After Alice Fell(40)

Then she pulls a chair out for me. Drops in the one across. “I didn’t expect you. Not really. No one listens to me, so . . .” She ducks her head to her shoulder. “But you are here.”

“Why did you write me, Miss Swain?”

“Kitty.”

“Kitty.”

She sits back. Fidgets with her hands. Cuts a glance to the barkeep, then back to me. “I’m in the kitchen. Most times. Others, I get sent to clean or whatever is needed. Mrs. Brighton says I am very good at doing what is asked.” She purses her lips, as if someone had just forced a lemon in her mouth, then shakes her head. “But sometimes what I’m asked to do and what I should do are at odds. And that pricks at my conscience.”

“What were you asked to do?”

I see the black flecks in Miss Swain’s eyes, the rim of red on an earlobe. She spreads her hands on the table and leans forward like a doll hinged at the hips. “It’s what I was asked not to do.”

“Which was?”

“I promised I wouldn’t say, but I can’t promise a lie.”

“Kitty—”

“I saw her fall.”

I pull in a breath. “What?”

She drops her gaze to the tabletop. “I like to walk the paths at night. Before matron does evening reading. No one saying, ‘Kitty, do this, Kitty, do that.’ Just me and the stars and the quiet.”

“What did you see?”

“No one goes on the roof. But that night, I saw a shape, and I thought, There’s someone up there, standing right on the edge. It’s Alice. And I thought, No that’s not right. It can’t be Alice. But it was. And I said, ‘What are you doing up there?’” She points, as if the roof of the asylum is just beyond my shoulder, her eyes narrowed on some figure only she can see. “She looked behind as if someone else was there and talking to her, and then she was over the edge . . .” She hugs her arms to her chest and rocks. “Her arms spun round like windmills, and I laughed. I shouldn’t have, it was terrible, but that’s what I thought then. How silly, as if she’d catch the air and it would all stop.”

My heart knocks against my chest. “You saw her fall.”

“The sound when she landed. It was . . . I still hear it.” She blinks and stares. “I ran up quick as I could. She was so still . . . I sat down right by her and held her hand. She liked her hand held, it gave her . . . Mrs. Brighton came running, and then so many others. But I kept hold of her hand all the time until they took her away.”

“Was she still alive? When you found her.”

“She made such horrible noises. Such—” A sob rasps out of her. She drags a handkerchief from the waist of her dress and holds it over her face. “She was my friend.”

My hand trembles as I touch her wrist and wait for her to gather herself. She folds the linen in fourths and smooths it on the table.

“Kitty,” I say. “How did she get up there?”

Kitty looks up. “I don’t know.” She bites hard on her lip.

“Did she pick the lock?”

“There’s a metal plate on the third-floor doors. On the inside. You can’t pick your way out of that. It has to be unlocked from the outside.”

My mouth opens and shuts.

“You can’t get out of those rooms.” She reaches to me.

“You’re telling me—”

“Mrs. Abbott, I don’t know what happened. She was in a terrible state, but I can’t see it, not jumping like that. No. We always said to each other, One can hope. Someone else had to be up there.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Her hand trembles. She dabs a napkin to her lips. But she doesn’t stop talking, and the saliva smears and glistens on her chin. “She wasn’t herself that last week. They had to tie her down to stop her screaming sometimes. I was only allowed a visit once.”

A jagged chill scratches its way under my skin. I cannot move. My arms and legs are lead heavy. I fear the floorboards will crack under the weight. “What did they do to her?”

“What didn’t they?” Kitty looks at me askance. “Trying all sorts of ways to keep her . . . contained. That’s what Mrs. Brighton says. But she took Beatrice’s passing hard.”

“Beatrice?”

“Beatrice Beecham. She was on the same floor as Alice, they liked to sew together. And then she went to the ice treatment and didn’t come back. Apoplexy. That’s what Dr. Mayhew said, and that you can’t ever know when one will come. And Alice beat her head against the wall until her skin split, and Mrs. Brighton and one of the wardens took her to the third floor.”

My legs shake as I stand and lurch away from the table. “I need to see Dr.—”

“Don’t tell him I came here. I’ll lose my job. I can’t lose my job.”

I push my way through the room, past knees and elbows. A lunch pail kicked to the side. I wipe at my eyes and stumble toward the livery.

Kitty follows, matching me stride for stride. Not touching me nor stopping me. She follows me into the shade of the livery entrance, slows with me. Steps behind me as I stumble to an alley and bend to the wall and am sick.

She hands me her handkerchief to wipe my mouth. Turns her head to look away as I spit up sour saliva. I press my palms and forehead to the sun-hot brick. Rake in breaths. Swallow back bile. My skin chills and I shiver. Then I blow out one long breath and step back. “Who had the key to that door?”