Gran explained that, like ether, chloroform was used as an early anesthetic for surgery—they’d probably used it at the Inn, back when it was a Civil War hospital, for amputations on the soldiers. They’d soaked a rag with the sweet-smelling liquid and held it over the patient’s face. But Vi had been taught that too much for too long would paralyze the lungs.
“Careful, Violet, don’t spill,” Gran had warned as Vi soaked the cotton ball, held with forceps, carefully placing it into the glass jar that had once held string beans or beets from the garden. Gran lifted the animal gently from its cage and handed it to Vi. Vi stroked the mouse’s tiny white head, an I’m sorry stroke, felt its solid little skull beneath its silky fur, the scrabbling of its paws, the quick beat of its heart. She dropped the mouse into the jar and screwed on the lid.
She’d prayed to the God of Mercy: Let it be over soon, then bit her lip and waited, telling herself she’d hold her breath until it was over.
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
Doctors didn’t cry. Doctors didn’t let emotions cloud their thinking or get in the way of doing what needed to be done.
Vi had never once seen Gran cry.
At first, the little white mouse had struggled, scrabbling frantically at the glass, trying to climb the smooth walls with an energy Vi couldn’t believe the poor creature possessed. Then, after about thirty seconds, it stopped moving. Went to sleep.
Vi let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Don’t take the lid off yet,” Gran had instructed. “Make sure it’s gone. Watch for respiration.”
Vi watched the mouse, saw its breathing slow. At last, there were no movements.
She was sure it was dead, but she waited another thirty seconds, looking at the second hand of her Timex. Tick. Tick. Tick.
She stared down at the jar in her hand, wondering if the mouse’s soul was trapped in there, hovering like a moist puff of air. If mice even had souls. Gran didn’t believe in souls. She believed in the id, the ego, the superego. She believed living creatures were a complicated mix of cells, chemicals, and neurons. But souls? Spirits? Where was the proof of that? Where was the evidence?
“Well done, Violet,” Gran had said, putting a hand on her shoulder and giving it a squeeze. Then she’d dumped the mouse into the metal trash can. Later, when she wasn’t looking, Vi had taken it out, brought it outside, and buried it in the garden, marking the spot with a little black stone.
* * *
NOW VI TRIED opening the cabinet where the killing jar and chloroform were kept, but it was locked.
There was an empty martini glass to the right of the microscope. A sunflower plate covered in sandwich crumbs.
To the left of the microscope was a stack of books: a medical dictionary, Physicians’ Desk Reference, an anatomy book, the Atlas of Surgical Operations.
Next to the stack was one of Gran’s notebooks: a composition book with a black-and-white speckled cover, a pen resting on top.
Open me if you dare, it taunted.
Gran kept a whole series of notebooks. She wrote everything down: patient notes, results of her experiments.
Vi reached for the notebook as sweat gathered between her shoulder blades, making her whole back feel chilled.
Shoulder blades were reminders that we’re not all that far removed from the winged beasts, Vi thought. Sometimes she could almost imagine it, what it might be like to have wings, to soar. In her dreams, she often flew. She opened her bedroom window and flew out into the night, circling over the house, over the Inn, going up higher and higher until everything familiar was just a speck.
She had that same sense now, of soaring and looking down on things from far away. Like she wasn’t really attached to her body anymore.
The mice and rats rustled and chewed and chattered little warnings in their cages behind her. Round and round they went on squeaky wheels. Round and round went Vi’s thoughts as she looked at her grandmother’s notebook.
Do it.
Don’t do it.
Do it.
She turned, searched the shadows again. Saw the red eyes of the rodents watching, the eyes of the fetal pig in the jar closed, yet seemingly waiting to see what she might do.
Gran’s notebooks were off-limits. Never to be opened or read. Even touching them was against the rules.
But Vi had promised Iris.
And promises meant something.
She opened the notebook to the first page, dated nearly two months ago.
Who are we without our memories?
Without our fears?
Without our traumas?
What does the body remember that the mind does not?
Is it possible that memories exist on a cellular level? If so, is there a way to wipe the cell clean, to make it forget?
There were drawings of cells, notes Vi didn’t understand, some in Latin, with what looked like a chemical formula.
Vi flipped to another page:
L.C. not doing well lately. Sending her down to B West.
May need to consider more extreme measures.
She flipped ahead again and came to the last entry, dated yesterday:
Mayflower Project Notes:
Patient S continues to show tremendous progress. She seems to have no memory of anything that came before, or of her time in B West. She is learning new things every day and tests above level in all areas. I plan to continue medication regime and hypnosis. She is, by far, my greatest success. Perhaps, one day, I’ll be able to show her off to the world, to truly—
The lights went off, then on again.
The signal!
Vi slammed the notebook closed and put it back where she’d found it, replacing the pen resting on top. She turned out the light by the desk and the one above the surgical table. Scanning the basement, she searched for anything else she might have touched, anything out of place. But there was nothing. She was sure. The overhead lights flickered again, off-on, off-on, faster, more desperate.
Vi took the stairs two at a time. Iris, waiting at the top, gave Vi a panicked look. They could hear Gran and Eric talking on the front porch. Flicking the lights off, they hurried into the living room and turned on the TV, leaping onto the couch. The Price Is Right was on, a woman in a flowered dress spinning a big wheel.
Gran walked through the front door with Eric on her heels.
“I’m telling you, Gran, I saw Big White Rat. He—”
“Not now, Eric,” Gran snapped. She wasn’t usually so short with them. Maybe something bad had happened at the Inn.
“But I—”
“I’m going into my study. I need to make a call and do some work. I’m not to be disturbed. Not unless it involves a true emergency, which most certainly does not include any rodent sightings. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Gran,” Eric said.
She walked down the hall toward her study, her feet shuffling along in her slippers. The door closed, and Vi heard the scratch and thump of the brass dead bolt on the other side being slid into place.
Eric came into the living room, whispered, “Did you find anything?”
Vi didn’t answer. She jumped up, headed for the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Eric asked, again in a whisper. He and Iris followed her to the wall phone in the kitchen, where she put her finger over her lips: shhh.
Vi waited a second, then lifted the handset of the wall-mounted phone while holding down the metal cradle, keeping it hung up. She covered the bottom of the handset with her palm, held her breath, and slowly eased up the metal cradle.
Gran was speaking sharply. “—don’t need this, Thad.”
Vi could hear Dr. Hutchins breathing, fast and a little wheezy. She pictured his funny ostrich head, his beady eyes that blinked a little too often.
“She’s new, isn’t she supposed to ask questions?” His voice was higher than most men’s, and Vi thought it could easily be mistaken for a woman’s.
Gran sighed. “Yesterday she asked where the charts and records for patients down in B West were kept. Why no nurses were assigned rounds down there.”
Eric moved closer, trying to hear. Vi shook her head, took a step back.
“These are all understandable questions, Dr. Hildreth,” he said. Gran called him by his first name, but Vi had never, ever heard him call her anything but Dr. Hildreth.
“I know,” Gran said, sounding exasperated. “But Patty doesn’t ever seem satisfied with my answers.”