“Drop you off at the Wilkensen’s, I ‘spect,” Bert grunted. “They shot my favorite dog last fall. Figure this’ll make us even.”
And drop me he did. The pile of metal screeched to a halt and the father leaned over my body to open the door. I slid out with relief, and my legs were so shaky, I nearly slid all the way to the ground.
“Keep walkin’ down this road and you’ll come to a house. Or don’t. Just stay away from us, you hear?” He had to lean down to be seen by me.
“Yes, sir,” I mumbled.
I had never spoken such polite words in my life, and I expect I never will again.
“We’re here,” Connelly interrupts. The hospital looms large out my window.
I sigh dramatically. All that work to be done now that I’d taken a day off... All I want to do is hide from Miss Helmes.
“I was hoping you could drop me at home instead?” I wheedle.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Better to let Miss Helmes see you safe and sound, and you can get back to scrubbing.” He leans over me in the very same way I imagine the farmer had for Rose, and opens my door.
“A gentleman would get out and walk me to my door at least,” I hint.
Connelly draws on his cigarette and regards me with amusement. “I never claimed to be a gentleman,” he says, and the way he says it makes shivers go up and down my spine.
Mina meets me at the door. “Where have you been? I was so worried!” She hugs me quickly. “Were you off with him?” The way she says it, it sounds as though the H in him should be capitalized. “He seems… nice. And handsome.”
“We were looking for his,” I pause, and frown. “His… someone.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re back. I worry when I can’t find you,” Mina links arms with me and leads me inside.
“You’re a ridiculous worry wart,” I say, fondly. “Any riots or surgeries or gristly murders while I was away?”
“Nothing at all,” she laughs. “Except Mr. Limpet has been asking for you.”
“Oh, dear. I probably promised to dance with him again. Is it Monday already?”
“Speaking of dancing, Lizzie, dear, I’m having a party. You will come, won’t you? It’s to be the most lovely old-fashioned ball!” She claps her hands like a school girl and awaits my response with held breath.
“At your house?” I shrug out of my coat and hang it on the wall. “Oh, Mina, you know I don’t fit in with your people.” In so many, many ways…
“You’ll be smashing, you’ll see, and it will be good for you to get out of the hospital for a night. You’re looking too pale.”
“We’re in England in April! Everyone is pale, you nitwit.” I snort. “You look like a corpse yourself.”
“Mother makes me wash my face with milk and lemons; it’s not my fault. Say you’ll come?”
“What will I wear?” I don my apron hurriedly and plop my nurse’s hat over my braids. “I’m afraid my good apron is at the cleaners.”
“Very funny,” Mina wrinkles her nose the way she does when she’s found something I’ve said to be distasteful. Her nose is going to stick that way someday, I swear. I’m constantly giving her reasons to wrinkle it. I imagine her mother will make me pay for the corrective surgery. “I’ll loan you something pretty. Papa had several new dresses made for me, and I think one is more your color anyway; it’s a beautiful periwinkle shade.”
“Oh dear. Periwinkle, you say?” I feign distress. “Periwinkle washes me out. Do you have anything in ruby or emerald? Jewel tones make me feel rich.” I wriggle my eyebrows. “By the way, I ate my lipstick.”
“Oh, for goodness sake. Thursday evening. You won’t forget now?”
“I will check my busy social calendar and get back to you, yes,” I promise. “Now, scoot, before the old battleaxe finds us loitering.”
“Oh, and Lizzie?” Mina calls before I round the corner. “Mack is coming along with me. You can bring someone if you like. A gentleman?”
I smile and laugh. “I’ll try,” I answer, knowing full well who she means. “But I’m afraid he’s no gentleman. I have it on good authority.”
Mr. Limpet finds me before Miss Helmes does. I am busily sweeping out the back hallway when he wheels his chair up to me. Most of the time, he’s too frail to get around anywhere by himself, but occasionally he finds a spurt of energy and makes a round of the entire building, causing people to get their toes out of his way in a hurry. He squeals to a halt and regards me suspiciously.
“Do we need to oil that chair again, Mr. Limpet?” I ask, cheerfully. “Sounds like you’re driving the Coach de Bauer.”
His face relaxes into a wreath of wrinkles as he smiles. “Ah, Lizzie, it’s only you,” he says, fondly, reaching out for my hand. He pats it with clammy hands. “I’m so glad when it’s only you.”
“I’m glad to see you, too. Did you save me a dance later?”
His smile deepens. “I did! I did save one for you! The ragtime! Your favorite!”
“Is it?” I can’t help laughing. “I don’t recall, but if you say it is, then it must be.” I smile down at the old man. Never mind that that dance went out of vogue before I was even born; I can’t help but humor him with promises he’ll never remember to cash in anyway. “Does it go like this?” I do a funny two step.
Mr. Limpet scowls at my dancing. “No, no, that’s not right! Don’t you remember? Why don’t you ever remember?”
I sigh and bend down to kiss his bald head. “Never mind, Mr. Limpet. I’m just a forgetful girl. I’ll brush up on my steps at home, okay?”
“That’s good then. You’re such a good girl, Lizzie.” He wheels himself away.
“I must be,” I mutter to myself. “Who else would do this wretched job?” I long, once again, for my assistance to be needed in a lovely surgery or the setting of a bone. Heck, even a nice batch of leaches to apply to someone who needed bloodletting would be welcome right about now. I have serious doubts about staying here at Bedlam if my medical expertise (well, all right, less medical expertise, more medical passion might be a better description) isn’t wanted. I fluff some more pillows with more force than is strictly necessary and allow myself to wonder about Mina’s ball and her periwinkle dress.
I’ve never had much cause for dressing up. It wasn’t as though the orphanage threw a lot of parties, though we did wear our best when some parents-to-be came strolling through, usually hand in hand, cooing over the youngest ones, and ignoring the rest. Like puppies and kittens in a store we were: lined up, looking as adorable and well-behaved as possible, hoping against hope that this would be our chance for a real family. It never happened for me, like it never happened for so many there.
Ah, well. Such is life. No point in moping. Someday I’d have a brood of children, and I’d never leave them, not once. I’d give them crumpets and cocoa for breakfast each morning, and I’d braid each of my daughter’s hair with brightly colored ribbons. We’d wear our best to church, and everyone would comment on our happiness and health. The girls would look like their mum, and the boys would have eyes that sparkled mischievously… a bit like Mr. Connelly’s now that I peer a bit closer into my fantasy.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be trying so hard to find Rose. After all, a girl has to look out for her own future.
I wonder what he would say should I ask him to accompany me to Mina’s ball? He had said he was rather bored. A bored, rich young man. It was practically charitable of me to ask, really. I hated to think of him sitting in his big empty house, pining away for a mad girl, with nothing to do. He’d probably thank me for taking in an interest in him. After all, he did drive me in that lovely car to Bodleian, and he certainly didn’t need to. He never thought Rose would be there anyway; that was all my idea. He really was quite agreeable. I stop fluffing pillows for a moment and think.
Why is he so agreeable?
Does he have a motive I’m not seeing?
Well, if he does, it can’t be that bad. Sweet Fanny Adams, there’
s really no need for me to twist a handsome young man into Jack the Ripper. My imagination is always getting me into trouble. I resolve to ask him to Mina’s ball the very next time I see him.
12
Whoever the Wilkensen’s were, I never found out. I sat in that damned cornfield, getting burned by the sun, for two days. I slept as much as possible, but my head hurt. I was thirsty, but didn’t want to move. I was afraid of that steel contraption appearing out of nowhere and mowing me down in the prime of my short life. My lips were cracked and bloody, my hair stringy, my bare feet nearly black with dirt, and my skin bright pink. I just lay there and lay there; it felt like forever. I began to rub the spot on my forehead where the ache was, and it was both more painful and pleasant at once. I rubbed it with my thumb and thought of my time in the hospital. I rubbed and thought until I fell asleep, and that’s how I woke back up in Bedlam.
The year was different. Same old Bedlam, same old walls, same old smell of decay and madness, but a different time. I can’t say I was thrilled to be back, but I was certainly happy to be away from Bert and his evil machine, and the bony lady with the frying pan, and the dog-shooting Wilkensens.
I was in the main hallway, and there were too many people about. Some stared at me; some ignored me. They were all mad in their appearance, each and every one. If they hadn’t been when they arrived, they certainly were teetering on the brink now. Their clothes were different than the gown I still wore, older styles, a little more like what I had seen in my early days with Old Babba, but maybe even earlier. The woman wore tight bodices with yards of skirts, and the men had ruffled shirts (or they had once been ruffled); now they just looked like wilted dead flowers hung around their necks. Why they were all packed in the hallway remained to be seen. Were there so many patients they had run out of room?
But no, that wasn’t it. They had been herded here briefly so the employees could search for someone. A missing man, a patient, evidently. The staff wandered about, pushing their way through, opening and closing the doors of the rooms, shouting for MacAbee. They seemed quite annoyed at his lack of presence.
I hugged my scrawny knees to my chest on the floor and silently cheered on MacAbee. A man with a drooping mustache sat down by me and when I paid him no mind, he leaned over and whispered in my ear,
“They called me mad,” he said, as if we were having a normal conversation. “And I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me.”
By the time they located MacAbee (hiding in the potato bin) everyone was so mixed up and the workers so irritated that I was merely a distraction no one wanted to deal with. Tossed in with the patients, I suppose I could have found a way out, pretended to be someone else, maybe a tourist, but the thought was too exhausting, and the idea of food and water and a place to sleep too tempting. I allowed myself to be locked in a room with a woman named Ursula who had crossed eyes and wouldn’t speak, and though all I had was a thin blanket and some thinner soup, it felt good to be home.
The feeling didn’t last long. The next few years were spent crafting my abilities. I had come to learn that I could will myself to travel where I wanted, just by concentrating on the place and time and pressing on the spot on my head where they had played with my brain. I could go, but I could not stop myself from coming back. Oh, I could make myself return speedily enough (though why would I want to?), but I couldn’t go anywhere else without Bedlam being my anchor eventually. Sometimes I could go to two or even three places without being pulled back to the hospital, but most often than not, I’d return in between each one. Off to Spain I would go, to enjoy the twelfth century, or some such thing, but no matter how I tried from there, I couldn’t stay. I’d spend a summer in the New World in the year 1600, but I’d find myself back in my little prison soon enough. The years at Bedlam were always different though. Each time I’d reappear, no one would recognize me, because, in a mad, mad way, they were either dead or hadn’t been born yet.
I wondered sometimes if they ever found my disappearances mysterious and if they ever looked for me in the potato bin.
But no, I don’t think anyone ever looks for me at all.
Sometimes I picked places and eras from my favorite story books to travel to, but they always fell surprisingly short of my expectations. How could fiction be better than truth? But it was. There was no Scheherazade to greet me in Persia; there was only sand and hunger. The royals in France during the Revolution may have been interesting enough, but I could not get close enough to the palace to find out. Boston was the home of The Scarlet Letter, but Pearl and Hester were not real, and I found the city dull without them. All was not lost in Boston, as I visited the grave of Edgar Allan Poe: a macabre poet I was very fond of.
By the time I was fifteen years of age, I had my traveling abilities nearly perfected. My stays, however, were becoming frustratingly short. It seemed I hardly had any time at all to enjoy my new surroundings, cherry-picked by me and my imagination, before I was yanked back to Bedlam. While I had spent a whole summer in Spain as a thirteen-year-old and had taken two months to cross the ocean on a boat of questionable moral integrity (piracy is not the romantic profession some make it out to be), the places I went afterwards were becoming shorter and shorter. Did each child of the Lost have a certain number of eras to visit and would then run out, I wondered? Was I using mine up too quickly? Would there come a day when I could no longer travel? I found the question both disturbing and comforting. It kept me up at night.
Eventually, my journeys became limited to usually only a few days and nights. Typically, once I fell asleep for more than a couple hours at a time, I would wake at Bedlam, year unknown. I could stay awake longer than most, but even so, my journeys were becoming frustratingly short. At best, I could stay anchored in one era, in one spot, for about three days.
When I was fifteen, I met Luke.
He was the most handsome boy I had ever seen. I had no time for boys, no interest, nothing but dislike and disdain for anyone. Somehow, he was different. He drew me in to him somehow. Where others were fearful of me, he teased me, like I was a normal girl. A normal girl he found pretty and intriguing. At first, I ignored him. Then I acted out in front of him—slapping a nurse across the face so hard she cried—but he only looked impressed and amused. He would talk to me, his hands in his pocket (a vulnerable act I found attractive somehow. Most people kept their hands placed warily at their sides in order to protect themselves from one of my outbursts), and he didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t talk back.
Luke had come in with prisoners, from a place called the House of Detention. He said it was underground, dirty and dark. He didn’t like the dark now. He was seventeen but seemed older. He had been tried as an adult—and found guilty—for murder a year before. I forget who they said he murdered, but I didn’t much care.
For the first time since Solomon, I found myself not interested in leaving.
He didn’t want to leave me either, he said. But he would have to.
“What do you mean?” I asked, for I had finally given up not talking to him. “You can’t leave here.”
“Yes, I can. Someday, you’ll wake up, and I’ll be gone.”
I thought he meant he planned to escape, but then I learned he was the same as me. He was Lost. We were made for each other, soulmates. He said he knew instantly, but I… I took just a little longer.
We’ve been together ever since.
I frown. Where is her young man now, I wonder? I thumb through the pages of the diary, curious if her writing would come to an abrupt halt and her story end. But no, there was plenty more to be read. Perhaps his absence would be explained, or—and this seemed more likely—perhaps he was with her still, wherever she was holing up.
The time traveling, this was strange stuff. Never had I seen in my time at Bedlam such fantastical story telling. She believed everything she wrote; that much was as plain as the nose on my face, and she never wavered in anything. Her delusions seemed to be her reality.
Th
ough, it certainly would explain her disappearance… How silly. She was pulling me into her illusions now, and I wouldn’t have that.
I set the diary aside and make myself a cheese sandwich and a hot cup of tea. I’d keep reading, but keep my wits about me and not let my imagination take over. Yes. Good plan. I like it.
I told him of my plan to find my family, my abandoners, my deserters. He frowned at me when I said I could control my traveling. He said I should prove it to him, so I asked him, where did he want to go? He thought for a moment, blowing on my cold fingers for it was December and my gloves had holes, and said perhaps someplace warm, with sunshine and the ocean. A place all to ourselves. An island, he said. What era, I asked. He said it hardly mattered; we’d be alone, wouldn’t we? For a short time, I murmured, but he didn’t seem to hear me.
That night he snuck into my room. Security was never much at Bedlam. You’d think it would be, reader, wouldn’t you? But it isn’t, not really. They let their patients fraternize, and oh yes, love affairs are frowned upon, but then again, it’s entertaining for the staff.
Am I entertaining you?
I nearly choke on my cheese. I am beginning to dislike Rose more and more. While before I felt overwhelming sympathy for the wretched thing, now I am starting to see why she was friendless and hopeless.
It almost feels as though she watches me from the shadows, as though she’s just out of my line of sight, her hand on my shoulder, her voice in my head, like she knows me. It’s an unnerving, unsettling thought, and a shiver creeps up my back and settles in my neck.
I’d like to just forget her, forget she ever existed, but I cannot. It’s too late.
For what exactly?
I don’t know anymore.
13
It was so late it was nearly morning before we fell asleep. Luke kept kissing me, and I kept telling him I had to concentrate. It was clear he didn’t really believe we would wake in an island paradise.
Shadows Falling: The Lost #2 Page 9
