As he gripped the metal rail, a shuffle sounded behind him. Abe froze, wondering if someone stood in the darkness, having spotted an easy victim to snatch a wallet from. Not that he was weak - at over six feet, and thin but wiry, Abe knew how to take care of himself. However, desperate men were apt to fight a bull if they could sell the hide for a buck. He’d covered enough stories to know the void of night called a certain kind of someone into the empty streets. Pity the person who stumbled upon them.
He turned slowly, fists clenched, but the sidewalk remained empty, the road beyond as quiet as a tomb.
The curse of your calling, his dad once told him, in reference to Abe’s tendency to see every situation as a crime unfolding or barely thwarted.
Abe sighed and grabbed his coffee mug from where he’d left it on the grass. He started for home, walking a block before turning back to gaze a final time at the lake.
There, in the sphere of light from a post near the water, stood Susan Miner. She half-faced him, her hair unperturbed by the breeze rolling toward the shore. Face tilted toward the great expanse of Lake Michigan, her body angled so he could see the yellow t-shirt with the red mouth. As his eyes shifted down, he took in the dark shorts, bare legs, and a single bare foot.
The sound of his coffee cup shattering on the pavement shocked him from his daze. He jumped, glanced toward the bits of white ceramic, and then immediately back to her. But Susie had disappeared.
Chapter 41
Orla
Ben drew out a small sewing kit and two pairs of pants.
“Do you mind?” he asked.
Orla grinned.
“Do I mind? I’m elated. My hands have been desperate for a needle and thread.”
His eyes darted to the sewing kit.
“Not to attack you with. I promise.”
He released her arms from the straps, and she lifted her hands, numb and tingling. She rolled her wrists back and forth and removed her gloves.
“No, wait,” he said, reaching out to stop her.
“It’s okay. I sew without gloves all the time. I can turn it off. I don’t have to see things.”
He paused, watching her, and then carried over the pants and sewing kit. He retreated to the other side of the room and watched her from his chair.
She lifted the sewing kit, having no intention of stifling the visions. The sensation was brief. He’d purchased it that morning. A kind woman with dark eyes and curly gray hair commented how lovely it was to see a man who sewed.
He’d recently laundered, but when she brushed her finger over the button on the second pair, she glimpsed Dr. Crow ripping the pants from Ben’s body and whipping the young man in the back with them. He lashed the stiff fabric against Ben’s bare back and legs until red welts glared from his pale skin.
She shuddered, lifted the needle, and gingerly slipped the thread through.
“Do you know why I’m here, Ben? How I got here?” She thought back to that morning, the tooth in the stones. But Spencer’s mother couldn’t have known what Orla saw, so why did she attack her?
“Mrs. Crow sent for the doctor. I accompanied him. You were in the woods, unconscious. We put you in the truck and brought you here.”
“But why? She injected me with something. It doesn’t make sense.”
“She told the doctor you were dangerous. You’d found something. She saw you. She needed him to erase your memory.”
“I’m sorry, what? Erase my memory?”
He shifted in his chair, balling his hands in his lap.
“It’s called electro-shock therapy. A lot of the doctors here use it. They say it helps with mental problems, but it also affects short-term memory. Some patients lose days, even weeks of memory.”
Orla closed her eyes, resting the pants on her stomach.
“Why hasn’t he done it yet?”
Ben blinked at her hands.
“Because he discovered your gift.”
Orla took a breath and slid the needle back into the fabric. For several minutes, she didn’t speak. The rhythm of the needle gliding in and out of the pants slowed her heart rate. She relaxed into the sensation, almost forgetting she was trapped in an asylum in a nightmare she never seemed to wake up from.
“Why do you do it, Ben? Help Dr. Crow?”
Ben stood and picked up a mop resting in a bucket by the door. He swept it in ever-widening circles across the cement floor.
“He’s all I have,” Ben whispered.
“But why? Where’s your family?”
Ben’s mouth turned down.
“My mom gave me up when I was a baby. I grew up here at the hospital. During holidays, Dr. Crow took me home. I don’t have a family, just the doctor.”
Orla frowned.
“Do you live with him?”
“I have a room here at the asylum, and a room in Dr. Crow’s garage.”
“A garage?” Orla scowled.
“It’s okay,” he continued.
“I spent the night with a man named Spencer,” Orla started, thinking back to that night. It seemed a lifetime ago. “Is he Dr. Crow’s son?”
Ben’s face darkened.
“He’s the doctor’s nephew. His father died a long time ago.”
“That’s what he told me,” Orla murmured. “I wondered if he’d lied. Does he know I’m here?”
“I don’t think so,” Ben murmured.
“What is that weird room they took me to? In the woods?”
“The chamber,” Ben said. “I’ve only been inside a few times.” He shivered.
“What’s the chamber?”
“It’s a secret place for a group the doctor is part of.”
Ben looked away. His eyes had taken on a look she’d grown familiar with. He looked like a rabbit sitting in an open field with a pack of wolves surrounding him. If she didn’t tread carefully, he would leave.
“I won’t ever tell him,” Orla whispered.
Ben cracked a sardonic smile.
“If he suspected, you wouldn’t have a choice. Neither would I. He’s given you the truth serum. He has ways of discovering people’s secrets. He could bring in other patients, a patient who sees like you do.”
“There are others?”
Ben nodded.
“They’re all different. He tells me about them sometimes. There was a woman here who could see the dead. She escaped. There have been so many others. There’s a brotherhood…” He shut his mouth, eyes darting toward the door.
“He won’t come back today. He never does,” Orla murmured.
“Dr. Crow’s unpredictable,” Ben corrected her. “He wants you to get used to his schedule so he can catch you off guard.”
Orla frowned. She finished one pair of pants and held them up.
“Look at that gorgeous seam, Ben.”
He smiled shyly.
“Thank you,” he told her.
“Will you tell me about the brotherhood?” she asked, starting on the second pair of pants.
He sighed and leaned against the mop.
“I don’t ask him questions. The brotherhood is a secret. If he suspected I was curious, he might get paranoid.”
“But you’ve picked things up?”
Ben nodded.
“The doctors come from all over the country. There are other asylums with secret meeting places, though I don’t know which ones. Dr. Crow travels a few times a year to meetings in other sanitariums. They study patients who are special, like you. Some of them can predict the future, others see energy, or auras, they call them. Dr. Crow told me about a woman who could do astral projection. If you gave her an item that belonged to a person, she could project herself to that person psychically. She could give exact details about what they were doing and saying. Dr. Crow found her very intriguing.”