The Ten Thousand Doors of January(47)

Their hands came down like harpy claws on my shoulders. I froze—I had to stay calm and sane-seeming, had to be good—but one of them scooped my book off the floor and I lunged for it. And then they were twisting my wrists behind my back and I was kicking and howling and spitting, fighting with the unscientific chaos of young children and madwomen.

But they were older and stronger and depressingly capable, and soon my flailing arms were pressed tight to my sides and my feet were half marching, half skidding out into the hall.

“Straight to the doctor, I think,” one of them panted. The other nodded.

I caught glimpses of myself as I passed the windowed doors of other rooms: a dark ghost in white cotton, mad-eyed and tangle-haired, escorted by women so upright and starched they must be either angels or demons.

They steered me down two floors to an office door with gold lettering painted on the glass: Dr. Stephen J. Palmer, Chief Medical Superintendent. It struck me as darkly, terribly funny that all my good behavior and polite questions couldn’t get me into this office, but a little howling and thrashing had brought me right to his door. Perhaps I ought to howl more often. Perhaps I ought to be again that obstreperous girl-child I was when I was seven.

Dr. Palmer’s office was wood-paneled and leather-chaired, full of antique instruments and gold-framed certificates in Latin. Dr. Palmer himself was aging, aloof, with tiny half-glasses that perched on the end of his nose like a well-mannered wire bird. The asylum smell of ammonia and panic was entirely absent.

I hated him for that. For not having to breathe in the stink of it every day of his life.

The nurses corralled me into a chair and loomed behind me. One of them handed Dr. Palmer my book. It looked small and shabby on his desk, and not very magical at all.

“I think Miss January will behave herself now. Won’t you, dear?” His voice had a hearty, unassailable confidence that made me think of senators or salesmen, or Mr. Locke.

“Yes, sir,” I whispered. The gargoyle-nurses departed.

Dr. Palmer reshuffled a series of folders and papers on his desk. He took up his pen—a heavy, ugly specimen that looked like it could double as a rolling pin in an emergency—and I felt myself go very, very still. I’d written open one door, hadn’t I?

“Now. This book.” The doctor tapped the cover with a knuckle. “How did you sneak it into your room?”

“I didn’t. It came in through the window.” Most people can’t tell the difference between truth-telling and madness; try it sometime, and you’ll see what I mean.

Dr. Palmer gave me a small, pitying smile. “Ah, I see. Now. From what Mr. Locke tells me, your decline has much to do with your father. Would you like to tell me a bit more about him?”

“No.” I wanted my book back. I wanted to be unchained and unfettered, to go find my dog and my friend and my father. I wanted that damn pen.

Dr. Palmer smiled his pity-smile again. “A foreigner of some sort, was he not, and colored? An aborigine or Negroid fellow?”

I considered, briefly but longingly, how nice it would feel to spit directly into his face, to spatter those neat spectacles with slime.

“Yes, sir.” I tried to marshal my familiar good-girl face, to arrange my features in that dewy, biddable expression that served me so well in Locke’s world. It sat wooden and stiff on my face, unconvincing. “My father worked—works—for Mr. Locke. As an archaeological explorer. He is often away.”

“I see. And he passed away recently.”

I pictured Jane telling me that Locke was not God and that she hadn’t given up yet. Oh, Father, I haven’t given up either.

“Yes, sir. Please”—I swallowed, tried to reassemble my good-girl mask—“when can I go home?”

Home. See that H like a house with two chimneys? I meant Locke House when I said it—with its familiar labyrinth of hallways, its hidden attics and warm red-stone walls—but I was unlikely ever to return there now.

Dr. Palmer was reshuffling his folders again, not looking at me. I wondered how long Mr. Locke had paid him to keep me here, mad or otherwise. “It’s not clear at this time, but I shouldn’t be in a rush if I were you. There’s no reason you shouldn’t rest here for a few months, is there? Recover your strength?”

I could think of at least thirty good reasons I didn’t want to stay locked in an asylum for months, but all I said was, “Yes, sir. And can I—do you think I could have my book back? And perhaps a pen and paper? Writing… eases my mind.” I attempted a timorous smile.

“Oh, not just yet. We’ll discuss it again next week, if you’ve been on your best behavior. Mrs. Jacobs, Mrs. Reynolds, if you please—”

The door opened behind me. The sharp steps of the nurses clicked across the floor. A week?

I flung myself across his desk and seized the slick smoothness of the doctor’s pen. I tore it from his grasp, spun away, barreled into the nurses—and then they had me, and it was over. A starched white arm crushed itself against my throat, quite dispassionately, and I felt my fingers being peeled inexorably away from the pen.

“No, please, you don’t understand—” I scrabbled, bare feet sliding uselessly across the floor.

“Ether, I think, and a dose of bromide. Thank you, ladies.”

My last sight of the office was Dr. Palmer placing the pen fastidiously in his pocket and tucking my book in his desk drawer.