CHAPTER 17
Asylum
“Something happened to you, Miss Albans, that was both traumatic and beyond your understanding,” Greycross said, his voice soft, warm. “You may feel as though you can no longer trust your own faculties, but I want you to know that you can certainly trust me.”
TWILIGHT AT PRIMROSE
Gothic Fantasy / Supernatural Mystery / Horror Series
The tallest turrets of Crookham Asylum crested above a thicket of skeletal trees surrounding the facility. The transient sunshine that had graced the early morning was now obscured by a dull grey sea of clouds, casting a bleak and ominous pall over the otherwise stately sanitorium.
As Gillis brought the carriage closer, Greycross observed a few patients milling about a broad garden enclosed by spiked wrought iron fences. Nearest were a young man bundled in a tatty wool coat, marching in place and performing a soldier’s salute in a corner all to himself, and an older fellow bound to a wheelchair and swaddled in blankets, head hung forward in a stupor. At a distance, a nurse in a long coat sat talking to an orderly, paying little notice to the finely dressed gentleman now climbing out of his regal transport.
“I’ll try not to be long,” Greycross said to Gillis.
“Aye, take yer time,” Gillis said with a yawn and a stretch. “Ah’ll have a moothful o’ whiskey and a couple o’ winks inside the carriage. Dinnae let ‘em slap one o’ those funny jackets on ye, awright, lad?”
“It would probably be in my best interest if they did,” Greycross said, then started towards the entrance.
He climbed a short flight of stairs to a handsome set of doors nearly eight feet in height. On the other side of these twin oak slabs, a lobby waited, warm with the heat of a large hearth.
An outsized oil portrait hung above the fireplace—its subject a gentleman in a black frock coat and purple cravat. A shock of white hair crowned his head, and his wizened, coarse face glowered with pretension. Beneath the painting’s ornate frame, a placard read:
Bartholomew S. Crookham – Founder
Sanitas est munditia. Munditia est pietas.
Sanity is cleanliness. Cleanliness is godliness.
“And yet God’s own ways are seldom sane nor clean,” Greycross mumbled to himself as he rounded a corner.
A pair of orderlies skulked past and let themselves through a door beside the reception window. Greycross saw a young woman on the other side of the glass, head bowed over a book, her gaze drowsy and somewhat distant. He approached and rapped his knuckles on the counter. She started, snapped the book shut, and pressed her lips to the mouth of a brass funnel that fed into a resonator set in the glass.
“Good afternoon, sir,” she said. “May I help you?”
“Yes, madam,” Greycross said, smiling with his hands in his overcoat pockets. “I’ve come to see a patient of yours, a Miss Mary Albans.”
“Are you a relative, sir?”
“An investigator, actually,” Greycross said, producing Coleman’s note. “I’m working with the constabulary regarding a crime of which Miss Albans was the victim. I’m hoping she may be in good enough spirits to answer a few questions.”
“I’ll need to ask Dr. McCord if she’s allowed visitors,” she said, peering through the glass. When she had fully surveyed the handsome gentleman opposite, she smiled and tucked a loose strand of chestnut hair behind her ear. “Could you pass that through to me, Mister …?”
“Greycross,” he said with an amicable smile, and slipped the letter through the narrow slot at the bottom of the glass.
The receptionist looked the note over, and said, “I’ll be back in just a moment, Mr. Greycross.”
“Certainly, madam.”
Greycross watched her disappear through a narrow door in the back of the little office, her footsteps fading away. He paced the lobby, taking in the Georgian décor and the portraits of preeminent physicians who had served Crookham since its founding in 1696. A small gallery of framed diagrams, patent drawings, and credentials was gathered on a far wall. From these, Greycross learned that Bartholomew Crookham had been an inventor, architect, and a lay preacher as well as a London-trained physician.
A floorplan of the asylum, inked by Crookham’s own hand in the late seventeenth century, drew Greycross’s attention. From the bird’s-eye view the geometry of the campus exhibited seven distinct nodes; the north-facing lobby where he now stood, followed by six wings—three eastwards and three westwards.
Seven, Greycross mused. Spiritual completion; enlightenment.
At last, the receptionist returned to the window.
“Dr. McCord will allow a fifteen-minute visit,” she said. “Here is your letter.”
“Thanks very much,” Greycross said, taking the note.
“Certainly,” she said with a smile. “Francis will take you to the patient. He must remain for the entire visit—per asylum policy.”
“Understood.”
The door beside the reception window opened. A scowling orderly with a combover and black moustache motioned Greycross through.
Greycross followed into a corridor where the twin odours of antiseptic and urine saturated the air. Francis trudged ahead, his key ring jangling, his footsteps reverberating across the checkerboard, black and white tiles. A few lamps burned along the walls, and feeble daylight seeped in through arched windows.
To his left, Greycross saw a series of doors, each adorned with a paper placard and a patient’s name handwritten in ink. Beside each door, a small round window with a lattice of steel bars offered a glimpse inside. Peering through one of these portholes, Greycross caught sight of a pallid face staring back at him with an unnerving stillness.
“You’re with the police?” Francis asked as he turned down an even larger corridor. “Inspector or something?”
“Yes,” Greycross replied. “I promise not to bother Miss Albans long.”
Francis snorted with a cynical laugh. “I don’t think even an earthquake would bother Miss Albans.”
“That bad, is it?”
“Catatonia, says Dr. McCord—like she’s locked inside herself.”
“Poor woman,” Greycross murmured. “Has she been like this since she arrived?”
“For the most part. Won’t eat anything but a spoonful of pottage. Won’t get up and move about. Won’t even speak—only thing I’ve ever heard her say was a single name in her sleep.”
“Oh?”
“Charlotte,” Francis said, stopping to regard Greycross. “Mean anything to you, inspector?”
“Most certainly,” Greycross answered, inclining his head, brow furrowed.
“Right, then,” Francis said with a solemn nod. “Just a bit further.”
As they climbed a short flight of stairs, a dreadful howling rolled down the corridor. Francis led way closer to the sound and soon they came upon a smaller hallway with just four rooms. Greycross surveyed the doors—the howling emanated from behind one of these bearing a placard that read: L. Tippery.
Another howl and a frantic, doggish panting came from within.
“Easy, Lester!” Francis bellowed, hammering the steel door with his fist. “We’ve got an inspector here to see someone.”
Suddenly, a wild visage slammed against the porthole. A man—bald save for a tuft of black hair at the crown and a heavy, unkempt beard—snarled and gnashed his crooked, brown teeth. A network of scar tissue webbed across his inflamed scalp and contorted face, with fresh spittle flecking his curled lips. He glared at Greycross and howled again, pounding his fists against the door. A patient across the hall moaned and began to sob.
“The jacket it is, then,” Francis said. “If you quiet now, it’ll only be for the night.”
“It’s you!” the patient—Lester—cried to Greycross, ignoring the orderly’s threats. “Yes! Yes! Come here, friend. Come! I’ve got many things to tell you.”
Greycross moved closer, studying the man’s feral eyes. Something in them unnerved him momentarily—not mere madness, but a flash of something far beyond the man’s ravaged senses.
“Don’t get any closer, sir,” Francis warned. “He’s got a venereal disease. He’ll spit in your eye—or fling shit at you.”
“They said you’d come today,” Lester murmured. “Listen well!”
Greycross remained silent. The talisman tucked inside his vest began to hum like a bowed string.
“Der Wald ruft dich … und er wird dich brechen,” Lester growled, his voice now guttural and animalistic. “Kein Schlaf im schwarzen Wald!”
“Gibberish,” Francis scoffed.
“Not gibberish, my friend—German,” Greycross said, his gaze trained on Lester. “Noch etwas, das Ihr zu sagen habt?”
“Die Wölfe hungern!” Lester cried in response, then threw his head back with another long, bestial howl. “Blut im Schatten, Schmerz im Lied!”
Francis looked incredulously from Lester to Greycross. “I had no bloomin’ idea he spoke German. What did he say to you?”
“Just a bit of prattle concerning wolves,” Greycross said, though the cryptic words struck him like a dire warning—or a threat from the agents of Abyss.
“That explains the howling,” Francis said. “Let’s not waste any more of your time, inspector.”
As the men turned to leave, Lester shouted, “Wait! I nearly forgot the most important part!”
“I’m listening,” Greycross said, glaring over his shoulder.
“He’s a damn fine shot,” Lester rasped. “A very fine marksman, indeed!”
“Who is?”
“Shipman,” Lester hissed, barely audible. To Francis the name was meaningless; to Greycross it struck like a cold arrowhead to the heart. The madman then burst into hysterical laughter as other patients along the corridor began to croon and caterwaul.
“BANG!” Lester cried, jerking his head back in dark mockery. “BOOM!”
Greycross locked eyes with Lester, and with the voice of his mind he spoke a single command to the entity that had seized the lunatic:
Ussuṛum aṛ lisanum!
Lester suddenly screeched and threw himself backwards onto his bed, undulating, groaning, and babbling. A moment later, he slept.
Francis looked at Greycross, and simply shrugged, saying, “Not the strangest thing I’ve seen this shift.”
The orderly gestured towards the adjacent door, its placard reading M. Albans. Francis peeked in through the barred aperture and shook his head.
“I feel quite sorry for her,” he said, working a key into the lock. “Can’t imagine I’d want much to do with the world if I were maimed so horribly.”
Francis eased the door open and motioned Greycross through.
Mary Albans lay on a narrow wooden bed, propped at an angle and dressed in a blue cotton gown. Her face was bandaged so completely that only one staring eye, a few tresses of blonde hair, and a pair of chapped lips could be seen. The stillness of her body and the way her hands were laid in her lap reminded Greycross unpleasantly of the post-mortem photograph Walter had shared of his beloved daughter. If not for the ever so faint rising and falling of Mary’s chest, Greycross might have counted her among the dead, as well.
“I’ll wait just outside,” Francis said, looking solemnly at Mary. “Take your time.”
Greycross nodded in thanks and found a stool to sit on next to Mary, who paid no mind to his presence as he rustled near her.
“Good afternoon, Miss Albans,” Greycross said, watching her lone eye for any flicker of awareness. “I’m John Greycross, a special investigator—and a friend of Mr. Walter Shipman.”
The slightest stutter interrupted Mary’s deep inhalation.
Greycross considered a few lines of inquiry—he even entertained producing the doll from his overcoat to show Mary—yet all these paths risked completely shattering what little of her senses might be left. He would need to proceed with the utmost care.
“Something happened to you, Miss Albans, that was both traumatic and beyond your understanding,” Greycross said, his voice soft, warm. “You may feel as though you can no longer trust your own faculties, but I want you to know that you can certainly trust me.”
After a moment, a tear welled in the cusp of Mary’s eye, then broke free. Greycross reached into his coat and pulled out a kerchief, gently blotting the drop away.
“Most of all, I’d like to assure you that you are not insane,” Greycross continued, placing a hand atop Mary’s, feeling the slender bones and the tremors quaking through them. “What you faced that night, while a nightmare made real, has an explanation. It was the work of someone truly abhorrent. And I believe you may help me uncover who.”
Mary groaned and shut her eye.
“Mr. Shipman has been ensnared in a malicious scheme by some unknown actor with ties to the occult,” Greycross said. “Are you familiar with that term?”
Mary’s head inclined in the slightest nod.
“In all the years you were at Primrose, had you seen anything unusual? A visit from a strange guest, perhaps?”
Following a stretch of silence, Mary’s lips began to move. The first word she produced, dry as sand, was: “Please.”
Greycross leaned closer. “Yes, Miss Albans?”
“Find … her …” Mary rasped. She attempted another word but seemed to choke on it before finally managing what sounded like: “In the … woods …”
Greycross’s thoughts leapt at once to the woodland surrounding Primrose, from where Charlotte’s revenant had seemed to emerge each twilight. Mrs. Muldon had related that Mary was attacked just past sunset, outside the scullery which opened onto a garden facing the trees.
“Find her …” Mary repeated, whimpering and narrowing her eye.
Greycross wondered if she was referring to the revenant—she would of course assume the creature was still stalking the woods, he reasoned.
“You want me to find Charlotte, yes?” Greycross asked.
Mary flinched at the name.
“You need not worry about that dear girl,” Greycross assured. “I have helped lay her to a final rest. The nightmare is over, Miss Albans.”
Mary sobbed almost inaudibly and gave Greycross’s fingers a feeble squeeze.
“She is at peace, I promise,” Greycross said. “But I need to know who wrought that atrocity—before they create more horrors. If you know anything, you must tell me now.”
Only the sound of Mary’s ragged breathing answered. Greycross watched as a tear traced a tiny rivulet from the corner of her eye, vanishing into a bandage.
After waiting several moments, he determined that she had fallen into a stupor.
“Damn it,” Greycross hissed. “If I could only have a look inside your mind …”
Casting a glance over his shoulder, Greycross saw Francis outside, his back turned as he looked in on a patient across the hall. Without hesitation, Greycross placed a finger on Mary’s forehead and began to chant in a low murmur:
Ti’antum a’daṛum …
Ti’antum a’daṛum …
Ti’antum a’daṛum …
He traced a sigil over her brow, golden light trailing behind his touch to reveal a complex incantation. The instant it was complete, he was nearly hurled backwards from his chair as a vision came like a crashing wave.
Countless faces, places, and emotions eddied around Greycross as he swam through the turbid waters of Mary’s memories.
Show me, Mary, Greycross called into the maelstrom.
The chaos fell away, and he found himself seated in a dimly lit room. In the doorway, he saw a familiar face, although contorted with anguish—Walter Shipman.
It’s over now, an unseen man said.
Walter buried his face into the crook of his arm, then turned about and stormed away into the umbrage of a vast hallway.
Mr. Shipman, Greycross called, though his voice was now soft, female, and wavering with distress.
His heart filled with fathomless sorrow, and hands that were not his own rose to cover eyes which also belonged to another—eyes that were swelling with tears.
I’m so sorry, the unseen speaker said. A thin, older man with an aquiline nose and a nearly bald head came into view, blotting sweat from his brow with a kerchief. He wore small, round spectacles, and was dressed down to a vest and shirt sleeves. A brass stethoscope was slung around his neck, his expression solemn. I’m so very sorry, Mary.
The man—clearly a doctor—placed a hand on the shoulder of the person Greycross had become: Mary Albans.
With a turn of the head, a large, beautifully crafted four-post canopy bed came into view, its pink silk drapes partially drawn. Nestled in a cocoon of duvets and cushions was a beatific girl, her cheeks scarlet with rash, cascades of golden hair damp with perspiration. Charlotte Shipman lay in impossible stillness, and the sight of this tore Greycross and Mary’s shared heart to ribbons.
In a whirlwind of space and time, Greycross was now standing in a back garden under the deep blue of an evening sky. A chilled breeze coursed around him, dead leaves spiralling at his booted feet, and in one slender, feminine hand he carried a pail of kitchen scraps. As he moved along a narrow walkway, he heard a rustling noise. His vision spun, briefly catching the lighted window of what appeared to be a scullery and the silhouette of a woman bent over her work—Mrs. Muldon.
The sound came again, followed by a lowing that Greycross recognized at once—the cry of the revenant. He felt a primal fear spark through every nerve fibre—Mary’s animal instinct for survival surging into action. A nearby tangle of shrubbery shivered, and Greycross saw the revenant lurch out, resembling more the version of Charlotte on her deathbed than the decimated corpse he had battled and exorcised that fateful night.
Charlotte, the voice of Mary Albans whispered into the dark. Greycross felt disbelief collide calamitously with pure horror. Is it really you?
Charlotte’s eyes were cataracted, frosted over by death, yet they held an uncanny and stupefying awareness. These eyes traced Mary and Greycross up and down as the figure advanced with its familiar limp, the mouth—still recognizably childlike—beginning to peel back with malice.
The creature pounced forwards with a vicious snarl, and Greycross felt the arm he shared with Mary Albans whip out in defence. He was seized by the back of the head, glimpsing an opened mouth dripping yellow ichor before searing pain tore across his face.
The vision faded, and Greycross turned to Mary in her bed—now screaming, rending the fusty air of the asylum with a wretched wail. He bolted out of his seat just as Francis rushed in. The orderly’s face was wrought with bewilderment as he looked from Mary to Greycross.
“What in blazes have you done, man?” Francis cried above the shrill, whistle-like screams issuing from Mary, who bucked and wrenched with anguish. He dashed out of the room to a bell mounted against the wall and rang it frantically, its peals mingling with the riotous cries of agitated patients all along the corridor.
Francis returned and gripped Mary by the wrists, who continued to thrash and whip her body as if someone had set fire to her bed. Two nurses and another orderly rushed into the room, and Greycross began to slip away.
“Hold it!” Francis shouted. “Don’t you dare!”
But Greycross had already taken flight. Before he could reach the staircase, an older man with two orderlies flanking him ascended. As Greycross brushed past, the man bellowed, “You! What have you done?”
“Dr. McCord, I presume?” Greycross said, the noise in the corridor nearly maddening.
“What’s happened to my patient?” McCord demanded. His eyes were fierce in contrast to an otherwise gentle and paternal face, the silver streaks throughout his once black hair testaments to long years of incredible strain.
“I’m sorry, I must be going,” Greycross said, eyeing the two orderlies. A blood-curdling scream ripped through the cacophony, and as the men startled, Greycross shoved between them and raced down the stairs. Looking back over his shoulder as he loped away, he saw one of the orderlies standing dumbfounded as McCord and the other hurried upwards and onwards.
With a glancing “good day, thanks very much,” Greycross breezed past the receptionist and through the lobby. He flung open one of the outer doors and leapt down the stairs. A muffled scream and a chorus of dissonant cries resounded from within the asylum. In the adjacent garden, the nurse and orderly who had been flirting with one another were now shepherding the patients back in.
Gillis sat ready atop the carriage, pocketing his flask.
“Soonded like the verra gates of Hell got thrawn wide,” Gillis said. “Ah figured it was aboot time tae get gang.”
“Well reasoned,” Greycross said, climbing into the carriage.
“Ye get anythin’ oot o’ the poor lass?” Gillis asked.
“Find her,” Greycross muttered. “In the woods.”
“That narrows it doon nicely,” Gillis said, lashing the horses back onto the wooded drive. “Where tae now?”
“Coffeehouse,” Greycross grumbled. He leaned back into the button-tufted squabs of the passenger seat, groaning as the residual pain from Mary’s horrifying memories pressed upon him.
“What in Christ’s name was gaun on in there, Johnny?’
“I foolishly thought I might glean something from Miss Albans by using the Sea of Memory incantation.”
“Thas one tae be wary of,” Gillis said. “Yer auld man claimed there was naught sae terrifyin’ as havin’ a keek inside another’s heid.”
“Indeed,” Greycross sighed. “I feel as though someone has driven a railroad spike through my skull.”
“Aye,” Gillis chuckled.
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