“Simon,” I remark chipperly in greeting, my faux smile just as forced as his as I try to appeal to his ego, his sleazy gaze raking down the part of my body not hidden by the door.
“I wanted to check you were okay after the fight at lunch.”
“It was Jello, not rocks; I’m sure I’ll survive.” My laugh is broken as he leans in. “Thank you though, for checking on me,” I say, mentally noting what in my room I could use as a weapon for protection if he doesn’t remove his foot from my doorway and pushes inside. He may be tall and skinny, but he is still a man, and I don’t much like my odds of getting the door closed and keeping it closed if he decides he isn’t taking no for an answer.
“I’m here to help,” he titters, and a chill creeps up my spine, the unseen hand of warning brushing against my skin as my gut instincts kick in.
“I have my friend on the phone—would you mind if we pick this up later, preferably downstairs in the dinner hall?” I lie,leaving off the‘in a place with witnesses’because I don’t want to tempt fate and fuck with what I’m realising is an already very unstable man. I know the patients are allowed to roam free around here, but I’ve noticed Lenora keeps this guy closer than most, and his affiliation with my new boss does nothing to settle my nerves. My pulse quickens as I wait a beat to see if he’ll move his foot. Another genial smile seems to satisfy him—for now.
He’shesitant as he slides his foot out of the way, grinning when he says, “Later then.”
I push the door closed and grab for the chair I keep to the side to wedge under the handle, but the tinkling of a chain attached to a key in a brand-new lock installed above me on my door grabs my attention. I hadn’t noticed it before. The chair clatters to the ground as I twist the key and pull it out, looping the chain over my head and backing away slowly towards the bed. The door handle twists, but doesn’t open, relief filling me as I hold onto the key around my neck like it’s my lifeline.
“I forgot to tell you, I have some forms I was meant to leave you. There’s been some changes in your shifts.” Simon’s voice is muffled through the wood, but I can still make out the brusqueness in his tone; he was expecting to barrel in here when my back was turned.
I’ve met your kind, fucker.
He always seems to eye me like I’m his next meal and not in the funfuck-me-six-ways-from-Sundayway that Ezra does.
“Push it under the door, please.” The cordial edge to my voice is all a show; I’m shaking like a leaf and thanking all my lucky stars for whoever it was that installed the lock on my door.
The brown envelope is pushed under my door, and Simon’s retreating footsteps are music to my ears. Falling down on the edge of my bed, I sit there, staring at the door and fiddling with the key resting against my thumping heart. It doesn’t bear thinking about how differently that could have gone. I know Ishould feel worried that someone had to gain entry to fit the lock, but for now, I’ll just appreciate that ensuring my safety was on someone’s to-do list. I think I can check Simon off that list considering he tried the handle to no avail, plus I don’t think my safety is high on his priorities.
The weight of Simon’s disgusting fascination still lingers on my skin, and the idea of a second shower of the day is welcomed.
“Room 401. Room 401,”I say into the void as I walk down yet another hallway on the lower level of Blackwood; the maze of rooms seem to have no correlation in numbers jumping from odd to even. I woke up early to get this done, thinking it wouldn’t take me long - forty five minutes later and i’m not ashamed to admit - I think i’m lost. “169.” I balk as I round a corner and come face to face with yet another identical brown door. I could give up, I could try and find my way back to the main staircase and wait until someone can lead the way to the laundry room so I can get a spare uniform, but the thought of that someone being Simon has me venturing on deeper down the dimly lit hallway alone. I can’t imagine there is anything worse than him down here. I’ll take my chances.
I’d expected the papers that Simon had left me with to be a rundown of the day-to-day tasks I’d be responsible for. The bright yellow note stapled to the front page from Lenora is why I find myself here, lost in the depths of a mental asylum with nothing but the ability to inflict papercuts as a way of protection.
A suitable backup uniform for when yours is spoiled can be found in room 401. I suggest you make this your first point of call. Failure to do so will be frowned upon.
I’ve reread the note aloud, applying the unfeeling coldness that Lenora Blackwood will forever be synonymous with to my voice. Chuckling to myself to fill the silence that hangs heavy in the air the further away I get from civilisation. The map included in the envelope is about as useful as pedals on a wheelchair, and no matter how many times I twist it to try and make sense of the layout, I come up short. Each time I think I’ve gotten somewhere, I seem to hit a dead end, as though the building is fucking with me just for kicks.
The rumble of tumble dryers down a hall to my left attracts my attention, and I hurry towards it. Where there are dryers, there are clothes. It’s the only logic I have right now, so I run with it.
“Hello…” I poke my head inside room 401, the door missing both the 4 and the 1; the discolouring of the wood where the brass numbers once sat is the only proof that I’m in the right place.
The room is empty of life, an industrial dryer the only sign of movement in the cramped windowless space that has machines stacked on top of each other against every available wall. Racks of clothes and fresh bed linen hung on a rail that circles the room above my head. A garment bag with my name scrawled on a tag hanging from the zip saves me trying to work out where I need to look, and it takes me all of three minutes to slip into it. I decide to save my spoiled uniform and fold it neatly to take back upstairs. I know it’s likely the lingering memory of Ezra that has me believing I can still pick up his cedarwood and leather scent on the material, but I’m not ready to part with it. Tucking itaway into my satchel, I make sure I leave the room as I found it and step back out into the quiet hall, trying and failing to remember if I had come from the left or the right, the hallway in both directions looking too similar. Something in me screams RIGHT, so with no other way of remembering where I came from, I go with it.
When in doubt, go with whatever internal voice yells the loudest.
Now that I’ve got the appropriate backup uniform and hopefully made a stride towards Lenora not completely hating me this week, I slow my pace, getting a good look at the bare bones of Blackwood. I’m not on duty until this afternoon, and a little exploring won’t hurt anyone. The floral threadbare runner beneath my feet is stained and fraying at the edges, the garish damask paper on the walls a forest green, peeling and mottled black with mould around where it meets the cracked ceiling.
The six-foot antique baroque frames lining the walls either side of me hold paintings of old stuffy men in suits, that‘I rule the world’glint in their beady eyes present and in keeping with the‘I have more money than God’smirks etched on their faces. It’s men like these that haunt my dreams—the ones who believe they can do anything to anyone with zero repercussions. The littering of trauma I hold with me every day, both on my skin and in my mind, are my reminders to be cautious with men so enamoured with their own inflated egos.
Lost to thoughts of my past, I don’t realise I’m once again approaching a dead end. The creaking wheels of what I believe to be a maintenance trolley in the distance behind me has me dashing into the closest room in a panic, holding the door ajar as the noise gets clearer with each passing second. The fact that it could be Simon is enough to have me hiding. Being lost down here and trying to outrun him are not on my to-do list today.
Plus, you’re not wearing the right shoes for sprinting,my brain adds unhelpfully.
She isn’t wrong, I concur as I glance down at my black leather ankle boots. A grey-haired man slumped over a mop bucket moves painfully slowly at the end of the corridor, running a dusting cloth over the part of the frames at head height with a lacklustre enthusiasm as he goes. Once the creaking dies out, I decide this is as good a room as any to explore. Windowless and with no natural source of fresh air, the dank cloying mustiness attached to every surface fills my nose. The subtle hint of lilies from the vases dotted around the room doing nothing to mask the odour. Spinning on my heels, my eyes meet hers, that disapproving scowl ever-present on her slim, stoic face. I stand before the painting of Lenora Blackwood, hanging on the wall lower as it connects with the skirting board. It doesn’t suprise me that it is twice the size of the others out in the hall.
Metal shelving units stacked high with papers and boxes alphabetically arranged stretch the entire far wall. A battered desk sits at an odd angle in the corner, it’s top caved in and a leg snapped almost in two. The shabby chair that has seen better days propped up against it. Every item of furniture in here looks like it would crumble into ash if you breathed on it a little too vigorously. I set down my satchel on the floor, running my finger over the shelves, my gloved finger now coated with a thick layer of dust.
On the wall behind the door is a collection of black and white photos, a group of people in each standing proudly at the entrance of Blackwood. The dates scrawled in marker on each one providing a timeline that spans sixty years at least. Each group shot has young women like me in the same striped uniform that I’m wearing. The men I’d seen in the portraits along the hallway stand front and centre dressed in their finest suits, those who have hair have it tidily slicked back, those whohave clearly already gone through the balding process sporting a groomed moustache to compensate. Their wives hold babies, toddlers sitting on the steps at their mothers’ feet patiently. The eerie familiarity with the lanky orderlies that stand emotionless at the edges of each frame like living statues gives me the creeps, as though they have been copied and pasted into each one, their distorted forms highlighted with a haze as though the camera can’t quite catch their image like the others. Lenora had said that Blackwood was a family-run business, so I’m not overly surprised. It isn’t until I get a few rows down that I recognise a face staring back at me. A younger, slender Lenora sporting the Blackwood uniform, with that same disinterested‘my shit don’t stink’glower I know only too well, plastered on her face. She stands stoically beside a heavy-set balding man with shiny dress shoes, so clean you can see the reflection of the fountain in the leather. He’s impeccably put together, a darkness swimming in his dark brown eyes, a mischievous tilt to his lips beneath a well groomed stache.
I remember his portrait in particular from the hallway—the one that screamed affluence and unbridled power in the thickest gold gilded frame. Flanking his other side is Lenora’s double. The only difference is that this woman is wearing a floral knee-length dress, her hair loose rather than scraped back into a severe bun. Holding her hand is a scruffy-haired little boy, her belly swollen with another baby. It isn’t the family that holds my attention though, or the fact that Lenora clearly has a sister. No, my focus is pulled to the young woman in her early twenties, sadness hiding behind her taut smile, worry filling her gaze, her Blackwood uniform slightly askew and torn at the hem.
Leaning in, I see the edge of a tattoo emblazoned on her chest, no not a tattoo – a brand of sorts – the skin raised like a scar. It’s tucked enough away behind her uniform that I can’t make out exactly what it is. The shadow remnants of a bruisedcheek and dark rings around her wrist have all the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention. Glancing around at some of the women in the other photos, all wearing the same uniform as I have on now, they too bear the marks of abuse. Under Doc’s rule, I had to cover up my fair share of brutality. My eyes track back to the young woman with the branding, melancholy, and the way her gaze is targeted at Lenora beside her is what has piqued my interest. I scan the photos to see if she appears again but come up short. The young women don’t seem to last long enough to get a second stab at family picture day.
