Midnight Lily(32)

"Like who?"

She shrugged. "There's always someone society chooses not to see. There's always someone who is invisible through no fault of their own."

I nodded. "Mental health care is a lot different now than it was back then. A lot more understood."

"Yes. For the most part, I think. Do you want to walk with me?"

As we began walking, she said, "There were two different patient escapes at Whittington. One happened during the coldest winter on record. A young girl, sixteen at the time, climbed out a window and somehow made it through the gate and into the woods. It was determined that she'd been highly medicated and simply wandered away. A search party was sent out, but she wasn't found. It was assumed she perished somewhere in this," she waved her arm around, "vast wilderness. Experts said there was no way she could have survived the temperatures."

"That's awful," I murmured. "Only sixteen? Jesus. I didn't realize teens had been there, too."

"Oh yes. Children and teens were there from the time it opened." We were both quiet for a moment, me pondering the terror a child must have felt in a place like that. "Sometimes I wonder if I might come upon her remains out here," she said, shooting me a glance. "Is that totally macabre?"

I managed a small smile. "Yes. But I guess it really is possible. Might be nice for her family anyway—to be able to bury her."

"That's what I thought, too."

I frowned. "What other escape was there?"

"Six years ago, on a July night, there was a summer storm that caused a power failure at Whittington. All the lights went out for several hours. During that time, many of the patients escaped to these woods. They wandered until morning when a search party was sent out, and all but one was rounded up."

"Who wasn't found?" I asked.

Lily was quiet for a moment. "A nineteen-year-old man, the son of a rich executive from Connecticut. The subsequent search parties didn't find him either. He survived out here," she waved her hand around again, "for over five months before he snuck back to Whittington probably intending to steal food. As it happened, it was a visiting day. While the families of the patients were inside, the escaped patient climbed into the trunk of a car. The family unknowingly transported him to their estate, where their teenage daughter discovered him later hiding in their stables."

"How do you know this?" I asked, intrigued.

"I found the stories in old newspaper clippings," she said, looking ahead.

"Where? Inside?"

She glanced over at me and nodded. She'd been curious, too. I wondered if I should tell her it wasn't safe to be wandering through abandoned buildings, but I didn't know how to word it so it didn't sound condescending. Especially since I'd just been inside myself.

"What happened when the girl discovered the escaped patient in her stables?"

"They fell in love," she said simply.

"The patient and the daughter fell in love? Wow. How'd that happen?"

Lily shrugged. "He was handsome and kind. Very, very troubled, but very, very kind. She harbored him. She fed him, and clothed him, kept him warm, and eventually, she gave him her heart."

I looked over at her. The expression on her face was wistful. She looked at me. "I imagine," she said and gave me a slight smile. "Maybe that's me romanticizing it, but that's how I picture it happening." She shrugged.

"What happened after that?" I asked.

"He ended up back at Whittington eventually." She shrugged again. "These things never end well, I suppose."

"Don't they?" I asked. "Maybe he got better. Maybe he found the right treatment, and found her again. Maybe they ended up together after all."

She tilted her head. "Why, Holden Scott, I do believe you're a romantic, too."

I chuckled. "Now that's something I've never been accused of before."

She smiled. "No?"

I shook my head, taking her hand in mine. She looked down at our joined hands and smiled softly. "I missed you," I said.

She glanced at me. "For three days?"

"Yes. Didn't you miss me?"

She paused before answering. "Yes."

"Do you think he's the one who collected the arrowheads?" I asked after a moment, suddenly remembering them.

"I wondered that, too," she said. "I like to think so. I like to think he found ways to keep his mind occupied. Maybe he even liked it out here." She smiled. "I do."

"I think he'd be lonely, though. Maybe that's the reason he went back. Maybe it wasn't for food. After all, the forest could provide for a man if he knew what he was doing. Maybe he decided he'd rather be locked up than be lonely."

"Would you?" she asked.

"Rather be locked up than be lonely? It's hard to say. I've never been locked up before. But based on what I read online, I'd probably choose loneliness. It sounded like being locked up was the least of the torments that patients experienced at Whittington, at least in the older days. And maybe he was even lonely while he was locked up. I guess out here at least he had freedom."

Lily was quiet for a moment. "Yes. Freedom." She paused. "I suppose we'll never know what he was thinking exactly."