Waiting for the Moon

Yes, he knew what it felt like to be feared and ignored. And these good Mainers were probably no different from the ones at home. They hated what they feared, and they feared anyone different.

  Unfortunately, this asylum, like all of them, wasn't filled with murderers. Instead, it warehoused society's lost souls. People suffering from melancholia, dementia, mania, monomania, and idiocy. Sad, lonely people like his mother, more likely to hurt themselves than any hapless passerby.

  But of course, the good people of Pollusk would never believe that.

  The carriage lurched to a stop.

  Neither man moved. Finally Johann spoke. "I hate this godforsaken place." He shivered, reached for his cloak. "I was here, you know. When I first fell in love with Marie, I told my father that I wanted to marry her. The great Frederick Strassborg beat me within an inch of my life and informed me that no son of his would marry a whore." He gave a soft, bitter laugh. "But I never was much good at listening. Marie and I ran off to be wed, and my father found us. He dragged me away from the church and brought me here. The law's a bit slack on family commitments, as you know. I was institutionalized for three years?it took that long to extract an apology from me and a promise never to see Marie again."

  Ian didn't want to be drawn into another personal conversation with Johann, but he couldn't seem to stop himself from asking the question. "What happened then?"

  He grinned. "I was never too good at keeping promises, either."

  The carriage door handle clicked hard, and the vel-veted door swung open. The elderly driver stood in the opening. Behind him, the hospital sat amidst the trees

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  like a huge granite bird of prey, silent and watchful. "We're here, Doctor."

  For a split second, Ian's fear was so great, he couldn't move, could barely breathe.

  "You need the answers, Ian," Johann said quietly.

  Ian knew he was right, but it didn't end the fear. He reached for his cloak and slipped it on, suddenly cold. "Don't let anyone touch me, Johann."

  Johann gave him a sad, knowing smile. "Isn't that what this little sojourn is about, Herr Doctor?"

  Ian pretended not to understand. Without answering, he got out of the carriage and began the long walk to the asylum.

  It lay sprawled before him, waiting. A great wooden door, protected by Gothic-scrolled granite walls and an elegant green hedge, scrupulously trimmed, flanked the walkway and hemmed the giant building in. Trees stood guard, swaying quietly in the nightfall's breeze, whispering among themselves of the things they'd seen in this place, the screams they'd heard.

  Johann came up beside him. "Ready?"

  Ian hadn't realized that he'd stopped walking. He stood on the threshold, staring at the closed door. Hell no, he wasn't ready, not to enter this place again.

  He was a fool to have come here, to have put himself in the lion's path for a woman who couldn't improve.

  Ian had a crazy urge to run?back to the carriage, back to the isolated house in the woods where memories lurked but didn't intrude. Even crazier, he wanted to confide in Johann, spill out the whole sordid story of what had once happened in this place, of Ian's singular betrayal.

  Time paused, drew a quiet breath.

  The moment of weakness passed. "I'm fine." Ian started to reach for the door, then paused and looked suddenly at Johann. "Can you go in?"

  Johann smiled. "A most un-Ian-like question." His smile faded. "Yes, I can."

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  Ian nodded and knocked on the door.

  Moments later, it swung open. A scowling, swarthy man with beefy arms towered in the opening. "Bug-heads get dropped off durin' the day." He gripped the door and started to slam it shut.

  Ian shoved the door open so hard, the guard staggered backward. In concerted motion, he and Johann slipped inside.

  The stench of unwashed bodies hit him in the face. Ian almost staggered at the force of it. For a terrifying moment, he thought he was going to be sick. He swallowed hard, squeezing his eyes shut. Voices echoed in the shadowy hallway. A droning, maddening buzz.

  The guard surged forward. "Now, wait a damn minute?"

  Johann stuck out a booted foot and tripped the man, who fell flat on his face. "Oh. Did I do that?" Johann plastered a hand to his throat and clicked his tongue. "So sorry."

  The guard clambered to his knees. "You ain't sorry yet, you two-bit bugger, but you will be."

  Johann held out a hand. "I should introduce my .. . employer. This is Dr. Ian Carrick."

  The guard froze in his tracks. Slowly he turned to Ian. His face tightened into a squinty frown. "You're Dr. Carrick?"

  Ian had seen that look a thousand times in the old days, a dawning realization that the object of so many rumors had appeared in the flesh. A curiosity, then a slow-building fear.

  The guard took a step backward?also a standard response. "Dr. Wellsby said you was comin'. I din't believe it."

  "No doubt it was intellect that secured you this job," Johann drawled, making a great show of crossing his arms. "Now, take us to your superintendent."

  The guard rushed past them and slammed the door shut, then almost fell over himself in his haste to leave.

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  He spun around. "Third door on the right. You can follow me. I'll... hurry ahead and tell Dr. Wellsby you're here." He was gone before the echo of his words had faded. The rapid thudding of his footsteps disappeared in the shadowy corridor.

  "Do people always treat you like that?" Johann asked.

  Ian felt inexpressibly old and tired. "This is a mistake."

  "Then follow my lead, Ian. I make them all the time." Turning, Johann began walking down the hallway.

  Ian stood there, in the sprawling, shadowy darkness, feeling utterly alone. Sounds battered his ears: the echoing vibrations of a woman's scream, the dull shuffle of feet going in circles, the magpie chatter of nonsensical conversation.

  It was so like before, so sickeningly the same. The same smell, the same incredible roar of voices in pain. For a second, Ian couldn't move. He stood rooted to the spot.

  It smells here, Ian. I'm afraid.

  He shivered, drew his cape more tightly across his body. The air was fetid and motionless, thick with the smells of death and dying and disuse.

  I'm sorry, Ian. Whatever I did ... I'm sorry. Please don't leave me here. Oh, God ... please, Ian ...

  Somewhere, a door slammed shut, and the noise drew Ian from the morass of his memories. Up ahead, Johann stopped, turned back to face him.

  "This place releases all the demons, doesn't it?" Johann's voice was shaky.

  Ian didn't respond. He forced himself to keep walking, through the darkness, into a different hallway where the shadows were invaded by gaslight sconces on the uppermost rim of the wall.

  They turned a corner and suddenly there were people everywhere, clustered around the puddles of light. Des-

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  perate fireflies hurling themselves against the golden warmth. They spoke to one another and themselves in low, droning voices devoid of emotion.

  Ian kept moving, past a man hitting his head on the plaster wall, past a weary-faced woman who sat curled in a shadowy corner, slowly pulling her hair out by the roots, past a man in a straitjacket who chewed his tongue so vigorously that blood eased down his stubble-coated chin and splashed on the dirty gray linen of his pants.

  Don't leave me here, Ian. Please .. .

  "Jesus .. ." Johann croaked.

  Somewhere, a door smacked open. "Ian!" boomed a male voice.

  People scattered at the sound. As one, they jerked to their feet and scurried into the hidden corners from which they'd come, like insects sneaking back under cold rocks.

  Superintendent Giles Wellsby strode down the hallway, his hand outstretched. "Ian, old boy, what a surprise. Damn fine to see you. After all the Christmas party invitations you'd declined, I thought you'd died."

  Ian stared at the man's hand in rising horror. He tried like hell to suppress the childish emotion, but
the more he tried to rein it in, the more it consumed him. It was a simple greeting, he told himself, nothing more. Just a goddamn way to say hello.

  Giles came to a stop. "Ian?" The superintendent's slim, colorless face tightened into a disapproving frown.

  Ian knew he had to respond, had to respond now. If he didn't, this whole journey would be for nothing. Giles would treat Ian as a pariah instead of a colleague. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself for the onslaught of images and thrust his gloved hand toward the superintendent. "Giles," he said stiffly. "How have you been?"

  Their hands locked. Giles's thoughts slammed into Ian's mind in a jumble of pictures and words and feel-

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  ings. What happened to him? Rumors . .. psychic .. . lost his mind ... looks bad ...

  "Good to see you, Ian. You look wonderful," Giles said with a toothy smile. He was too much the old-world gentleman to ask the questions that filled his mind, and Ian was glad of it. "The missus was asking about you just the other month."

  Ian slid his hand free of Giles's grip. Immediately the images subsided and the headache began. He tried to remember what the superintendent had just asked him, but he couldn't. He looked down at the man, knowing his eyes were as blank as a lunatic's and unable to change it.

  "Ian?" Giles prompted.

  Johann stepped forward, his hand outstretched. "I'm Johann Strassborg."

  Giles seemed startled by the interruption. He turned slowly and shook Johann's hand. A frown creased his forehead. "Strassborg? I seem to recall a patient ..." His head snapped up. The color leeched out of his fleshy face.

  "I see you remember me," Johann said.

  The color returned to Giles's sallow cheeks with a vengeance. He cleared his throat and turned to Ian. "So what brings you to my little corner of the woods after all these years?"

  Ian shot Johann a grateful look, then turned to the superintendent. "The last time I was here, you had just taken in a woman who'd fallen from her horse. Hit her head on a rock."

  Giles nodded. "Elizabeth."

  "I have a similar patient myself. A woman was brought in unconscious. A coma. When she finally came around, she exhibited profound speech problems and . .. other things."

  Giles pulled at his pointy chin. "Aphasic?"

  "Yes, but it seems to be more than that. Certainly the expected syntax, morphological, and semantic

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  problems are in evidence. Beyond that, however, she exhibits a significant mental deficiency. Probably brain damage, but I suppose it could be an unusual form of amnesia."

  "Meaning?"

  "It's not merely a temporary inability to recall the experiences of her past. It's ... global. Not only does she have no idea of her name, or where she came from, or who she is; she also has no memory of the rudimentary knowledge that she must have learned at one time. She's ... childlike. Infantlike, for Christ's sake. She doesn't know that fire is hot, or that glass is solid, or that a dead mouse is not a toy. She talks to leaves and expects them to answer."

  Giles frowned. "A complete loss of all previously learned knowledge as well as a loss of identity. Most unusual. Did you want to send her here for observation? I could certainly-"

  "No!"

  Giles stiffened and drew back, obviously offended. "Ah, well, then. So what can I do for you?"

  "I'm sorry, Giles. It isn't you, of course. I'm here because you're the best alienist I know. It's simply this place. The memories . .." He let his sentence trail off.

  Giles's face softened. "I understand. And how is the lovely Maeve?"

  "The same, I'm afraid."

  Giles nodded slowly.

  A pause enveloped the trio, then Giles cleared his throat. "So, back to the point at hand. You've come to see Elizabeth and how she's faring, I take it."

  Ian's heart seemed to stop for a second. "Is she still alive?"

  "Yes," Giles answered in a voice so soft, Ian could scarcely hear it. "She's still alive, and still here."

  Still here. That was not a good sign.

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  Ian dreaded the next question with everything in him. "Any improvement?"

  "I think you'd best see Elizabeth for yourself, Ian. Then we can discuss the particulars."

  Chapter Nine

  The shadowy corridor was filled with the same gray-clad people, milling aimlessly to and fro. Ian walked stiffly forward, with Johann on his right side and Giles at his left.

  An old, gray-haired woman hurled herself at Giles, her withered fingers clawing at him. She shrieked, spraying spittle, yanking at her clothing. "I need to leave, Superintendent Wellsby-"

  Giles kept moving, and the woman fell in a sobbing heap at his feet.

  People, everywhere people. Crying out, reaching, yelling and screaming to be heard. Their pleas jumbled together, merged into a great, keening cry.

  "... a terrible mistake-"

  "My husband, Superintendent Wellsby, have you seen my husband yet today-"

  "I'm drowning, drowning-"

  Ian tried to shut the voices out, to hear nothing except for the repetitive click of their bootheels on the marble floor or the hushed jangle of Giles's keys, but it was impossible. The noise was deafening.

  They turned a corner, and almost as if on cue, the rabble dispersed, leaving in their wake a hallway that was lonely and dark. Closed doors lined the walls, windowless, locked. Low, moaning voices slid beneath the cracks and wafted through the dank air.

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  "This is the catatonic ward," Giles said. "Even the inmates are afraid to wander down this hallway." He stopped at the last closed door. Reaching down to the heavy chatelaine on his belt, he pulled up the clanking mass and extracted a single key.

  He fit it in the rusted lock and clicked it open. Before he pushed the door open, he turned to Ian. Giles seemed, in the pale gaslight, to have aged ten years during the short span of their walk. His cheeks were waxen, his face a map of tiny, downward wrinkles. "Once in," he said quietly, "they never come out."

  The door opened with a whining creak, revealing a room of surprising size and comfort. Square ivory walls, dotted with ornately framed pictures, surrounded a large, four-postered bed, its surface heaped with a snowy coverlet.

  An old woman sat in a wooden rocking chair, her head turned to the barred window at her left. Long strands of curly gray hair sheathed her face, fell in wispy folds to her lap. Ian heard the soft, muttering murmur of her voice, but he couldn't make out any words, just a jumble of confused, halting speech. In her lap, her hands lay curled like fishhooks. A silver and diamond ring glittered on the third finger of her left hand.

  "Elizabeth?" Giles said her name in a hushed tone.

  She didn't move, didn't look up.

  Giles motioned the men to follow him as he walked slowly up to her chair and kneeled at her feet. "Elizabeth, honey, I've brought some people to see you."

  For a long, breathless moment, she was unresponsive, then, very slowly, as if the movement hurt, she turned away from the window. Pale moonlight slid through the clear glass and iron bars, slashed across her small face.

  She was much younger than he'd expected, and even in the paltry light, he could see the breathtaking beauty that she had once been. Thick black lashes fringed eyes the color of whiskey; eyes that were now vacant and glassy. A silver line of saliva seeped down from the cor-

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  ner of her slack, pink lips, hung in a cobweb-thin line to a wet spot on the bosom of her blue gown.

  Giles pulled a pristine white handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped the drool from her lips. She blinked down at him, apparently trying to focus.

  "The ... paper," she said in a scratchy voice. "Sliding or spring." She forced her chin up, gave the room a cursory, glassy-eyed glance. "Wine the drink grass." She turned away and stared out the window again. Her rocker started moving, back and forth, back and forth, in a rhythmic, scratchy thumping.

  Giles's head bowed forward. "Believe it or
not," he said to no one in particular, "this is a good day for her."

  Ian wanted to distinguish Elizabeth from Selena. He tried to ignore the similarity of the cases-the nonsensical sentences, the injury itself-and searched for a disparity, some small thing that separated Selena's prognosis.

  Giles hadn't tried enough. Yes, that could account for a difference. Maybe Giles had given up too early and there was still hope....

  He clung to the notion. "What treatments have you tried?"

  "Everything. Shock treatments, sheet treatments, ice baths. Every half-baked psychological theory to come along-even that crazy Freud's psychoanalysis. Nothing worked. She's not crazy, Ian. She's brain-damaged. Pure and simple." He shrugged. "Her brain just doesn't work anymore. She can parrot a few words, she can feed herself and walk if she really wants to, but that's about it. Every once in a while she surprises me with a sentence that makes sense, but not often, and she never gets any better."

  "Perhaps if you tried-"

  Giles turned to Ian. A tear slid down his cheek and he made no effort to hide it. "She's my daughter."

  For a second, Ian couldn't even respond. Shame crushed in on him. "Oh, Jesus, Giles. I'm sorry."

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  Ian wanted right then to walk out of this hellhole and never look back. But he couldn't relinquish his hold on the tender strand of hope that remained. He needed to touch Elizabeth, delve into her psyche and see what was in her head. He had to know....

  "Leave me alone with her for a moment." The words were out before he could stop them.

  Giles's head snapped up. Watery eyes focused hard on Ian. "Why?"

  "I need to touch her hand. That's all. It won't take a moment."

  "It's true, then? The rumors that with a touch you can read a person's mind."

  "Sometimes," Ian answered, then amended his half-truth. "Usually."

  Giles stood up and faced Ian. "What if I don't want to know what she's feeling?"

  Ian's gaze was steady. "Welcome to my nightmare, Giles."

  Giles turned slightly, stared dully at the window. "If it's pain ... if she's inside there somewhere, hurt and lonely and lost ... don't tell me. Jesus, don't tell me."

  Without another word, Giles turned and walked out of the room. Johann followed him, and closed the door quietly.

  Ian kneeled before the young woman. She didn't seem to notice him. She kept rocking, back and forth, humming quietly to herself. Another stream of spittle slid down her chin.

  "Elizabeth?" He said her name softly, wanting her to respond.

  She kept rocking, kept humming. A quiet giggle slipped from her mouth.

  He pulled off one glove and reached for Elizabeth's hand. Her fingers were icy cold, curled as tight as steel.

  The first touch brought nothing. No sensation or image or thought at all, and he had a brief thought that maybe he couldn't "read" such broken minds.

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  Ian slid his hand into hers, locked his warm fingers around her cool flesh and squeezed. Heat flared in his fingertips, throbbing, burning.

  An image crept into his mind, almost coyly at first, dancing at the edges of his consciousness. He had to make an effort to clasp it, had to concentrate as he'd never done before.