“Lizzie? That you?” He squints up at me. “I haven’t seen you in too long. I thought she got you.”
“Who, Mr. Limpet?”
“That wicked girl. The one who threw the scissors. She’s always here.” He glares at the walls. “I’ve been here longer than anyone, and she’s always here. Can’t get away from that blasted girl.”
Now I know he’s not insane, or at least not in this regard. Poor man. He knew and was trying to avoid Rose all along. I should have paid better attention to him. I feel terrible.
“I’ll keep an eye out for her,” I promise. “Don’t worry. She won’t come after you if you stay out of her way.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about.” Mr. Limpet glares again. He really is in a mood.
“I’ll take care of everyone.” Of course I will. Keep her away from everyone, especially me, the girl who kissed her husband; if she has a vendetta for anyone, it’s me. And then? Well, that’s up to Sam and Sonnet. “Go back to your room. I’ll see if Miss Helmes can convince Cook to make those honey carrots you like so much.”
“Honey carrots aren’t gonna keep that girl at bay,” he answers, darkly. “She’s here. I can feel her. And she’s close.”
Not a comforting thought, but I force a smile and repeat my offer of honey carrots as I push him back along the corridor the way he had come.
I don’t want to admit it, but I can feel her too.
********************
Sam isn’t in Nora’s room when I get back. He isn’t in the hallway, he isn’t in the dining room, and he isn’t in Bedlam. I know it’s only been a couple of hours, but I’m worried and anxious and every bump and noise makes me jump. Miss Helmes asks me if I am all right and when I say I am, she snaps at me to earn my pay and quit wandering the halls like a cat. I busy myself in the largest, most populated room, and read books to one patient, help feed another. Still, the time slips ever so slowly by. I feel sick.
What if they never came back? What should I do? No one would believe my story, even with Nora gone. They’d assume that she had escaped. What else could they think? No one would even care; she had no family that they knew of. No one had visited her in years. Meanwhile, Rose is somewhere, doing or planning who knows what, or just existing, not knowing who she is. I am the only one who knows her. Well, and Mr. Limpet, but he’s hardly helpful. What could he do, fight her off with carrots? No, I am utterly, hopelessly, on my own.
The day has faded into evening. I’m so tired I can’t see straight. My head is still aching, but still he doesn’t come.
********************
I have to sleep in Nora’s room. There is nothing else for me to do, or if there is, I can’t think what it could be. I could go back to my flat, but it’s dark out now, and I don’t relish the walk. There was a day when I could walk the streets of London carefree. I didn’t check behind me. I didn’t pay attention to every noise. Those days, I fear, are long gone. The thought of sleeping in Nora’s bed, in a lunatic asylum, makes me nervous and anxious in all sorts of ways I can’t explain, but unless I want to stay up another night, I’m out of options. I’m going on too little sleep as it is. How do the Lost do it? Force themselves to stay awake, then force themselves to sleep. It’s no small wonder they’re a little odd. I would be, too.
One thing I can’t bring myself to do: don Nora’s nightgown. No, there are some boundaries I cannot cross, and wearing an old lady’s sleepwear is one of them. I lie down in my uniform, and burrow deep beneath her blankets. It seems peculiar to be in the same spot that Sam and Nora were when they disappeared. Had no one else in the history of man watched a Lost person vanish before? Was I the first? It seemed strange, but I suppose there have been tales of vanishing and disappearance for as long as tales have been around. Have I known other Lost? The thought is intriguing enough to distract me from my real problems: Sam and Rose. I ponder a girl who went missing a few years back at the orphanage, and an old man who used to beg for scraps outside the bakery by my flat until one day he was gone and no one knew where. We assumed the girl had run away, though at the time I thought it strange, and no one had even bothered to look for the old man.
I yawn, and will myself to think of more people I have known who have left me. The list is depressingly long, my parents included. I don’t remember them at all. Eventually, I sleep.
********************
I awake to the sound of rustling and scraping. My eyes open; they rest on the doorknob of Nora’s door, just barely illuminated by the moon. There is nothing there, and the doorknob does not move, does not turn the way it might in a scary picture or in my overactive imagination. Why then did I wake and my attentions fly there? It’s no good willing my bad feelings to go away, so I gingerly make my way out of Nora’s blanket (I have always wrapped myself up in covers at night the way a swaddling baby would prefer) and walk swiftly to the door, barefoot. I had wanted to lock myself in as a precaution against Rose, but being a mental hospital, locks are hardly the norm, not on the inside. We don’t want our patients locking the staff out and doing God knows what inside. Instead, I had borrowed a chair from the dining area and tipped it beneath the knob, hoping it would do the trick. I move the chair silently aside and place my hand on the knob. I wouldn’t mind a trip to the kitchen anyway and maybe a cup of hot tea. Nora’s room is freezing. How does she sleep in this temperature? I think perhaps I’ll try convincing Miss Helmes to heat the hospital better tomorrow. There’s nothing like seeing the place through an inmate’s eyes.
The knob doesn’t turn, and I realize quickly that I’m locked in. Had it been Miss Helmes? We only lock in the new patients and the violent ones typically, and Nora is neither. She’s been here forever, and she’s as meek as a lamb. I can’t imagine why Miss Helmes would have locked the door, but then again, I have never understood Miss Helmes. She confounds me.
I will my heart to slow down. There’s no reason for alarm. After all, being locked inside a safe room when there is possibly a vindictive wife out to get me isn’t the worst thing, not if Miss Helmes pocketed the key and didn’t leave it resting in the knob on the other side for anyone to turn, that is. I will simply have to wait for Miss Helmes or the morning staff to let me out once the sun rises.
That’s when I realize something else. The sound that woke me makes yet another noise, a kind of scratching, a kind of hissing, but it isn’t coming from the door. No, it’s coming from the other side, closer to the bed, closer to where my head had lain moments before. Confused, I turn slowly and peer into the darkness. The moon illuminates the bed and the figure crouched by the foot. The head down by the knees, small, almost like a child. I know instantly it’s too small for Sam, but it could be Nora. Would she have come back without him? Where was Sam?
But it isn’t Nora. I know when I look harder. Her yellow hair spills over her shoulders, and I know this is the same girl I had seen in last night’s moonlight, framed by the window. I know it’s Rose, and I’m afraid.
While I was concerned she could be wandering the halls of Bedlam, frightening Mr. Limpet, pinning someone’s hand to the wall with scissors, maybe even following Mina home or searching my flat, she was with me all along. How long had she been near me, hiding by Nora’s bed? Had she shut us in together somehow? With a chill, I remember Sonnet, locked in an old, crumbling house, alone. Rose would have cheerily let her starve, if not for Luke intervening.
Luke.
Sam.
Where was he?
My thoughts race, millions of them per second, it feels. I will my breaths to calm, not come out in shuddering gasps like they want to. What does she want from me? Is she here for revenge, a displaced wife, scorned and vengeful, or is she here for help, for shelter? Does she know I’ve read her diary, that I’m perhaps the person who knows her best?
If she didn’t walk in here while I was sleeping, then she must have traveled here, anchored to Bedlam the way she always was and would be. Had she simply woke here then?
My mind is
coming up with all sorts of questions, but no answers. I am shut in with a murderess and have no recourse, except my training as a nurse. She is small, but so am I, and she has violent rage on her side. I only have fear. Overpowering her is not something I’m eager to jump to, not without reasoning first. This was the lonely girl who had some love in her heart—Solomon, Luke—and I would not abandon all hope of sanity quite yet. I would find some redemption in her if it killed me. The thought chills.
I only have to keep her calm until Sam and Sonnet and Nora arrive.
That’s all.
She lifts her head and gazes at me with such a forlorn expression of grief and sadness that my heart feels as though it stops. I grow even colder when she says my name - I am virtually made of ice, I think, and I will melt away - and just like that, when she begins to speak, slowly and carefully, I know my life is over and I am going to die.
29
“Please let me out!” I scream and throw myself against the door to Nora’s room. Outside, in the hallway, there is sweet escape from Rose. I can hear Miss Helmes on the other side, but she does not help me.
Rose stands by the window and watches me, sadly. She has not spoken in moments, not since I began banging on the door. The things she said before I cannot even bear thinking of. I see her sigh, and she turns and faces the window. Her face is reflected there, a mirror image of what I saw on the night of the masquerade ball: a beautiful face with yellow hair, and deep, bottomless blue eyes.
“Miss Helmes! Please! Why are you doing this to me?” I sink to the floor, but I don’t give up beating on the door, from my knees.
I hear footfalls in the hallway and hushed voices. They come, and they go. They have for what feels like hours. I swear I heard Mack and Dr. Ford, but they do not help me. Why won’t they help me? What madness is this?
“Lizzie?” I hear Mina’s sweet voice from the other side of the heavy door, and I feel a rush of relief and thanksgiving.
“Mina! Mina, tell them to let me out. She’s here with me! Rose Gray is in here! Don’t let her hurt me! I need to get out! Please, Mina, unlock the door!”
Unbelievably, I don’t hear the sound of a key turning. I stare hard at the knob, but it does not turn. Has my only friend abandoned me then?
“Lizzie, no one is going to hurt you.” Mina’s soft voice comes through the crack in the door. I press my ear to it to listen and imagine I can feel her breath. “Calm down. Take a deep breath. No one is in there with you.”
I sputter with indignation and unbelief. “How can you not believe me? Mina, let me out!” This last time I shout with all the passion and anger I can muster, which is plenty. I never thought she would—could—do this to me. And for what? What was their gain?
I turn to face Rose, but she still stares out the window. She’s quiet as a mouse, blast her, not making a sound to let my friends know that she is here. I hear more footfalls, and these ones are familiar. Sam’s.
I want to cry out, but my voice is strained and cracked, and I can’t catch my breath. I hear his incredulous rebuke of Miss Helmes, and I want to cry with thanks. He will make them let me out, and then they will all see who they locked me in here with. They’ll be so sorry. I will kiss him, and right in front of his wife, too. I won’t care. They can get the marriage annulled. He won’t stay with her after I tell him what she told me. He wouldn’t be so cruel. No one would. Jack the Ripper himself would take pity on me.
“You shouldn’t have shut her in here.” Sam’s voice is full of rage. “Do you have no heart at all? Give me the key!”
There is a moment of silence, and I can see Miss Helmes evaluating her options in my imagination, sure as if I were on the right side of the door. She would be standing, with her bony arms crossed against her large breasts, and she would not give him the satisfaction of hurrying to obey him. I hear her yelp, and can’t help smiling. She should have given in quicker.
I turn one last time to face Rose Gray, and she turns too, to look at me. She cocks her head, curiously regarding me. I hear the key turn.
“Goodbye, Lizzie,” she says, softly. “I loved you.” And unbelievably, as though her strange words weren’t odd enough, she begins to blur and grow fainter, not like Sam and Nora when they disappeared, more like a fading, like a photo in a darkroom, in liquid, only in reverse, lighter and lighter until she is gone.
I can breathe again, and everything is clear, and everything is right. All’s right with the world.
The door explodes open, and I launch myself headlong into his arms. I am pressed up to his coat, my nose buried in the crook of his neck, his familiar smell invading my space; it feels like home. I feel his mouth on mine, and he pulls away, only for a brief, hard moment; then he cups my head and looks at me.
“Luke.” I breathe, and when I pull my gaze away, it’s only to stroke the neglected ring on my finger: shimmering gold with a single pearl in the center.
And he smiles. “Rose.”
Luke. Not Sam. Rose. Not Lizzie. I was finally home.
30
Everything had come back so swiftly, all at once. Perfect clarity—no more confusion, no more questions. The vision of Rose had shimmered and left and once it did, Luke’s name had passed by my lips. Like a cold wind blowing by, Rose Gray left the room, or rather, Lizzie did.
As a little girl, alone and ostracized by the village and by Old Babba, I used to sit and play with Lizzie. She was the only one who ever tried to understand me. She was a good girl, an orphan like me. She was going to be a doctor, and sometimes when I cut myself playing or experimenting, for sometimes my cuts and scrapes were on purpose, she would bandage them for me. She was the only one who loved me, until I got too big for imaginary friends.
After Spain, I began to unravel. We barely made it back to Bedlam together at all. I was coming apart at the seams, and I no longer remembered Luke at times. He was fading from my memory, blurry around the edges, no sound to his voice, no comfort in his arms. He forbade me from traveling anymore, but it was unnecessary; I didn’t recall ever having the capability. With Dr. Ford’s prodding, and Luke’s too, I painstakingly wrote everything down that I could remember. Now I know Luke placed the first diary where he knew I could find it, and the second at the Bodley, where he hoped I would track it. It was the last hope he had. He would have done anything for me. The last time I knew him as Luke, I begged him to just let me go, help me escape the hospital, give me time and space. Maybe it would all come back to me. I could feel myself slipping away, and the thought of doing that in front of him was more than I could bear. He let me go.
After a while, all I could remember was Lizzie. Luke was always there, of course; he never really left, never really went far, but I didn’t notice him. He was a stranger to me, and I was building my life as Lizzie. He arranged the flat for me and convinced Miss Helmes to take me on as a nurse. She knew me as Rose, but as long as I was no longer being violent, she was willing to play along; all in her pursuit of science and medicine, or perhaps the wealth it could bring her. If this kind of therapy worked, she could be rich and infamous in the medical world and much more than just the glorified housekeeper. Mina knew, and being sweet Mina, she had confided in her mother. The reason Mrs. Dobson didn’t want me near Amy was far from her distaste of the poor. She was frightened of me.
Mr. Limpet knew me as Rose Gray when my hair was loose. He and I had several interactions over the years, the most memorable for him of course being the stairs. When my hair was braided in two plaits, he only saw me as Lizzie, the helpful nurse, and he didn’t fear me. Such a pathetic disguise for anyone but him. Him and I, I suppose.
Danvers, of course, isn’t Danvers. That’s the housekeeper in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. The butler’s real name is James, I remember that now. And there was no Miss Temple in the orphanage; Miss Temple was the mistress in Jane Eyre’s orphanage. Of course, I had no orphanage to begin with, so does it really matter what I call her?
When I felt myself slipping away and losing my
memory, Luke had distanced himself like I asked him to, but he couldn’t keep it up indefinitely, not if he wanted a chance of being with me. Eventually, he would travel on without me. If I had no memory of being Lost, I would lose the ability, like my grandmother had. He couldn’t risk it; he didn’t have time. He had to interfere to save me. And save me he has. In many ways, I think.
The night at the ball, when I had seen Rose in the window—it wasn’t a window. It was a mirror on the wall.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall… I remember that story from the library. Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Solomon read it to me one dark night, while the thunder crashed outside. I remember the voices he used for each character, and I remember the way my eyes followed along the print with his finger, as I learned to read. I remember the Bodley, and the sideshow. I remember Old Babba and her cackling prophecies: Goosebumps. Someone has just walked on your grave, little girl, on your grave. I remember Sonnet and our father. I remember the way my mother’s hair blew around her face. I remember my wedding day.
I remember everything.
~ The End ~
Acknowledgements and Notes:
I could not write a paragraph, much less a page, without the following people:
My husband, who thinks I’m Supergirl, even when I get tangled in my cape
My kids, who don’t mind popcorn for lunch (again)
My parents and siblings, even the one who hasn’t read the first book yet (ahem, Dad)
My fan base (quality, not quantity), whether in person or on online. I couldn’t have done this without you and all your shout-outs, encouragements, eagerness, and drum rolls (and occasional eye rolls)
Libraries everywhere
Finally, Shadows Falling is a work of fiction, but some things are true. Nathaniel Lee was an English playwright who was incarcerated in Bedlam, during which time he uttered the infamous quote, “They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me.” This quote was far too wonderful to pass up – thank you, Nathaniel!
Shadows Falling: The Lost #2 Page 23