Neither did Dan.
He turned his attention to the pamphlet of notes. Sitting on the edge of a table a few feet behind Jordan’s chair, he swung his legs nervously back and forth. While coming inside had brought an initial blast of warmth, the cold seemed to have found its way back into his bones.
The topmost pieces of paper felt brittle, stained with dark, broken rings, as if from coffee cups. Some of the pencil notes in the margins had worn away to obscurity from age. Dan propped the pages on his knees, afraid that handling the pamphlet would only damage the pages more. A note card had been clipped to the front of the stack.
“Kentucky, 1953,’” he read quietly. “He would have been in his prime then.”
“So you’re sure he wrote that?” Jordan asked.
“Yes,” Dan replied, flipping to the first page. “I know his handwriting by now.”
It rained all day yesterday and this morning. I wrongly assumed it would be warm here in the spring, but the days are chill and cloudy, and the rain seems never to stop. Dr. Forester believes that might disrupt the subjects’ concentration and expressed his relief that milder weather persists. I attempted to share my theories regarding a three-pronged approach—physically, sensory, spiritually—but Forester insists on exploring only the physical. This shortsightedness will be his downfall. I’m sure of it.
Perhaps I should not begrudge Forester his purely scientific approach. This is not a privately-funded experiment. Every I must be dotted, every T crossed. Still, all avenues should be investigated, we seek to unlock the core secrets of the mind and that may not be possible using chemicals and suggestions alone.
Dan flipped to the next page. Half of what he was looking at was incomprehensible, blocked-off charts with shorthand scribbles only a doctor could decipher. No patient names were listed, just numbers, presumably to maintain some kind of anonymity. He wondered if there was a corresponding list somewhere that contained the patients’ identities.
The warden’s writing picked up again on the page after that.
As I expected, when administered the drug, subjects hallucinate and babble, but we are no closer to producing a clean slate. One prostitute—I have forgotten her name—chased her own shadow for four hours. Not the breakthrough any of us were hoping for. Patient 67 has been given lysergic acid diethylamide for eight consecutive days. Forester plans to continue this persistent dosage. For how long he would not say.
Yet all of this remains irrelevant. When I wrested that jewel from Dr. Maudire’s clenched hands, I did so believing I would one day put it to use for the greater good. I might not consider myself a patriot, but the thought of having utter control over a person’s mind in the long term . . . If I must suffer Forester’s fool antics to get closer to the answer, then I can play the docile assistant.
He remains convinced that we will find a way to manufacture the ultimate truth serum, and reprogram the mind. A simpleton could be made a genius, a genius a fool. The implications for espionage, for warfare, are immense. But that is not where my interest lies. To control the now is a simple thing, but to control the future? That is worth striving for.
For a long moment, Dan stared down at the page in his lap. This went way beyond what he had expected to find. If the date on the note card was correct, it meant the warden had been laying the groundwork for his experiments at Brookline for years before he became the warden there. Whatever research he had begun in Kentucky he had continued in even more gruesome ways at the asylum.
Abby spoke up suddenly, craning her neck to look up at Jordan from her place on the floor. “What’s lysergic acid die . . . thyla . . . mide?” She stumbled over the word, then picked up a note card and held it up for Jordan. “This. What is that?”
“It’s in mine, too,” Dan said.
Jordan took the card and opened a new browser window, typing with quick, loud keystrokes. “Huh. That’s weird. It’s LSD.”
“You mean like acid?” Abby asked, snorting. “That can’t be right.”
“Click on that top entry,” Dan said. Over Jordan’s shoulder he could see the Wikipedia entry for the drug. “Skim it.”
“Hey . . . ,” Jordan said softly, reading, then louder. “Whoa. Whoa, hey.” He pointed frantically at the screen, twisting around to give Dan a wide-eyed grimace. “The CIA experimented with this stuff. They thought they could use it for mind control and like drop bombs of it on Russia. Chemical warfare, messed-up stuff. My history teacher used to rant about this. I guess I just assumed he was full of it.” Glancing at the screen, he sat up straighter. “MKUltra. That’s it. That’s what he used to rant about in fifth period.”
“It sounds like the warden wasn’t happy with how the experiments were going,” Dan said. He did some quick mental math. “Nineteen fifty-three . . . Eisenhower was president then.”
“That explains the picture.” Abby took it from where she had placed it on the floor.
“So the warden gets picked to be part of CIA experiments and goes to Kentucky, but he’s unsatisfied with the methods and, what? Leaves to come here and start up his own experiments on mental patients?” It was more information than they’d had before, but Dan couldn’t help feeling they were still missing something. There was the mention of Dr. Maudire and the jewel. And in the young warden’s journal, he called his special rock “the bright burning star.” Could it be the same jewel that was on Lucy’s necklace? What did it have to do with Felix?
His fingers itched to grab that other journal, the one still hidden in his coat. Instead, he looked at the next page of the pamphlet. The entry was short, just a few lines. He hadn’t considered that handwriting could actually look angry, but this did.
Forester is a myopic old fool. He continues to thwart me, and even went so far as to chide me for circumventing the parameters of the experiment. Me! Chide me! When he is the weak link in the chain. Maybe if he were my patient, I could unlock his true potential and then he would not be so limiting or so dull.
The entries became shorter and shorter.
Forester dismissed me permanently today. That is well enough. I’ve had a breakthrough, and as I suspected, it was only possible through the three-pronged approach. The drug, the operation, the stone. It is not yet perfect, but I have found the secret to creating my own true agents. Control. I have it at last.
A few pages later and there was hardly anything written at all.
Sanctum, a holy or sacred place—what could be more sacred than possessing the power of your own true thoughts? Sanctum. It is both lock and key.
When Dan turned to the next set of notes, the paper looked much newer, not nearly as stained or crinkled. Again, they were clipped with a note card, and the date caught his attention—1960. Seven years later. That was quite a gap. He shivered to think what the warden might have gotten up to in those missing years.
I have found him at last. My perfect subject. There will be more perfect ones, I’m sure, but he was the first. An alcoholic, homeless, nobody would miss him. One hundred and seventy-four days with the drugs in his system. A marvel it didn’t permanently damage his mind. It was a simple thing to arrange the surgery and see that his lobotomy was completed without incident.
Now all that remains is the third and final step, reprogramming his mind with hypnosis, and thereby exposing him to Dr. Maudire’s jewel. I have never believed in the power of trinkets. Reasoning, logic, knowledge, science—in these things I believe. But objects? It’s silly even to entertain the thought . . . but my hypnosis is never more potent than when I use the trickster’s stone. There is something unique about this stone, I’m convinced of this. Even a man of science must amend his beliefs when the same result occurs again and again.
Maudire claimed he stole it from a mad spinster’s grave, and the act of robbing a dead woman gave the gem its terrible power. A wild fantasy, I’m certain, meant to capture the imagination of a lonely little boy.
It worked, though perhaps not in the old fool’s favor. Did its power increase, I won
der, when I strangled its owner?
It does not matter. What matters is that I have tracked my perfect subject, my dear Harry Cartwright, and soon he will be my thrall.
So Maudire really was dead. Dan had never met the man himself, just his apparition. How did that work exactly? Did the old magician leave behind some kind of imprint? It was one thing to see another person’s memories, it was another thing entirely to have a conversation with them. Shuddering, Dan skimmed back up the page. “Listen to this. . . .”
He read that last entry to them, feeling the chill in the room deepen as he went. When he finished, he let the pamphlet fall onto his legs. He considered his next words very carefully, then reached into his coat and fished out the young warden’s journal. It wouldn’t be right to hide it; it frightened him, really, that he’d had the inclination to do so in the first place.
“What’s that?” Abby asked, her mouth hanging open a little in surprise.
“I found it tonight. In that first house . . . I didn’t want to say anything in front of Micah.”
“I think that dude is on the level,” Jordan said wryly. “I know I gave him a hard time earlier, but he didn’t have to run off like that so we could get away.”
“Do you think he’s okay?” Abby glanced swiftly between them. “I almost feel like we should have called the police.”
“I don’t know,” Dan said. “The guy is tough, though. I bet he got away. Right now I just want to focus on piecing this all together.” He handed the journal to Abby, who took it with just two fingers, as if it were a smelly dead thing. “I think the warden grew up in that house. I found a hidden trapdoor under a rug with an old tin and that journal. He wrote it when he was a kid. It’s . . . kind of sad, actually.”
“‘Today Patrick went up to the roof. Wake up, Patrick, I said, wake up now and fly!’” Abby read, having opened to a random entry. “‘When he came back down again he was all broken and his head had gone lumpy.’”
“I think Patrick was one of his brothers,” Dan explained. “He talks about wanting to control them. He was being bullied. It’s weird because I’d thought Daniel was the oldest of three. That’s what Pastor Bittle told me this summer. But apparently he had a fourth brother.”
“Wait, let me get this straight,” Jordan cut in. “He was pissed at his brother so he pushed him off the roof?”
Dan shook his head. “Not pushed. Hypnotized.”
From the floor, Abby gasped, but it came out half-choked. “Oh my God, he drew a picture of it.”
She held up the book for them to see, and she was right. There, under the short description of Patrick’s fall, was a crude crayon drawing of a boy on his back, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles. The mangled boy wore a striped sweater and too-short pants. Dan’s eyes widened—he hadn’t been seeing young Daniel in his hallucinations. There was one line of writing under the picture.
Patrick will stay quiet now.
“So the warden was an evil creeper even as a child,” Jordan said, taking off his glasses to clean them on his sweater. “Good to know.”
“It goes deeper than that,” Dan replied, a little impatient with Jordan for making light of it. “We knew he was obsessed with preserving his legacy, but it’s about more than that. He couldn’t control his brothers, he couldn’t control Forester, he couldn’t control that Maudire guy he strangled. . . .”
“But he figured out a way to do it,” Abby said. She put the child’s journal on the carpet and pushed it away as if she couldn’t stand to touch it. “He got close with Harry Cartwright during those experiments, and then tracked him down when it was over. Do you think that’s how he ended up returning to Camford?”
“Hmm . . .” Jordan leaned back in the desk chair, bouncing a little. He tented his hands and squinted up at the ceiling. “He gets chosen to participate in covert CIA experiments, he thinks they’re crap—which they were, by the way; they never figured out how to do jack shit with the LSD, if Mr. Chandahar is right—”
“Who on earth is Mr. Chandahar?” Abby interjected.
“My history teacher . . . the conspiracy nut? Anyway, Crazy-Pants Crawford—no offense—”
Dan snorted. “None taken.”
“—manages to subdue Harry Cartwright with drugs and surgery, then the experiments end and Cartwright goes on his merry way to buddy up to Caroline and maybe those other girls, too. Warden Looney Tunes—no offense—”
“Still none taken.”
“—finds out good ole Harry went to Camford to start life as a postmaster, but then the warden shows up and women start going missing and, hey! Do you think that’s where Harry took the girls? To the warden? Maybe he wasn’t at Brookline yet. Maybe he needed test subjects or something.”
Dan shivered, remembering his vision of the warden at Harry Cartwright’s house, so clearly manipulating him. No wonder the man was so docile; Crawford had partially lobotomized him.
“Okay, screw this, I need a snack.” Jordan pushed up from the desk, stretching and yawning. “Ouch. It’s almost one in the morning. I’m going to hit a vending machine. Do you guys want anything?”
“Be careful, Jordan, those weirdos could still be out there,” Abby said. She got to her feet, following Jordan’s example and stretching.
“I’ll be quick,” he reassured them.
“I’ll take a water,” Abby added. “Dan?”
“Water’s good. Watch your back, Jordan, seriously.”
“I’ll be fine,” Jordan insisted, shuffling to the door. “And no, those are not famous last words. My last words would be way more epic. Anyway, if I’m not back in ten minutes, send Wentworth Miller and a cheese pizza.”
Dan put down the notes, rubbing his eyes. He felt vaguely tired—that is, his body was tired, but his mind was still sharp and awake. Something nagged. For all the information they had gathered, the puzzle wasn’t quite complete. Why had Felix wanted them to find all this?
He looked at Abby, who had shifted into Jordan’s vacated chair. She smiled across the aisle at Dan, leaning her chin on one hand.
“We’ve hardly had five minutes to breathe since we got here,” she said. “How are you holding up?”
“This is . . . a lot. I mean, I knew we were dealing with an evil guy but this just goes deeper than I could have imagined.” Dan could feel a headache starting. That’s what happened when he went this long without taking his meds.
“It does seem a bit over our heads,” Abby agreed. “But how are you? Outside of all this.”
“I want it to be over. I want to be able to relax again and enjoy my time with you guys. With you.” His cheeks burned and he glanced down at his shoes. “I mean . . . I like spending time with you. I’d like to do it more often. I was really hoping you would get to take me to Lara’s installation.”
“Me too, Dan. I’d like to think that one day when this is over, you and I can see . . . Well . . .” She laughed, shaking her head. “Jeez, talking about LSD and the CIA is easier, go figure. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is: I don’t know what we are right now, but I’d like to find out.”
Dan nodded, grateful that she could articulate what he couldn’t. All he knew for certain was that looking at her made his fears and doubts feel less insurmountable. If that wasn’t the start of love, it was at least something to hold on to. “I’d like that, too. I just . . . The past few weeks it feels like you and Jordan have been distant. Was I just imagining it?”
It was her turn to blush. “I can’t speak for Jordan, but I’ve been scared, you know? I mean, we went through a pretty rough summer together, and it wasn’t totally your fault, but . . . I guess I started to feel like if I wanted to move on from that, I needed to move on from you. Not to mention, I didn’t want to get attached and then watch you go off to UCLA or something. I guess I was just holding back to protect myself, but maybe that wasn’t fair.”
“No.” Dan shook his head quickly. “It makes perfect sense. And I think you’re right to worry and watch out for yoursel
f. Who knows where we’ll end up? Better to wait and see once everything’s back to normal.”
“Normal? You’re hallucinating, I’m hearing voices—maybe normal isn’t in the cards for us right now.”
She laughed, but Dan was distracted, his mind latching on to something she had said. . . .
“What is it? Dan? What happened?”
“My hallucinations,” he murmured, wishing his clumsy mouth would catch up to his thoughts. “They didn’t start until I got here, did they?”
It is not yet perfect, but I have found the secret to creating my own true agents. Control. I have it at last.
“The warden,” Dan blurted, grabbing the pamphlet and flipping pages furiously. “He said he figured it out . . . or got close. He said he could make agents, hypnotize them—that the drug was part of it. What if that’s why I’m hallucinating? Listen . . .” He started to read over the journal entry. “‘I have found the secret to creating my own true agents.’ Those agents . . . they could be trying to drug us. They could be doing it already.”
“Who’s they?” Abby asked. Dan was sure this was significant, but Abby didn’t look convinced in the slightest. “Drugging us? You don’t think that’s awfully far-fetched, even after everything?”
“It wouldn’t be hard, would it? We eat food prepared by other people. The drinks are all out of their dispensers. Maybe it’s far-fetched but it’s possible.”
“Are you sure you’re not just . . . hoping that’s the case? I mean, wouldn’t you feel better knowing the hallucinations weren’t from you but something else?”
She had a point, but Dan didn’t really stop to consider it. He was already racing ahead, piecing together more and more of what felt like a plausible scenario. “This whole time we’ve assumed the warden’s influence was confined to Brookline, but what if that’s wrong? What if the whole college was in on the experiments? The whole community? It makes sense, Abby. How could he keep what was going on covered up unless he had help? Someone had to be running interference for him while he did his experiments at the asylum.”