“Another lie.” His face grew red, and then he sneered. “Oh, perfect Jack, your little lover. Snuck into his room at night, did you? I know all about it. Has he had you yet? Does he know what you are?”
I was blinded by white-hot anger. “You can stick it, you disgusting pig.”
He laughed at that. “You’re not one of the weak. Not you. I’ll get my gun from him; never worry. Now give me the key to the west wing.”
Again, I could have put him off. Only the orderlies had the keys to the west wing, but I still had the ring of keys I’d taken off Paulus’s belt the night before. At least, if I gave Creeton the key, I’d be able to tell Jack where we could find him. “It’s in the pocket of my apron,” I said.
“Don’t reach,” he said. “Keep your hands on the bed where I can see them. I’ll get it myself.”
He took his time about it, putting his beefy hands into my pockets, making sure his fingers grabbed and pinched me through the layers of fabric. He finally found the right key ring and held it out in front of me. “Is this it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good girl.” He laughed low and put his hand down again, this time grabbing my backside the way he had the first day. “Very nice.”
Tears stung my eyes. “You can’t hurt me,” I said to him. “I’ve been hurt by worse than you, and he’s dead now, or dying.”
He dropped his hand. “I would have done it, you know. That day. I could have saved everyone a lot of trouble. I’m one of the weak. My father knows it, and so do I. It would have been best if I’d gone that day, because it’s best if the weak are eliminated. But now I have an assignment to carry out. It’s the only reason he hasn’t had me kill myself already.”
“Then go do it,” I spat, “and leave me alone.”
“Business first. Put your wrists together.”
He pulled out another of Nina’s stockings. I couldn’t do it; it was foolish perhaps, but I’d given in too many times in my life, and all my instincts rose up. I fought him as he grabbed my wrists. I thrashed hard and I screamed. He swore and stuffed the stocking into my mouth, then grabbed another as I choked on it, and he yanked my wrists again.
Still I fought. It was a grim struggle, the two of us on the ground, I trying to kick him or jab him with my knees, Creeton using his big bulk to pin me down. I was bruised and straining by the end of it, the stocking thick and foul in my mouth, sweat running down my forehead and onto my temples, tears flowing down my face. But he won. He finally wound the stocking around both of my wrists and tied me to the leg of my bedstead, just as he had done to Nina.
He stood, panting, and looked down at me. “You’re lucky you’re one of the strong ones,” he said. “And you’re lucky I’m out of time. Otherwise I’d use these, just as I did on your friend.” He reached into his pocket and held up the bottle of Jack’s pills.
I screamed past the stocking, and it came out a pitiful, muffled sound. If he’d given those pills to Nina, she was as good as dead. I was so bloody helpless. I felt more tears on my face. I kicked my legs, but he stepped easily away.
“I only gave her three,” he said. “I made her take them. I didn’t want to kill her any more than I want to kill you, but she’ll sleep a good while, I think. She won’t be much use to anyone even when she wakes up. I was saving the others for you, but I can tell you won’t swallow them, even at knifepoint. And I don’t want to take that stocking out of your mouth and hear you scream again.”
He put the bottle in his pocket. He looked down at me, and in my haze I wasn’t sure whether he spoke again. And then he was gone, and I was tied up on the floor, alone.
Seconds ticked by like hours. Time blurred. The rain pattered on the window. No one else came. Nina was still.
I closed my eyes. Something was happening downstairs; I was sure of it. I hoped Jack and Mabry were ready for it. I hoped the patients had been moved. I thought, incongruously, of Syd, the way he’d looked on the day he came to see me, in his wool suit and new hat. The way he’d smelled. My own brother, who I’d thought dead, coming to get me. Hitting me. I lay back and felt the bitter sting of the stocking in my throat and wept, there on the floor. My anger had faded into black helplessness. It seemed I would always be fighting with men, always wondering when they’d pin me down to get their way. Only Jack touched me with gentleness. And why would Jack ever love someone as worthless as I was?
There was nothing but the sound of the rain on the window, the numbness in my hands, the tight pain in my wrists, and the ache in my arms. My lower back hurt, and my elbow from where I’d cracked it fighting Creeton, and my ribs and legs ached. After I stopped crying I was just this, a body, a collection of varying aches and pains, my heart pushing blood through me as I waited.
Then I heard a creak in the corridor, and a quiet footstep.
I stayed still at first, listening. If it was the shirtless ghost of Mikael Gersbach, I didn’t want to see it. I would stay still, and maybe he would go away.
Another footstep, closer this time. Someone had come through the door of the nursery and was crossing the floor toward me.
I didn’t feel a flash of cold, and I didn’t hear the pipes begin to moan in the walls. I opened my eyes and craned my neck, but the angle was wrong and I couldn’t see who was approaching. It was someone tentative, almost tiptoeing. That meant it couldn’t be Jack or Mabry. Creeton had finished with me and left. Who was tiptoeing around Portis House?
I heard a rustle of skirts, and gooseflesh broke out on my arms.
She came into my line of vision at last. She was wearing the same dress I’d seen her in before, though it was dusty and bedraggled. Her blond hair was pulled back into a simple braid. She was thin and pale, but she was real, and she was alive. It was the girl from the picture in Maisey’s locket. She came forward and knelt next to me.
“Hush,” she said. “We must be quiet.”
I blinked up at her, amazed.
The girl pulled out a pocketknife and motioned toward my ties. “I’m here to help you,” she said. “My name is Anna Gersbach.”
? ? ?
“I don’t even know where to start,” I said when she had pulled the stocking from my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her accent was flavored with French and something upper class and Continental. “I don’t mean to startle you. I’m one of the family who used to live here.”
“I know who you are,” I said, watching as she sawed the blade of her pocketknife against the stockings around my wrists. Up close, I could see that her hair was coming loose from its braid and her fingernails were caked with dirt. A sour, unwashed smell came off her. “I’m Kitty Weekes. I’ve seen you before. Outside. You aren’t dead.”
“No,” she said simply, straining as she cut.
“What about your mother?”
“She is dead,” Anna replied. “Just three weeks ago.”
“Three weeks? Where have you both been all this time?”
She glanced at me. “It is a long story. I don’t know if we have time to hear it now.”