How I wish I could tell him to go to blazes, but words don’tcome out, even when I try to scream or say no. They’ve stayed locked inside my headsince I was a child. Hell if I know why.
I’m propelled toward the exit, clumsy and clanking. “Movealong, your highness. Let’s go.”
I stumble up the stairs and out of the Pit. The asylum inmatesare unusually loud, and their cries bounce from the rafters to the floor,settling painfully within my ears. They sound like a pack of wolves at theforest’s edge. My senses shrink from them, their disease and misery thick inthe air. Pray no one dies at Ironwood this evening. I’m sick to death of Death.
Our journey continues another twenty feet or so, footstepsringing down the hall. Then Titus pushes me into a sharp right turn, and Ienter a room of some kind. The atmosphere is astringent, as though carbolicsolution has just been used to clean the place.
Hands big and blunt, he picks me up and lowers my body onto a hardsurface. Without pillows or padding, it feels colder than the usual exam table.I run my fingers across the flat metal expanse, up the high sides. Not anactual table then, but a square trough of some kind. Liquid swirls and bubbles aboveme, and I begin to shake, chilled by the sound. A reservoir in the ceiling? Whydoes the madman need water?
As I consider these questions, Titus quickly hooks my shackles tothe sides of the tub. Upon realizing my predicament, I kick and flail. Let mego, you fool. Release me.
Footsteps move along the corridor outside the exam room. Deusmisereatur, I pray in Latin— Gods have mercy. He’s here. Fifteen feet from me.Ten. Seven. My heart hammers inside my chest, and mere stubbornness keeps hysteriaat bay. But the monster crosses the threshold, his French cologne arrivingbefore him. While verbena does not begin to conceal the asylum director’s rancidpomade and perspiration, it is his olfactory calling card.
“Why, Miss Grayson, you look unwell,” he says. “Don’t fret, mydear. We’ll fix that. Water ready, Titus?”
“Yes,” the guard replies.
I work the shackle on my right arm against the hook, pleadingsilently in my mind. I beg you, stop! Let’s reconsider the situation. Over tea,like civilized people.
A loud scraping sound batters my head as a chair is pulledtoward me. The doctor sits down and sighs. “You hurt one of my men the otherday—clawed the side of his face rather badly. I can’t allow such behavior to gounpunished, pet.”
He deserved it, the filthy lecher. And I’m not your pet.
Faust leans in, his moist breath upon my cheek. “Rebellionequals pain and punishment, dear child. Obedience, on the other hand, bringsrelief.” He waits for a moment—for what? for me to submit to his parent/child delusions?—andthen turns back toward Titus. “Put the dowel in place. I’d hate for our patientto bite her tongue.”
The doctor lies. Obedience won’t lessen punishment. There willbe pain no matter what I do.
Titus squeezes my jaw until I open my mouth. He pushes a slimpiece of wood between my teeth, horizontally, and adjusts the connected strapsbehind my head. Similar to a horse’s bit and harness. The splintery dowel rubsagainst my tongue, and I vomit.
“Clean her up,” Faust commands. “Rinse the bile away.”
Heavy material—like wool—is flipped aside, as though he hastaken something from an inner pocket of his coat. I hear the creak of a wornleather spine and then the sound of writing. It’s the Book. Faust always recordsour therapy sessions in his journal. He’s does it religiously—has doneit with every patient, since the beginning of his practice twenty-years-ago,when he started researching pain stimulus on aberrant personalities. The Bookis famous throughout Ironwood.
Faust finishes writing and then begins a clinical descriptionof the treatment ahead. “After the ten-minute mark, if the heart does not giveout, the muscles will lose their ability to move. Some last half an hour, but Iwouldn’t expect that of you, pet. Not enough fat.”
He’s insane! Stark raving—
“Do the honors, Titus.”
Like the removal of a sluice gate, I hear the channel open, andwater rushes over me, rising to my neck in seconds.
So cold. Breathing too fast. Slow down, slow down.
Titus dumps a bucket of something—feels like snow—into thetrough and icy fire slices through my skin to the joints and sinew, coursingthrough my veins to alternately scorch and then freeze muscles and organs.
“How remarkable,” Faust says, documenting each second that Iresist cardiac arrest. “But then you’re a survivor, aren’t you?”
Papers rustle within the Book. Pages turn. “Bornblind and premature. Inadequate larynx. A bout of typhus at four—killed yournanny, the family maid, but not Little Hester. What a fascinating study! Watertherapy alone may not be adequate. Perhaps you need more.”
More? He’s nonsensical. Body hurts everywhere. Might be sickagain.
Water rises, covering most of my face, and I hold very still tokeep my nose above it. Then Faust stands and pushes me under. Clamping my lipsaround the dowel, I manage to keep the water out of my mouth. Bubbles roll upmy cheek, bounce against my closed eyelids. Veritas. Dea. Heavenhelp me. Need air. Air.
The madman brings me up, and I open my mouth wide, gulpingoxygen. But the damned dowel’s in the way, sliding to the back of my tongue. Ibite against it and suck air in through my teeth, hissing like a snake. Then Igo under again. And writhe. Kick. Strike against the sides of the trough.
Faust pulls me out a second time. I breathe … breathe … Andsilently scream for anyone who has shown me the slightest kindness. Cordelia.Willard. Even my dead mother. Mama, why did Father send me here? Does he reallyhate me so much?
The world seems to thunder in that little room as I fightFaust, as though the ocean itself crashes against my head. Weary from ourbattle, I grow somewhat detached and yet the physical sensations are acute. Painis everywhere, so cold it burns. How am I alive? The blood which rushed throughmy veins earlier seems sluggish, and I can barely move my limbs, though my bodyshivers like it’s having convulsions. Not dead or
