by Katie Perez
“Klusman,” he said. “In my office. Now.”
Molly’s heart pounded. She hated getting in trouble. Mr Levitski scared her, more so than Mrs Levitski ever could. Trembling, she followed him into his office and stood before his desk.
“Now, Klusman,” he began after settling himself into the creaky chair behind the desk. “Charlotte Percival Killy has told me what happened last night.”
That wasn’t what Molly was expecting, and it threw her.
“About how you cut your hand.” He nodded towards her hand. “Is this true?”
Molly didn’t move, suddenly remembering the threats Mrs Levitski had made about the lunatic asylum.
“Show me your hand,” he said coldly.
Molly slowly held her shaking hand out in front of her. The cut still bled a little and hurt a lot.
For a while, Mr Levitski didn’t say anything. Then he said, “Marie Klusman. You know this is the second time you have hurt yourself like this?”
“Yes, sir,” Molly murmured.
Mr. Levitski sighed exasperatedly. “Klusman, at the moment you are hanging on to staying here by the skin of your teeth. You know you are privileged to be here, when we could have left you on the street? I’m afraid as soon as possible I will have to turn you over to the asylum.”
Molly didn’t say anything, merely feeling a little light-headed.
“But in the meantime, to prevent you from hurting yourself or anyone else…” Mr. Levitski rose from behind the desk and picked up the long piece of cane he kept beside the desk. He stood in front of Molly.
“Hands,” he said shortly.
Oh,God,no, Molly thought, not with my hand like this, please…
She slowly raised her hands out in front of her, and shut her eyes as he lifted the cane and brought it down across the palms of both her hands.
Thwack.
She wondered how Beulah reacted when she realized she was pregnant.
Thwack.
She wondered how Jean-Pierre had reacted.
Thwack
Where was Jean-Pierre now, anyway?
Thwack.
Molly. It was a stupid name anyway.
Thwack.
12. Dead
That afternoon Molly lay on her bed in her dormitory, holding her throbbing hand. It hurt so much her eyes were starting to get hot and prickle. And then there was that terminal headache that she was sure was getting worse. She felt tired. It was only about two o’clock so going to bed was completely out of question, so she just lay there.
Jezebelle Killy on the bed next to her was packing. She was moving out, getting married to some man old enough to be her father. But she was lucky, getting a husband to support her for the rest of her life. She was set for life. Not like Molly, who really hadn’t a clue where she was going in life. All she had was some old diary of questionable credibility about two people who she knew now had been ripped apart, one gone mad, one disappeared off the face of the earth. And their baby… Molly didn’t even want to think about it.
She wondered suddenly if the diary would tell her anything more about them, maybe even go up to the point when Beulah got pregnant. She took it out quickly and started to read, feeling immediately less tired.
“Marie, what the fuck is that?”
Molly hadn’t read far when she heard Charlotte Percival’s voice. Charlotte Percival had taken the death of her best friend very hard. She looked older and more haggard, not bothering do her hair anymore or wash her clothes. And the slightest little thing set her off.
She came towards Molly’s bed and peered at Jean-Pierre’s diary. “What’s that, your diary?”
Molly tried to hide it, but Charlotte Percival was too quick. She grabbed it off of her.
“What the fuck is this?” she said, flipping the pages roughly.
“Nothing. Give it back,” Molly said weakly.
“What if I don’t want to?” Charlotte jeered. She couldn’t have cared less about the diary; she was just stressed from Shirley’s death and needed to get a rise out of Molly to make her feel better.
“It’s mine! Give me it!” Molly whined pathetically, trying to grab it from her.
“Mine now,” Charlotte replied, and tucked it inside her dress.
Molly was about to respond when there was loud thud. Turning around, she saw a girl in the dormitory, Laura DeClerc, lying face down on the floor. Another girl turned her over quickly, but it was too late. Molly looked at the slightly open eyes, the blank expression, the way she was perfectly still and knew instantly that somehow, Laura was dead.
While everyone else panicked and tried to resuscitate her, Molly sat quietly on her bed. Poor thing, she thought calmly, must have been what, four or five? So strange, so sudden.
After a minute or so Molly realized that everyone else was panicking too much to do anything else, she sighed, left the room and went downstairs, intending to find one of the Levitskies and tell them they might need to call the dead man to pick her up.
On the way, however, Molly almost tripped over something in the deserted corridor. It was another girl, lying on the ground. Unlike Laura, however, this one was covered in blood.
Molly was beginning to feel a little disturbed. She knelt down and saw the girl’s chest was stained with thick crimson blood. Her mouth gaped, her eyes were dull, her hands bent awkwardly above her head as though to shield her from something.
Molly stood up and took a few paces backwards. How…? Why…? Her mind formed unfinished questions. The silence in the corridor was deadening, almost oppressive. It was unusual for the corridors of the orphanage to be as quiet and undisturbed as this.
The door at the end of the corridor opened, and a young girl peeked her head around it. The little girl gasped.
“…Melanie?” she whispered, barely audible.
Melanie, that was her name. And the little girl… Agnès? Anaîs? Her sister.
Agnès/ Anaîs simply began to cry. Molly felt like crying too, but in fear instead of grief.
What was going on?
She stood for several minutes, looking alternately at Melanie and her sister, thinking of nothing. Then, gathering her wits about her, she headed in a daze to Mr. Levitski’s office. Mr. Levitski was there, and Molly told him in few words that Laura was dead in Dormitory Three, and Melanie was dead in the corridor. Mr. Levitski went to investigate, leaving Molly standing outside the office, numb, unable to even think of making her way to follow him.
She stood there right through the police arriving, one of whom asked her questions she couldn’t comprehend. He spoke to her slowly, clearly, first in French, then in English as if he thought she didn’t speak French, and got no response. She simply stared not at him, but through him.
The dead man came, but only to lift Laura, as the police seemed concerned that Melanie had been deliberately stabbed by someone, possibly with a penknife. Mr. Levitski, hearing the word penknife, looked curiously at Molly, who merely continued staring.
The police left, eventually, and the dead man came back to pick up Melanie. Molly dimly watched Melanie’s younger sister, whatever her name was, peeking shyly from behind a doorway, eyes glazed with tears. Melanie’s friends were there too, watching solemnly, silently as the dead man and his assistant carried her down the hall, in a sick parody of the closest to a funeral procession Melanie would ever get. Outside, she was flung onto the pile of stinking bodies, tuberculosis, cholera, road accidents, maybe even a few stabbings like Melanie’s, all lain indiscriminately together.
Molly bit her nails.
The details were buzzing through the orphanage the rest of the day, even during the evening church service. Laura had dropped down dead for no reason. Undetected heart condition, possibly. Melanie- she’d been stabbed. Penknife, they said. Some of the orphans even managed to pick up the detail that Molly was the first one on the scene, and rumors increased about what exactly was wrong with that girl.
Molly herself was thinking of other things. She tried to
understand why the number of people dying had been increasing so much lately, ever since she found the diary. She felt dizzy as she stood there in the city church pretending to listen to the preacher.
The last thing she thought before she fell to the floor and lost consciousness was, I didn’t kill myself when Rose died like I said I would. That was weird. Maybe I’ll do it tomorrow.
Little did she know that tomorrow might just take care of that itself.
13. Hospital
Molly awoke slowly, her head throbbing. She opened her eyes a crack, then shut them immediately as the flash of white burned her eyes. She tried to move her head, but her neck ached so she stopped. She tried to move, to turn over; but found she couldn't move. Before long she lost consciousness again.
She woke again sometime later, hours or days she didn't know, but this time managed to open her eyes. The light still hurt, but it was evening now and everything had lost its harsh glow. She was aware that she was in a very large room with white walls and a high ceiling. The room was full to bursting point of beds. Molly was startled to realize she must be in hospital. That meant she was in trouble. She barely remembered anyone who had ever been to hospital and lived to tell the tale. Grotty, dirty places, always full of soldiers getting legs amputated... most preferred to take their chances at home.
She closed her eyes again. Her body hurt all over, the heavy sort of hurt you might feel in your joints after running a long distance. Her neck felt awkward, as though it had been twisted right around, and her head ached most of all. It felt as though it was full of... something. Her ears itched, her teeth felt strange in her mouth, and her brain felt as though it would surely burst out of her skull. This was the worst headache she'd had in a while now; and that was saying something.
She tried to relax, tried to obey every impulse in her body to give up, to stop fighting, to simply sleep, but somewhere a panicked voice in her head was telling her that if she did that, she would never wake again.
Oh, at times she had dreamed happily of falling asleep, of never waking again, but not this time. Not yet. She had things to do. She wanted to know so many things it hurt her to think of them all at once. She desperately needed to know who had stabbed Melanie, where Jean-Pierre was, and most of all... why in the world Beulah had liked the name Molly so much.
Beulah. To keep herself awake, to give her something to distract her from the awful pain filling her weakened body, she tried to remember as much as possible about Beulah, her... her moth-
Beulah's own mother was German, Molly remembered quickly. From what she remembered from Jean-Pierre's diary, Beulah had adored her late mother and sister but had despised her father. She'd hinted that he was a drunkard, a cruel man... she suspected he may have played a part in the death of Beulah's mother and sister but Beulah hadn't talked about that much. She was fat. Ugly. Quiet, shy. The butt of everyone's jokes. Yet somehow Jean-Pierre had liked her, had maybe even fallen in love with her... had left her, alone with the scariest secret she'd ever had.
And yet that was the part Molly struggled with. Jean-Pierre had always seemed so nice to Beulah. Could he really have just abandoned her like that?
Molly felt an attack of something, a stabbing pain in her head. Tears began to run down her cheeks in agony. The pain... it was too much... she couldn't stay...
Melanie. Think of Melanie. Who killed her? Why were the deaths increasing?
Her head throbbed again. She opened her mouth and screamed involuntarily. It was too much.
"Someone shut that girl up," someone said nearby.
A doctor was called, and Molly felt strong arms holding her down, and a sharp prick as the needle went into her arm.
"N-no..." she gasped, as the dark overwhelmed her.
The doctor stood back, put away the needle.
"Thank heavens for that," a nearby patient retorted.
The doctor said nothing.
"What is it? Fever?" the patient continued.
"Yes, brain fever of some severity," the doctor replied. "It is at an advanced stage, unfortunately. She is unlikely to recover."
The patient clucked sympathetically. "Poor thing. Her parents must be distraught."
"No, she is from the orphan asylum."
"Oh? Well, plenty more where that came from. The way those orphans go through that place, I don't know... did you hear about those stabbings?"
"Yes, I was unfortunate enough to have to treat a baby who had been stabbed there only yesterday."
"Seven in three weeks! It really is quite shocking. Those orphans, mind you, are a violent lot. I remember many a massacre in my day."
"Indeed, madam," said the doctor, moving away.
The patient observed Molly's thin frame, so still apart from the occasional twitches, an effect of the sedative. Her face was pale, almost grey against the striking white of the bed sheets, but her eyes were heavily circled in purple-black and sunken. In the dim light she resembled a skeleton. And it probably wouldn't be too long before she actually was one.
14. Night
Patients and doctors alike, it seemed in the next few weeks were wrong about believing Molly would die. Molly gradually began to recover, and within another week or so, was conscious more than half of the time.
Molly utterly despised the hospital. They had her in isolation, fearing the brain fever would spread to other patients. Her ward consisted of fever patients only. But it was the doctors she hated the most. They scared her, with their noses and mouths hidden by masks, making them appear expressionless, emotionless. She hated the feel of their cold rubber gloves on her skin as they probed her joints and felt her brow. While she longed to be out of the hospital, she couldn't even bear to think about returning to the orphanage.
However, the doctors made up that decision for her. Molly's fever, it seemed, was the start of a major outbreak of the disease in Villemonte. As the doctors were fairly sure Molly wasn't likely to die soon, they made her leave the hospital, even though she could still barely move. They needed the beds.
So Molly was sent out of the hospital, and was once again regretfully returned to the orphanage. The orphanage, bizarrely, hadn't been hit by the fever quite as badly as the rest of the city, and the Levitskies were determined to keep it that way. Molly was not allowed back into her dormitory, but slept downstairs in what was known as the sick room. In reality, it was merely a store cupboard with an old bed squeezed inside, but it was away from the rest of the orphans which was all that mattered. Molly accepted this, not being in much of a position to argue.
Oddly, it was the day Molly returned to the orphanage that cholera struck, suddenly, as if out of nowhere.
A small boy was the first to get it, suddenly, inexplicably, vomiting copiously multiple times every hour. Before the day was out, he was dead. More followed, cholera being a dangerously contagious disease. Molly, being isolated from the others, was saved from contracting it.
Molly seemed to benefit from the isolated life she currently lead in the windowless room downstairs, at least health-wise. One night, she awoke shortly after midnight to find she felt absolutely fine apart from a slight headache and some dizziness. Feeling claustrophobic, she left the room and went for a walk.
Her bare feet felt painfully numb on the freezing floor of the halls. Walking past Mr. Levitski's office, she found the door wide open. This was extremely unusual for someone as meticulous as Mr. Levitski, but the cholera had made everyone more forgetful, more rash. Not knowing exactly why, Molly found herself drawn into the office.
Trying to be silent because the Levitskies slept in an adjoining room, Molly crept towards the filing cabinet containing records of all the orphans. She just had to check something...
To her intense surprise, the filing cabinet was open and the drawer marked K-L slid out slowly with the merest of scrapes. It was bursting with thin cardboard files, each with a name marked on it. Molly found hers easily, noting with further shock that she was referred to as 'Klusman, Molly' instead of Marie
.
It contained a single sheet of typed paper. Concise, it told Molly almost nothing she didn't know before.
Name: Molly Klusman (renamed Marie Klusman upon admission)
Date of Birth: Unknown
Place of Birth: Unknown
Father: Unknown
Molly became so distressed by the lack of answers that she almost put the file back, but something caught her eye.
Mother: Name not known; unofficially 'Molly Klusman Sr.' Admitted to Villemonte City Lunatic Asylum in the year ----
There was an amendment dated shortly after this stating that she had died.
Lunatic Asylum?
Molly had been told her mother had been sick, not a lunatic. She'd imagined that her mother had scarlet fever, tuberculosis, cancer... her mother was a lunatic. She tried very hard not to think of another young woman who had gone mad shortly after giving birth to her child.
She put the file away, and opened the drawer marked Q-R. She found Jean-Pierre's file easily; with so many orphans constantly arriving and leaving and dying, old files were seldom thrown out.
Name: Jean-Pierre Richard
Date of Birth: 2nd August ----
Place of Birth: Villemonte
Father: Meredith Richard, army medic.
Mother: Helen Richard (born Helen Martin), army medic.
She savored this new information, the names of his parents., his birth date. It was odd that both parents seemed to be alive and in employment. Jean-Pierre had always been vague about how or why he ended up at the orphanage.
She put the file back and shut the drawer. Her heart hammered. You don't have to do this, she told herself. You could just go back to bed now, forget all this.
She opened another drawer and with shaking hands drew out a brown cardboard folder marked 'St. John, Beulah Marie' and opened it.
Name: Beulah Marie St. John
Date of Birth: 3rd March ----
Place of birth: Villemonte
Father: Claude St. John, unemployed.
Molly knew what the last line would say before she even read it.
