A Child Lost

by Michelle Cox

  “This will do,” he said to the cab driver, leaning forward and quickly tossing some money onto the front seat. He opened the door before the car had even fully stopped and jumped out.

  As if on cue, Fritz stepped crisply out of the Daimler. “I’m very sorry, sir,” he said.

  “It’s not your fault, Fritz,” Clive said, clapping him hard on the shoulder. “You did as you were instructed. Any sign of her?” he asked wildly, his adrenaline pumping, as he looked up at Dunning. He needed to be calm, he told himself. He needed to think logically and tried to keep the sketchy plan he had come up with on the way over in the forefront of his mind.

  “No, sir, unfortunately not.”

  “I’m going in.”

  “Shall I come with you, sir?”

  “No, you stay here in case she comes out. Keep a sharp eye.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fritz said with a nod.

  Clive began walking briskly toward the main gate. “If I’m not out in an hour, call the cops,” he called out over his shoulder.

  “Very good, sir. Good luck, sir,” Fritz called from where he stood beside the big maroon car.

  As Clive approached the gate, he began to try to assess the situation in front of him. The big gate was closed, as usual, and there was a lone guard sitting in the little booth, again reading the newspaper by the look of it. As he got closer, Clive observed that it wasn’t the same guard as he had encountered the other day. This might be in his favor, he decided. He was close enough now to see steam coming from what looked like a thermos cup perched somewhere inside.

  The guard looked up as Clive approached and slid open the little pane of glass beside him. “Visiting hours is over,” he called out, leaning his head out of the booth.

  “Yes, I know,” Clive tried to say casually. “But I’m quite certain my wife is still in there,” he said, nodding toward the hulking edifice. “Visiting, you see. She must have lost track of time. You know women,” he said, trying to chuckle, but the man did not join in.

  “They gives ’em plenty of warning. Bells going off every fifteen minutes the last hour. Nuisance is what it is.”

  “Well, mind if I just go in and look for her? You could accompany me if you wish.”

  “Can’t do that. Can’t leave my post and can’t let anyone in past five.”

  Clive let out a deep breath, trying to remain calm. “Can you at least telephone someone?” he asked impatiently, eyeing the tall fence and wondering if he could scale it. The metal spikes at the top probably meant no.

  “I s’pose,” the guard said, after a pause. “Don’t think it will do any good, though,” he said reluctantly. He picked up the receiver of the telephone inside his booth and looked back out at Clive, both of them staring at each other in the ensuing silence. Clive tapped his foot impatiently as they waited for someone to answer.

  “Look—” Clive began.

  “Yeah, Ralph?” the guard said finally. “All the visitors signed out?” He paused, listening to whatever Ralph was saying. “What’s her name?” he asked Clive now.

  “Henrietta Howard,” Clive said impatiently.

  “Henrietta Howard,” the guard said into the receiver. “Okay, thanks, Ralph,” he said and hung up. “No one by that name,” the guard said with a shrug. “Sure she came here?” He wagged his thumb over his shoulder. “Probably went shopping,” he said and inched himself back onto his stool, apparently assuming that his exchange with Clive to now be over.

  “Look,” Clive said desperately as he pulled his fake badge out of his jacket. “I’m with the police, actually. I have reason to believe that there’s a woman in danger inside. You must let me in, or I’ll be forced to call for backup.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say that in the first place?” the guard said irritably as he again slid off his stool and emerged from the booth. “You don’t look like no cop,” he said skeptically as he adjusted his cap. He led Clive over to the pedestrian gate and then reached for the heavy ring of keys hung on his belt loop. Easily, he selected the key to the small side gate, opening it only a crack, before he paused. “Let me see that badge,” he said with a furrowed brow as he held out his hand for it.

  Clive did not hand it over but merely held it up, hoping a quick flash of it would suffice. Unfortunately, however, the guard was somehow able to read it.

  “Hey! That’s Winnetka police!” he said. “Tryin’ to pull a fast one? You ain’t got no jurisdiction down here!”

  “Oh, yes I do,” Clive said, thinking quickly and hunching forward with his good shoulder to take a running pass at the slightly open gate. The guard, taken completely by surprise, stumbled backward as Clive plowed into him and burst through the gate. In a sprint, Clive took off running toward the main building.

  “Hey!” the guard shouted after him, righting himself. “Come back! You can’t go in there!” he shouted again. “I’m calling for backup!” But Clive could barely hear him by this time; he was almost to the main doors. He ran up the front stairs, skipping steps as he went. Furiously, he tugged on both doors. Locked. He banged on them and shouted, “Open up! Police!” He banged on the doors again. “Open up!” he shouted again.

  Out of breath and distraught, he gave one of the doors a kick, but to no avail. He stepped back, his foot throbbing now, and looked back toward the gate to see if the guard was following. He could see no one, however, which probably meant that the guard had instead stayed in the booth to call for backup, as he had threatened. Clive hoped that the “backup” was the Chicago police and not the man’s fellow guards alerted from wherever they were stashed on the property. Though it didn’t look good—a man breaking into Dunning with a fake Winnetka police badge—it might be easier to explain himself to the city cops, who might know him from his days on the force, rather than the lunkheads employed here.

  “Henrietta!” he shouted, stepping back onto the grass so that he could see the upper floors. “Henrietta!” he screamed, but no one and nothing responded.

  Chapter 22

  When Henrietta awoke, she found she was on a strangely uncomfortable bed in a room she did not recognize. It took her a moment to realize where she was. Dunning. Oh, God, she was in Dunning! She moved to sit up and found that her wrists were tied to the bed. Panic rushed through her, and she twisted and turned, trying to free herself. A cry for help was on her lips, but she miraculously thought better of it before she did so and instead clamped her lips shut.

  It was all coming back to her now.

  Nurse Collins, the stock room, the cyanide. She must have fainted, she guessed, and looked around the room as best she could from where she lay. She appeared to be in one of the bedchambers, a patient in a long row of beds, all of them seemingly occupied with sleeping lumps. By the light coming in from the hallway, she observed that her clothes had been removed and she was wearing a hospital gown only, with no shoes or stockings.

  Why was she here? she tried to work out, painfully attempting to think back to the last thing she remembered. In her mind she saw Nurse Collins filling the syringe with cyanide. Had she injected her? But why wasn’t she already dead, then? she worried, frantically pulling at her bonds at the thought. Perhaps it wasn’t instantaneous?

  “Help!” she said to one of the lumps in a low voice. “Can someone please help me?” she asked with quiet desperation, not wanting to attract Nurse Collins’s attention, wherever she was.

  “Shut up!” one of the lumps shouted.

  Henrietta tried peering into the darkness. “Can someone untie me?” she asked in a strained voice.

  “Shut up, or you’ll get what’s comin’ to ya,” snarled the same lump.

  “Yeah, shut up,” several others mumbled.

  “Shhh!” Henrietta hushed.

  “Don’t shush me!” cried out a woman near her.

  Henrietta bit her lip and remained silent. She was afraid now that they were on the brink of working themselves up into some sort of shouting match, which would surely attract Nurse Collins’s attent
ion. Her heart racing, Henrietta lay as still as a mouse, praying they would follow suit and quiet down.

  She closed her eyes, trying desperately to think of what to do and, more importantly, to assess if she could feel the poison coursing through her. She was sweating and having difficulty breathing, but she didn’t think this was the effect of cyanide. She knew little of poisons, but she was pretty sure that had she been injected she would indeed be already dead. With these thoughts swirling around in her mind, she nearly screamed, then, when she felt a bony hand on her shoulder. Quickly she opened her eyes and saw what appeared to be a large black vulture standing by her bed. Her heart nearly bursting out of her chest, she eventually realized that it was not a vulture, but only Mrs. Goodman, peering at her with her large, hollow eyes, and somehow wearing what looked very much like Antonia’s hat.

  “You’re ready now for the angel to come to you, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Goodman!” Henrietta whispered, relief flooding through her, so much so that she almost went numb. “I’m so glad you’re here! Can you . . . can you help me? Untie me?”

  “Untie you? Why?” the old woman asked, and Henrietta could see even in the shadowy light that she looked puzzled.

  “Because . . . because I’ve got to get out of here!” Henrietta tried to say without becoming hysterical.

  “But the angel is coming . . .” Mrs. Goodman said, glancing at the hallway. “She will be angry if I interfere again. I heard you scream before and interrupted the angel in her work. She was not happy with me, so she brought you here until she can minister to you. She does not like anyone to watch her as she frees souls. This must be done in secret, she says. But I’m to watch you until she can come. So I’m watching you,” she said, opening her eyes wide like an owl.

  So that was it! Henrietta realized. Mrs. Goodman must have come into the stock room just before Nurse Collins had been able to administer the cyanide. Henrietta offered up a silent prayer of thanks—but now how was she ever going to get out of this? she wondered wildly. Surely Nurse Collins would reappear any moment . . . !

  “But there’s been a mistake,” Henrietta said, madly pulling at her cords again but to no avail. She stopped straining and lay back on the bed, trying to calm herself. She decided to take a gamble. “Mrs. Goodman, you must untie me. I’m to go to the golden city,” she said, trying to remember Mrs. Goodman’s fantastical story. She glanced over at Mrs. Goodman, who was staring at her as if in disbelief. “I was instructed,” Henrietta tried to say convincingly. “You are to show me, they said. You are to be my guide.”

  Mrs. Goodman’s face, half of which was illuminated by the light from the hallway and half of which remained in darkness, remained oddly rigid, as if she were frozen, much like when Henrietta inadvertently came upon her lying in her bedroom the other day. It momentarily struck her as wholly bizarre that they seemed to have now switched places.

  Finally, she spoke. “Who told you that?” Mrs. Goodman hissed, causing Henrietta to fear she had said the wrong thing. “Was it the cat?”

  Henrietta hesitated, trying to decide how to answer. “No, it was . . . it was the rats,” she ventured.

  “The rats? No!” Mrs. Goodman whispered, looking confused. Her eyes darted toward the hallway.

  “They are waiting for me,” Henrietta continued. She felt a twinge of guilt in playing on this woman’s insanity, but what else could she do?

  “I see,” Mrs. Goodman said almost absently and then went silent, apparently thinking something over in her mind.

  Valuable seconds ticked by, and Henrietta was tempted to speak again, wanting to urge the woman on. She sensed she should wait, however, and forced herself to remain silent.

  “But what about the angel?” Mrs. Goodman finally asked slowly. “She will be very angry . . .”

  Henrietta’s mind raced for something to say, trying to remember what Gunther had told her about this myth, if it even was the same myth at all. Well, what did it matter? she concluded hurriedly.

  “The king commands it,” she tried to say sternly and hoped Mrs. Goodman did not hear the accompanying catch in her throat.

  Blessedly, something seemed to shift then in Mrs. Goodman’s face. “Yes . . . yes, this is true,” she said hesitantly. “I see. Yes, you must come.” She pulled back the flimsy sheet covering Henrietta’s lower half. Henrietta’s heart leapt for joy, amazed that it had been that easy to fool the woman.

  Mrs. Goodman mercifully bent to untie the cloth holding one of her wrists. It came undone with surprising ease, which made Henrietta suspect they were simple knots tied very quickly and that Nurse Collins had probably not anticipated Henrietta waking up before she returned, which only increased Henrietta’s sense of panic. Quickly, she turned onto her side to try to help Mrs. Goodman with the second knot, but she stopped cold at the sound of clipped footsteps coming down the hall.

  “The angel must not find us,” Mrs. Goodman whispered apprehensively. “She will be very angry.”

  Henrietta hurriedly flung herself flat onto the bed and put her free arm back by her side. “Hide!” she whispered to Mrs. Goodman, who obediently backed into the shadows in one corner of the room. Henrietta’s heart was beating so hard in her chest that she was sure Nurse Collins would hear it in the hallway. A layer of sweat broke out on her body, and she could feel it actually dripping down her back. Silently she lay there, listening, barely daring to breathe, her lungs burning. The steps came closer and closer, and just as Henrietta thought she was going to scream, the steps went past the chamber where she lay and sounded like they entered a different room farther down. Henrietta let out a long, deep breath, trying to calm herself again and stop the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes.

  “Mrs. Goodman,” she whispered after a few moments. “We have to hurry!”

  Mrs. Goodman emerged from the shadows, nervously rubbing her hands. She hurried over to the side of the bed where Henrietta was still tied. Swiftly she bent to undo the knot, but then abruptly stopped and slowly straightened. “No, this isn’t right,” she said, throwing Henrietta into a panic again.

  “Please,” she begged . . .

  “It is not the right time for the journey. The moon is not aligned,” Mrs. Goodman said cryptically.

  “It . . . it doesn’t matter,” Henrietta said, rolling onto her side again and trying to untie the knot herself. “We . . . we have to listen to the rats,” she whispered fiercely. “Remember?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Goodman nodded. “Yes, you’re right. But the oracle did not foretell this,” she said, as the bond fell to the floor.

  Henrietta quickly stood up, rubbing her wrists and trying to steady herself. She looked around for her clothes, but they were nowhere in sight. Neither was there any wardrobe or table. She couldn’t take the time to search for them, she decided agitatedly. She would have to go as she was. She tiptoed toward the doorway and peeked out into the hallway, Mrs. Goodman following close behind. Now what was she to do? Getting free of the bed was just the first of her problems, she realized, breathing heavily. How was she to get off the ward without a key?

  “Come,” Mrs. Goodman said, taking one of Henrietta’s hands in her own. Mrs. Goodman’s hand was so cold and bony against her own fevered skin that she felt as if she were being led by a skeleton. Antonia’s black hat was still absurdly perched on Mrs. Goodman’s head, and Henrietta found herself staring at the intricate threadwork that wound around the brim, wondering distractedly how a living person could still be this cold.

  “Where are we going?” she finally whispered, giving her head a shake to clear these thoughts as they crept along.

  Mrs. Goodman did not answer but pulled Henrietta behind her. They paused at the first chamber doorway they came to, hesitating to cross lest Nurse Collins see them. Like Henrietta, Mrs. Goodman must have deduced by listening to Nurse Collins’s footsteps earlier that she had stopped somewhere nearby. Tentatively, Mrs. Goodman inched her head ever so carefully past the doorframe to
peer into the dark room. Determining that the coast was clear, they slunk past. They continued to do this before each doorway until they finally reached the common area.

  “Do you have the keys?” Henrietta whispered frantically as they stood huddled alone together. No patients remained in the dayroom at this hour. “Do you know where they are?”

  “Keys?” Mrs. Goodman asked, as if that was a ridiculous question. “This way,” she said, leading her toward the storage room. “This is the way out . . .”

  “No!” Henrietta hissed and groaned internally, quickly realizing how stupid she was to think that Mrs. Goodman could lead her to safety. She didn’t have any more of an idea of how to get out than she did! It was the blind leading the blind! Henrietta chided herself and looked desperately around the room now for something . . . anything!

  “Come, this way,” Mrs. Goodman repeated, attempting to pull her. Henrietta pulled back, managing to free herself from what turned out to be Mrs. Goodman’s amazingly strong grip.

  “No! I don’t want to go in there,” Henrietta whispered, though it did occur to her that her clothes might be in there. But was going in to look for them worth the risk of being trapped in there? Well, she countered with herself, wasn’t she trapped anyway?

  “But you must!” Mrs. Goodman insisted, looking puzzled. “The tunnel is there!”

  “The tunnel?” Henrietta asked in a low voice, trying to remember Mrs. Goodman’s ramblings. Yes, the tunnel . . . the tunnel to the golden underground city, wasn’t it? But what could she possibly be referring to? Henrietta wondered, knowing as she did, having just been in there and searching every corner of it, that there was no other way out and certainly no tunnel. Clearly, this was part of Mrs. Goodman’s delusion . . .

  All thoughts were ceased, however, when she heard fast footsteps from farther down the hallway. Terror instantly returned to her heart as she looked around for somewhere to hide! Behind the desk?