When the boy’s head bowed again in defeat, she wanted to weep. But she forced her shoulders straight. Was she not the granddaughter of the great Dr. John Dee? Had she herself not had audience with the mightiest queen in Christendom? Small she might be, but weak she was not. She raised her chin, and though her voice was raspy from the cold, she said, “Do not worry. We shall survive this. All will be well.”
“No!” The boy shoved to his feet, twisted about, and dropped to his knees before her. “We are lost. And I shall pretend no longer. I—?I am sorry, milady. I have failed you.”
When the troubled boy looked up at her with eyes of lake-water and summer grass, something seemed to crack open inside the little girl’s heart. She reached out and placed a cold palm against his cheek. “No,” she said. “Never that.”
A grating sound tugged me awake. My eyes popped open. At first, I couldn’t move. Adrenaline spiked through me, making electricity dance across the back of my tongue. I realized I was lying face-down on a hardwood floor, my arms trapped beneath me. Groaning, I heaved myself to my side, and tried to shake some feeling back into my numb arms.
A cold spear of pure and utter panic tore through me when they wouldn’t move. Slowly, reluctantly, I angled my head down to see the canvas contraption that encased me from hips to throat.
No. I closed my eyes, breath coming faster. Oh, no. No no no no. This is just another nightmare. Just a dream.
A scream began to build deep in my throat as I struggled to rip my arms loose, but the straitjacket that held them wrapped around my body was too tight.
Wrenching and jerking, I somehow managed to pull myself to a sitting position. Beneath the coarse material I was still wearing my own teal and silver gown, which a sullen maid had dressed me in that morning. The whalebone corset—?combined with the straitjacket—?constricted my chest. Beneath my skin, it felt as though each rib was collapsing in on itself. I could almost hear the slim bones giving way, piercing my lungs with their jagged ends. Crack. Crack. Crack.
All was white inside the spartan isolation room. Walls. Ceiling. Floor, though that painted surface was now scratched and dull. Sets of iron rings were bolted to the wall, and a slop bucket sat in one corner of the windowless cell. A single bulb dangled on a frayed cord above my head. When it crackled I shoved with my feet, until my back hit the wall.
What . . . ?
It all came back in a nauseating rush. My friends on the lawn. The broken window. Sergeant Peters, who had tried to help. Annabelle Allen and her poor murdered kittens. I’d panicked and rushed for the door.
Stupid. So stupid.
My knees ached from being slammed to the ground, one side of my neck felt swollen from the bolus of sedative Carson had plunged there.
Afterward, there had been nothing. Until now. Until this.
Can’t move my arms. Can’t breathe. Can’t . . . Can’t . . .
My scalp prickled.
Oh God, what day is it? What time? No window. Is it day or night? How long was I out? What if it’s too late? What if they had to go back without me? What if they had no choice but to leave me here? What if . . . What if . . . What if . . .
A shrieking dread took hold of me. Blinded by it, I bucked and reared, trying to get loose. I rolled from one side of the room to the other, fighting the canvas. But it was no use. I couldn’t get free. My throat closed up. Darkness edged in as I sobbed and gagged. A black square marked the closed peephole in the center of the only door. I scrabbled over to it on my knees.
“Please . . .” I wheezed, but with empty lungs my words were barely audible. “Let . . . me out.”
Every cell in my brain was screaming that the oxygen couldn’t last. Not in this sealed room that was filling with carbon dioxide every time I exhaled.
“Let me out!”
“Shut yer trap.” A muffled male voice came from the other side. “You’ll get yours soon enough.”
Slumped against the door, I slammed the back of my head against the unforgiving wood, again and again. Pain shot across my skull and down my spine as tears squeezed from my closed lids. “Please . . .”
The only answer was a scathing laugh. Like scalding acid dripped onto flesh, the claustrophobia I’d suffered since childhood began to corrode my reason.
My spine gave. I toppled over. More black dots appeared with each blink. Splinters from the rough planks raked my cheek as my chest struggled to draw in one last breath.
Bran. Help. Wh-where are you?
The light bulb fizzed, snapped, and went out. The darkness was instantaneous and complete. My ravaged brain tried to grasp for some reason, any reason not to just give up. I brought up a single image. Bran Cameron’s eyes.
Green and Blue. Grass and Sky. Lake and Ocean. Leaves and Water. Yes. That’s a nice thing to think about as you die, isn’t it?
A blast of freezing water crashed across my face and chest. I retched and struggled to sit up. Spluttering, drowning, I swiped an arm across my . . .
Wait? My arm? My arms! They’re free!
My eyes shot open. As water streamed from my sodden hair, I looked down at my hands in amazement. My hands. I can see my hands.
Someone grabbed my wrists, wrenching me to my feet. Water blurred my vision and before I could even view my attacker, he twisted both arms behind me and dragged me backwards until my aching arms and back were pressed up against him. Though I couldn’t see the man, I smelled him. Body odor and hair pomade.
“Just you be quiet now, miss.” I recognized the voice. The sleazy guard, Dupree. The rodent-faced man Sergeant Peters had ordered away from the ladies’ door. Dupree’s rancid breath wreathed around my ear. “Doc’s comin’, so you better behave, or you won’t like what’s next.”
The door was open. It was open! I dragged in the blessed air that was swarming into the room. I licked at the water still dripping from my hair, trying to wet my parched mouth.
“Thanks to you,” Dupree whispered, “that nosy nelly Peters got hisself canned, he did. Now that I’m in charge, I believe I’ll call on Miss Allen. It’s been a while.”
I shuddered as I thought of the child-like Annabelle and her string of dead kittens.
“Now you . . .” Dupree pulled me close, pressing the entire length of his body against my back. I struggled, but he only wrenched my arms back until a ripping pain shot through my shoulders. His breath came faster as he jeered, “Bet you wouldn’t lay there all still and cold, would you, now? No, not you. You got fire in you, girl-o. Little wildcat you are.”
Horror, disgust, and raw animal fear spiraled through me, but then Phoebe’s voice sounded in my head.
If they grab you from behind, Hope, just stomp down hard on their instep, aye? They’ll let go quick enough. That’s when you turn and kick them in their wobblies.
Slowly, I raised my knee.
“You may release the patient now, Dupree,” Dr. Carson called from the doorway. In his hands he held the stiff canvas contraption that had been around me. I froze as its iron buckles jangled and its obscenely long sleeves dripped to the ground. I eased my foot to the floor. “You won’t be any trouble, will you, Miss Walton?”
I cringed, the idea of being put back into the straitjacket making me curl in on myself. No. Please don’t put me back. I can’t do it. I—?
My head snapped up. My jaw unhinged as I stared at Carson.