Selena stopped, staring at the glass. A swollen, purple face stared back at her.
She frowned. The woman in the glass frowned.
She turned to Edith, trying to ask the question. All she could manage was the word, "Who?"
Edith's laughter was low and rolling. "Why, 'tis you, lassie. Selena." She took Selena by the hand and led her to the glass.
"That's Selena in the mirror. You."
She stared at the face. Dark brown eyes stared back at her from a puffy, cut, discolored oval. Her face was purplish black, with seeping yellowish patches along her jaw. The skin was so swollen and bloated, there were no features left at all.
She remembered the word for what she saw. "Ugly,"
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she whispered. Tears caught in her eyes, blurred the image, and she was glad for them, glad for the soft veil they created. "Ugly."
"No, lassie, not ugly. Hurt." Edith touched Selena's cheek. "The ugly will pass when the hurt is gone."
Selena didn't need to understand the words. She could see the answer in the mirror. And finally she understood why Ian-God had left her.
Minutes crawled by on weak legs. Ian pulled his pocket watch out?again?and checked the time: 11:15.
What was taking them so blasted long?
"Apparently bathing the princess is a protracted procedure," Johann said. "No doubt she keeps drinking the water."
"Shut up, Johann," Andrew said, shooting a quick look at Ian.
Ian did his best to ignore them all. The crazies were in the drawing room with him, sprawled in corners and sitting on chairs and lounging in doorways. He felt their collective stare like a slow, suffocating weight on his throat.
He stared at the small, square board in his lap.
Square peg in a square hole. A child can do it, for God's sake. Even Maeve could do it.
"You're holding that damn game as if it were a sword," Johann drawled, strolling toward the fireplace. "She won't pass, you know. The poor incompetent still thinks her name is Ian."
Ian leveled a cool, contemptuous glance at the younger man. "She'll pass."
Johann's thin lips slid into a strained smile. "Ah, a dreamer. How quaint."
Maeve looked up from the stuffed owl in her lap. "I dreamed I went to Paris last night. It was beautiful."
Queen Victoria grunted. "I spit on France."
Ian rolled his eyes. Lord, would it never end? He looked at the closed door. He should push through it
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and go back to the quiet darkness of his room, but strangely enough, he found some comfort in being with other people right now. They were all here, drawn by the mystery of Selena, each in his or her own twisted way hoping that she would pass the upcoming tests.
Even Johann. The younger man was afraid to believe in Selena. He'd worked so hard at creating his hatred for everything and everyone in the world, he couldn't admit that he cared about their sleeping beauty.
But Johann cared. Ian saw it in his eyes, in the way he lurked in the shadows outside her room. Johann was no different from the rest of them. Selena had become a symbol of something to him. For Ian, she symbolized the redemption of his career. For Johann and the others?who knew?
Footsteps thudded down the stairs.
A quietly indrawn breath moved through the drawing room. Almost everyone straightened, leaned infinitesi-mally forward.
The crystal doorknob turned. Edith walked into the room, her fleshy cheeks rosy, her hair a kinky mass of curls. "She's done ... sort of."
Ian frowned, came to his feet. "What do you mean, sort of?"
"I couldn't wash her hair. I tried to twist it up some, but she wouldn't let me pin it up." Edith shrugged. "She screamed. I guess that meant it hurt."
"Oh. Well, that's fine."
"Certainly," Johann piped up. "What's a little lice among friends?"
Edith puffed up. "That poor wee thing doesn't have lice."
"Ignore the syphilitic bastard," Ian said, reaching for the pile of pictures he'd set on the table beside him.
Johann plastered a skinny hand to his chest and sighed dramatically. "Ah, Dr. Carrick, you're such a comfort to me in my time of need."
Tucking some pictures beneath his multicolored vest,
Ian strode from the drawing room. When he reached the foyer, he paused unaccountably at the bottom stair. The stairwell loomed before him, dark and uncertain.
All of a sudden, he had a staggering sense that he should turn back. Johann was right. She wouldn't pass, wouldn't even come close to passing. It wasn't just aphasia, wasn't just that she could think the words but couldn't form them, couldn't speak. It was something else . .. something he couldn't fix.
Permanent brain damage.
It was the thought he'd kept at bay by sheer force of will. He couldn't think of it, for if he did ...
He pushed the words away and climbed the stairs. He heard the crazies behind him, a dull thudding of feet. They moved in a hushed, respectful silence, afraid of angering him by shadowing him, more afraid of being farther than ten feet away from their moody master.
Finally he made it to the top of the stairs and turned toward her room. The door was open a crack. He gave it a push. It whined on tired hinges and swung wide.
The room was empty.
Ian raced inside, his gaze sweeping the small chamber in an instant. The window was closed, the bed made. The chair was empty.
His heart started hammering in his chest. Jesus, where was she?
He started to turn away when a glimmer of white caught his eye. Frowning, he eased into the room and bent down.
She was lying on the floor beneath the bed, talking in some nonsensical way. Words that made no sense, strung together as if they were a sentence.
"Peach . . . chair . . . mouse."
"Selena?" He couldn't keep the dread out of his voice.
She made a sharp, grunting sound and crawled back toward him, her pantalooned fanny high in the air.
He saw the back of her head first, her long, tangled
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locks separated to reveal the triangular swatch of shaved skin, covered now in a peachy fuzz. Her healing scar was a blistering red trail through the new growth.
She turned suddenly and thrust her hand out at him. There was a dead mouse in her palm. She stroked the soft gray fur and smiled up at him.
"Jesus!" He surged down and batted the thing out of her hand. It plopped on the floor and skidded back under the bed.
Her smile slowly fell. "I am ... Ian?"
Christ, he didn't know if she was talking to him or the mouse. He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair, trying to hold on to his temper, trying harder to hold on to his hope.
"Come here, Selena." He reached down and grasped her hand, leading her to the bed. She sat on the soft mattress, her bare feet swinging above the floor, her hands clasped together in her lap. Turning, she gave him a look of such pure, childlike confusion that he wanted to cry.
"Can you understand my words?"
She stared at his mouth a long time, and he could see her struggle, see her trying to understand and answer. It took her about three minutes, but finally she nodded. "Bowl." Her mouth twisted in what had to be a smile.
"Good. Let's try a few questions again, shall we? I think we'll st?"
She touched his arm. "Slow."
"I'm sorry. Questions . . . tests. Yes?"
Two minutes later, she nodded. "Yes."
"Do you know me?"
Slowly she nodded. "Ian-God."
He couldn't help himself, he laughed. "Ian. Only Ian."
"Ian," she repeated, staring at his mouth.
"Where are you?"
He could see her surprise at the question and knew
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that she understood. He watched her frown deepen. Finally she shook her head. "Cup."
He thought she was trying to say no. "You don't know where you are?"
"Don't . . . know." Her face scru
nched up in a frown. A few moments later, she managed to say, "Should .. . know?"
He shook his head. "No, you shouldn't." It was true. There was no reason for her to know where she was. He told himself it didn't matter that she didn't ask. "Who are you?"
"Selena."
"No. Before Selena. Who were you before Selena?"
It took her at least a minute to answer, but this time when the words finally came out, they were stronger and clearer. "Don't . . . know . . . who."
He waited for her to ask a question, battling disappointment and anger. She looked up at him, through her dark, mysterious eyes, and he felt as if he were being strangled. Time stretched between them as he waited for her to ask the all too obvious question. He noticed a dozen tiny things in that moment, the maple-syrup hue of her eyes, the quiet sound she made when she breathed, the pale triangle of milky skin at the collar of her nightdress. With every second, every breath he drew, he felt his hope that she could ever be normal fade.
She wasn't going to ask if he knew who she was. It seemed completely unimportant to her. "Can't answer or don't know?"
"Don't know."
He spoke very slowly?too slowly?trying to keep the rising frustration from his voice. "Do you want to know?"
"Why?"
The question stunned him. Jesus, how could she not care? She woke up in a strange bed, tended by strangers, and she didn't have the least interest in her past, her
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history? "Family," he said, clutching at straws. "You might have a family out there who loves you, who's looking for you." He knew he was speaking too fast, but he didn't care anymore.
"Ian." She frowned, touched his cheek.
He pulled back and stood up. The game slipped through his nerveless fingers and thudded to the floor, forgotten and unimportant now. What did it matter if she could fit a square peg in a square hole? She had no mind left. She was a blank slate, a childlike adult who didn't remember that fire was hot or glass was solid .. . or that dead mice weren't family pets.
Irreparable damage to the brain.
She couldn't be his miracle. She could get better? might even one day be able to formulate a complete sentence, but no more. His dreams of redemption were just that. Dreams. As unattainable as the stars.
And if his life looked bleak, hers was unimaginable.
She looked up at him. He saw the first sheen of tears in her eyes. "Ian .. . test?"
It hurt to look at her. He glanced at the ceiling and gave a bitter laugh. The puppet master had won again.
God had given Ian the only patient whom he could touch, and she was damaged beyond repair.
Ah, the irony. The only person who was immune to his powers . .. and she had no mind. No mystery to unlock, no secrets to reveal. He could never be Pygmalion to her Galatea. He was closer to Mary Shelley's famous Dr. Frankenstein, pining to be a god, wanting to create articulate, intelligent life from a lump of animated flesh.
Madness . . .
"Test," she whispered in a small, stricken voice.
"No." He backed away. "No more tests today. I've seen enough." He turned and headed for the door. As he reached for the knob, he couldn't help himself. He turned back to her.
She sat slumped on the bed, her matted, dirty hair streaming down her back. Tears spilled from her eyes
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and splashed on the white lawn of her nightdress. He knew she didn't have an idea in the world why he was leaving, or what she'd done wrong. All she knew was that Ian-God was disappointed in her .. . and she was alone.
"I'm sorry, Selena." His voice cracked. "Jesus, I'm so sorry."
Then he ran from the room and slammed the door shut behind him.
The lunatics were in the hallway, waiting for him. The small crowd pressed in on him from all sides, talking, whispering, gesturing.
"Quiet!" Johann hissed. "What is it, Ian?"
He lifted his head slowly, stared at the faces around him. Surprisingly, it was Johann alone who looked as if he understood.
"When I got into the room," Ian said in a tired voice, "she was playing with a dead mouse."
Maeve looked up. "Really?" She reached for the doorknob.
Ian started to grab her wrist, then realized what he'd been about to do and yanked his hand back. "You can't have the mouse, Mother." He looked at Edith. "Take care of it, will you?"
The older woman bobbed her head. "Certainly, Doctor. And I'll feed the poor girl in there."
Ian sagged back against the door. He'd never felt so old and beaten and alone. "Yes, please do."
"What are you going to do, Dr. Carrick?" Andrew asked timidly.
"I'm in over my head, Andrew," Ian admitted, his voice trailing off. It humiliated him to even say the next words. "Maybe an alienist could help. . . ."
"You'll have to speak to one, then," Maeve said. "One with orange hair."
"There's Dr. Wellsby at the asylum in Pollusk," Johann said in a quiet voice.
Ian flinched. Yes, he knew there was Dr. Wellsby.
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"Wellsby." Maeve said the name in a quiet, shaking voice, her eyes brimming suddenly with tears. "He doesn't have orange hair."
Ian sighed and closed his eyes. He didn't want to go see Wellsby?the thought of going back to that hellhole scared Ian to death. But he couldn't just forget about Selena, just pretend she'd never existed. Maybe there was something he'd overlooked, some radical treatment to the brain Ian didn't know about.
Wellsby would have the answers Ian needed.
If only he had a friend or family member to accompany him, but of course, his years of isolation had robbed him of any support he'd once had.
Johann stepped forward. "I could go with you."
Ian swallowed hard, his eyes opened slowly. He wanted to make some smart, cryptic comeback that would put Johann back in his place, but he couldn't.
He didn't have to go to that hellish place alone. He could at least sit in the darkened carriage with another human being. . . .
He nodded curtly and looked away, hoping Johann hadn't seen the naked gratitude in his eyes. "We'll leave in the morning."
Chapter Seven
Selena couldn't seem to stop crying.
She'd done something horribly wrong, and she had no idea what it was. She wiped the moisture from her slick, swollen face and flopped back on the bed. At the contact, pain exploded in her head.
She stared up at the cracked white ceiling, feeling the tears slide down her cheeks.
Ian had given up on her. She had seen the disappointment in his eyes when he looked at her, the burgeoning disgust when she touched him. She saw it, understood it, but there was nothing she could do about it, no way for her to tell him how sorry she was ... how much she missed his smile and his voice in the darkness.
He wanted her to care who she was, but she didn't. Those feelings just weren't inside her. Everything before waking up in this bed was gone, like that candle flame when she touched it. Gone.
She'd tried. For Ian, she'd tried to find some answers in the garbled mush that was her mind. But there was nothing inside her except for a great gaping hole where the memories should be.
She was bad. Stupid.
And she wanted another chance. "Please ..." Please what? She didn't even know what to pray for, what to hope for.
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She rolled onto her stomach, burying her ugly face in the soft quilting.
A quiet rat-ta-ta-tat roused her.
Blinking, bleary-eyed, she crawled to a sit and looked around, trying to find the source of the noise. "Ian?" She said his name and felt a surge of hope.
The doorknob turned, the door opened.
The fat woman?Edith?stood in the doorway, holding a silver tray filled with steaming bowls. There were a few of the strangers behind her. The fragile-looking woman with rust-colored hair and the thin girl who sucked her finger. Thumb. The girl who sucked her thumb.
Edith made a qu
iet tsking sound. "Poor thing. 'Tisn't your fault you're feebleminded."
Selena sniffed and wiped her runny nose on her sleeve. She got to her feet and moved toward Edith. Words floated through her dazed mind, formed themselves into blurry sentences, questions. "Why?" was the only word that made it past her lips.
The rosy color seeped out of Edith's fleshy cheeks. She paused, her kind eyes fixed on Selena. "I can't answer that for ye, lassie. 'Tis God's way to make some people sick."
The red-haired woman walked toward her. "Selena?" Her voice was lovely and lyrical, more song than spoken.
Selena tried to ask the woman's name. "Bottle .. . answer." She groaned in frustration. She couldn't do it, couldn't find the right words to express her thoughts.
"Maeve." The woman answered the question Selena had meant to ask. When Maeve reached Selena, she slipped her small, cold hand into hers and gave a reassuring squeeze. The touch was soothing. "I understand."
Selena looked down into Maeve's sad hazel eyes and believed her. Somehow, this woman did understand Selena's pain and fear. The realization was so powerful that Selena's knees buckled. For the first time since Ian
left, she felt less alone. Thank you. The words blossomed in her mind, full-blown and understood. "Sea ..." She squeezed her eyes shut, ashamed that she couldn't even express the simple acknowledgment.
"Don't worry, child. You'll get better. And if you don't?" Maeve shrugged her slim shoulders. "You don't. Believe me, you can get used to anything."
"Come on now, Maeve," Edith scolded. "Don't depress the lassie. She might not know she's ... you know ..." Her voice fell to a stage whisper. "Braindamaged."
Maeve gave the housekeeper an arch look. "She does now."
Edith blanched, then bustled forward and set the tray down on the bedside table. A foreign aroma wafted to Selena's nostrils, and she had a vague recollection.
"Food," she said suddenly, remembering what it was, but not what to do with it.
"Aye, lassie. Food. We have a lovely fish stew for you."
Selena didn't understand the words, but the scent brought back a deep-seated instinctual need. A strange rumbling moved through her stomach. She moved toward the tray, dragging Maeve along behind her.
Selena hiked up her nightdress and sat down on the straw-seated chair, scooting in close to the table. Maeve sat down beside her, and the thumb-sucking child stood behind Selena, hovering and silent.
Edith dished a bowl full of the steaming red and white stew and set it down in front of Selena. "There ye go, lassie. Dig in."
Selena frowned. Dig? She pictured a shovel and mound of dirt, a headstone.
"Eat," Maeve whispered.
Selena wasn't sure what eat meant, but her stomach rumbled again and she reached for a floating chunk of whitefish. The broth scalded her fingertips. With a yelp of pain, she drew back and plunged her burnt fingers
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into her glass. Milk sloshed over the sides and spilled across the table. The relief was instantaneous and she was proud of herself for remembering the remedy. She smiled.
Maeve gently eased Selena's hand from the glass and gave her a flat metal strip with a round end. A spoon, Selena remembered suddenly.
Maeve kept her fingers coiled around Selena's and showed her how to dip the spoon into the soup, pick out a chunk of fish, and bring it to her lips.