No one looked for her very hard. Not the police or social services.
I was interviewed, of course, because I was on record as having had contact with the family.
I told them that it was my understanding that the younger girl had been sent off to live with a distant relative. A cousin, perhaps? Somewhere out of state—regrettably, I had no more information.
Next came the real challenge of the Mayflower Project: to take this girl who had come from nothing, this girl who had done terrible things—and to wipe her clean. To have her begin again as an empty vessel ready to fill.
Vi
July 20, 1978
VI AND IRIS were alone in Vi’s room after dinner—Iris was quiet, glassy-eyed. She sat on her bed on the floor, staring out at nothing. Vi knew that look—Gran had given Iris medicine to help keep her calm after her “episode” at the fire last night.
It was all Vi’s fault. If she hadn’t come up with the stupid plan and asked Iris to fake going nuts and lead Gran off on a chase through the woods, then Iris wouldn’t be all tranqed up. And Eric wouldn’t be shut up in his room, sulking, after Gran yelled and yelled at him for setting the fire in the first place. “Idiotic,” she’d said. “Honestly, Eric, I’m disappointed in you.”
Vi had told both of them that she hadn’t been able to get into the basement—that the key hadn’t worked. She hadn’t been able to face telling either of them the truth. She’d been living with the secret all day, felt it coiled inside her like a poisonous snake.
She looked out the window. She could see the lights of the Inn glowing. The air was damp and the beams of light made a ghostly halo around the building. Gran had said she wouldn’t be back until late. They were short-staffed and a patient was in crisis. Vi was glad to see Gran go. Half of her still loved Gran desperately, and the other half hated her with a ferocity she hadn’t realized she was capable of. She’d never felt so tangled up.
This was someone she’d known her whole life, who had taught her to read, had nurtured her ambitions to be a doctor, who’d fed her and bathed her and put cool cloths on her head when she was sick, who sang her a lullaby each night. Yet somehow, she was the same woman who’d written those notes, who’d done those horrible things to Iris and all the others.
Iris was obviously Patient S. That meant there had been at least eighteen patients in the Mayflower Project before her. Thinking about it made Vi feel sick and dizzy. She thought of Old Mac—how he always wore a hat, was completely devoted to Gran. But what had happened to all of the others?
“You okay?” she asked Iris for what must have been the hundredth time. She walked over, sat down on the mattress beside her.
“Yeah,” Iris said. “Just sleepy.” She laid her head back on the pillow. The dingy rabbit puppet was beside her. She slept with it every night.
“I think it’s important,” Vi said, “that you not take the pills Gran gives you.”
With effort, Iris sat up again. She looked at Vi with a puzzled expression, but said nothing.
“Just fake it,” Vi explained. “Keep the pill in your cheek—and when she’s not looking, spit it out.”
For the first time in her life that she could remember, Vi hadn’t drunk the special milkshake Gran made for her that morning. She took pretend sips while Gran was watching; then, when she left the kitchen, Vi had dumped it down the drain.
She didn’t think there was anything in there besides wheat germ and raw egg, milk and ice cream, but she didn’t trust Gran. Not anymore.
“Why shouldn’t I take them?” Iris asked now, blinking like a tired owl. “Gran says the medicine helps. It’s to help make me better. Make me remember.”
“What if it’s not?” Vi said.