“Ah.” A man’s voice, close to my ear. “You’re awake. Delightful.”
One of my lids was peeled open. A candle flame thrust close to my eye. A drop of hot wax dripped onto my cheek and scalding a trail toward my ear. I wanted to recoil from that tiny blaze that seared through my addled mind, but I was too tired to move.
I think I groaned as the candle passed back and forth, back and forth, the finger peeling back my other lid and performing the same routine.
“Nice,” the voice said. “I believe our patient shall be back with us very shortly.”
Nearby, a woman spoke quietly. I swallowed, my throat so dry my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“Mom?” I croaked.
Silence. My nose was itching something fierce. When I went to raise my hand to scratch it, something stopped the movement. I tried the other hand, but the same thing happened. When I shifted my legs, I felt something wrapped around my ankles, holding them in place.
I tried again, struggling weakly against the bonds.
My breath started to come faster then. A snake of iron wrapped itself around my ribs, squeezing, squeezing as I fought against the force that tried to pull me back under. I’m tied down. Why am I tied down? Oh, no. No no no! This is . . . No. Trapped! Help! My eyes shot open as I wheezed for breath. Above me, a huge, primitive light bulb dangled from a white ceiling. I squinted against the incandescent glow as the socket swayed on its cloth-covered cord.
“Wha?” My tongue still refused to form words. “Who . . .”
“Good evening.” The voice preceded the middle-aged woman’s face by only an instant. Her head moved into my field of vision, blocking the light as she stared down at me. “Welcome to Greenwood Institute, Miss Randolph.”
Panic began building, building inside me as I took in the woman’s poofy, upswept hair. The tiny white nurse’s cap. A spotless apron covering her dark, high-necked gown.
Deep lines bracketed either side of her small mouth as she said, “I am the hospital matron, Mrs. Harp. Follow the rules and there shall be no problems. Do you understand?”
Recent events began to click into place, one after the other, with a rapidity that choked me.
Doug, on his back in the hotel lobby. Not breathing. The needle, plunged into my arm by someone . . . the doctor . . .
I tried to jolt upright as I remembered. Carson. He drugged me. Oh God, he drugged me and took me away. And now . . .
I twisted against the restraints. The back of my head banged once, twice against the hard, cold surface beneath me.
“Let me go,” I demanded through gritted teeth. “Let. Me. Go!”
“Now, now,” Dr. Carson spoke. “Calm yourself or I shall have to sedate you again.”
“Where’s Doug?” Carson’s pseudo-concerned face appeared to my left. “Where is my fr—” My brain snapped the right words in before I could completely mess up. “Where is my servant? Why am I here?”
“Miss Randolph.” The matron was too close. When her stale breath washed over my cheeks I turned my head away. She grasped my chin and jerked me back to face her. Her saccharine tone made shivers roll up my spine. “The poor dear doesn’t even remember having the episode, Doctor.”
“I didn’t have an episode!” I shouted into her face, causing her to recoil out of my line of sight. “Let me go. Let me out of here!”
As I bucked against the four-point restraints, Dr. Carson loomed over me. “Young lady,” he snapped. “If you cannot manage to calm yourself, not only will I administer the full contents of this . . .” He held up a metallic and glass syringe like the ones I’d seen at the Waldorf. “But we shall also be forced to put you in a more secure restraining device. I believe you may have heard it called a straitjacket?”
I froze. Angry tears pooled at my hairline. My teeth ground together so hard I was sure the enamel would shatter. Cool it, Walton. Just calm the freak down. ’Cause that? That would be bad. That would be like dying. Worse than dying.
“Good girl,” Carson said. “Much better.”
I wanted to slap the smugness off his face. I wanted to tear that syringe out of his hand and jam it into his eye.
“Where is Doug?” I said, jaw clenched against the rage and fear that pounded through my blood. “Is—?is he all right?”
“The young man is resting comfortably,” Carson said. “He is no longer in any danger.”
My body relaxed minutely as I released a long breath. Thank God. Thank God.
“When can we leave? You see I’m supposed to travel to—”
“I’m well aware of your travel plans, Miss Randolph. Very aware indeed.”
My eyes shot to his. Something about the way he’d spoken the word . . . travel . . . made my already uneasy gut turn in a slow revolution. He patted my shoulder and disappeared from my sight.
Several of what must have been Thomas Edison’s early bulbs dangled at intervals, illuminating the small room. Turning my head as far as it would go, I could just make out the top of a rapidly darkening window.
How long was I out? Had to have been hours. I remember . . . what? Those men carrying Doug out. Being manhandled into a carriage. And then . . . something else, but what?
Come on, Walton. Think!
As I made myself relax against the restraints, I realized the drug was dissipating. I was sore, stiff from lying here so long. A nagging ache scratched behind my eyes. But my brain was beginning to clear.
Collum! He and Mac, there on the sidewalk. Just before sleep pulled me under, they had seen me being hauled away in the doctor’s carriage. Surely they’d followed.
Surely.
“Miss Randolph.” Dr. Carson’s face appeared above me as he spoke. “If you can remain calm, we shall remove your restraints and have you escorted to the ladies’ ward, where you will remain until it is time for your evaluation. If you cannot remain calm, we shall bring in the other device I mentioned. You shall be placed in an isolation cell for twenty-four hours. For your own safety, of course,” he said. “Do I make myself clear?”
Biting my lip so hard I felt the edge of my teeth pierce the skin, I nodded.
“Good girl.”
Chapter 25
I dON’T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I WAS EXPECTING OF Greenwood Institute.
Something out of a horror movie, maybe, with crazed, wild-haired patients chained to the walls. Darkness. Filth. Wraiths in white gowns, shrieking and ripping out their own eyeballs.
I was pleasantly surprised.
At first.
I mean, academically I knew that by the end of the Victorian era, changes had begun to take place in mental health care, particularly in America. When wrestling with some of my own “issues” I’d come across plenty of material about this innovation, the private asylum. Generally administered by nonmedical personnel and set up for wealthy, cash-paying patients, these “clinics” boasted elegant lodgings, pastoral settings, light and air and decent food. More spa than nightmare, these substitutes for the horrific, overcrowded public asylums actually did a lot to reform treatment of the so-called deranged.