The substance inside the pan feels cold and lumpy. I take ahandful of the mixture and smell it—just oats, no milk or honey. I place asmall amount in my mouth and chew. Crunchy bits scrape against my tongue. Itdoesn’t require more than a quick touch of my finger to know the pan holds asmany dead weevils as it does oats. Horrible! I will not eat this! Afterspitting the cereal out, I return to the table. The warm stones feel goodagainst my back, and I push my spine into the heat. My fingers land upon somesort of indentation hidden behind the table lip. I stick three fingers insidethe hollow space.
Dominus providebit! The gods do provide.
Taking Mama’s jewelry from the pockets in my drawers, I slideit into the groove under the tabletop. Hopefully, this hiding place willprotect the treasure. I doubt there’s a single person in the asylum I couldtrust to keep it safe. Although, given my situation, maybe greed trumps trust.Surely somebody here will accept a bribe.
For I must escape, and soon. I sense the Reaper upstairs,reaching from the shadows for another lost soul.
I am only twenty-two. I don’t wish to die alone, hidden away ina cell. Yet, conditions as they are, it is only a matter of time before SirDeath pays a call to the Pit.
22
Pulvis et umbra sumus.
We are dust and shadow.
Ironwood Lunatic Asylum
January 1892
The guards come for me on a madman’s whim.
Over and over again.
Faust knows just how long to chill a body without killing it,giving me time between therapy sessions to recover. Either that or the Reaperwas right when He kissed my brow, and His brothers have seen that I am markedand are allowing me to live a while longer. Two of my toes are numb though, andit worries me that they will require amputation. Not so terrible, if youconsider how much worse it would be to lose a whole foot or a leg. I’m alsoquite fond of having arms and hands.
It seems that Faust is bored with water therapy, however, andwe are trying something different at our next visit. What this new treatment isI have no idea. It could be hypnotism, but that would be too kind for a sadistlike Faust. Part of his strategy is to let me stew in the Pit, giving me timeto imagine the terrors ahead.
Titus brings me a meal, and under his watchful eye, I eat itall. I do not spare the energy to think upon how far I have fallen that Igrovel like an animal and eat slop with my fingers. My past life is over. Ileft it beneath the freezing water in Faust’s therapy room, and those days areas dead to me as my mother.
To keep myself sane, I summon the details of Tom’s face—thehard angles and smooth planes that I’ve seen in dreams. I obsess over hisimage. Are his eyes really so dark? His teeth so white? Using telepathy,I’ve chanted his name for hours, but he never responds. What did Heathcliff sayin Wuthering Heights?
Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad!
Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!
I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!
Exactly right, Tom. Precisely so. Howl at me, haunt me, driveme to distraction. Do anything you like, except nothing. It’s the lack of you Ican’t abide.
But Titus does not care about me and Tom—or Heathcliff andCathy. Nor anyone else for that matter. Heedless of his cruelty, he leads meupstairs to the main floor. But why? Our sessions are always held in thebasement.
Of course, I understand now. There’s a cemetery in the grove oftrees behind this building. I heard a nurse saying that it’s a pity there areno markers to identify the dead. She sighed afterward, her point moot. If noone cared enough to claim the deceased, they wouldn’t bother to purchase a tombstone.Is Titus taking me to the grove? I conjure the image of my body tumbling into adark hole without a casket, swallowed within the earth’s gaping maw, soilfilling my nose and ears.
But Titus turns down a different hallway, bringing me to thefront of the asylum. He opens a door and pushes me forward. The room’s warmtemperature reminds me of how cold I’ve been. I move toward the hearth, handsextended, absorbing the fire’s snapping heat. The scent of verbena entersbefore Faust. He shakes himself, snow sliding from him to the floor like asmall-scale avalanche. “Thank you for joining me in my office, Miss Grayson.”
There was a choice?
“Move along,” Titus says.
He propels me over to a cot—narrow and hard—unlocks thehandcuffs, and pushes me down. Titus fastens the left cuff to a rod of somekind and drapes my right arm over a pillow. Dr. Faust draws up a chair besideme and sits. He caresses my hair lightly. “I think we’ll bleed you thisafternoon, my dear. It could be just the thing to dispel your ill humors.”
My ill humors? Perhaps you need a good bleeding, Doctor.
“I prefer using a scarificator when perforating the skin. It’san ingenious device—far better, in my opinion, than the fleam. Who wants asingle blade when one can have many?”
Who, indeed?
The smell of burning cotton. “I must warm the glass cups,” thedoctor says. “They are applied to the incisions, forming a vacuum of sorts withenough suction to draw out the blood. Leeches can be so unreliable andinconvenient to deal with.”
I hear the doctor take something from a bookshelf, then walk tothe desk and unlock a drawer inside it. He removes an object, and by thefluttering of paper, I would say it is the Book. Faust must document hisresearch, after all.
“Come, Titus. I’ll have you apply the cups, but be sure tocheck the temperature of the glass first.”
I turn on my side, away from the doctor, and try like mad topull my hand out of the left cuff. I yank against the
