The Last Time I Lied_A Novel

by Riley Sager

  When we reach town, I see it’s more or less the same as I had left it, although some of the charm has been rubbed away. No patriotic bunting hangs from porch railings. A couple of empty storefronts mar the main drag, and the diner is gone, replaced by a Dunkin’ Donuts. The drugstore remains, although it’s now part of a chain, the name spelled out in red letters garishly placed against the building’s original brick exterior.

  “After this, I might make a quick stop at the library. I need a place with good Wi-Fi to catch up on work emails,” I say, aiming for breeziness, as if the idea has just occurred to me.

  I guess it works, because Theo doesn’t question the idea. Instead, he says, “Sure, I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

  He remains in the idling truck, watching. This gives me no choice but to keep up the ruse and hurry into the drugstore. Since I know it’ll look suspicious on the return trip if I’m not carrying a bag from the place, I spend a few minutes browsing the shelves for something small to buy. I settle on a four-pack of disposable phone chargers. One for me and each girl in Dogwood. Franny will never know. Even if she does, I’m not sure I care.

  At the cash register, I notice a rotating rack of sunglasses. The kind with a tilted mirror on top so customers can see how they look in the dime-store shades. I give it a spin, barely eyeing the knockoff Ray-Bans and cheap aviators when a familiar pair whirls by.

  Red plastic.

  Heart-shaped frames.

  I snatch the sunglasses from the rack and turn them over in my hands, remembering the pair Vivian wore the entire ride back to camp that long-ago summer. I spent the whole drive wondering what she was thinking. Vivian said little during the return trip, preferring instead to stare out the open window as the breeze whipped her hair across her face.

  I try on the sunglasses and lift my face to the rack’s mirror, checking how they look. Vivian wore them better, that’s for damn sure. On me, they’re just silly. I look exactly like what I am—a woman approaching thirty in cheap shades made for someone half her age.

  I toss the sunglasses onto the counter anyway. I pay with cash and stuff the disposable chargers into my backpack. The sunglasses are worn out of the store, slid high up my forehead to keep my hair in place. I think Vivian would approve.

  Next, it’s on to the library, which sits a block back from the main street. Inside, I pass the usual blond-wood tables and elderly patrons at desktop computers on my way to the reference desk. There a friendly librarian named Diana points me to the nonfiction section, and soon I’m scanning the stacks for 150.97768 WEST.

  Astonishingly, it’s still there, tucked tightly on a shelf of books about mental illness and its treatment. If the subject matter didn’t already make me uneasy, the title certainly would.

  Dark Ages: Women and Mental Illness in the 1800s by Amanda West.

  The cover is stark. Black letters on a white background. Very seventies, which is when the book was printed. The publisher is a university press I’ve never heard of, which makes it even more baffling as to how or why Vivian learned of its existence.

  I take the book to a secluded cubicle in the corner, pausing for a few steadying breaths before opening it. Vivian read this book. She held it in her hands. Mere days before she disappeared. Knowing this makes me want to put it back on the shelf, walk away, find Theo, and return to camp.

  But I can’t.

  I need to open the book and see what Vivian saw.

  So I fling it open, seeing on the first page a vintage photo of a young woman confined in a straitjacket. Her legs are nothing but skin covering bone, her cheeks are beyond gaunt, and her hair is wild. Yet her eyes blaze with defiance. As wide as half-dollars, they stare at the photographer as if willing him to look at her—really look—and understand her predicament.

  It’s a startling image. Like a kick in the stomach. A shocked huff of air lodges in my throat, making me cough.

  Below the photo is a caption as sad as it is vague. Unknown asylum patient, 1887.

  I turn the page, unable to gaze at the image any longer, just the latest person who could bear to look at this unnamed woman for only a brief amount of time. In my own way, I’ve also failed her.

  Skimming through the book is an exercise in masochism. There are more photos, more infuriating captions. There are tales of women being committed because their husbands abused them, their families didn’t want them, polite society didn’t want to see them. There are accounts of beatings, of starvation, of cold baths and scrubbings with wire brushes on skin that hadn’t seen daylight in months.

  Each time I find myself gasping at a new horror, I realize how lucky I am. Had I been born a hundred years earlier, I would have become one of these women. Misunderstood and suffering. Hoping that someone would figure out why my mind betrayed me and thus be able to fix it. Most of these women never enjoyed such a fate. They suffered in sorrow and confusion until the end of their days, whereas my madness was temporary. It left me.

  The shame is another story.

  After a half hour of torturous skimming, I finally come to page 164. The one Vivian noted in her diary. It contains another photo, one that fills most of the page. Like the others in the book, it bears the same sepia-toned fuzziness of something taken a century ago. But unlike those images of anonymous girls imprisoned within asylum walls, this photograph shows a man standing in front of an ornate, Victorian structure.

  The man is young, tall, thick of chest and stomach. He boasts an impeccably waxed mustache and a distinct darkness to his eyes. One hand grips the lapel of his morning coat. The other is slid into a vest pocket. Such a pompous pose.

  The building behind him is three stories tall, made of brick, with dormer windows on the top floor and a chimneylike turret gracing the roof. The windows are tall and arched. A weathervane in the shape of a rooster rises from the turret’s peaked roof. A less showy wing shoots off from the building’s left side. It has only one floor, no windows, patchy grass instead of a lawn.

  Even without that utilitarian wing, there’s something off about the place. Brittle strands of dead ivy cling to a corner. Sunlight shining onto the windows have made them opaque. It reminds me of an Edward Hopper painting—House by the Railroad. The one that’s rumored to have inspired the house from Psycho. All three structures project the same aura of homespun menace.

  Beneath the photo is a caption—Dr. Charles Cutler poses outside Peaceful Valley Asylum, circa 1898.

  The name summons a memory from fifteen years ago. Vivian and I alone in the woods, reading the tiny name engraved on the bottom of a rotting box.

  Peaceful Valley.

  I remember being curious about it. Clearly, Vivian was, too, for she came here looking for more information. And what she learned was that Peaceful Valley had been an insane asylum.

  I wonder if that realization stunned her as much as it does me. I wonder if she also sat blinking in disbelief at the page in front of her, trying to wrap her head around how a box of scissors from an insane asylum ended up on the banks of Lake Midnight. I wonder if her heart raced as much as mine does. Or if her legs also suddenly started to twitch.

  That sense of shock subsides when I look at the text on the page opposite the photo. Someone had drawn a pencil line beneath two paragraphs. Vivian, most likely. She was the kind of person who’d have no problem defacing a library book. Especially if she found something important.

  By the end of the nineteenth century, a growing divide had formed regarding the treatment of mentally ill women. In the nation’s cities, asylums remained crowded with the poor and indigent, who, despite a growing call for reform, still lived in deplorable conditions and were subjected to harsh treatment from undertrained and underpaid staff. It was quite a different story for the wealthy, who turned to enterprising physicians opening small, for-profit asylums that operated without government control or assistance. These retreats, as they were commonl
y known, usually existed on country estates in areas remote enough for family members to send troubled relatives without fear of gossip or scandal. As a result, they paid handsomely to have these black sheep whisked away and cared for.

  A few progressive doctors, appalled by the extreme difference in care between the rich and the poor, attempted to bridge the gap by opening the doors of their bucolic retreats to those less fortunate. For a time, Dr. Charles Cutler was a common sight in the asylums of New York and Boston, where he sought out patients in the most unfortunate of situations, became their legal guardian, and whisked them away to Peaceful Valley Asylum, a small retreat in upstate New York. According to the diary of a doctor at New York’s notorious Blackwell’s Island Asylum, Dr. Cutler intended to prove that a more genteel course of care could benefit all mentally ill women and not just the wealthy.

  While I’m almost positive this is what Vivian was pointing to in her diary, I have no idea what it has to do with Franny. In all likelihood, it doesn’t. So why was Vivian so convinced that it did?

  There seems to be only one way to find out—I need to search the Lodge. Vivian discovered something in the study there before Lottie came in and disrupted her. Whatever she found led her here, to this same book in this same library.

  Always leave a trail of bread crumbs. That’s what Vivian told me. So you know how to find your way back.

  Only I can’t help but think that the trail she left for me won’t be enough. I’ll need a little help from a friend.

  I grab my phone and immediately FaceTime Marc. He answers in a rush, his voice almost drowned out by the cacophony in his bistro’s kitchen. Behind him, a line cook mans a skillet that sizzles and pops.

  “It’s a bad time, I know,” I tell him.

  “The lunch rush,” Marc says. “I’ve got exactly one minute.”

  I dive right in. “Remember that reference librarian at the New York Public Library you used to date?”

  “Billy? Of course. He was like a nerdy Matt Damon.”

  “Are the two of you still friendly?”

  “Define friendly.”

  “Would he try to get a restraining order if he saw you again?”

  “He follows me on Twitter,” Marc says. “That’s not a restraining order level of animosity.”

  “Do you think he’d help you do some research for your best friend in the entire world?”

  “Possibly. What will we be researching?”

  “Peaceful Valley Asylum.”

  Marc blinks a few times, no doubt wondering if he’s heard me correctly. “I guess camp’s not going so well.”

  I quickly tell him about Vivian, her diary of cryptic clues, the fact that an insane asylum, of all things, might be involved. “I think Vivian might have found something before she disappeared, Marc. Something that someone else didn’t want her to know.”

  “About an asylum?”

  “Maybe,” I say. “In order to be sure, I need to know more about that asylum.”

  Marc pulls his phone closer to his face until all I can see is one large, squinting eye. “Where are you?”

  “The local library.”

  “Well, someone there is watching you.” Marc moves the phone even closer. “A hot someone.”

  My eyes dart to the lower corner of my screen, where my own image rests in a tiny rectangle. A man stands roughly ten feet behind me, his arms folded across his chest.

  Theo.

  “I need to go,” I tell Marc before ending the call. As his image cuts out, I get a one-second glimpse of his face, which is stony with concern. It’s the opposite of Theo’s expression. When I finally turn around to face him, his face is a placid surface, unreadable.

  “Are you ready to go?” he says, his voice as blank as his features. “Or do you need more time?”

  “Nope,” I reply. “All done.”

  I gather my things, leaving the book where it is. Its contents are stamped on my memory.

  On our way out of the library, I pull the sunglasses over my eyes, shielding them not only from the midafternoon glare but from Theo’s inquisitive gaze. The expression on his face hasn’t wavered once since he caught me talking to Marc. The least I can do is match him in opaqueness.

  “Nice sunglasses,” he says once we’re in the truck.

  “Thanks,” I reply, even though it didn’t sound like a compliment.

  Then we’re off, heading back to camp in a fresh cocoon of silence. I’m not sure what it means. Nothing good, I assume. Gregariousness is second nature to Theo. Or I could simply be projecting, letting Vivian’s diary entries seep into my psyche and make me paranoid. Then again, considering what happened to her, Natalie, and Allison, maybe a little paranoia isn’t such a bad thing.

  It’s only when the camp’s gate slides into view that Theo says, “I need to ask you something. About that summer.”

  I already know he’s going to bring up my false accusation against him. It’s like barbed wire that’s been stretched between us—invisible yet keenly felt whenever one of us nudges against it. Rather than respond, I roll down the window and turn my face toward the breeze, letting it tangle my hair just like Vivian’s.

  “It’s about that day we drove into town,” he continues.

  I exhale into the rush of warm air hitting my face, relieved to not have to talk about why I had accused him. At least for now.

  “What about it?”

  “Well, we had lunch at that diner and—”

  “I kissed you.”

  Theo chuckles at the memory. I don’t. It’s hard to laugh at one of the most humiliating moments of your adolescence.

  “Yes, that. Were you lying then? About it being a joke?”

  Rather than continue the lie, dragging it into a second decade, I say, “Why?”

  “Because, at the time, I didn’t think it was.” Theo pauses, rubbing the salt-and-pepper stubble on his chin until he can summon the right words. “But I was flattered. And I want you to know that, had you been older, I probably would have kissed you back.”

  The same boldness I had felt in that diner returns out of nowhere. I think it might be the sunglasses. I feel different with them on. More direct. Less afraid.

  I feel, I realize, like Vivian.

  “And now?” I say.

  Theo steers the truck to its spot behind the arts and crafts building. As it shudders to a stop, he says, “What about now?”

  “I’m older. If I kissed you now, would you kiss me back?”

  A grin spreads across Theo’s face, and for a split second it’s like we’ve been shuttled back in time, all those intervening years yet to be experienced. He’s nineteen and the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life. I’m thirteen and smitten, and every glimpse of him makes my heart explode into a flock of butterflies.

  “You’ll have to try it again sometime and see for yourself,” he says.

  I want to. Especially when he glances my way, a flirty glint in his eyes, that grin spreading wider until his lips part, practically begging to be kissed. It’s enough to make me lean across the pickup’s bench seat and do just that. Instead, I step out of the car and say, “That’s probably not the best idea.”

  Theo—and the prospect of kissing him—is a distraction. And now that I’m inching closer to learning what Vivian was looking for, I can’t be distracted.

  Not by Theo.

  Not by what I did to him.

  And especially not by the lies both of us have told but aren’t yet brave enough to admit.

  22

  That evening, the girls and I eat dinner at a picnic table outside the mess hall. The whole camp is still buzzing about the paint on the door. Liargate is what they’re calling it, giving the incident the proper ring of scandal. I assume Casey, Becca, and the other instructors are also talking about it, which is why I’m fine with dining outdo
ors. I’m in no mood for their gossip.

  “Where did you go this afternoon?” Sasha asks me.

  “Into town.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think?” Miranda snaps. “She did it to get away from this place.”

  Sasha swats at a fly buzzing around her tray of gray meat loaf and lumpy mashed potatoes. “Do you think one of the campers did it?”

  “It sure wasn’t one of the counselors,” Krystal says.

  “Some of the girls are saying you did it,” Sasha tells me.

  “Well, they’re wrong,” I say.

  Across the picnic table, Miranda’s face hardens. For a second, I think she’s going to storm into the mess hall and punch the offending campers. She certainly looks ready for a fight.

  “Why would Emma paint liar across our door?”

  “Why would anyone do it?” Sasha asks.

  Miranda answers before I get the chance, giving an answer far more pointed than mine. “Because some girls,” she says, “are just basic bitches.”

  After dinner, I present them with their disposable chargers. “For emergencies only,” I say, even though I know all that extended battery life will be wasted on Snapchat, Candy Crush, and Krystal’s beloved superhero movies. Still, it puts the girls in a good mood as we head off to the nightly campfire. They deserve it after what they’ve endured today.

  The fire pit is located on the outskirts of camp, as far away from the cabins as the property will allow. It sits in a round meadow that looks carved from the forest like a crop circle. In its center is the fire pit itself—a circle within the circle ringed by rocks hauled out of the woods and arranged there almost a century ago. The fire is already burning when we arrive, the engulfed logs placed in an upright triangle, like a teepee.

  The four of us sit together on one of the sagging benches placed near the blaze. We roast marshmallows on twigs whittled to sharpness by Chet’s Swiss Army knife, the handles sticky, the tips crusted and charred.