An orderly ushered a young man down the hall. The man’s eyes darted around and when he glimpsed Kaiser, he stopped in his tracks clutching the woman’s shirt.
“It’s okay,” the attendant, a young woman, whispered, patting the patient on his back. “Good morning, Doctor.”
“Good morning,” Kaiser murmured.
He hurried down the tunnel and into the light of day, glancing back at the dark hole he’d emerged from. The tunnels were necessary in the northern Michigan climate. He was grateful for the enclosures when the snow piled high and ice encased the sidewalks. However, he never felt at ease moving within them. It was like experiencing burial while still alive.
He turned and stared at the Northern Michigan Asylum. His eyes climbed to the spires that rose pointed into the gray morning sky. Lights blazed in a hundred windows.
Careful that no one saw him, Kaiser ducked into a thicket of trees. He followed a path in his memory, his steps growing faster when he met the little hill that would take him to the hidden forest chamber.
The Umbra Brotherhood met six times a year in asylums all over the country, and today, an especially curious patient would be displayed.
He met Dr. Knight on his walk as he ascended the hill.
“I barely slept a wink last night,” Dr. Knight admitted as they hurried down the slope into the gnarled basin of trees hidden in the forest.
“Why is that?” Kaiser asked, wishing he had made the entire trek alone. He preferred to gather his thoughts before entering the chamber and getting besieged by the voices of the others.
“I’ve never presented before,” Dr. Knight said. “Dr. Claymore, from the Eastern Michigan Asylum, helped me bring the patient in. I had to run back to my office for an antacid.”
Kaiser cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t offer his sympathies. He’d presented half a dozen times. He was less interested in the doctor’s nerves than his patient.
Supposedly the man could channel the dead.
“Here, I’ve got it,” Knight announced stopping at a wall of brambles that hid the chamber door from view. He groped in the branches, fumbling until Kaiser considered shoving him out of the way and doing it himself.
Kaiser glanced at the hill behind them, checking again they weren’t followed.
“There,” Knight sighed, followed by a satisfying metallic click. Knight pushed through the branches and Kaiser followed.
They moved through a long rock passage lit with torches. Condensation gathered on the walls creating a slippery tunnel that reminded Kaiser distastefully of a yawning mouth.
The brick chamber opened before them. Doctors, over twenty-five in all, filled the wooden benches around a raised platform. On the platform, strapped to the bed, lay patient number six-twenty-four. His eyes stared wide and glassy. His lips moved, but no sound emerged.
The last meeting of the brotherhood at the Northern Michigan Asylum had not gone well. The patient, a young woman who could levitate objects, died on the table.
Kaiser settled onto a bench, staring intensely at the patient.
The young man cranked his head to the side and locked his green eyes on Kaiser’s. A rush of unease moved through the doctor as the patient opened his mouth and began to scream.
Chapter 1
July 11, 1955
Hattie
Hattie’s hands shook, her fingers trembling over the flat glass surface, callused plump ends shining back at her in the candlelight. The peach-colored candle dripped a stream of wax into its soft belly slowly caving out of sight. Her face was reflected in the glass case, but the flame distorted her image, revealing another Hattie - a ghoul version of her eight-year-old self.
If she touched the glass - the beautiful sprayed and smoothed glass, so clean it reflected the fine satiny cobwebs clinging to the chandelier - it would smudge. Smudges were fingerprints, evidence, and hers so obvious with her fat fingers that Gram Ruth called baby sausages.
Instead, she went for the shining Mahogany frame; the corners carved in neat spirals that twisted down and down. Crevices impossible to clean, Gram said, huffing and puffing with a dirty sock and a can of lemony spray that made Hattie sneeze. It was not the case itself that Hattie longed to touch, but what lay inside.
She wanted to set the candle down, but dared not soil a single piece of furniture. Gram Ruth’s parlor was off limits. No playing, no pets and above all else no kids. Her mama told her that rule every time they visited Gram Ruth and Gram mentioned it three or four thousand times. Hattie’s sister Jude and her twin brother Peter would moan We Knoooooowwww and roll their eyes, but Hattie never said boo. If she kept quiet, Gram would let her peek while she cleaned the room, let her walk carefully amongst the shining furniture, not touching anything.
Hattie switched the candle to her left hand, the hot wax giving just barely beneath her anxious fingers. “Not too tight,” she whispered.
On Daddy’s last birthday she’d gotten so excited placing lit candles on his chocolate cake she’d squished one and dripped melted wax all down the sleeve of the navy blue dress her mama had just made her. Daddy laughed and kissed her head, but Hattie’s big sister, Jude called her a clumsy little fool and lit the rest herself.
The flame mesmerized Hattie, as did the sweet smell, like the oatmeal Mama made on weekdays, when a woman couldn’t be burdened with some fancy meal at breakfast time.
Holding her breath, she slipped the left edge of her palm beneath the heavy glass lid, the wood pressed firmly against the flesh of her hand. It sat there unmoving, no startling screech as it gave way, no shift at all. Hattie was strong for an eight-year-old. The previous year when Ben Kinney pulled her hair at school she squeezed his fingers so hard he cried. Mrs. Updike made her miss recess for two days, but Hattie didn’t care because Ben was a scuzzbucket and he got what he deserved.
Hattie bent her legs and maneuvered her shoulder beneath her palm. Her daddy did this when he had to get their cellar door open to let in some fresh air, usually after their cat Turkey Legs had pissed. Hattie wasn’t supposed to say pissed, but Peter did and so did Jude. Pushing up, Hattie felt the lid give way.
She stared hard at the candle flame and gripped the smooth edge of the lid, moved its weight from her shoulder to her hand, almost losing it when the full burden took hold. The flame dulled, dipped beneath the pink-orange crater and slid back out, a serpent’s tongue lighting her way. Carefully, sweat sliding like oil down her armpits, she pushed the lid up and back, slowly, slowly until it rested with a groan on its metal hinges.
The candle was no longer shaped like a neat cylinder; her chubby fingers had squashed the juicy wax into a strange sculpture, something she’d see in her mama’s art books. For a moment, she forgot about the glass case, too preoccupied with imagining what the candle might now be. In clouds, Hattie often spotted puppies and airplanes, but in this candle she could see only the purple rubber sheaths on her sister’s bike handlebars.
The glass on the case reflected the flame and Hattie turned gazing down. Her eyes raked over the contents. The floor of the case was covered in crisp, pink velvet, each fiber combed flat by Gram Ruth. Hattie had never seen Gram brush the velvet, but her mama had told her she did it every Saturday morning with a genuine silver brush filled with soft bristles. Her own pink fingers looked pale and ugly against the showy fabric. But it was the prize inside that mattered.