Legendary

by Amelia Kibbie

  Lance snored nearby as well, but James could not see his face. He had the entire blanket wrapped around himself like a cocoon. Or a funeral shroud.

  “G-good m-morning.” James sat up and pulled away from Arthur’s reach. He bought himself time by checking his wristwatch.

  “You sound like I used to back in primary school.” Arthur offered a half-smile over his broad, even-featured face and regal brow.

  “I s-suppose I do.” James swallowed, or attempted to, with a desert throat.

  Arthur cocked his head slightly. His curls shifted to compensate for the movement. “Is... something wrong? James?”

  His own name pierced his heart with a shard of guilty ice. It melted and bubbled up inside him then, like vomit, threatening to erupt. As he stared into Arthur’s emerald eyes, their ring of thick lashes, the circle of gold that crowned his pupil, the truth welled up in him, beat through his blood, and pounded at the door of his lips. The urge to confess was so strong inside him, he felt physical pain from the hairs on his head to the middle of his bones.

  He took a breath, and swallowed it all back, locking up his mouth in a grimace that was supposed to be a smile. “No, nothing’s wrong.” His throat tightened. “I didn’t sleep well,” he added, and it sounded authentic, to his ears at least.

  Arthur’s face fell. If asked to do so, even to save his soul inside the church, James couldn’t have described the look Arthur kept smiling, but something drained out of his eyes at that moment. He patted James' knee and stood up to stretch. Dozens of pops echoed up his spine.

  James' chest relaxed in increments with the sudden euphoric rush brought on by his lie’s success. This was immediately followed by a thick nausea that looped through his midsection as bile burned up his throat. For the next few hours, he would exist from moment to moment, riding a pendulum that swung back and forth between relief and guilt, pelted by constant mental questions. Would Lance tell? Could they really keep this secret? Would he ever tell Arthur? Should he take it to his grave? Or in a few months, when this was all over, could he tell Arthur in such a way that it wouldn’t hurt, would seem like a joke? Oh, Arthur, you wouldn’t believe what Lance did, of course I felt bad for him—

  Arthur went to wake up Lance as James roused Mrs. Wylit, who was in a particularly terrible and combative mood. In the washroom, she slapped him as he tried to help her dress. His reflection in the water-spotted mirror sported a shadow of her hand on his cheek, inflamed in red. “Stupid boy.” She shrugged on her wrinkled and smelly jacket and brushed her hair into a lopsided bun with sober, businesslike strokes. He realized in a terrible moment she was stone sober, though her skin was as sallow and her eyes as bloodshot as usual.

  Had she seen? Did she know?

  “Why did you do that?” He demanded. If she knew, he wanted her to be out with it.

  “I can prepare myself. I’m not a child. I could dress a squirming two-year-old in three minutes flat.” She adjusted her wilted collar. “That’s a feat. You couldn’t do that.” She turned to him, and tears stood out in her eyes. In a sudden torrent, they spilled over her cheeks in two long rivers.

  “I’ve had plenty of practice, what with trying to keep you presentable.” James stuffed his shirt into his pants and yanked up his suspenders. He turned to his own reflection in the mirror and tried not to look at his face as he dampened and combed down his hair. “What are you blubbering about, Vi?”

  “I think the golden era is over.” She opened up her pocketbook and withdrew the silver flask. Mrs. Wylit raised it to him in a solemn toast, and emptied it down her throat. Then she turned to the mirror and splashed water on her face. She patted it dry with uncharacteristic dignity, then whipped out a tube of red lipstick and applied it, though the rest of her face was bleak and bare. “War paint.” She capped the tube and dropped it into her purse.

  “What the hell does that even mean?” James shouted after her as she hauled up her bag and left him in the washroom alone. “Can’t you make sense for once?”

  When James had gathered himself enough to face the others again, he returned to the church proper to find the blankets and cots returned to the store room. Lance was waiting for him near the door. The luggage, Arthur, and Mrs. Wylit were nowhere in sight, presumably outside already.

  “Lance.” He rushed to him. “I—”

  Lance offered his movie-star smile, and put both hands on James' shaking shoulders. “Listen, we don’t have time to talk it over now. I want you to know two things. First, I won’t say anything to Arthur. Second, I don’t regret a single thing.” He dropped his hands down to James' and gave them a gentle, loving squeeze.

  “Oh God,” James murmured as he lost himself in Lance’s ocean-blue gaze. It was all he could say. It was a prayer for help.

  “Come on. Stiff upper lip.” Lance opened the church door, and they joined the others.

  Since they’d saved money on their accommodations the previous night, it was agreed that they should walk back to the train station, have breakfast somewhere nearby, and hail a cab to take them to St. John’s Hospital, the lunatic asylum.

  They managed to find tea and toast and jam in a small teahouse next to the train station. James tried to eat, but it stuck in his throat. Arthur ate his, but without the usual relish with which he generally consumed foodstuffs. Mrs. Wylit filled her tea with whiskey purchased on the way to breakfast, and then daintily added sugar and a lemon slice.

  Lance broke the silence by dropping his half-eaten toast back onto his plate with a desolate sigh. “I know the feeling, mates.” He raised his napkin to his lips. “This leg of the journey’s got me scared. This really could be the end of our leads. If we can’t find Mr. Blanchard, well, then where shall we look for Matthew Barlow?”

  “He might not remember Mr. Marlin.” Arthur swallowed the rest of his tea with a grimace. “He might not remember anything at all.”

  “Poor man,” James piped up. It was a relief to have something else to think about, another problem to try and solve besides his own. “To think he fought with Mr. Marlin in the Great War only to be carted off to an asylum. He must not have any family to care for him.”

  “Terrible to be alone like that.” Arthur turned to James and caught this gaze for a moment longer than was comfortable. After insuring the employees were busy with the morning train rush, he reached up and brushed a crumb from the lapel of James' jacket. The act was as intimate as it ever was, but struck James as doubly so. The guilty ice refroze and pricked his heart again and he had to look away to stare down at his bread and jam.

  The first cabbie they hailed recoiled and drove away when they asked to be taken to the asylum. The second raised his bushy eyebrows high over his wrinkled face, but leapt free of his vehicle to load their luggage without a moment’s hesitation. It would be a good fare — the hospital sat on a hill about two miles from Lincoln proper. The black automobile wound up a long lane before it pulled to a stop outside a massive, imposing building which housed the primary wards of the hospital.

  As they exited the car, James turned a full spin to take in the vastness of the hospital complex. The lawns seemed to stretch for miles, peppered with other buildings, a water tower, and scored with winding paths and well-trimmed hedges. A man in beige work coveralls stood a few yards down the cul-de-sac, using a rake to spread mulch beneath a line of bushes. He was tall, stretched-looking, and his hair blew in the cool wind that was sure to precede a summer rainstorm.

  A rainstorm was all they needed, James thought with a shiver. The hospital was gothic enough on its own, a giant structure of stone, something constructed to look stately and refined that only resembled an Italianate military fort. Or a prison. It, and many of the outbuildings, were in need of refreshment and repair, peppered with cracks and stained with years of rain and mold. Gently lilting on the summer air came a distant yelping shout, followed by a sobbing cry. James shivered and instinctively stepped closer to Arthur, who bent next to the car to pay the cab fare.

 
With his money clenched in his fist, the cab driver was anxious to leave this place, and sped over the crushed gravel of the cul-de-sac to race back towards town. The sudden roaring of the car startled the man tending the bushes, and he yelped. He took up the rake in a defensive stance and crouched behind the bushes. “Get away!” He brandished his weapon at the diminishing form of the automobile.

  It was only then James realized that the groundskeeper was also likely a patient of this hospital. Still clutching the rake, he turned to the visitors, who stood there stupidly with their baggage. Arthur stepped in front of James, and Lance put his hand on Mrs. Wylit’s arm. Mrs. Wylit shook him off with impatient violence, and dropped her baggage at her feet.

  “Vi, what—”

  Mrs. Wylit stepped toward the patient. There was a long moment where they all feared the worst, that he would raise the rake and rush at her. James and Lance both darted forward to grab her arm, but Lance was faster and James stepped back out of the way. The sudden movement startled the man with the rake again, and he crumpled to the ground, whimpering.

  “Let me go. Let me go to him.”

  “Vi, please!” Lance begged.

  “I’ll paste you, don’t think I won’t.”

  Lance threw a helpless glance over his shoulder at James and Arthur. Mrs. Wylit wiggled her arm free and closed the distance between herself and the patient. She wobbled in her heels over the gravel, unsteadiness aided by the whiskey tea.

  “There there, now.” She knelt down next to the patient. Mrs. Wylit plucked the rake from his hands and set it on the ground, and to everyone’s surprise, he let her do it. “What a lovely job you’ve done on these bushes, luv. Why don’t you stand up and show me?”

  The man rose to his feet. “I’m sorry.” He dragged his sleeve over his nose to clear his face. The patient gave her a short bow. “I get upset sometimes.” He extended a sudden formal hand. “I’m Silas Barkley, pleased to meet you.” The totally normal tone of his voice and his mannerisms stunned James.

  “Viola Wylit.” She shook his hand.

  The man twitched a moment, and wrinkled his nose. “You smell like whiskey, Miss Viola Wylit.”

  “That is because I am a drunk, Mr. Barkley,” she replied with a bob of her head. “I’m quite damaged, actually.”

  “So am I.” Silas flashed her a sunny grin. “Of course, that’s why I’m here on holiday.”

  “Room for one more?” Mrs. Wylit said, and they laughed. Rather flirtatiously, if James was being honest. “Kettles,” she went on, “mine’s kettles. I can’t stand the whistling, you know. It sounds like...” She trailed off, her mouth working uselessly.

  “The Blitz?”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded, and they stared a long moment into each other’s haunted eyes.

  One of the vast front double doors swung open, and a man in an attendant’s whites came out, his steps quick, his homely face concerned. A ring of keys jingled at his waist. “Silas!” He jogged up to Mrs. Wylit and the patient, ignoring the rest of them completely. “I told you to rake the leaves along the east path. You shouldn’t have come over here by yourself.”

  “I finished,” Silas explained with a shrug. He picked up his rake and leaned on it. “I know it’s near the road, but nobody ever comes up here this early.”

  “I heard you cry out. Was it the taxi?”

  Mrs. Wylit and Silas both nodded.

  “My mother was hit by a car,” Silas explained politely to Mrs. Wylit, who nodded in understanding. “And now I have an...” he thought for a moment, then parroted what sounded like an academic, doctorly voice. “Adverse reaction.”

  “Can I...” the attendant flubbed as he suddenly noticed James, Lance, Arthur, and their baggage. “Help you? Are you...” He nodded toward Mrs. Wylit. “Erm, checking in?”

  “No, no.” Lance held up both hands in a nonthreatening display. “We’re here to inquire after a patient that may be here. And visit him, if possible.”

  “Oh, you didn’t come to visit me?” Silas pretended to pout. “That’s a shame.”

  “Maybe next time.” James was thrown by how genuine Mrs. Wylit’s smiles were as she spoke with this Silas, a total stranger. Perhaps there was some kind of instant bond between them, as Vi had suggested — the bond of damage.

  “Why don’t you step in,” the attendant said, “and I’ll go find someone.”

  As they gathered their things and climbed the stone steps, Mrs. Wylit turned back to Silas and dropped a wink. He gave her a salute, and disappeared around the corner of the building, back, perhaps, to a place where he would not hear automobiles pass.

  The foyer of the hospital was as large as the Lady Chapel, and saturated with echoes. Two monumental stone staircases, one leading to each wing of the building, converged in the middle of the back wall and spilled down to the floor. Everything was hard, made of huge slabs of stone. It was cool and shadowy as the day’s light diminished to make way for the rain. The walls were painted a soothing blue that did nothing to placate James' racing heart.

  “I’ll be back in two shakes.” The attendant jogged up the staircase, bearing left, and disappeared down a hallway.

  “This place is something out of Lovecraft,” James whispered to Arthur, who bumped his shoulder reassuringly. The aging foyer had the trimmings of a library, perhaps, or a fine hotel’s main lobby — an alcove at the point where the staircases converged, decorative carvings, and the like — but it carried a profound weight, a haunted quality that could not be ignored. James wasn’t sure if it was the cracks he saw here and there, the worn look of the stair banisters, or the dull floor tiles. Perhaps it had more to do with the intermittent cries and other strange sounds that came faintly from down the hallways on either side of the stairs.

  They listened anxiously until another sound came to their ears — footsteps, clipped and brisk, easily identified as the heel of a woman’s shoe. Moments later, a nurse appeared, and marched down the stairs in her uniform — a blue dress with white sleeves and collar, covered with a white apron. The white cap pinned over her severely parted, perfectly curled black hair bobbed as she walked.

  “Good morning. I am Mrs. Hartley, ward matron.” She said no more, but stared at them with annoyed expectancy.

  “Good morning.” Lance gave her his most charming smile. “I’m Lance Benwick. This is Viola Wylit, James Wilde, and Arthur Pensinger. We came here today to find a Mr. William Blanchard, who was a friend of my late grandfather Harold Marlin. They fought in the Great War together, and we have some important questions to ask him regarding my grandfather’s... well, the last thing my grandfather said to me. It’s a very important matter, if you understand my meaning.”

  Matron Hartley’s expression did not change. Her stony face made it impossible to judge her mood, or her age. She was emotionless, as stony and empty as the foyer of the hospital. “I’m sorry to inform you,” she said, in an equally unremarkable tone, “that Mr. William Blanchard died over a month ago. No relatives came to claim his remains, so he has been buried in our cemetery. I can show you his resting place, if you wish.”

  Chapter 21

  “She could have at least let us wait inside.” Mrs. Wylit huddled under Arthur’s umbrella and shivered. “Nasty, nasty witch. I think she likes giving injections. Lots of injections and electroshock treatments. I bet she’s got a gold star on her wall for every lobotomy she’s done.”

  Arthur said nothing, his face still red from the argument they’d had with Matron Hartley, who had refused to tell them anything at all about Mr. Blanchard. “You’re not family,” she repeated, over and over again, with the same measured, condescending calm. “I cannot release any details to anyone but the family.” Nor would she tell them if she had contact information for Mr. Blanchard’s relatives. No matter how they explained, begged, pleaded, it did not matter — and when Matron Hartley had had enough, she’d marched into a nearby office and called them a taxi. And told them they were to remove themselves or she woul
d call the attendants to escort them.

  Mrs. Wylit shifted her weight, and stumbled a bit on the wet gravel. Arthur caught her and kept his arm tightly around her shoulders to keep her upright and out of the rain.

  James gazed longingly at their backs from where he stood with his own umbrella next to Lance in front of the stairs. If all was right with the world, James would be under Arthur’s arm right now. Not that he deserved to be there.

  “What are we going to do?” Lance wondered in a defeated, mumbling voice as he kicked a stone at his feet. “I can’t let my granddad down, not after all of this.”

  “We’ll think of something. Perhaps... Tom?”

  “You don’t think that bridge is burnt?” Lance reached into his jacket pocket and shook free a cigarette. He lit it with a frustrated sigh. “I don’t see a path forward, lads. I think we’re finished. If we’re lucky, there’ll be a train home today. Wouldn’t you say, Arthur?”

  Arthur glanced over his shoulder at Lance, and fixed him with his green gaze for an uncomfortably long time. Then he looked at James before turning around without a word.

  Oh God. James bit his lip against the tears rising in his throat. How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me the uses of this world.

  Behind them, the door opened.

  “Here to chase us with your broom, witch?” Mrs. Wylit sneered around the mouth of her flask. But as they turned, they saw the attendant who had been in charge of Silas and the other grounds crew, who undoubtedly must be inside now with the rain increasing its soggy insistence.

  He opened an umbrella of his own and stood with them. “I’m sorry you didn’t find what you came for. It is sad, Mr. Blanchard, you know.” The attendant reached into the pocket of his white trousers and handed Mrs. Wylit a piece of folded paper. She took it between her quivering fingers. “That’s Silas’s address. He wanted me to give it to you in hopes that you’ll write, Mrs... Wylit, wasn’t it?”