“ ‘In a few weeks’ time, something will happen.’ Could you possibly be a little more specific?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can.” Dym rubbed his eyes as if doing so would allow him to discern more, to truly see the future. “Again, it’s just a feeling. In nearly a month, a very important event will happen here.”
One month. An important event. Just like Catron’s psychic predicted. Was it a coincidence? Unless Dym was Catron’s psychic. But the idea of Catron trusting the word of a mere boy was preposterous.
I wondered if the girls and I would even last a month in this place. Should I ask Dym to get a message to Laura’s aunt? I barely knew him. Sure, he was fascinating, in an exasperating sort of way. But could I trust him? I decided I’d better wait. If he didn’t have the girls’ best interests at heart, requesting help could lead to disaster.
“Well, I’ll certainly be on the lookout for important things.” One month since I learned about the prediction, minus the week I’ve been here. That leaves about three weeks, if the psychic and Dym are right.
“Important things like me?” Dym grinned in that maddening fashion of his.
“My, aren’t we adept at self-flattery? Actually, I don’t know if I should make a habit of coming here.” Although it doesn’t seem like an entirely bad idea, given the alternative of staying upstairs. “But either way, it was, ah, nice meeting you, Dym.”
His cheekbones. Why hadn’t I noticed how high and sharp they were before? I forced myself to look away, but not before nodding politely. Then I turned to go.
“Nice meeting you, Seluna.” I glanced over my shoulder; he was swimming backwards, never taking his eyes from me. “Again,” he said softly as I walked towards the asylum.
Again? What does he mean by “again”? I turned back, but Dym had disappeared into the water. I peered closer. Had he drowned? Unlikely, given his superior aquatic abilities. But he couldn’t have swum around to the front of Silver Hill that fast either. I waited, looking at the pond for a few moments. Still no sign of him. Not even the bubbles on the surface of the water that a drowning person would make. I guess he really had swum off.
Quite the athlete, that Dym. Perhaps he’s training for the Titanympics.
I put my hand to my head. Ugh. That swaying feeling. The longer I stayed in Dym’s company, the worse it got. I felt like I was being drawn into a whirlpool, a body of water with only him and me. I imagined it making a funnel around us. I felt the heat of his skin touching mine, our bodies pressed together. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, and the feeling went away.
Others might have had a hard time finding the door to get back, but I knew to look for the iron ring. It was the kind of thing you wouldn’t really see unless you were looking for it. I pushed on the door, opening it, and went back inside. I had only gone up a few steps when my skirt caught on a loose, rusty nail.
“Aaah!” I cried out as I fell, almost face-first, into a step. Cursing, I tore the edge of my skirt off the nail and steadied my candle, which had almost fallen as well. That was when I saw it.
Out of the corner of my eye, the candlelight glinted off something. At first, I thought it was a piece of gold jewelry. But when I brought the candle closer, it turned out to be the gilded writing on the spine of a very old book. The book rested on a step against the wall. With my taper held high as I walked up and down the steps, there was no way I would’ve looked down to see it.
Maybe it’s lucky that I tripped, then. I tried picking the book up with my free hand, but it was too thick and heavy. Parts of the leather were flaking away. Pieces of loose paper had been stuffed inside, and were sticking out in various places. It looked bloated and waterlogged, as if it had been dumped in a bath.
Or a pond, I thought.
But the ink was still legible. Magical ink, no doubt. And the inscription on the cover hadn’t been done by a machine. You could tell someone had lovingly hand-tooled it. The hinges on the book weren’t modern by any means; I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were medieval. All in all, it looked like an artifact that had been there for hundreds of years.
“ ‘Property of Queen Sophia Rose Delphi Del . . . something,” I read aloud. I couldn’t make out the rest; it was too worn and faded. I sat on the steps for a moment and gently turned the pages by candlelight. It seemed like a diary, or a scrapbook. Some of it was in Old Hartlandian, which would take me a while to translate. Thank heavens for that class on ancient languages I’d aced last year.
I gave a loud, wide yawn. I was too tired to look at the book anymore tonight. At least it would give me something to do tomorrow during my confinement, which I assumed would still be in effect. I climbed the rest of the stairs with the book under my arm and pushed on the secret door. Nothing. I pushed a bit harder, but it still didn’t open.
I tried not to panic. I would not die of starvation in a secret staircase in an insane asylum. I took deep breaths. Worst-case scenario, I could just turn back around and get out through the door that led to the garden. But I’d have a devil of a time explaining to the staff how I got there once they found me. I put down the book and candle down and pushed on the door with both hands. Nothing. I leaned my entire body into it, but still nothing.
Damn it all. I gritted my teeth. I know the door swings open into the attic. That’s how it worked the last time. Doors couldn’t change the way they worked, could they? Was the iron ring on this side just for show as well? I gave it a quick tug, not expecting anything to happen.
My expectations were not met, which turned out to be a good thing. I heard the same click as before, and the door fell open into my room.
“Tricky, tricky,” I said to the door. “One would almost think you were magic. Or just sneaky engineering.” I picked up my candle and book and went inside, closing the door behind me.
I snuffed out the flame and lay down on my cot. I wasn’t thinking of how long I’d be in solitary confinement anymore. Instead, my thoughts wandered to the secret passage and its mysterious book. The unearthly garden. And the boy in the pond who I couldn’t get out of my mind.
Chapter 6
It wasn’t until one week later that I was let out of my own personal Hold. I was dirtier, not to mention thinner from reduced rations. They’d only given me one meal per day. I supposed I should consider myself lucky they remembered to feed me at all.
I managed to wash what few clothes I had in the pond. I even dragged a bucket full of water upstairs to bathe myself. It didn’t work as well as an actual bath, but what choice did I have? I guessed I could have bathed in the pond, but it would have been even more freezing than the bucket water. And I didn’t relish the thought of Dym coming upon me stark naked. Not really. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter if he was there or not, that I didn’t care if I saw him again. But I knew it was a lie.
Yet, what I’d told Dym about my admission was the truth: that sending me here as a precaution was the only plausible explanation. Oh, I never doubted that Mother and Father loved me, at least not until now. They’d always treated me and my siblings equally. And aside from the usual squabbles, I couldn’t say my parents and I got along poorly. But I was keenly aware they never knew what to make of their odd, dark daughter. Unlike Helios and Aurora, who seemed to fit in wherever they went, I always felt out of place in society. I was more comfortable in the shadows.
Maybe that was why, sometimes, I’d catch Mother and Father exchanging worried glances over me. Or they’d have hushed, late-night conversations where I’d overhear my name. They never did such things when it came to my brother or sister. But I never thought I’d done anything that warranted being hauled off to an asylum.
I could only assume they knew something I didn’t. Was my strangeness destined to morph into madness, or worse? If it was, why hadn’t they at least told me, so I could prepare for or prevent it? Was it because there was no way of doing so? The uncertainty only made it all the more dreadful. Maybe when Aurora started talking to animals, the
y decided something had to be done about me before it was too late.
Anyway, it was pointless to ruminate on it too much. I had more pressing matters of survival at hand, like eating. Pity the garden wasn’t alive; otherwise, I might have found something edible in it. But nothing grew there that I could put in my mouth, unless I wished to feast on dead vines. Though they did look a little greener every time I visited, which was odd. I’d heard of gardens blooming again in the spring, but not dead plants coming back to life. Unless, of course, I was reanimating them.
There were other odd occurrences during the week of my confinement. For instance, I had the strangest dreams imaginable. I mean, I’d always had vivid dreams. Some I dreaded, and some were so beautiful I dreaded waking. But recently, my dreams were no longer of my earlier days at the asylum. Instead, they showed me the moon, the ocean, and the tides. I couldn’t remember the dreams exactly, but they seemed to consist of places I’d been, past lives I’d had.
It was funny; though most people described their dreams as being illogical, incoherent, I always felt there was an order below the chaos. I rarely had nightmares. Although some of my dreams were unpleasant, I always knew they were nothing to be afraid of. Sometimes, I dreamed of Dym swimming underwater, all wavy dark hair and supple limbs. It was terribly vexing. By slipping just underneath my awareness, he’d found a way to irritate me even when he wasn’t there.
I managed to disguise the door to the secret staircase by hanging an old sheet over it. It was a good thing, too, because one of the junior nurses almost discovered the door when she came to end my isolation.
“What’s this bedspread doin’ ’angin’ up ’ere?” She went to pull it aside.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” I blurted out. “There’s a hole in the roof. You never know when a wild animal might get in and bite you.”
The nurse yanked her hand back and stepped away from the sheet. “I don’t fancy bein’ bitten, I don’t. But tsk! Puttin’ an ’ole in the roof? That’s destruction of property, that is. Dr. Catron’s property.”
“I didn’t put the hole in the roof,” I said indignantly. “It was there when I got here. Why would I put a hole in the roof?”
The nurse tsked again. “You askin’ the wrong nurse, girlie. Why would you loonies do anythin’?”
I was fairly certain the staff wouldn’t be interested in repairing the fictional hole, and I was right. As I dutifully followed the nurse down the garret steps for the first time in a week, I knew my secret was safe, at least for a while. Unfortunately, things hadn’t changed for the better at Silver Hill while I’d been “gone.” Not that I expected them to.
I met up with Rose and Laura in time for late-morning lessons. “Seluna!” Laura cried hoarsely when she saw me. She waved her hand hard back and forth. Rose broke into a smile and accidentally kicked the empty wooden chair in front of her. Fortunately, they were both sitting at the back, so Nurse Cutter at the head of the classroom didn’t notice their outbursts.
As I slid next to Rose on the triple row of seats, I noticed that both she and Laura looked a bit paler, their hair duller. Even Rose’s curls seemed limper. I pushed my satchel full of lessons under my part of the seat. I’d put the book I found in the stairwell in with them, hoping to have a free moment later to sneak a look at it.
“We were so worried for you!” Rose whispered.
“We thought they put you in the Hold,” Laura said.
I leaned my head towards her. “No, they just locked me in my room.”
“In that freezing attic?” Rose asked. “Crikey, that’s nearly as bad!”
“And all on account of me,” said Laura. Now, she looked as if she was about to cry.
“Don’t.” I took a handkerchief out of my satchel and handed it to her. “It was not your fault. I’m only sorry I got caught and couldn’t reach your aunt. I don’t think we should try that again. It’s too big a risk.” The comment was intended for both of them, but I was looking at Rose. “Say, why didn’t they put me in the Hold?”
“Many girls, only a few rooms in the Hold,” Rose explained. “I suppose those rooms were occupied. Sad to say, but they usually are.”
I was very tempted to tell the girls about the secret staircase, Dym, and the garden. But it was probably a bad idea. They might try to sneak into the passage, or out to see Dym. It was safer if they didn’t know. Another part of me—a more selfish one—wanted to keep it all my own little secret, especially Dym. And there he is in my thoughts again.
Nurse Cutter was writing something on the blackboard. From the sharp, forceful way she moved the chalk, I presumed she wasn’t happy about it. Staff here often had to pull double duty, fulfilling whatever roles Dr. Catron saw fit to assign. I doubted Cutter had any real teaching credentials. I wasn’t even sure she had nursing credentials. The chalk made a terrible screeching sound as her hand went up and down.
“Did you move anything while you were in your room?” Laura whispered.
“Move anything?” I squinted to see what Cutter was writing, but her large body blocked my view. “No, I keep the furniture where it is. There really isn’t that much of it.” I stopped trying to see the board and turned my head to Rose, who was giving me a look.
“No, she means move anything.” Rose lowered her voice. “Like, you know . . .”
It finally dawned on me. Curse this daytime mental fog. “Oh, as in . . . no.” I didn’t mention reanimating the vine, because it would have involved mentioning the garden, and possibly Dym.
“Maybe you can do it for us later,” Laura said breathlessly. Her eyes shone, and she looked more excited than I’d seen her in a while. “If we get some time to ourselves.”
“Yeah. Did you ever think your powers might be our ticket out of here, Seluna?” Rose asked. “You could use them to pick a lock or something.”
“Rose, even if I managed to work that trick long enough to unlock the front door, we’d step out into nothing but a frozen wasteland. How would we get from there to someplace livable? Trust me, I’ve thought about it enough to—”
“Pay attention, Seluna!” I hadn’t even noticed Nurse Cutter staring darkly at me. “No extraneous conversation! Out of solitary for all of one ’our and already you’re makin’ trouble. You’d better start shapin’ up, unless you want to go crazy the way your sister did.”
There were a few giggles around the room, and I willed myself not to blush. Why did Cutter have to say that? And how does she know? Maybe she saw it in my file. She gave me one last glare and went back to writing on the board.
“Is that why you were admitted?” Laura asked, her voice even softer than before. “Because of hereditary madness?”
I closed my eyes. “I think so. Or something like that.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re mad.” Rose’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Though I can see now why you didn’t tell us the reason you’re here. Family reputation and all.”
“Ah, yes.” I nodded quickly, opening my eyes. “That’s it exactly. Family reputation.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Laura reached across Rose, slipped her hand into mine, and gave it a squeeze. “Every family has problems.”
But not every family uses them as excuses to banish their daughter, I thought. But I said nothing of this, and just squeezed Laura’s hand back. “You are too kind,” I murmured. She really was.
“All right, everyone, eyes to the front.” Cutter put down her chalk. “We ’ave a treat for you today. We’re goin’ to read and discuss books.” She indicated the blackboard, where she had written “Appropriate Lessons for Young Ladies.”
“Not just textbooks, mind you, but actual fiction. These books was all written by Dr. Catron ’imself,” she said reverently. “So you know they’s going to be very, very special.”
The girls broke into excited titters. Books! We hadn’t been allowed to bring or read books during our entire stay at Silver Hill. But our enthusiasm was quickly squashed when we reali
zed the type of books Cutter had in mind. Each short story we went over was about a different girl who bucked convention and did what she wanted with her life. In the end, each met with ruin and disgrace. I wondered if Catron spent a long time writing these volumes, or just dashed them off in his spare time for the joy of it.
We were done reviewing the stories and were starting to pack up for lunch when one girl raised her hand. I didn’t recognize her; she must have been a new admission who arrived while I was in isolation.
“Excuse me, Nurse Cutter, but when is music class?”
There were a few murmurs from the others, and I saw Rose frown. This girl was definitely new.
“Music class?” Cutter’s eyebrows shot up. “There’s no music class at Silver ’ill!”
“But when will I practice my violin . . .?” The girl’s voice trailed off.
Cutter stared at her. “We cannot ’ave you girls listenin’ to or performin’ music. It might lead to your feelin’ things, or gettin’ ideas.”
“What a Greek tragedy that would be,” I muttered.
“I’ll ’ave to make a note of this in your case file for Dr. Catron.” Cutter shook her head. “Now, all of you—line up for lunch. Quickly!” she barked, and everyone rushed to collect their things.
As I hurried to put papers in my satchel, the book I’d found slid out and onto the floor. I managed to jam it back in, but not before Rose and Laura spotted it.
“What’s that, Seluna?” Laura asked.
“Seluna, do you have a book?” Rose’s eyes darted back and forth, watching for Nurse Cutter.
“A real book?” Laura’s jaw dropped.
“Let’s see it!” Rose breathed.
Blast. I was caught. There’d be no hiding it from them now.
“I’ll tell you at lunchtime,” I said, then put my finger to my lips.
“Where did you find it?” Laura sat hunched over the circular wooden table where the three of us had gathered to eat. Rose was on my other side. She was also hunched over to obscure the view of the contraband in my lap. With its tiny windows and dark, paneled walls, the room resembled a tavern—or even a dungeon—more than an asylum cafeteria.
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