . . . ?

  It all came back in a nauseating rush. My friends on the lawn. The broken window. Sergeant Peters, who had tried to help. Annabelle Allen and her poor murdered kittens. I’d panicked and rushed for the door.

  Stupid. So stupid.

  My knees ached from being slammed to the ground, one side of my neck felt swollen from the bolus of sedative Carson had plunged there.

  Afterward, there had been nothing. Until now. Until this.

  Can’t move my arms. Can’t breathe. Can’t . . . Can’t . . .

  My scalp prickled.

  Oh God, what day is it? What time? No window. Is it day or night? How long was I out? What if it’s too late? What if they had to go back without me? What if they had no choice but to leave me here? What if . . . What if . . . What if . . .

  A shrieking dread took hold of me. Blinded by it, I bucked and reared, trying to get loose. I rolled from one side of the room to the other, fighting the canvas. But it was no use. I couldn’t get free. My throat closed up. Darkness edged in as I sobbed and gagged. A black square marked the closed peephole in the center of the only door. I scrabbled over to it on my knees.

  “Please . . .” I wheezed, but with empty lungs my words were barely audible. “Let . . . me out.”

  Every cell in my brain was screaming that the oxygen couldn’t last. Not in this sealed room that was filling with carbon dioxide every time I exhaled.

  “Let me out!”

  “Shut yer trap.” A muffled male voice came from the other side. “You’ll get yours soon enough.”

  Slumped against the door, I slammed the back of my head against the unforgiving wood, again and again. Pain shot across my skull and down my spine as tears squeezed from my closed lids. “Please . . .”

  The only answer was a scathing laugh. Like scalding acid dripped onto flesh, the claustrophobia I’d suffered since childhood began to corrode my reason.

  My spine gave. I toppled over. More black dots appeared with each blink. Splinters from the rough planks raked my cheek as my chest struggled to draw in one last breath.

  Bran. Help. Wh-where are you?

  The light bulb fizzed, snapped, and went out. The darkness was instantaneous and complete. My ravaged brain tried to grasp for some reason, any reason not to just give up. I brought up a single image. Bran Cameron’s eyes.

  Green and Blue. Grass and Sky. Lake and Ocean. Leaves and Water. Yes. That’s a nice thing to think about as you die, isn’t it?

  A blast of freezing water crashed across my face and chest. I retched and struggled to sit up. Spluttering, drowning, I swiped an arm across my . . .

  Wait? My arm? My arms! They’re free!

  My eyes shot open. As water streamed from my sodden hair, I looked down at my hands in amazement. My hands. I can see my hands.

  Someone grabbed my wrists, wrenching me to my feet. Water blurred my vision and before I could even view my attacker, he twisted both arms behind me and dragged me backwards until my aching arms and back were pressed up against him. Though I couldn’t see the man, I smelled him. Body odor and hair pomade.

  “Just you be quiet now, miss.” I recognized the voice. The sleazy guard, Dupree. The rodent-faced man Sergeant Peters had ordered away from the ladies’ door. Dupree’s rancid breath wreathed around my ear. “Doc’s comin’, so you better behave, or you won’t like what’s next.”

  The door was open. It was open! I dragged in the blessed air that was swarming into the room. I licked at the water still dripping from my hair, trying to wet my parched mouth.

  “Thanks to you,” Dupree whispered, “that nosy nelly Peters got hisself canned, he did. Now that I’m in charge, I believe I’ll call on Miss Allen. It’s been a while.”

  I shuddered as I thought of the child-like Annabelle and her string of dead kittens.

  “Now you . . .” Dupree pulled me close, pressing the entire length of his body against my back. I struggled, but he only wrenched my arms back until a ripping pain shot through my shoulders. His breath came faster as he jeered, “Bet you wouldn’t lay there all still and cold, would yo
u, now? No, not you. You got fire in you, girl-o. Little wildcat you are.”

  Horror, disgust, and raw animal fear spiraled through me, but then Phoebe’s voice sounded in my head.

  If they grab you from behind, Hope, just stomp down hard on their instep, aye? They’ll let go quick enough. That’s when you turn and kick them in their wobblies.

  Slowly, I raised my knee.

  “You may release the patient now, Dupree,” Dr. Carson called from the doorway. In his hands he held the stiff canvas contraption that had been around me. I froze as its iron buckles jangled and its obscenely long sleeves dripped to the ground. I eased my foot to the floor. “You won’t be any trouble, will you, Miss Walton?”

  I cringed, the idea of being put back into the straitjacket making me curl in on myself. No. Please don’t put me back. I can’t do it. I—​

  My head snapped up. My jaw unhinged as I stared at Carson.

  He knew. He knew my real name.

  He smiled. “You must understand, Miss Walton. I did not wish to restrain you, but your behavior left me with little choice.” His eyes flicked toward the guard. “Dupree,” he said. “Have you made the proper arrangements with Patient Smith?”

  “Yeah, Doc,” Dupree said. “Man’s trussed like a Christmas goose.”

  “Hurry along, then. I don’t have all day.”

  We stopped before a door just like my own. Another guard stood watch, a leather-wrapped cudgel in his fist.

  “Quiet today, Doc,” the thick-necked guard said, keying the door open. He stuck his head inside and shouted, “Ain’t gonna cause no trouble, are ya, you mad bastard?”

  Carson frowned at the guard. “This, Mr. Malloy, is a fashionable establishment. I’ll thank you to keep the obscenities to yourself.” He waved a hand at the guards, who both stared at me with avid faces. “Leave us. Wait at the end of the hallway. I’ll call for you when we are done.”

  Something shifted within the darkened room. A shuffling. The clink of chains. I had to cover my nose and mouth to keep from gagging at the malignant odor that oozed from inside.