“That infernal Hell Gate blasting,” Mrs. Bennett muttered. “Keep the lantern held high, please.”
Though the lantern’s glow was weak, the young nurse was still grateful for it. As she lifted it, the beam fell across the silent claw-foot tubs and the gooseneck pipes that fed them. On nearby hooks hung heavy canvas tarps that could be placed over patients sitting in those tubs to keep them calm. Sometimes, the young nurse thought about the memories those tarps held. The asylum was far better now in its treatment of the patients than it had been when journalist Nellie Bly had gone undercover on Blackwell’s Island in 1887. She’d lasted slightly more than a week in the hellish asylum there before she begged her editor to get her out. And then she’d written her famous exposé of the treatment of the mentally ill, “Ten Days in a Mad-House.”
That had been the start of reform, but reform, the young nurse knew, was slow. You could feel it in the place, the horrors that had come before. Patients restrained against their will. Dunked into ice-cold baths. Sweated in fever boxes to rid them of syphilis. Beaten, starved, experimented upon, neglected, and abused, and horrors far worse than she dared think of at present. The mind was mysterious, and when those minds didn’t conform to society’s standards, it was hard going for the afflicted. That was why Miss Headley studied psychiatry: She and others like her wanted to bring hope and change to the field. She wanted to make a difference in the care of her patients.
But the head nurse belonged to a different generation. She scoffed at the notion of music and art therapy, of talking daily with the patients to see if, together, they could heal the trauma of their fractured minds and work toward making them whole. Mrs. Bennett didn’t see the patients as people feeling sad or hurting. She didn’t see them as people needing care. She saw them as less than human, as problems to be solved or disappointments to be shut away out of sight. Miss Headley had overheard the head nurse telling Mrs. Washington, who lay in bed with severe depression, that she should Cheer up—come now, things aren’t as bad as all that, are they, hmm? She’d witnessed Mrs. Bennett escorting a female patient to that awful Dr. Simpson for sterilization. Sarah is a loose woman. Best to take care of that now, Mrs. Bennett had said, even though poor Sarah could neither read nor write and had the mind of a child.
Power over others. That was what motivated some of these people. They didn’t want to heal so much as they wanted to win. Miss Headley would be glad when the last of their kind was gone, and the new ideas could come in. There was hope, even in a place like this. Even on Ward’s Island, spring eventually forced its way up from the frostbitten ground.
The head nurse struggled with the window. “Why, it’s stuck as stuck can be. See if you can shut this, won’t you please, Miss Headley?”
“Yes, Mrs. Bennett.” Miss Headley put down the lantern. With a grunt and a few hops, she snugged the sash down inch by inch, then stopped to catch her breath. On the other side of the glass, a thick block of mist blotted out any view of the bridge or river. When had that fog come up? It hadn’t been there when they’d started their rounds. She could just barely make out the skeletons of winter-stripped trees. It gave her a shiver.
The door to the hydrotherapy room slammed shut, and Miss Headley yelped.
“Mrs. Bennett?” she called. The fog inside the room had also thickened. But she could still make out Mrs. Bennett at the door, turning the lock. Where the head nurse had been standing, the lantern lay on its side. There was a sound in the room. An insect-like keening. Miss Headley was a nurse. She recognized that her pulse, normally rock-steady, was very fast.
“Mrs. Bennett?” she called again, frightened.
“I know you want me gone,” Mrs. Bennett said, taking a step forward. Mist curled at her fingertips, as if she were made of ice. “You think I’m old and should retire.”
The young nurse took a step back. “No, Mrs. B-Bennett, I never—”
“Liar! I can hear inside your head. I always knew, but they’ve shown me I was right.”
“Who?”
“The Forgotten.”
The moment the word left the head nurse’s lips, Miss Headley saw spectral figures taking shape in the mist: pale, dead flesh, formless as specimens floating in jars of formaldehyde solution, a great mob of spirits. Some wore clothes that seemed to stretch back centuries. Others looked as if they had only been buried last week. She could feel their need and their anger as if it, too, were a physical presence, could feel it shifting toward hate as their voices slithered around the room, overwhelming her:
You forgot about us.
Forgot us, forgotten, oh why?
Eat you down to the bones, you bitch!
Left to rot in the cold, dark ground…
He will lift us up to our rightful place!
We will suck the dreams from your marrow.
Fear us, fear us, fear is us is fear all fear!
We are the Forgotten…
Forgotten no more!
The fog curled up behind Mrs. Bennett and puffed from her mouth like a long, murky snake. “Oh, everything is so clear to me now.”
They’d gotten inside Mrs. Bennett somehow. Miss Headley took a step back. She shook her head. Her voice was weak. “No. No. They’re lying to you, Mrs. Bennett.”
“You’re the liar!” the head nurse screeched, matching the force of the mob.
Hanging on the wall was a long, hooked pole that could be used to secure the tarps. Miss Headley ran for it, only to see the pole fly from its perch with supernatural strength and into Mrs. Bennett’s waiting hand. One by one, the taps squeaked on, filling the baths with scalding water. Steam billowed up, joining the fog. The pole scraped across the tile floor as the head nurse advanced along with the ghostly mob.
Miss Headley put up her hands. “Please, Mrs. Bennett.”
Mrs. Bennett pushed Miss Headley into the tub. She screamed, “Help! Help! Oh, please, someone help!” Faster than her eyes could register, the tarp whipped across the tub, fastening at the sides like a canvas seal, trapping her inside. In horror, the young nurse watched as the tap to her tub prison began its slow turn.
“No. Please,” she cried, drawing her feet close, then screaming and thrashing as the blistering water reached her. Hundreds of whispers filled the room, speaking all at once until the maddening din formed one unearthly voice that burst from Mrs. Bennett’s mouth: “Oh, King of Crows. Show us the way. For we are the Forgotten, forgotten no more.”
The water rose. Under the tarp, Miss Headley’s body twitched and blistered in the hot water. Her eyes rolled up as her body finally stilled. Mrs. Bennett raised the hook high above her own head, bringing it down again and again.
Upstairs, Conor Flynn already knew.
He drew it all.
RUNNING
The world is black and white, gray and red.
White snow. Thin gray smoke. Its acrid smell hurts your nose.
The black: A scorched world. Crisped trees. Smoldering cabins. Charred horses. Bodies.