Asylum

by Madeleine Roux

  What if Joe, the hall monitor who had caught them in the old wing, had placed the card on his desk? It actually made a weird kind of sense. Joe would want to keep them from snooping around again after hours, and the note was just creepy and threatening enough to make Dan think twice about a repeat of last night. Joe would also, as a hall monitor, have a master key to the rooms, which fit because Dan was positive he had locked the door that morning.

  The knot in Dan’s stomach loosened. Thinking of Joe as the author of the note made the whole thing feel explicable at the very least and perhaps even a little bit funny. Ha ha, Joe, you got me good.

  But Dan wasn’t entirely convinced. He decided he’d bring the card to dinner. If Jordan and Abby had received notes, too, they might be able to figure it out together.

  Until then, Dan knew he definitely wouldn’t be able to do any real studying. And if anything, the card only strengthened his determination to meet Sal Weathers. There wasn’t enough time left in lunch break to make it to town and back, so he decided to skip his next class. He threw his sweatshirt on again, pulled up Sal’s address on his phone, checked the directions, and then sped out the door.

  It felt good to get out of the dorm. Things had a way of feeling so heavy there.

  The weather seemed to be on his wavelength, overcast and chilly despite the fact that it was June. It looked like it might rain. Dan walked briskly, keeping his head down and following the path that led from the dorms back to the academic side and beyond. The paved path dipped, taking a wide curve down a hill. For all the hustle and bustle on campus, Camford always felt rather small and quiet. Today the streets were practically empty; a lone pick-up truck sped by as Dan made it down to the bottom of the hill.

  Three blocks, one donut shop, and a car garage later, Dan was at his destination. He snuggled down deeper into his sweatshirt, staring up the drive to a brick, dormered house set back from the road. Pausing, he glanced over his shoulder, his eyes scanning above the tree line. From here, he could just make out the top of the old church steeple, and beyond that, Wilfurd Commons and Brookline’s roof.

  He fished out a notebook and pen from his backpack, wondering how best to introduce himself.

  A simple wicker cross hung in the window of the front door. Dan knocked, suddenly hoarse with nerves, already thinking it had been a mistake to come. Sure, Sal sounded talkative online, but would he be so effusive in person? Dan would have to express his own interest in a way that would get him the information he needed.

  He knocked again, with more conviction. Finally, he heard a shuffling from inside.

  A spotted, craggy face appeared in the window behind the cross, and a second later the door flew open. The scent of cinnamon candles rushed out to meet him. “What are you selling?”

  “Selling? Oh! No, nothing … I’m from the college,” Dan explained. He gestured clumsily over his shoulder to the hill. “I—I was going to email you, but … I’m sorry, I know this is sort of strange, but I found your web page. The one about Brookline? I’m doing a project on it and you seemed like the local expert, so …”

  Sal stared at him, clearly trying to decide if he was crazy or joking or both.

  “Come in,” he finally muttered, disappearing into a dark mudroom. A light came on, showing a shoe rack filled almost exclusively with work boots and lady’s slippers. “So you found my little report on the internet, huh? Good. That’s good. More people oughta know. But I gotta tell you, kid, I don’t much like talking about it. None of us do. I said my piece with that page on the internet, and now the only time I want to talk about it is to get that hell of a place torn down. Course, some bitch up at the college won’t stand for it, says it’s historical!”

  “I think you mean Professor Reyes,” Dan said pointedly. “She’s actually planning to run a seminar in the dorm, and then—”

  “A dorm? So they’re housing you kids in it now, are they? That’s a real laugh.” Sal shuffled into the kitchen and Dan followed. He had a feeling he would be leaving with a blank notebook. “This is my wife,” Sal was saying. “Don’t mind us, honey. This young man’s from the college, but he’s not staying very long.”

  The kitchen was cramped, furnished with cheap laminate cabinets and mauve tiles. Dan ducked his head shyly. “Hello.” He greeted Sal’s wife. She was gaunt, sunken, but Dan saw shadows of a pretty woman gone old and frail. Her thick hair was tied into a bun at her nape and a heavy fringe of bangs covered her forehead. She seemed to be staring at nothing, her hands propped lightly on the island countertop in the middle of the room.

  Sal puttered around the island until he found a coffee mug. He checked its contents and then took a big sip. When he glanced back up and saw Dan still standing there, a look of resignation crossed his face. He shuffled over until he was almost right in Dan’s face and said in a voice barely above a whisper, “All right, kid. You get one question. What did you want to know so bad?”

  Dan hardly knew where to start. He tried to collect his thoughts into one single question.

  Finally, hoping that this one question would lead to many answers, he said, “I just wanted to know more about Dennis Heimline.” Instantly, he knew he’d said something wrong. Sal flinched, and behind him his wife finally stopped staring at whatever was so interesting over Dan’s shoulder and looked right in his eyes. Dan blundered on. “I, um, well, I was curious about the connection between the last warden and Dennis Heimline, the Sculptor—”

  “What did you say your name was?” Sal interrupted, slamming his mug down on the island.

  “I d-didn’t,” Dan stammered, taking a step back. “It’s Dan? Dan Crawford?”

  It was like a bomb had gone off. Suddenly Sal’s wife was screaming, throwing herself down on the island countertop, swinging her arms, and sending Sal’s mug and a stack of dishes crashing to the floor. Dan leapt back only to have Sal descend on him, his craggy old face red with blotches. “What the hell kind of sick joke are you trying to pull? My wife is ill and you come in here like that, you damned college kids, always so smart, so clever, eh? Not so clever today—get out! Get. Out!”

  Dan hardly bothered to turn, backing out as fast as he could without getting tangled up in the shoe rack and the door. The woman’s shrieking followed him onto the stoop. Then Sal was at the door, still shouting, “Get the hell out!” as if Dan wasn’t trying to do exactly that.

  He ran. He ran until he reached the hill and the path winding back up to the college. What had just happened? What had he said? How could Dennis Heimline be such a sore subject when Sal himself had written about the guy?

  When Dan reached his room, Felix was gone. A note on his dry erase board read simply, “Departed for gymnasium 1600.” Dan rolled his eyes, thinking, Just another Felix Quirk TM.

  He flung himself down on his bed and wrestled out of his backpack and hoodie. Miserable, he rolled onto his back and shoved the pillow over his face. Class skipped and for what? He was no closer to figuring out the link between the warden, the Sculptor, Brookline, and himself than he had been at the start of the day. And now he had the horrified face of Sal’s wife to add to the list of things haunting him. And her screams …

  Dan groaned into the pillow. He had to let it go or he’d drive himself crazy over nothing. Sal was just a nutty old bat who hated the college and everything associated with Brookline. He probably grew up in Camford resenting the kids who could afford a higher education. Wasn’t there even a label for it? The townies and the gownies? It wasn’t his fault.

  Outside, it had started raining. That would make getting to dinner a little less pleasant. But after the afternoon he’d just had, Dan was eager for friendly company, and it was already five minutes till five, so there’d soon be people in the dining hall. He snatched up the Hydra note and headed downstairs. As he passed the hallway leading down to the old wing, he felt a sudden temptation to go there and hide, but he pressed on to the main doors, shaking off the fear that was creeping down his back.

  Dan pulled u
p the hood of his sweatshirt and ran through the downpour to the Commons. He shook himself off when he reached the entrance, then followed the line of students forming inside the cafeteria.

  Mac and cheese night. Could be worse. Dan grabbed a tray, his eyes roaming over half-familiar faces as he looked for his friends. He saw Yi come in and wave to a few guys on the other side of the room before getting in line right behind him.

  “How’s it going?” Yi asked, drumming his fingers on his pastel-blue tray.

  “You know, the usual. Studying. Classes.” Threatening notes, psychos. “Yourself?”

  “So amazing.” Yi pulled a slip of paper out of his cargo pants and handed it to Dan. Oh God, did Yi get a strange note, too? But when he unfolded it, Dan saw it was only a printed-out dating profile for someone with the screen name Chloe_Chloe13. She liked skiing and Amélie.

  “I’m studying abroad on a scholarship in the fall. Conservatory in Paris …” Dan handed the paper back and watched Yi smiling dreamily down at it. “Just a few more months and I’ll be swimming in hot, foreign women.”

  Dan coughed.

  “Yeeaaaah, I could have phrased that better.” Yi put Chloe_Chloe13 back in his pocket. The line moved forward. “How’s things on the Abby front?”

  “Hm?” They sidled up to the buffet. Dan slopped macaroni onto his warm plate. “How did you … ?”

  “Jordan mentioned a date or something. How’d it go?” Surprisingly, Yi bypassed the mac and cheese and went for the vegan offering, something with lentils and unidentifiable chunks of vegetable matter.

  “Things with Abby are good!” Dan managed to croak. Honestly, he didn’t know what to think, considering how Abby had been this morning. “And I guess it was a date. We just got dinner at Brewster’s, hung out.… It was a nice time.” Dan dug the big metal ladle into the macaroni again, preparing to take another serving.

  “Bullshit. You get any?”

  Dan dropped the spoon, and it clattered against the edge of the buffet. He caught it, but not before splattering himself with globs of cheese product. “Crap, that’s hot!” He half elbowed, half bumped the spoon back into the tray and tried to brush the neon-orange cheese off his forearm.

  Yi chuckled, moving away from the line. “I’ll take that as a no.”

  Swearing, Dan grabbed a dinner roll from the pile and then walked over to their usual table. He dropped into the chair nearest the window, brooding over his steaming plate of food. His time with Abby last night felt private—not something to be discussed casually over the dinner line. Or maybe it was just that he didn’t know how things stood, and he didn’t want to jinx them by bragging. He rubbed at the splotchy red marks on his skin. They were still smarting.

  “Hey.”

  It was Abby. Her hair was in a damp tangle and her eyes were red. She set her tray on the table and sat down slowly, as if moving through water.

  “Hey,” Dan said, forgetting his burn.

  “Can I sit? I mean, I am sitting already but …” She looked down into her soup, sighing. “Do you mind?”

  “No, by all means,” Dan said. “I was hoping you’d turn up.”

  “Yeah?” Smiling, Abby put her elbows onto the table. “Thanks. I was … I was pretty horrible at breakfast. But I have a good excuse, I promise. I wouldn’t just … I wouldn’t just be like that.”

  “It’s okay if you were,” he replied. “We all have rotten days.” He nodded to the window behind them, where the rain fell in noisy sheets against the glass. “See? The weather’s feeling like crap, too.”

  “No, I like the rain. It’s relaxing. Refreshing.” She gazed out the window. Puddles were forming in the low dips of the grass and along the pathways, and the mist was swirling so that the rain and fog couldn’t be teased apart. “I needed a bit of rain.”

  Dan smiled. Already she was making him feel better. He decided he’d wait for Jordan to get there before mentioning the note, so he and Abby more or less ate in comfortable silence until Jordan stumbled into the dining hall. After a quick breeze through the food line, he sat down with just a cup of piping-hot coffee and a slice of Boston cream pie. He didn’t even say hello. Rain and the steam from the coffee fogged his glasses.

  But Dan couldn’t wait any longer. “I got a note,” he blurted, startling Abby and Jordan. He reached into his back pocket and took out the card, dropping it onto the table between them. Jordan picked it up. “ߢHow do you kill a Hydra?’ What the hell?”

  “Turn it over.”

  Jordan read the back, his face a mixture of confusion and distaste.

  “What is this? Where did it come from?” Jordan pushed the card away with a grimace, and Abby grabbed it.

  “It was on my desk when I got back from class. Felix didn’t see who left it, but someone managed to get into the room even though I’m sure I locked the door. You guys didn’t get anything like this?”

  They both shook their heads. Dan was dismayed. He hadn’t realized how much he was counting on this being a bad joke. Rubbing his temples, he said, “I think it could be from Joe. I don’t know who else would leave something like this, or even be able to get into the room. But I was sure he’d have left them for you guys, too.” Dan pushed his macaroni into a little hill. “I don’t like feeling singled out.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Abby asked, giving the card back to him.

  Dan shrugged. He knew it would be impossible to explain to anyone else why this bothered him so much. He wasn’t even sure he fully understood it himself.

  “Just ignore it,” Jordan said. “Joe’s trying to rile you up, that’s all. That’s what bullies do. Trust me, I know. It’s better if you let it slide off your back.”

  They were silent for a moment. Then Abby said, “There’s something else. Your note … It’s important and all, but I wanted to tell you both something, too. It’s what I was going to bring up at breakfast, before I got so … well, mad.”

  She paused. “I’m not quite sure how to say this,” she said, twisting her hands around each other. “So I’ll just go for simple. Simple is probably best, if anything about this is simple.”

  As she talked, Dan noticed that her entire demeanor changed. Her shoulders sagged, and the light went out of her eyes.

  She took a deep breath. “My aunt. My father’s sister. She was a patient here.”

  There was silence. Dan and Jordan looked at each other.

  “Um … how do you know?” asked Dan.

  “Here, look what I found last night.” Abby pulled an index card out from her raincoat. It was from the card catalog in the warden’s office and looked just like the one for Dennis Heimline. So Abby had taken something, too.

  Hands shaking, Abby turned the card around so that both Jordan and Dan could read it. There were just four lines, typed.

  Valdez, Lucy Abigail.

  DOB: 7.15.1960

  DOA: 2.12.1968

  IMPROVED: N

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  CHAPTER

  No 16

  For a moment Dan didn’t understand. The words didn’t make any sense. Then they slowly came into focus.

  Lucy. Abigail. Valdez.

  Abby Valdez.

  “It’s a common-enough last name,” Dan said at last, stammering a little. “Right?” He looked up into Abby’s wide eyes. “Right?”

  She shook her head, pressing her lips tightly together. “That’s my aunt. Aunt Lucy. I was named after her.”

  “Come on, Abby,” Jordan said. “That’s not your aunt, that’s just not possible.”

  Dan sat back, silent, waiting for a reasonable explanation. If one existed.

  “I’m afraid it is possible.” A gust of wind hit the windows, rattling the glass. The rain slapped down on the glass like a shower of pebbles. Abby looked out the window and then back again. She was clearly trying to keep from crying. “My gr
andparents were really strict on my pops when he was growing up. His sister Lucy never got along with them, from the time she was a little girl. She never listened, she’d talk back, scream, break things, stuff like that. One day there was a huge fight. My pops doesn’t know what it was about, he was only five, but he remembers that Lucy ran out the door and slammed it behind her. That night, he woke up from a nightmare and Lucy wasn’t in her bed. Seven years old, and she was gone. Just … gone. My grandparents acted like everything was normal, and when my pops would ask, they’d get really angry and tell him he wasn’t allowed to say her name any more.”

  Dan was at a loss. The story lined up, but what were the odds? “Maybe it’s just a coincidence, the name,” he said, not really believing that himself. He just wanted so badly for it to be true.

  “A coincidence is you and me both picking pie for dessert,” Jordan said. He gestured to the patient card with his cup. “What Abby is suggesting is flat-out strange.”

  “What, you don’t believe me?” Abby said. Her voice sounded like she was kidding at first, waiting for Jordan to contradict her. But he didn’t. “That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t believe me.”

  “Can you really blame me? I mean, what are the chances you just randomly wind up here for the summer, at the place where your aunt used to be a mental patient?” Jordan sat back, arms crossed. “I think there’s something you’re not telling us. Or you’re just not telling us the truth.”

  Dan could see Abby’s shoulders beginning to shake as she tried and failed to control her breathing. It was too late to intervene, and he couldn’t think of a damn thing to contribute anyway. Jordan had a point about how impossible the coincidence was, but Abby wasn’t the sort to mess with them for kicks. Or was she? a little voice whispered in his mind. How well did he really know her, after all? Her mood in the last twenty-four hours had certainly been unpredictable. He stopped himself. She wouldn’t make a joke out of something like this. She just wouldn’t.