Woody muttered as he continued jotting in his notebook. “Land of the insane is also home to the dead. That oughta sell a few papers in the morning.”
Now that she looked, Evie could see several tightly swaddled bodies lying in a row on the ferry’s broad back. Her stomach gave a little flip that sent needle-pricks of chill up her neck. “Mr. Smith, how many dead would you say are buried here?”
Mr. Smith blinked up at the dwindling sun. “Hard to say. But I’d put the figure at around fifty thousand, give or take.”
“Fifty thousand?” Woody repeated.
“Give or take. Now, if I can direct your attention to our wonderful tin-smithing shop on your right, operated by the patients themselves…”
“The unwanted dead? I sure hope they stay put while we’re here,” Sam whispered to Evie.
“Gotta hand it to you, Sheba, you sure know how to have fun,” Woody said, and popped his chewing gum.
They’d reached the columned portico of the main building; it jutted out from the asylum like the tongue in a great gothic skull, and Evie felt a strange sense of foreboding, as if the stones themselves wanted to confess their every secret. Surprisingly, the inside of the asylum was quite lovely and clean, with a coatroom, offices for bookkeeping and records, and nicely appointed waiting rooms for visitors. The warden led them past the surgeries and the examination and X-ray therapy rooms, past the dayrooms where some patients wove together straw mats. There were rooms dedicated to art and music therapy. The asylum even had its own bowling alley. On the crowded wards, nurses and attendants in crisp uniforms tended efficiently to patients. One nurse sat beside a female patient, holding her hand and listening attentively as the woman talked. Evie was warmed by the sight, and she felt guilty for having been so cavalier in lying to get into the asylum. These were good people trying to help other people who were hurting and in need of help. She’d make sure that Woody’s story gave them their due.
“How many patients live here?” Evie asked as the warden continued their tour.
“Nearly seven thousand,” the warden said. “The asylum was built to house far less than that. And we’ve only a third of the staff we need. We’ve written to the governor countless times. It seems that no one cares about these poor people except us.”
Woody edged ahead of Sam and Evie. He licked the end of his pencil and took out his notebook. “Caring doctors and nurses… ignored by callous state…” Woody said, writing.
“Precisely so. Thank you, Mr. Woodhouse.”
“Don’t mention it,” Woody said, still scribbling away. “Say, that reminds me, Mr. Smith, how about this business with these murders? The Daily News hears the patient—a Mr. Roland, was it?—turned cannibal and ate an attendant and a nurse? The attendant, Mike Flanagan, was a big man, from what I hear. How did an old man like Mr. Roland have the strength to do that?”
“The asylum has no comment, sir.” Mr. Smith bristled.
“Oh, sure, sure. I just figured you’d want to set the record straight about that, the men who drowned, and those nurses who died. So many stories out there and whatnot. See, I heard that some of the patients have been complaining about ghosts?”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts, Mr. Woodhouse,” Mr. Smith said emphatically. “Only the ghosts that haunt the mind. That is what we try to help with here at the hospital. Now, this is our art room.…”
Evie was getting impatient to find Luther Clayton. In a waiting room, Evie spied a pamphlet on a table. AMERICA’S FUTURE DEPENDS ON EUGENICS. BETTERING OUR RACE THROUGH CAREFUL SELECTION AND PROPER RACIAL HYGIENE. WELL BORN IS WELL BRED. It was distributed by the Fitter Families of Future Firesides. Evie remembered seeing their tent at the fair up in Brethren. The pamphlet argued that the feebleminded, the promiscuous, the homosexual should be sterilized. And there should never be any mixing of races.
Evie had the urge to “accidentally” drop the pamphlet in the fire. A curious insert had been left inside the pamphlet:
Could you be an exceptional American? Do you exhibit unusual gifts? Have you ever had unexplained dreams of the future or of the past? Have you or anyone in your family had a visitation from spirits from beyond? The Eugenics Society administers tests to likely candidates free of charge. Write to us care of this address or visit a Fitter Families tent near you.
Why would eugenicists like Fitter Families be interested in Diviners?
“What’s this?” Evie asked.
Mr. Smith peered at the paper in her hand. “Oh. That belongs to one of our doctors, Dr. Simpson,” he said in a clipped, disapproving tone. “He’s of the opinion that ailments of the mind can be prevented through better breeding and racial hygiene laws. He is an advocate for the sterilization of patients, inmates, and the poor.”
“I’m guessing your Dr. Simpson isn’t a fan of Jews,” Sam said, his eyes narrowed.
“But what about this bit here? Seems they’re looking for Diviners” Evie showed it to him.
“I don’t have the foggiest idea. I don’t believe in eugenics. And my dear wife is Jewish, Mr. Lloyd,” Mr. Smith said. He took the pamphlet and shoved it in a drawer. “Come. Let me show you our music therapy room—the best in the state!”
“I’ve seen one of those pamphlets before,” Woody whispered to Evie and Sam as Mr. Smith stopped to comfort a patient. “At Marlowe’s groundbreaking ceremony. There was a Fitter Families tent there. A nurse was handing them out.”
“Something’s not on the level about it,” Evie said.
“Yeah? You think there’s something not right about a buncha people claiming they’re a superior race? You don’t say,” Sam grumbled.
Mr. Smith led them through a spacious common room. An attendant played the piano while one of the patients bowed a violin. Some of the patients sang along. Others sat mute, staring. In one corner, four men had formed a circle, their chairs facing one another.
“We have a lot of shell-shocked men,” the warden said gently, following Evie’s line of sight.
“Oh,” Evie said, thinking of all the boys like James who’d fought in the Great War—the ones like her brother, who never made it home, and the broken men in this room, trapped in their own private hells.
It was curious, though. The men were performing the same pantomime motions with their hands. And then, suddenly, they began laughing all at once, as if they’d just been told a joke no one else could hear. There was something oddly familiar about the scene, and a shiver passed down Evie’s back.
The lights dimmed down to nothing. In a few seconds, they revved back up.
“What was that?” Sam asked.
Mr. Smith smiled sympathetically. “Don’t be alarmed. That happens quite a lot. They’re blasting rock in the Hell Gate to make the passage deeper. Those explosions coupled with the violent currents affect us here in the hospital.”