The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls

  The revelry commenced, and, my God, the sheer joy exuding from every soul in communion was . . . overpowering. Though it was winter, and tiny flakes of snow had begun to fall, we were warmed by our dancing, by the blazing fires set in great stone urns placed about the roof, and, truth be told, by our liquid refreshments, be it the steam from the tea, or the bubbles from the champagne.

  I began to feel inexplicably overwrought, almost as though I were—and this will sound very strange, Diary—as though I were too happy. I left the crowd to sit in solitude for a moment. I felt a hand brush my shoulder; I thought I heard Veronica’s voice speaking my name, but, when I turned to look, no one was there.

  I had not been away long when the Captain found me, bearing a teacup filled with pink champagne and candied ginger.

  ‘Do you remember, Captain, a Sunday morning when I found that poor rat dead in the soup?’

  ‘I think I will never forget it.’

  ‘It was upon that day that I remember comprehending with complete clarity that we were truly prisoners . . . that all hope was lost to us . . .’

  ‘Yes, sweet Valentine, but you have led us into a new life . . . you created hope where there was none, and now look what we have!’

  ‘And I am so happy . . . but that’s just it. I feel as though . . . as though I have realised with equal clarity that we are free, and, not only that, but more free than we had ever dreamt of being, and I don’t know what comes next . . .’

  The Captain took me in her arms. The ladies of the Striped Stocking Society rushed towards us with gleeful shouts, pulling us up and onto the floor with the other revelers. Determined to enjoy this moment, I breathed deeply and swallowed the contents of my teacup before tossing it aside to smash against the chimney. The music swelled, the dancers twirled, and I spun madly. Lifting my face to the sky, the silver powder settled upon my flushed cheeks, cooling them just enough that I may continue my wildness. It would soon be time to look to the constellations and welcome the New Year.

  And, finally, I had done it!

  I had managed to break through my past, through my memories, those that kept some secret part of my being embedded in the life I had long escaped. My happiness rose within me—a living, pulsating light, shooting from my toes to my legs and up through my raised arms to my fingertips—and I thought, This! This is what freedom really feels like!

  I fell to the ground.

  Sachiko ran to help me up, but I told her I was all right, and stood on my own.

  Then, we both fell.

  The rooftops were shaking, our beautiful scenery crashing down about us. All stood motionless and listened as a deep, yawning groan rose from the very depths of the building we stood upon. This unearthly noise was immediately followed by the sound of crumbling brick and stone.

  The Asylum was collapsing.

  Iron bars snapped out of cell windows as the structure round them was crushed under its own weight. And then, entire segments of the tenement began to fall.

  I heard the words of Sir Edward upon the night I had first met him in Ward A . . . he had told me then that the Asylum was built directly upon the city’s trash heap—that it was built only to deceive, that it had no foundation at all, that it was never, ever meant to last. It had always been a façade—outwardly grand, but, inside, merely mistake built upon mistake, flaw upon flaw upon flaw . . .

  Every wall that had miraculously stood these long years had surrendered to the inevitable at last, and, as one fell, the rest followed.

  How could I have thought that this could go on forever?

  Rats scurried between the dashing feet of the panicked inmates as they hurried about in their voluminous gowns, frantically attempting to find a way down from the rooftops, but the exits were either blocked or had already fallen away.

  And that is when the flames broke out.

  The increasing snowfall did its best to contain the mounting inferno, but I knew that, within minutes, we would be engulfed.

  I stared as hundreds of inmates, in an act of astonishing acceptance, lined themselves up along the roof’s edge and began to jump—some alone, many holding hands, their skirts billowing about them, soft curls flying every which where through a sparkling midnight sky.

  It was breathtaking.

  Suicide, I thought, is a cold, ugly, desperate thing, and, when it happens, it is always lonely. Suicide is not the poetic act that our painters portray.

  But the truth is that, in this moment alone, it was.

  Peering over the ledge still intact before me at the ground so fatally far below, I thought of Anne—of that night we stood together, leaning over the rail of the bridge . . . of how the moon had shown us a different path that neither the Count, nor his friends, nor his hounds, nor anyone in the world save us could follow . . . .

  I climbed up onto the ledge and extended my hand to the Captain.

  ‘Well, where shall we sail to next, Captain?’ I asked her, so that all round me could hear.

  Our eyes locked, and she leapt up onto the ledge beside me.

  ‘An entirely new destination, I think! The routing has only just been mapped, and we shall be the very first to explore it if we board the ship at once.’

  Sachiko mounted and bravely took my other hand.

  Enormous fragments of the roof were simply falling away, and the flames were close behind us.

  I glanced back to my fellow inmates, and, as they dispersed towards the ledge, I saw Veronica. Her soft white gown melted into the snow she stood upon like sea mist; moonlit tendrils tumbled round her shoulders, and she smiled at me.

  Then, I saw Anne. She, too, was smiling, and her green eyes gleamed as she gave a single nod of her head.

  A third figure appeared from behind them and stepped forwards. Madam Mournington’s hair was long and loose, and her eyes were every bit as beautiful as I had once suspected they might have been. I had never imagined them filled with such kindness, nor the smile so sweet.

  ‘Anchors aweigh!’ shouted the Captain, raising her ancient paper hat high into the air.

  The last of the inmates took their places upon the ledge, and we all joined hands.

  I called out to them for the last time.

  ‘Goodnight, sweet Ladies, goodnight . . .’

  And then, we jumped.

  hospital entry 26: missing

  It’s four o’clock and I can’t sleep.

  I feel sick.

  I refuse to believe that the Asylum is gone . . . that it really, truly collapsed . . . Emily dead . . . all dead . . . all over . . . I cannot . . . I will not believe it really happened . . . this is not how it’s supposed to end . . .

  I need to see the letter again.

  Is it really to be my last?

  Can I survive this place without Emily? Without all of them?

  I don’t think I can do it.

  I don’t even think I want to do it.

  I’m starting to panic. I need to get out of this room. I need to get out of this hospital. I reach down into my stocking to retrieve the last letter . . . I wish there were some fucking light in here . . .

  Something isn’t right.

  The paper feels different. It isn’t the waxy, delicate parchment I had touched only a few hours ago. It is thicker . . . rough . . . with texture but without form.

  I leap out of bed and open the heavy plastic curtains to look through the bars for a sliver of moon to see the letter by.

  But I am not holding a letter.

  I am holding . . . what is it . . . it looks almost like . . . a napkin . . . like the coarse, brown paper napkins in the psych ward bathroom . . .

  I race to the locked doors, pounding them with my fists, shouting for the nurses to let me out, shouting that it’s an emergency. My cellmates turn over in their beds, but they are too drugged to care about the noise. Finally, a nurse comes running and the heavy doors open. The artificial
light in the hallway is blinding.

  “Emilie! What are you doing?” asks the nurse, pulling me outside the bedroom.

  “Somebody has been taking my things,” I tell her.

  Am I having a panic attack? I can’t breathe.

  “Somebody has been in my things. Somebody has been in my bed. Somebody in that room took something of mine, and I want it back right now. I don’t care what time it is—this is not OK. Right now. Right now. Right now.”

  “Emilie, you have to calm down; we don’t want to wake everybody, do we? Now, come along with me and we’ll get you something to make you sleep. You’ve had a bad dream, that’s all. We can switch up your medication and see if that helps.”

  “No! I don’t want any more of your fucking drugs, and I don’t want to fucking calm down. I want you to go in there right now and wake everybody up and find out who took it!”

  “Took what, Emilie? What is it you’re missing?”

  I am not going to explain this to her. I need my notebook.

  “Nothing . . . it’s nothing. May I please get a personal belonging from the closet?”

  “No, Emilie, not now—you’ll have to wait until morning. Let’s go. Come with me.”

  “Please . . . please . . . please, all I want is my notebook and I promise I’ll calm down. I will be so fucking calm. Please . . . I’m saying please . . .”

  The nurse pauses—this is not allowed.

  “OK, Emilie, you can have your notebook, but only for five minutes, and then you have to go back to bed.”

  We walk down the hall toward the closet. The nurse’s hand is on my shoulder. She is trying to keep contact—to anticipate my next move. She unlocks the closet door, and before she can pull the string to turn on the light, I am inside, digging through the boxes to locate my own. I feel for my notebook. The light comes on and I find it. Notebook in hand, I turn and walk quickly into the Day Room. Don’t run, don’t run, don’t run.

  “Emilie, let me give you something.”

  The nurse is following me.

  “No, thank you, leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.”

  I walk away from her. I know I am repeating myself, but I don’t know why.

  “All right, but five minutes, Emilie. I’ll come back to get you.”

  I hear the nurse return to the glass booth; she is talking nervously to the other nurse on night watch. I sit down upon the old green couch that I had shared with Violet that day . . . that day when she had told me . . . I am tearing through the pages, looking for my Asylum letters, but they are not here. Between the pages where the letters ought to be are the same brown paper napkins, then a paper menu from the kitchen, then more napkins, another menu, more napkins, tissues, the wrapping from a teabag . . . there is scribbling on the rubbish, some in red crayon, some in pencil, scribbling, just scribbling . . . I bolt from the Day Room and pound on the booth where the two women are sitting and drinking coffee. One is on the phone, and the other comes to the window and talks to me through the small opening at the bottom, just like a ticket window at the movies . . . it’s just like a ticket window . . . like they’re selling something . . .

  “What is it, Emilie?”

  “Somebody has been through my notebook and taken my letters. This is not OK. You can not do this. I want to know who did this, and I want my letters back. Now.”

  “Emilie, nobody has been through your notebook. We don’t do that here—your belongings are your belongings, and we respect that. Anything that was there is still there.”

  “That is a lie! You’re lying to me! Get out of that cage, you cowardly bitch! Get out and look at this!”

  The nurse emerges from the office.

  “All right, Emilie, show me what’s missing. Nance, will you get something for Emilie to take?”

  “Look. I had letters in here. Here and here and here . . . between these pages . . . dozens of them . . . a hundred . . . they are all gone, and there is a bunch of garbage that I did not put here. Somebody has been in my notebook and replaced my letters with napkins and . . . and . . . trash. I need to have my letters back. Please,” I am pleading now, “can you please find out where they are? I just need them back. I need them back. I need them back. I need—”

  “Emilie, calm down, deep breath . . . come on now, give me one deep breath. That’s a good girl. Now, let’s look at this together. Let’s see . . . The writing on this napkin looks like yours, doesn’t it? And this one . . . this is your writing, Emilie. Can’t you tell?”

  It is my writing. It is my writing that goes from an elegant print to an unrecognizable scrawl and then back again . . . I have never understood why I can’t just write in one normal style like normal people do. It is my writing. It is unmistakable. But it is impossible.

  “No, this is wrong. I don’t remember writing these. I didn’t write these. I don’t even know what they say . . . this is all gibberish . . . it doesn’t say anything . . .”

  Wait a minute.

  “How did you know that?” I ask the nurse, quietly.

  “How did I know what, Emilie?”

  “How did you know that’s my writing? Why would you know what my writing looks like?”

  I’m not calm anymore.

  “WHY WOULD YOU KNOW WHAT MY WRITING LOOKS LIKE?”

  Oh god . . . Violet was right . . . they’ve been in my notebook . . . they’ve read everything.

  “No, this is not right at all . . . No. No. No. No. No.”

  I am slapping the wall with each “No.”

  I can’t stop.

  Nancy, the other nurse, returns; she has brought one of the armed security guards back with her. An enormous beast with hideous breath, he calls me “sweetheart” and grips my shoulders tightly. Nurse Nancy forces the pills into my mouth and tries to pour water from a tiny paper cup down after them, but it only ends up on my face and spilling down my chest, soaking my hospital gown.

  I hear myself screaming.

  The notebook is on the floor, the napkins and other trash scattered around it.

  I think I just kicked the guard who has hold of me from behind.

  Dr. Sharp is rushing through the double iron doors that guard the entrance to the Maximum Security Psych Ward. He is walking toward me and I am trying to run away, but I can’t. What is he doing here at this hour? Is he always here? Does he live here? Does he have a camera on me? Is he fucking watching me all the fucking time? I am screaming at him to get away from me. I don’t want him to touch me. The guard lifts me from the ground as if I am no heavier than a lapdog or a throw pillow, and Dr. Sharp directs him into a room just off the hallway as I flail my limbs, trying to escape the giant’s grasp. He is laying me onto a sterile white bed with a cold metal frame, and Dr. Sharp is strapping me down. He is strapping me down. I am being strapped down.

  My vision is getting blurry . . . I can hear them all talking, but it sounds very far away . . . this is what the voices sounded like when I was little . . . this is exactly what they sounded like . . . what pills did she give me? The nurse is flicking the tip of a syringe. The Doctor’s hands are on me. He is standing at the foot of my bed, holding down my legs. The Chaser is lifting my shoulders, exposing my back. Through half-closed eyes, I am looking directly at Dr. Stockill. Is he smiling at me? He nods to the nurse. My hair is lifted out of the way, and I feel the needle piercing the back of my ne—

  hospital entry 27: the end

  I am awake. I don’t know where I am. But I am awake.

  I am somewhere else.

  I am lying flat upon a hard, narrow gurney.

  My eyes flutter open to observe yet another awful fluorescent light buzzing overhead.

  There is a strap buckled across my chest, two more around my wrists, and another over my legs. My wrists are thin, like Anne Boleyn’s neck, and I manage to free my hands. I unbuckle the other straps and sit upright.

/>   The room is small and painfully bright. It is a hospital room, cold and clinical, but there is nothing in it besides the metal bed with its thin blue mattress. Everything in the hospital that isn’t white is blue . . . I think I once heard that this is because blue is the opposite of blood . . .

  There is a single door with its standard silver hospital doorknob. I step down from the bed and walk to the door, my legs quivering.

  I try the knob.

  The door is locked.

  It is completely quiet outside. Impossibly quiet. I knock on the door.

  “Hello? Somebody?”

  No answer. I am pounding on the door now.

  “Somebody? Anybody? I’m awake!”

  Still nothing.

  “I’m awake! I want to come out!”

  Dead silence. I am in a vacuum.

  I am beating on the door . . . on the walls. I am screaming my bloody head off . . . I am screaming until I can’t breathe . . . until my voice is gone and I can make no more sound. I am exhausted . . . I feel like my brain is shutting down . . . what have they done with me?

  I sink to the floor . . . I don’t know I’ve been crying until I feel the tears drying upon my face . . . I collapse in the corner, facing the wall, leaning my head against the plaster . . . it is far too white . . . blindingly white . . . it hurts my eyes.

  I lift my hand to touch the wall . . . I feel a tiny crack in the paint . . . I pick at it . . . bits of paint flake off onto the speckled linoleum floor . . . I can’t stop . . . larger flakes are peeling off . . . I am tearing at the wall now . . . I’ve made a large hole in the plaster . . . I’m still tearing . . . my fingers are bleeding, smearing the wall with red . . .

  Finally, I sit back and look at what I’ve done.

  Where the plaster has been torn away, I see the layer beneath . . . stripes . . . black-and-white . . . they’re moving . . .

  Excerpt #1 from confiscated notebook, passage of interest, typed out for clarity:

  I had always thought that cutting was something that angsty teenage girls did for attention. That was before I began doing it.