“Which one?” she asked. “Your pig fiancé? George knows what goes on here. He’s seen it with his own eyes. He was here not a week ago.”
So George had been part of the committee party, which I’d missed in Darkness. I asked, to be sure, “You saw him?”
“No. But Leo told me.”
I hadn’t even known the superintendent’s surname, let alone his Christian name, and here was my sister, already on intimate terms. I couldn’t help but exclaim, “Leo!”
“He’s a good man, you know. He’s kind to me,” my sister said, her brow untroubled. “He lets me stay here, away from that awful doctor who thinks pain is a cure. He even lets me paint.” She gestured at the wall.
I was struck again by the magnificence and size of what she’d painted, the way it spread out from the center in a swirling, hypnotic pulse of color, accented with those birds on the wing. If anything in the world could have calmed me, it would have. There was something so soothing about it, so serene.
I had asked the superintendent my question, but I needed to ask my sister too, and I braced myself to do it. “Do you. . . Has he. . . Has he taken liberties with you, Phoebe?”
“Of course not!” She seemed genuinely surprised at the question. “All I do is pour him drinks and listen to his complaints. Poor man. I really think his heart is in the right place.”
“A jar of gin?”
“Goodness,” said Phoebe, a note of surprise creeping into her voice. I thought she even sounded a little impressed. “You’ve become sassy.”
“I’ve done what I needed to do. I’ve come here for you. I was sent to Darkness.”
“Did you deserve it?”
The question startled me, but I thought the best answer was likely the most direct. “They found me somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be.”
“So yes.”
“That isn’t what matters. If I’d been here when the committee came, I could have seen George. I could have made him understand.”
“Is that what you think would have happened?”
“Yes, of course.”
“He has the power to keep you here. Forever, more or less. Don’t you think that might be even worse than marrying him? And you know I couldn’t let you marry him.”
I looked at my sister. This time, I really saw her. She had pled for me, argued for me, taken my side against our parents. She’d been punished for it terribly. But she would have done it again in a heartbeat. Not just because she loved me, though I knew she did. But because she felt some things were worth fighting for. Before I’d come to Goldengrove, I had trusted in our parents to shape my life. I had believed that if I did everything I was told, I would be happy. Now I knew better.
If she was tired of fighting, it was my turn. And I was ready.
As far as the storeroom was—especially on unsteady legs—the superintendent would eventually make his way back with his bottle, and I knew my time was growing short. I still needed to get back downstairs without being seen. I could come back tomorrow, but only if I didn’t get caught today.
“I’ll be back,” I told Phoebe. “We’re going to get out of here.”
I heard no response at first, so I shut the door between us, and it was only as the click of the latch sounded that I heard her say a single word, a question, so soft, I could barely make it out. I thought I knew what she’d said, but it was too late to turn back and ask, to be certain.
I needed to be gone.
I slipped through the open office door and toward the closet of uniforms so I could transform back into myself. I went fast. Every moment spent in the hall was a moment I could be caught, jeopardizing everything.
On the stairs down, I considered it again, my heart and mind both racing. I thought she’d said When? But she hadn’t. She’d asked Why?
What if she was happy here? What if she didn’t want to leave?
Chapter Eighteen
After dark, I lay in bed, staring up toward a ceiling I could not see, as I had for so many nights. I pictured the Phoebe I remembered from home and the Phoebe I’d seen upstairs, comparing them, imagining them side by side. The Phoebe upstairs, now that she was out of her darkest mood, seemed at peace. Was there any chance what our parents had done, sending her here, was the right thing to do?
Back in San Francisco, she had no prospects, not for marriage, not for anything other than a narrow life, always afraid of what she might do or say in front of others without being able to control it. Living in fear was no way to live. Out in public, she might suffer a recurrence of kicking teacups or splashing wine, and in private, if she never left the house, what kind of life was that? At least Goldengrove offered some kind of certainty. The comfort of routine. As much as I hated some of what happened here, the long hikes and enforced stillness did seem to calm some patients, helping them find a quiet core, muting their fury.
But she was only happy now, I told myself, because she was the superintendent’s pet. Any day, she could be back in Melpomene Ward undergoing the water cure, her limbs or neck or waist bound in freezing wet rags, and then how happy would she be? Under the dangerous ministrations of this Dr. Nelson?
I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked up to see the upside-down face of Martha, beckoning me to join her. I slid wordlessly from beneath my thin sheet and joined her, crouched behind Jubilee’s cot, which was the last one on the end, the best place to whisper unheard in the whole ward.
We had seen what could be done, what could be disrupted, with small actions. Martha was nearly bouncing with excitement. She told us how she’d seen where they set the tray of night medicine during preparations, and knowing at what point the nurses generally walked away, she was able to swap out the medicine for plain water. That simple change had put things into disarray for hours. She’d heard afterward that the ward still was not back to normal, even a day later, after the havoc the unmedicated patients had wreaked.
It would have been easy to be carried away by her enthusiasm, but I was still troubled. I didn’t know yet whether Martha’s plans would help or hinder my own plans to free myself and Phoebe. I needed to know what was happening, but I wasn’t ready to take any sort of rebellious action, knowing another stint in Darkness would put everything else in jeopardy.
So far, Martha and Jubilee and Damaris seemed locked in useless debates, making endless circles around what we might or might not do. Would a hunger strike make a difference, or would they just force-feed us? How many people did it take to constitute a revolt they couldn’t ignore? Twenty? Fifty? More? And how would we communicate with the other wards, if there were even enough sane women in the other wards to communicate with? The mutes in Thalia would be no use, nor the dangerous inmates of Euterpe, nor the women of Melpomene whose limbs or bodies were bound for testing the water cure. The rich girls of Clio would be far more likely to betray us than join us, sneered Jubilee, and the others agreed. Martha suggested we find a way to bribe the alcoholics of Polyhymnia with contraband liquor, but Jubilee had her doubts that we could find any, and Damaris was appalled at even the thought of giving these women the tool of their own demise, no matter how much they begged for it. I thought of the superintendent and kept my mouth shut.
Sometimes, it felt like we were the sanest women in Goldengrove, though not even all of us were sane. I took a peek at Damaris. I’d expected her to be shy and withdrawn when revolution was talked of, but she was surprisingly passionate. Perhaps under her father’s roof, she’d been a shrinking violet, but not here. The map, as it had turned out, wasn’t hers. It had predated her, and she had no idea who its original architect might have been. She’d been here for three years now—her family might even send for her soon, she thought, if her stepbrother had married and moved away—so it was older than that. But she’d stood up to take the punishment because she knew no one else was guilty. That was her spirit. I feared the demon would come upon her at a bad moment, but in between spells, she was almost as fierce a fighter as Martha, who wore her bruises like medals every
time she incited someone to strike.
As the three conspirators spoke in hushed tones, I listened and nodded and gave the impression of participating without giving any commitment stronger than a Mmm-hmm or an Oh. I also kept an eye on the sleeping backs of our wardmates. They stayed down, and they stayed still. Looking at them gave me an idea, and I decided the moment had come to speak.
“There’s so much to decide. Let’s observe for a while, and then we’ll be better able to act when the time comes.”
Martha said, disdain evident in her voice, “And what shall we observe, then?”
“Everything. Especially the other inmates. Who might be on our side? Who can we not trust with our secret out of fear they might reveal it, either intentionally or unintentionally? Who can we call upon when the time comes for action? We need to know our allies.”
I saw Damaris nod. She certainly knew the pain of being betrayed, both outside the asylum and in it. I added, “Until we have a plan of action, we can’t trust anyone. And some we already know not to trust.”
I pointed at the nearby, slumbering Mouse. She had snitched to the nurses as soon as she saw the map in Damaris’s bed. She couldn’t be trusted, not today nor any other day to come. I’d confessed to Damaris that I’d dislodged the map, but she bore me no ill will for the mistake, as I’d called no attention to it; Mouse was the one she held responsible.
I eyed Nora’s sleeping form too but didn’t point her out. I’d made up my mind about her and didn’t want to discuss it. She was smart and savvy, and in any other situation, she would be a powerful asset. But her affair with Dr. Concord put her on the wrong side. Three equal truths battled to be recognized: she was my friend, I owed her a great deal, and she absolutely could not be trusted.
“Agreed,” said Damaris.
Martha and Jubilee nodded their agreement, Martha a bit more reluctantly.
We shook on it, then slunk back to our cots on silent feet.
As I slid back under the thin sheet, I caught a glimmer in the darkness. Two glimmers, inches apart, the light catching the wetness of a pair of eyes only feet away.
Nora’s eyes were open. I pretended not to see.
* * *
When morning came, after we’d scarfed down our breakfast of thick oatmeal porridge and a boiled egg with a yolk ringed sickly green, I attempted to repeat the same trick that had worked the previous days. Today, however, my luck ran out.
As I turned to head up the stairs, I heard Nurse Piper calling behind me, “Smith! Here! Aren’t you supposed to be headed to the soapmaking shop? I have a message I need you to carry.”
What else could I do? I obeyed. At least I’d been caught before incriminating myself, and I would get the chance to try again.
I carried the nurse’s message and handed it off to the forewoman with my head down and my guard up, but she put me to work right away. I couldn’t extricate or explain myself without calling too much attention to my story. So I worked.
Every minute of the two-hour shift, I was thinking of Phoebe, wanting to get to her, wondering how I would. I thought of her while using my thumbnail to pry the sprouting eyes from yet another tepid potato in the dining hall, while pretending to listen to Hazel recount the plot of The Ladies Lindores in the dayroom, while watching Mouse watching Irene from opposing benches at the evening meal. I thought about using my key to slip out of the ward at night, but shortly after Martha’s revolutionary cabal the night before, the woman with the rag bundle had begun sobbing and screaming, calling Salt’s attention, and he’d come in to shush her three or four times. None of us slept well. When the scene repeated itself that night—sobbing, shushing, sobbing again—I knew it was too risky to leave before morning.
As we were mustered for the daybreak hike, I again considered slipping away, but I would have easily been noticed. The rope system made it simple to see at a glance whether everyone was in her given place. So I marched and climbed, panted, enjoyed the feeling of my strong legs under me, and bided my time. The sunrise glowed warm and golden on the horizon. I allowed myself a fantasy of seeing it from the vantage point of my own balcony back on Powell Street, the same sun but a different world, once I had determined how to get my sister home. I hadn’t cracked the nut yet, but I knew I would with time. Except that, by my best reckoning, it was October 9. The next day would mark the end of my fourth week inside the asylum, a staggering figure. That left only two weeks remaining. Time was running out.
Night came, and I didn’t sleep; morning came, and I despaired. It was already midmorning of the next day before I managed to elude the nurses and head upstairs, hastening close to the bannister, terrified of discovery. My heart pounded in my chest during the preparations: the stairs, the uniform, the doorknob. It was still pounding when I opened the door to disaster.
Everything in the superintendent’s office was gone.
His shelves were bare of books, his desk bare of papers. The dun-colored couch was there, but its cushions were neatened and squared, as if no one had ever lain on it, certainly not in the past few days. The lamps were extinguished. The portraits of former superintendents looked down on nothing of consequence—just furniture and an old rug, and my stunned face. Someone had straightened their frames.
Nowhere could I see a tumbler or a bottle, and I knew that without those, the superintendent wasn’t here either.
What in the world had happened?
But of course, he wasn’t the one whose fate most concerned me. Without waiting another moment, I flung myself toward the closed door, put my hand on the faceted crystal knob, and rushed inside.
The bedchamber was as empty as the office had been. Worse, the wall behind the stripped bed was a pure, gleaming, unbroken white. I could still smell the unmistakable linseed oil bite of fresh paint.
No superintendent. No sister.
Had Gus told the matron about me? The nurse who was not a nurse, sticking her nose into places it wasn’t welcome? Was I next?
They were gone, and I could not afford to be discovered here. I was off down the hall and back to the uniform closet as fast as my feet would carry me. Back into the coral dress, back downstairs. I reported to the soapmaking operation, giggled and waved my hands and lied with a straight face about some confusion, and then I focused harder than I had ever focused before on pouring water over ash to make lye, all the while wondering what in hell’s name had happened.
My first thought was to ask Dr. Concord what had happened to the superintendent, but my usual method of asking to see him met with a regretful shrug and a shake of the head from Nurse Piper.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Just not now,” she replied, looking away, then ushering me into the dining hall for another supper of hard roll and thin broth, today with last year’s apples, gone soft in the cellar.
The woman with the rag bundle had been removed from the ward—to where, of course, we were not told—providing the promise of a quieter night. Once the lights were turned down and all was silence, I turned to Nora for answers.
“Dismissed,” she said, whispering the word across the space between our two cots. “Revealed to be a dipsomaniac, can you imagine? There were always whispers, but this time, the committee sent an unannounced investigator, found him so deep in his cups, he couldn’t see out. Carted him off immediately. Rumor says he’s going to another asylum. As a patient.”
“Awful,” I said, though my feelings on the subject were far more complex. He’d been a wreck but a tenderhearted one. I’d hoped he might help us. What if his successor were not so kind? “Why’d they send the investigator? Who told them what to investigate?”
“Don’t know. Important thing is, it’ll be a while before they can hire someone qualified. Matron’s in charge until then.”
No. My mouth formed the word but I made no sound. This place was already hell for some women, depending on their diagnosis or their treatment, even with most of its authorities broadly trying to do the right thing. What could it become in
the wrong hands? It seemed we would have no choice but to find out.
And if the superintendent was gone for good, where was Phoebe, now that he was no longer protecting her? Had I found her only to lose her again?
* * *
The next day, a special assembly was called, every single ward together. There was no room that would hold us all, so we were drawn up in lines on the lawn, each tied to our ropes as if for a hike but not given the choice of whether to hold on of our own volition. We were tied and walked, and then we waited. Coral-clothed backs chalked with white numbers stretched out in every direction. Now that October was well underway, the first crisp coolness of fall was on our cheeks. The cold reminded me how long I’d been here and how quickly the end of the month was rushing toward me, unstopping. I looked over at the line parallel with ours on the right. An apple-cheeked older woman with long gray plaits hunched to the ground and began to tear great clumps of grass out of the earth, then stuff them in her mouth. Her nurse glanced back at her, seemed to take note, and did nothing. I turned my attention back to face front.
At the front of the crowd was a grassy open space, where someone had rigged up a kind of tent, four poles stuck into the ground with lines strung between them, four sheets hung over the lines. It was like a large blank cloth box, and I assumed whatever was inside had something to do with what we were here for. No sound came from within, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something alive in there. The mere sight of the box gave me the most awful feeling of dread.
Ever since Nora had told me the matron was now in charge of the entire institution, there’d been a knot in my stomach, small and tight. It grew larger now as I saw the matron take her position at the head of the crowd, between us and the fabric tent. Her smile was a sharp one, a gloating smile, and I longed to slap it off her face. I’d had a flash of sympathy for her in the superintendent’s office. It was gone now.
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