Shadows Falling: The Lost #2 (9 page)

12

Whoever the Wilkensen’s were, I never found out. I sat in that damned cornfield, getting burned by the sun, for two days. I slept as much as possible, but my head hurt. I was thirsty, but didn’t want to move. I was afraid of that steel contraption appearing out of nowhere and mowing me down in the prime of my short life. My lips were cracked and bloody, my hair stringy, my bare feet nearly black with dirt, and my skin bright pink. I just lay there and lay there; it felt like forever. I began to rub the spot on my forehead where the ache was, and it was both more painful and pleasant at once. I rubbed it with my thumb and thought of my time in the hospital. I rubbed and thought until I fell asleep, and that’s how I woke back up in Bedlam.

The year was different. Same old Bedlam, same old walls, same old smell of decay and madness, but a different time. I can
’t say I was thrilled to be back, but I was certainly happy to be away from Bert and his evil machine, and the bony lady with the frying pan, and the dog-shooting Wilkensens.

I was in the main hallway, and there were too many people about. Some stared at me; some ignored me. They were all mad in their appearance, each and every one. If they hadn
’t been when they arrived, they certainly were teetering on the brink now. Their clothes were different than the gown I still wore, older styles, a little more like what I had seen in my early days with Old Babba, but maybe even earlier. The woman wore tight bodices with yards of skirts, and the men had ruffled shirts (or they had once been ruffled); now they just looked like wilted dead flowers hung around their necks. Why they were all packed in the hallway remained to be seen. Were there so many patients they had run out of room?

But no, that wasn
’t it. They had been herded here briefly so the employees could search for someone. A missing man, a patient, evidently. The staff wandered about, pushing their way through, opening and closing the doors of the rooms, shouting for MacAbee. They seemed quite annoyed at his lack of presence.

I hugged my scrawny knees to my chest on the floor and silently cheered on MacAbee.
A man with a drooping mustache sat down by me and when I paid him no mind, he leaned over and whispered in my ear,

“They called me mad,” he said, as if we were having a normal conversation. “And I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me.”

By the time they located MacAbee (hiding in the potato bin) everyone was so mixed up and the workers so irritated that I was merely a distraction no one wanted to deal with. Tossed in with the patients, I suppose I could have found a way out, pretended to be someone else, maybe a tourist, but the thought was too exhausting, and the idea of food and water and a place to sleep too tempting. I allowed myself to be locked in a room with a woman named Ursula who had crossed eyes and wouldn’t speak, and though all I had was a thin blanket and some thinner soup, it felt good to be home.

The feeling didn
’t last long. The next few years were spent crafting my abilities. I had come to learn that I could will myself to travel where I wanted, just by concentrating on the place and time and pressing on the spot on my head where they had played with my brain. I could go, but I could not stop myself from coming back. Oh, I could make myself return speedily enough (though why would I want to?), but I couldn’t go anywhere else without Bedlam being my anchor eventually. Sometimes I could go to two or even three places without being pulled back to the hospital, but most often than not, I’d return in between each one. Off to Spain I would go, to enjoy the twelfth century, or some such thing, but no matter how I tried from there, I couldn’t stay. I’d spend a summer in the New World in the year 1600, but I’d find myself back in my little prison soon enough. The years at Bedlam were always different though. Each time I’d reappear, no one would recognize me, because, in a mad, mad way, they were either dead or hadn’t been born yet.

I wondered sometimes if they ever found my disappearances mysterious and if they ever looked for me in the potato bin.

But no, I don’t think anyone ever looks for me at all.

Sometimes I picked places and eras from my favorite story books to travel to, but they always fell surprisingly short of my expectations. How could fiction be better than truth? But it was. There was no Scheherazade to greet me in Persia; there was only sand and hunger. The royals in France during the Revolution may have been interesting enough, but I could not get close enough to the palace to find out.
Boston was the home of The Scarlet Letter, but Pearl and Hester were not real, and I found the city dull without them. All was not lost in Boston, as I visited the grave of Edgar Allan Poe: a macabre poet I was very fond of.

By the time I was fifteen years of age, I had my traveling abilities nearly perfected. My stays, however, were becoming frustratingly short. It seemed I hardly had any time at all to enjoy my new surroundings, cherry
-picked by me and my imagination, before I was yanked back to Bedlam. While I had spent a whole summer in Spain as a thirteen-year-old and had taken two months to cross the ocean on a boat of questionable moral integrity (piracy is not the romantic profession some make it out to be), the places I went afterwards were becoming shorter and shorter. Did each child of the Lost have a certain number of eras to visit and would then run out, I wondered? Was I using mine up too quickly? Would there come a day when I could no longer travel? I found the question both disturbing and comforting. It kept me up at night.

Eventually, my journeys became limited to usually only a few days and nights. Typically, once I fell asleep
for more than a couple hours at a time, I would wake at Bedlam, year unknown. I could stay awake longer than most, but even so, my journeys were becoming frustratingly short. At best, I could stay anchored in one era, in one spot, for about three days.

When I was fifteen, I met Luke.

He was the most handsome boy I had ever seen. I had no time for boys, no interest, nothing but dislike and disdain for anyone. Somehow, he was different. He drew me in to him somehow. Where others were fearful of me, he teased me, like I was a normal girl. A normal girl he found pretty and intriguing. At first, I ignored him. Then I acted out in front of him—slapping a nurse across the face so hard she cried—but he only looked impressed and amused. He would talk to me, his hands in his pocket (a vulnerable act I found attractive somehow. Most people kept their hands placed warily at their sides in order to protect themselves from one of my outbursts), and he didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t talk back.

Luke had come in with prisoners, from a place called the House of Detention. He said it was underground, dirty and dark. He didn
’t like the dark now. He was seventeen but seemed older. He had been tried as an adult—and found guilty—for murder a year before. I forget who they said he murdered, but I didn’t much care.

For the first time since Solomon, I found myself not interested in leaving.

He didn’t want to leave me either, he said. But he would have to.

“
What do you mean?” I asked, for I had finally given up not talking to him. “You can’t leave here.”

“
Yes, I can. Someday, you’ll wake up, and I’ll be gone.”

I thought he meant he planned to escape, but then I learned he was the same as me. He was Lost. We were made for each other, soulmates. He said he knew instantly, but I… I took just a little longer.

We’ve been together ever since.

I frown. Where is her young man now, I wonder? I thumb through the pages of the diary, curious if her writing would come to an abrupt halt and her story end. But no, there was plenty more to be read. Perhaps his absence would be explained, or—and this seemed more likely—perhaps he was with her still, wherever she was holing up.

The time traveling, this was strange stuff. Never had I seen in my time at Bedlam such fantastical story telling. She believed everything she wrote; that much was as plain as the nose on my face, and she never wavered in anything. Her delusions seemed to be her reality.

Though, it certainly would explain her disappearance… How silly. She was pulling me into her illusions now, and I wouldn’t have that.

I set the diary aside and make myself a cheese sandwich and a hot cup of tea. I
’d keep reading, but keep my wits about me and not let my imagination take over. Yes. Good plan. I like it.

I told him of my plan to find my family, my abandoners, my deserters. He frowned at me when I said I could control my traveling. He said I should prove it to him, so I asked him, where did he want to go? He thought for a moment, blowing on my cold fingers for it was December and my gloves had holes, and said perhaps someplace warm, with sunshine and the ocean. A place all to ourselves. An island, he said. What era, I asked. He said it hardly mattered; we’d be alone, wouldn’t we? For a short time, I murmured, but he didn’t seem to hear me.

That night he snuck into my room. Security was never much at Bedlam. You
’d think it would be, reader, wouldn’t you? But it isn’t, not really. They let their patients fraternize, and oh yes, love affairs are frowned upon, but then again, it’s entertaining for the staff.

Am I entertaining you?

I nearly choke on my cheese. I am beginning to dislike Rose more and more. While before I felt overwhelming sympathy for the wretched thing, now I am starting to see why she was friendless and hopeless.

It almost feels as though she watches me from the shadows, as though she’s just out of my line of sight, her hand on my shoulder, her voice in my head, like she knows me.
It’s an unnerving, unsettling thought, and a shiver creeps up my back and settles in my neck.

I
’d like to just forget her, forget she ever existed, but I cannot. It’s too late.

For what exactly?

I don’t know anymore.

13

It was so late it was nearly morning before we fell asleep. Luke kept kissing me, and I kept telling him I had to concentrate. It was clear he didn’t really believe we would wake in an island paradise.

“
Though that would certainly confound the police and keep them from hanging me,” was the last thing he said before sleeping.

I was so excited to show him my powers, my specialness, my abilities! I was almost too excited to sleep, but I finally did. I pressed on my forehead where there was always a dull ache, almost like a soft heartbeat in my head, and thought of blue waters and green trees and endless beaches.

The sound of waves crashing woke us up.

Luke was speechless. He was so handsome in the sunlight. He kept staring around us in amazement. I just lay on the beach and watched him take it all in, all this knowledge of what I could do. When he finally could speak, he whooped like a little boy and went running down the beach. He flung sand and splashed in the waves, making me laugh. I had never laughed from happiness before, so I did it again, and I wanted the moment to last forever.

Of course, we stayed awake as long as possible to make our paradise last as long as it could. As beautiful as our island was in the sun, it was even more beautiful in the moonlight. Two days later, though, Luke teased me that next time could I please order up a deserted island with a meal or two waiting on silver platters?

Boys eat too much. He
’s always hungry. We had to go home.

When we returned, it was a different century, as usual. The hospital was new, so this was as far back in time as I had ever traveled. Luke said he
’d been further, said he’d been back to the very beginning, or very nearly so, but Luke lies. I don’t mind. We all lie, don’t you know?

For example, I told him I wanted to find my family to be reunited.

That was a lie.

I only wanted revenge.

Luke had blended into the crowd when we came back to Bedlam and was free to come and go as a visitor. I was never so lucky. I was always caught like a rabbit in a snare; the metal teeth of Bedlam always found my ankles and tripped me up. Oh, I could invent stories, and to myself I thought I was quite believable, but it never worked. They took one look at me and knew I belonged there.

I said I lied. I never said I was any good at it.

For a short time, while inwardly I formulated a plan for finding my family, outwardly we traveled. Luke’s mind had always bent towards thievery and mayhem, and though I cared not a fig for money, I didn’t mind a little adventure and it did my heart good to see him happy. I suppose it seems silly to some to steal and cause trouble and attempt to get rich when you can’t keep much of any of your spoils, but for Luke, just knowing he could and that he was perfecting his skills was enough. He’d steal little things at first; picking pockets, seeing what he could get away with. Well, of course, that’s typical and common behavior for the Lost: I too, have lifted my fair share of folding money. You have to survive. You don’t have the luxury of working your way up in a proper and respectable position, do you? No, you have to eat and you have to find shelter. Of course, some Lost don’t enjoy this part as much as we do.

Luke had been desperate to go someplace wealthy, someplace teeming with millionaires or ever billionaires, or pull of
f a scheme so large it could get us in the history books. He called us Bonnie and Clyde, though he had to explain to me who they were. A lovely enough young couple - I thought we would probably have been chums. Had I been the sort to have chums.

In New York City in an age where automobiles were all the rage and gangsters were in fashion, we nearly got ourselves killed by over-eager and underestimated police, when we held up a bank with stolen guns. I enjoyed the part I played in that particular heist: a pretty young thing, just opening her first bank account. I was coy and sweet and twirled my hair. I was never one for talking, not even when I was playacting, so I relied on hmming and hawing and in general, throwing myself on the wisdom of the young accountant. He was all too happy to sign me up for all sorts of things with his thinning hair and his proper
suit coat, and I was demure and gentle and meek with his attentions. My red dress I almost always slept in to travel had not been fine enough for this robbery, and Luke had pinched me a smart dress with navy piping and shiny buttons. My hat was set at a saucy angle on my light hair, a feather tickling my left eye at times. I remember the smell of the bank and the back of the accountant’s hands as he wrote and shuffled his papers, and the way he cleared his throat often, as though I made him particularly nervous.

When Luke leapt to the top of the counter, brandishing his weapon and gleefully shouting for order and respect and silence, I screamed like the lady I was pretending to be. I even huddled closer to the accountant, who had defied Luke by moving (around his desk, to me). What a gentleman, I suppose. I thought my scream sounded quite good – better than the woman across from me, who sounded like a wounded eagle. I wanted to shut her up permanently but we were here for other things. My brave and ever cheerful boy was nearly dancing along the counter tops. I think he fancied himself a sort of gangster and was enjoying the part immensely. Of course, we were only kids and we didn’t think things through very completely, so things got out of hand rather quickly. Having landed in an age of notorious bank robbers, our intrepid bank employees were very well trained. Someone had tipped off the police and I knew who it was: a smug faced lady who had given me the once over when we arrived. Luke had spoken to her too, before he revealed his pistol, and who knows what he had said that wasn’t to her satisfaction: I just know from my perspective, sitting demurely with the accountant’s arm around my shoulders, she was up to something. She was far too calm and
self-satisfied, and her eyes kept drifting to the back doorway, as if waiting for someone to appear. Perhaps she pressed a hidden button, perhaps she mouthed a code word to someone else who had slipped away, who knew. No matter. It hardly made a difference to Luke and me whether we slept in jail that night, or on the streets – though Luke, of course, would be disappointed in himself for getting caught. I sighed a bit at the turn of events, and then I turned on my accountant knight and pressed my pistol to his head. Luke laughed and leaned down from his counter top to plant a kiss on my hat.

“That’s my girl,” he said, fondly. “Now what do you say you bag up some money for us?”

We didn’t get terribly far before the police stormed in, and I suppose it would have easier and less messy to just surrender, but you’d be surprised how much adrenaline kicks in when you’re under duress like that. We nearly made it out the door before the shooting began. I was terribly irritated. I hadn’t minded running the risk of prison (what is that compared to Bedlam?) or the hazard of having causalities in our adventure, but I was hardly prepared to lose my own life over it. The window beside the door, and right beside the hat on my head, shattered. It also gave a new escape route, and Luke shoved me through with all the grace of a hippopotamus mother, or maybe a terrified lover about to lose his girl. We tumbled like rubber balls onto the sidewalk, and got up running and laughing. They didn’t catch us. Looking back, I wonder if they didn’t try their best. After all, we were a couple of kids and we had dropped the money and they had other fish to fry.

Our Bonnie and Clyde escapades were all Luke’s plans and desires, so he owed me one. I wanted to find my family now.

I thought about running the risk of leaving Luke behind. I wouldn’t be gone long, but the fear of him not being where I left him won out. I remembered Old Babba’s details: Italy, 1571, a villa by the sea. It was good information, and I knew I would be able to find my family eventually, even if I had to come back to the hospital and rest up between searches. It might take me a while, but I would find them, even if I had to go up and down every coastline, peek my head into every village window. And Luke would enjoy Italy, wouldn’t he? Of course he would because I would be there. He only wanted to be with me.

It took me nearly a year to find them. I was getting discouraged. I wasn
’t eating much, and Luke would feed me Nightfall pills because he couldn’t stay awake as long as I could.

Nightfall pills? What in the world? I wonder. Wonderful, now she’s on drugs. Lovely. Really lovely. I’d like to throttle this Luke. Who did he think he was, dispensing medications like candy?

When I finally found her, my mother, I had been awake for three days. I was not at my best. Upon hindsight, I suppose I should have left, gone back to Bedlam for a few days of peace and quiet, gotten some rest, gone back later, but once I saw her, walking that cliff, I couldn’t leave. I knew her at once.

Her dress, blue as cornflowers, was blowing in the wind. Her hair, half up, was blowing too. She looked like me. She should have known me instantly, but she didn
’t seem to. She seemed confused when I called her mother.

She said to get away from her. She said I was a cruel village girl, playing a mean trick on a grieving mother. She was angry.

I told her I was special, that she never should have left me, that I was better than my sister. She began to look less angry and more frightened. I think she started to believe me then, started to believe I really was Rose.

I held out my hand to her. Or was it she who held hers out to me? I don
’t remember now. How funny!

Someone held out their hand, and someone didn
’t…

Someone fell and someone didn
’t.

Wasn
’t me. I never fall.

Jack and Jill went up a hill…and Mother came tumbling after.

At this, I begin to long for my medical dictionary for my bed
time reading, but at least I have a reason now to keep searching for Rose. I need to find her before she harms anyone else, and I need to keep Mr. Connelly from getting too involved with her. It’s clear he doesn’t know what she is capable of.

If he i
s right, and if my strange night with the writing on the wall is to be believed, she hasn’t gone far.

********************

The next morning, instead of pestering a vague and cryptic Miss Helmes about Rose Gray again, I head straight for the doctor. I am annoyed to find the golden boy, Mack, already ahead of me in his office.

“Here to see Doc Ford?” Mack asks, cheerfully. He sets aside whatever book he had been reading when I walked in.

“
Here to perform difficult surgeries?” I retort, sourly. I’m glad for my red lipstick today; I feel more grownup with it.

“
Nah, just here to talk shop. You know, shoot the breeze?”

“
Wonderful. Must be nice to be such chums.”

“
Shall I put in a good word for you? Tell him you’ve done your fair share of bed making and mopping?”

“
No, thanks.” I’ll work my own way up, even if it kills me.

The door to the inner office opens, and Dr. Ford is suddenly filling the frame. He
’s a large man, a bit fat, and even his bones are big. His hands are large and red as they grip the door handle.

“
Ah.” A flicker of recognition passes over his face as he sees me. “Two visitors this morning? To what do I owe the honor of my sudden popularity?”

“
Go ahead, doll,” Mack nods to me generously.

I want to scowl, but instead I attempt a gracious smile. It probably looks like a grimace, but it
’s the best I can do. I stand and hold out my hand for the doctor to shake. He always looks a bit taken aback, like every man, when I greet him this masculine way, but the advance of women must start somewhere. I must take myself seriously, even if he doesn’t. Yet.

“
What can I do for you?” Dr. Ford pauses a minute as we take a seat in his office. I can tell he is struggling to find my name in his memory. “Lizzie, is it?”

“
Yes, sir. I’m looking for a former patient, sir, a young woman named Rose Gray. She’s stayed at the hospital off and on since she was about eleven, I believe. Are you familiar with her? It’s imperative I locate her whereabouts now.”

“
Is it?” The good doctor looks intrigued. He sets aside the papers he’d been shuffling, and gives me his attention. “And why is that?”

“
I believe she’s quite dangerous, sir, and I don’t think she should be wandering around London. She may harm someone, or even herself.”

“
Ah. A diagnosis.” Dr. Ford smiles, and even though I don’t know that he means it to be, it feels very patronizing. “Remember, I am quite new here. Haven’t been here long enough to know everyone, and I must say, I am unused to nurses making diagnoses.” His words are a warning. He has moved from kind to cautionary in one fell swoop.

“
So, you have never met Rose Gray?” I persist, ignoring his barb. I’ll probably pay for it later with a decrease in pay, more bedpan duty, or getting canned. Bloody hell, I hope my impertinence doesn’t get me canned.

“
I didn’t say that. I met her once. Just once. I peeked my head in her room when I was touring the place before I settled on my position here. She was asleep though so I’m afraid I didn’t get a very good look, and I wasn’t able to interview her. Very interesting case, very interesting indeed. I hoped she would stay longer, but,” he snapped his large fingers. “She was gone, just like that. As if she’d never been here at all.”