Eve had learned that different methods were used by different doctors—like placing hotheads in icy cold baths, or dressing the depressed in straitjackets with silver linings. Fortunately, the days of putting a bowl with a cracked egg underneath a bedlamite's bed to draw out evil spirits had faded into the past. The more modern asylums no longer even threw their mad in pits or left them unprotected from the elements. It broke Eve's tender heart to know that those who most needed kindness had in the past been literally left out in the cold.
Eve herself knew what it was to face bigotry and disdain. When she had entered the University of Vienna to study medicine, she had found herself in an elitist world where males ruled and most men believed females were vain and bird-witted. They believed women should stick to their own professions, stay courtesans, governesses, and wives. Every female was to be mistrusted and ridiculed. And while she'd grown tremendously during her years of medical school, both as a doctor and a person, it had still been devastatingly hard for Eve. Because she was female, the other interns ostracized and belittled her whenever possible. The abuse also came from many of Eve's professors, all of whom were supposed to be highly learned doctors. She had often mused, while she sat along the banks of the Rhine and memorized her lessons, that even getting in the door and taking your coat off in this profession was like fighting on the Barbary Coast.
Yes, Eve had learned that, regrettably, in spite of mankind's new sympathy for the mentally ill, women were still held in subtle contempt. Females, most especially grand ladies, were thought to be creatures of excessive feeling and tender sensibilities—goofy gigglers, meaningless chatterers, and carriers of perfume-filled handkerchiefs drenched with tears. They were a delight to gaze upon and delightful for sport under the bedcovers, but never a man's boon companion or equal. And certainly none had the wit to become a doctor.
No, a female would never be considered strong enough, wise enough, or emotionally stable enough to work at an insane asylum—most especially one filled with monsters. To most men's reasoning, a female psychiatrist in the paranormal field would be sheer folly and quite unsuccessful—would probably be eaten by one of her fiercer patients. But Eve vowed she would not only work at an asylum; she would run one.
Despite harassment, belittling, and the tide of public opinion, Eve had studied hard and prevailed, refusing to buckle under the pressure. With her typical Bluebeard stubbornness, she had not only attended medical school, but had graduated at the top of her class—to the bewilderment of all the males concerned. She had returned to London victorious, with a degree in hand as well as a marriage contract, the latter being much to the surprise of her father. Proudly she was now Dr. Evelyn Griffin, respected psychiatrist for mad monsters.
Eager to start her new life, she had hired staff and hung up her shingle at the Towers, her deceased uncle's now-renovated manor. The first year was difficult; however, the second year had been easier, and by the third season the Towers was becoming well-known in the supernatural community. Even more astounding was the knowledge that Dr. Eve Bluebeard Griffin was charting new territory, proposing that the insane could be cured by talking, in what she termed her "Verbal Intercourse" sessions.
In these conversational sessions, Eve worked very hard at delving into the twisting and turning corridors of her patients' thoughts, trying to unravel the terrors and secrets of each one's subconscious mind. She probed festering memories and night terrors, which mortal and monster alike hid deep within. Whether it was a gargoyle, a leprechaun, or a vampire, their terrors were buried much deeper than six feet under. Eve was the person who lanced these boils, opening the graveyards of secret fear and exposing them to the naked light of day. Only then, she believed, could her patients begin to heal.
Her task was monumental and extremely difficult, yet Eve thrived on the challenge. Every day and every night was a new adventure where she sailed into the uncharted seas of turbulent minds. And even with a lack of articulate and necessary detail from her patients, Eve held hope that time and determination would free them from their private demons.
Turning her attention from the lush gardens outside her study, Eve began to tap her fingers upon the skull gracing her desk and glanced grimly down at her father's note with more than a little trepidation. With luck, the Captain wouldn't have been into his ninety-nine bottles of beer, which he liked to take down from the wall and pass around. Her wish was probably in vain, though, she realized wryly. He was a pirate captain; beer was like mother's milk to him. As was rum.
Crumpling the note in her hand, she disposed of it in the brass rubbish holder beside her desk. "Tomorrow, of all days. How I wish for a stiff wind to Jamaica and my father sailing there."
The door to her study suddenly burst open, crashing against the solid oak wall. Right behind the banging door stood her butler, Teeter. His countenance stiff, he maintained his usual starched dignity. Teeter was the epitome of an English butler, with one exception. To Eve's dismay, Teeter never failed to enter or exit a room without a great deal of slamming doors—a common complaint against ogres or those with ogre blood. Since the butler's grandfather was an ogre, Eve took Teeter's entrances and exits in stride. She was nothing if not flexible, having learned to be so at an early age aboard the Jolly Roger, her father's ship.
When she had first inherited the butler along with her estate, she had begged, pleaded with, and threatened him. But all her efforts to reform Teeter had been to no avail. He had resisted all her efforts.
"Your next patient—one Mr. Frankenstein—is here to see you, Doctor," Teeter said.
Eve sighed as her butler banged his way back outside her study. Good help was impossible to find these days.
Chapter Two
Diary of a Mad Monster
Eve watched her patient enter the room to engage in their Verbal Intercourse session, called fondly by her patients "fireside chats." The nickname was due to the fact that her study held a massive green-marbled fireplace that dominated the east wall and pleasantly warmed the spacious chamber.
Her oversize patient moved to seat himself on an over-large chair—a chair that had been constructed especially for his large frame when he'd first become Eve's patient seven months ago—and smiled shyly at her. Although he wasn't a resident of the asylum, the patient came once a week to meet with Eve, an arrangement made by his adopted father, Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein had heard of Eve's kindness in treating monsters with quirks, and since most monsters frankly had more serious quirks than he, the Frankenstein monster had been easy to add to her patient list.
Monstrous or not, her patient, this Frederick Frankenstein, was a gentle giant who loved helping blind men cross crowded London streets and listening to violin music. Eve felt that Frederick was a sterling example of "Never judge a pirate by his ship, a madman by his conversation, or a monster by his face." Despite the unevenness of his features and the scars crisscrossing his visage, he was a compassionate soul. To less informed or bigoted people, Frederick at first glance would appear an ugly man, but inside he was pure gold. Well, not actually gold, she corrected herself. Dr. Victor Frankenstein had been quite explicit in the materials that went into the creation. Still, Frederick did have a heart as big as his almost-seven-foot self; he liked everybody, and was always willing to lend a helping hand—or rather, a dead earl's helping hands.