by Mandi Martin
It meant he would have to discover his humanity and that was something he would never do.
“If you say so,” he said dismissively, “but if I am to speak honestly even animals receive basic care better than this.”
A smirk twisted the others thin lips. “Animals serve a purpose.”
James held the obdurate gaze with a pitying one of his own. Pity worked far better than hatred in such circumstances.
“Does turning a blind eye to the suffering around you erase the inhumanity? Or does it merely make you just like the monsters you seek to avoid?”
The exchange of eyes lasted for some seconds before the doctor sniffed and turned on his heel without another word, striding down the stairway with his footsteps echoing behind him.
Waiting until the sound faded before he stepped back into his room James looked over his shoulder at the familiar surroundings. After all this agitation the dull and uncomfortable room felt like the finest suite in the grandest hotel.
Or it would have been if he could abolish the cold and the sounds of human suffering from the atmosphere. The latter he believed were now embedded in his mind, never to be erased.
A glimmer of light managed to squeeze through the barriers outside and a flicker caught his eye from under the bed.
He frowned.
Moving over he knelt down, ignoring the cramp in his legs from the coldness of the floor, to pull out the cause of the shimmer.
His hands shook as they touched the strange smoothness and pulled out the container.
Turning it over he looked at the syrupy liquid that undulated in the base. Sweat appeared on his brow, despite the chill in the air, as he recognised it. The medicine from what he believed to have been an illusion.
He took a short breath and stood abruptly, opening his drawer with similar force to drop the offending container into the dark, slamming it shut.
“Utter lunacy!” he muttered irritably, sitting heavily on the protesting mattress and looking up into the shadows that clung to the wall. “I don’t believe in spirits or ghouls! This is ridiculous!”
His voice was stronger and the tone bitter but inside his heart that too was a farce. He wished he could, like the scientists who tore through the veils of knowledge, convince himself that if something were not explainable then it simply did not exist.
If there was a logical explanation to all this then it was beyond his sight.
Chapter Seventeen
‘He does not know.’
Silas looked up from prone position on his bed. After all this time he never had gotten used to hearing a disembodied voice.
And answering to it without speaking aloud was equally difficult but the thought of what the other warders would think should they hear him talking to himself made on try harder.
‘Not yet. Let us be honest, Marianne, would you? Our minds may be deemed irreparable but common sense still prevails to most.’
There was silence for some time and he thought she had terminated the conversation. She rarely sent a farewell, she simply ended it.
But as he settled back, toying with the blunt pencil held in slender fingers, her voice filled his head once more.
‘Will he ever?’
Silas pondered the question, three simple words that stumped him.
“I don’t know. Hope springs eternal?” He twirled the pencil in his hair. “God’s will and all that.”
‘God’s will,’ Marianne repeated thoughtfully with a soft hum ‘and also his own.’
“Aye.”
A soft, indistinct murmur was the only response before silence once again fell and it was clear that time that the woman was not going to speak again.
Morbridge knew Nathaniel would be on alert even before the door was opened. With his sight taken his hearing had become far sharper. So much so he knew who was coming by the pattern of the gait alone.
Rather irksome for the doctor who did enjoy the panic of surprise but it was also intriguing how the human body adapted to its situations.
He had barely opened the door a fraction before he heard the rich tones of the inmate’s voice, soft and almost sultry.
“Hello, doctor.”
Morbridge gave a grunt in acknowledgment, standing silently with his weighty gaze penetrating into the tethered man.
Nathaniel could feel the heaviness of the poisonous eyes but gave no sign of nervousness.
“To what do I owe this visit?” he finally asked, tilting his head in the doctor’s direction. “I cannot recall you ever gracing my presence unless you really have to. It is almost like you are afraid.”
An angry scowl furrowed the doctor’s brow but he kept his temper. With Nathaniel it was safer not to, he knew the man’s temperament far more than the warders. Instead he folded his arms and leant against the opposite wall, his eyes never leaving the patient.
“You know why, Nathaniel.”
“Do I indeed? We’ve spoken seldom, Doctor and although our few conversations have been long they have also been inane and imbecilic medical blather and theories that your own mind concocts to further your ambition.” He smirked. “Ashes in the water and ashes in the sea but none jump back up for none can flee.”
“Yes, well. You cannot expect any progress without loss and animals have differing systems. One finds out far more from a human specimen.”
A low laugh echoed eerily, a laugh that made even Morbridge’s skin prickle as if shards of ice pierced it.
“You go back to the counting house to count out the money, money taken from corpses, isn’t that funny?”
Morbridge made a face, eyebrows knitting together in disapproval but he wouldn’t allow it to provoke him.
He gave an airy shrug.
“They cannot take worldly goods to the grave and none come forth the claim them or the mortal remains so what else is to be done? Give it to a poor house for their staff to squander on gin and gambling? I think not.”
Nathaniel made a sound that seemed to be a combination of a growl and a chuckle, rocking back against his bounds, rattling like a ghoul in chains.
“Money and gold corrupts man more than Satan himself, each coin gained means ten more are desired.”
“There are far more important things I want, Nathaniel,” Morbridge snapped irritably, bending down to seize the already taut ropes, tugging them harshly. Blood flowed from already chafed wrists but the man simply laughed once again as he felt the warm trickle down his skin.
“Blood makes such pretty art,” he whispered, tracing his finger on the floor in congruent with the small river. “Such art can be created but never bought. But tell me the reason for your visit, before your actions provoke my creative side.”
He felt the doctor’s breath caress his cheek as he leant forward, the scent pungent as though the man had absorbed the chemical’s he worked so close to.
“I need your talents, my dear Atrocity.”
Nathaniel snorted, pulling his head away in an arrogant toss.
“Indeed. Well, my talents, as you term them, are fickle. Quite contrary if you life, only my pretty maids were not buried in a garden.”
“Not just maids, so the theory goes,” Morbridge answered deliberately, “it seems your only stipulations for your victims was blonde hair.”
“No, there was more to it than that but I don’t expect someone with no creativity to understand my reasons,” Nathaniel sounded indignant, almost insulted at the assumption. “Outer looks are petty and blondes are very petty. But a man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds,” he gave a cruel smirk “and weeds should not be allowed to grow.”
“You make no sense,” Morbridge moved back with a contemptuous sniff, “but you rarely do, like the other incompetents here, but you have skills that they do not. If I am to obtain the control and note that I want then I reluctantly accept I must take help.”
Nathaniel rocked back, the rattle of restraints a welcome distraction from what would have been a suffocating silence.
&
nbsp; After a moment he stopped abruptly and Morbridge felt the weight of a hidden gaze, contemplating his words. Eventually a soft and intrigued response left his lips.
“What’s in it for me?”
Chapter Eighteen
The corridor was eerily silent as James made his way down towards the partition between the ward for the sexes.
He knew it was forbidden but he needed to see Marianne again, her presence comforting, her calmness, despite her situation, reassuring.
The lack of sound unnerved him and his eyes fixed themselves on the cold, stone floor, fearful of looking into the rooms.
His hand played with the strange container concealed in his jacket pocket, not willing to risk leaving it in view or even hidden lest someone find it.
It felt like months since he had found it and perhaps it had been. Time made no sense here, days and hours seemed nonexistent, day and night rolled into one.
No wonder his memory seemed to fail him.
He pulled out the medication and looked at it, watching the sap like liquid slowly sway in the container.
It sickened him.
‘I can throw it away when I next go to the well for the water,’ he thought, shoving it back and out of sight. ‘Toss it over the wall and leave it to the woods to deal with. I can but hope that it does not reappear afterwards.’
The sooner the better, the container was an obvious bulge in his pocket and he didn’t want the hassle of awkward questions.
His pace quickened, his head dropping down to blind himself to the dark and silence, keeping his mind on his destination.
It was risky. Men were, for both dignity and decency, forbidden to enter the female quarters unless otherwise instructed.
That moral code was often ignored and James ha the inkling that unwanted pregnancies happened all too often, at least he was certain he’d heard that from somewhere.
Yet one more thing he wasn’t sure of. This place, it drained the memory as well as any remnants of sanity people had.
Their ailments were not catching but they weighed heavy on one’s person and in the very air around them, the burden threatening to take him down as well.
His focus returned to Marianne, how her silent company eased the tension, how her strange conversation methods soothed the highest-strung nerves.
He’d known someone like that in the past. A thought that made him wince, the realisation of how much he couldn’t recall was bothersome.
He paused in the vestibule. An empty room with only a ragged rug to fill the void and a door that led into the thick of the forest, not that it was often used, so seldom was it opened the hinges were rusted.
The back doors, facing the mainland, barely visible due to the veil of mist and sea spray, were the ones normally opened to admit new unfortunates and take delivery of supplies. Not that he could recall ever seeing anyone or anything, his mind as blank as the dark ocean surrounding them.
For a minute he rested his eyes, feeling them burn behind the lids before exhaling slowly.
‘…so confident as a child. Why doesn’t he use it now?’
The mismatched eyes snapped open; the voice so clear as though the speaker was directly next to him.
He felt a brief breeze as if someone had walked past him or away from him but there was nothing.
Shaking his head, he moved on, his pace quicker than before and a cold chill nesting in his body.
Marianne was sat quietly, her slim legs pulled to her chest and her hands pulling the skirt of the thin garment down to cover herself as best she could.
The dress gave little dignity but she would keep what was left of her pride, not forget it as so many unfortunates had done before her.
A tiny smile graced her lip as she heard the overly cautious footsteps. It became so easy to identify a person by that sound alone.
At the sound of the lock being opened as quietly as the man could manage she shifted, lowering her legs to curl them beneath her, a position more suited to a welcome guest, her eyes bright and almost eager as she watched the door.
It opened just enough to allow the man to enter, slipping through shakily but her calmness seemed to ease his nerves.
“I shouldn’t be here I know,” James said, biting his bottom lip, “but in some ways it feels safer to come here, there seems to be less staff.”
In fact, he couldn’t remember seeing any except when he was sent to deliver the records to the formidable matron.
Marianne patted the bed beside her, her eyes filled with warmth and an inner glow of happiness that could rival the joy of sunny day.
James sat on the end of the bed, not wishing to encroach on her personal space. The fabric was damp and cold, saturated by the moisture that crept through the cold walls. Up close and coherent he could see the thin garment she wore was not much better, clinging to her flesh, the swell of her breast and almost transparent in parts.
Swallowing his embarrassment he looked down at the floor, focusing as if the scraps of straw and dust were as fascinating as a Monet.
‘You need not blush.’
Marianne’s amused tone caused his eyes to shift up, meeting her smiling orbs twinkling in the gloom.
‘A body is flesh and flesh is human, I am just scars and skin, covered enough to be decent.’
She reached out to rest a cool hand on his own, his fingers taut as they gripped nothing, a slight flicker of a flinch twitching the skin as he felt the touch.
‘You are wise but you have so much to learn.’
“I did need to be told that,” James answered weakly “I already know. One thing I actually am aware of.”
He ran his free hand roughly through his hair as if about to tear the blonde locks from his head, exposing both eyes to the world for a brief moment.
“I feel like I am losing my mind, seeing things like mirages in a desert, it all seems too real though. The changes in the building, rooms shifting,” his breath quickened as he spoke, his throat feeling constricted as the words tumbled from him “one day feels like another and time makes no sense…”
He bit down on his lip, stopping the ramble in mid flow. He was beginning to sound unhinged even to himself let alone any who could have overheard.
Marianne pressed a finger to her cheek, her thoughts silent. Her gaze had slipped into the distance but a shimmer in her eyes betrayed a wise woman trapped in her mute form. Her fingers traced his own in calming, circular motions and instead of words she hummed a sweet sound in her mind, one James seemed to know but had lost somewhere in the past.
Giving a long breath James continued, mustering all his self-control and banishing the irksome nerves that plagued him. This wasn’t like him. He knew that somehow.
“Still,” he managed a smile “I am not here to bother you with my tale of woe, it’ll pass soon enough. I’m just tired I suppose; you know I don’t get that much help from the other warders.”
‘It is not weakness to admit you have flaws, that you fear and struggle,’ Marianne’s voice echoed through him with a reverential care, ‘it is human.’
“Human. Yes,” James nodded listlessly, “and humans tear so easily.”
Marianne looked at him with sympathy but said nothing else, resting her head gently against his shoulder.
A soft hum filled his mind again as she sent out another tune, slow and soothing. She made up her own songs and music to pass the dragging time but they were songs never to be heard in the outside world.
James was one of her chosen few who were given the opportunity to listen to her melodies. Songs that had gotten her through the rough and the painful, hoping they would have the same pacifying effect on him as they had on her.
The thoughts still ruminated around James’s head like moths about a flame but the soulful music touched his heart. Whilst some invited the body to dance this implored it to relax and it did so without any effort.
James did not want to ask her where her skill came from but Marianne already guessed.
‘I use
d to tend to my siblings when they could not sleep,’ she explained so quietly the words barely registered in his mind. ‘Two of them were sickly, as if they had not been born whole in body or mind. Someone needed to ease their fears as they approached Heaven and mother wasn’t able, she would not accept them. I helped with all my siblings.’
“I used to know a girl like that in my schooldays,” James replied thoughtlessly, “at least I’m certain I did, I just feel it.”
A budding seed of a memory that refused to blossom but always there, pushing at the surface.
‘Yes.’
He looked at Marianne who gave a strange and ambiguous smile. It sent a chill through his body, not pleasant but not unpleasant either.
It was just peculiar, a tingling sensation from his gut and up his spine.
“Yes,” he repeated, drawing the word out to a hiss. His arm slipped about her waist but his eyes remained fixed in the shadows, “whatever that means now.”
And then came the white. So much white.
Muffled, disembodied voices and strange sounds echoing around him as though he were in a tunnel. An all too bright tunnel. He felt arms entwine about him, thin and almost skeletal, Marianne’s sweet perfume fading to something sharper and more potent like the chemicals meant to cleanse the filth from the floors.
And silence.
The sun rose high, red and vibrant as it stained a rocky ocean and trickled through the dense trees that surrounded the island like impenetrable walls.
A thin rivulet squeezed through the bars that caged the inmates and separated them from any clear view of daylight or the world outside.
James’s eyes felt as though leaden weights had been inserted beneath the lids and stung as though he hadn’t blinked all night. The burn of the light made them even worse, worse than the whiteness that had penetrated his mind all night.
Marianne still leant against him, her own eyes shut but whether she slept or simply drifted was debatable. Her breathing had calmed to the tranquillity of slumber but her body was less so, ready to jolt into wakefulness at any sound.