“I bet I can get us out,” Belle says.
I don’t know what to say to this. Maybe my plan isn’t the best, but it is a plan. Belle’s confident tone makes me think she doesn’t appreciate how difficult pulling off an escape is going to be. I am fairly certain I will only have one shot at it. If I am caught, Dr. Townsend and the rest will never trust me again. They might put me back in Ward 2. They might never let me out of this place.
“How?” I finally say.
“I’ll use what I’ve always used to get what I want.”
“What do you mean?” But I think I know what Belle means.
“Are all the orderlies male in this place? And the doctors?”
“I think so.”
“And they all have keys, right?”
“Probably.”
“Then just leave it to me,” Belle says. “Now tell me what Dr. Townsend is like. I’m going to be seeing him the day after tomorrow.”
“I... I don’t think you’ll be able to get the keys from him,” I say hesitantly. “And I don’t think you should try with him. He is quite devoted to his family, and I think he’s pretty smart.”
“Well, we’ll see about that. Who is that young fellow always hanging around him?”
“That’s his son, Stuart.”
“Have you seen the way that kid ogles me?” Belle says with a whispered laugh. “I could have that boy in my back pocket in no time.”
“He doesn’t have keys,” I say quickly, feeling an immediate concern for the boy. “And Stuart and his father are close. The Townsends live right here on the premises. In that big brick house in back on the other side of the fence.”
“Oh, then never mind. I’ll find someone else, some employee who lives in town. I’ll take care of everything.” Belle yawns and turns over. “It’ll be fun,” she says. “Don’t worry about it.”
Belle, for all her beauty and cleverness, also seems reckless.
I fall asleep doing the exact opposite of what she told me to do.
10
Before...
JUNE 1938
As I lay in bed the night of the dinner with all three Calverts, I tried to remember what I’d actually said to Wilson all those years ago. I cast my mind to the past, back to when he and I were just children playing in the vineyard. I could see those days in the folds of my memory, but they were fragmented, postcard-like images of uncomplicated times, when I wished everyone could see the colors and was surprised when confronted anew with the truth that everyone could not.
I couldn’t remember the day I told Wilson about the colors because for me it surely hadn’t been a remarkable day. The opposite would’ve been true for him. He’d apparently been fascinated. But as we aged, he’d forgotten exactly what I’d said. The memory of that day had come back to him because the family was laughing about the time he’d been afraid of the Ghost of Christmas Past. Wilson had suddenly remembered me at a very young age telling him something extraordinary. Bizarre.
I didn’t know if I should pretend for the next six days that Wilson was remembering that day wrong or confide fully in him.I wanted us to be friends again, like we had been when we were little. I wantedmorethan to be just friends. But even so, I wasn’t sure I could trust him with my secret. I barely knew Wilson anymore. I tossed and turned much of the night.
In the morning, when I served Truman breakfast, he apologized for Wilson having embarrassed me at the table the previous evening. I said it was nothing. When Wilson came into the dining room half an hour later, I served him the requested omelet and pretended not to notice how he studied me. Celine decided to have breakfast in bed, and when I brought her a tray, she asked what in the world Wilson had been talking about the night before. I shrugged and said it was so long ago I couldn’t remember, but that Wilson and I had pretended many things while playing in the vines, including that the leafy bower was actually a pirate ship and that we were pirates.
I hoped that was the end of it so that if I did decide to tell Wilson, it would be on my terms and my timing. But in the afternoon, Wilson came into the living room, where I was dusting, and declared that he suddenly remembered the whole story. He said it wasn’t ghosts I had told him I could see.
“You told me you saw colors and shapes that danced in your mind, invisible to everybody but you. Like ghosts.” His tone was curious and coy and playful. I wanted so badly to sense from his voice and manner that I could trust him, but I couldn’t.
Truman was in the room and heard Wilson say this, too.
I forced myself to stay calm. “That sounds as silly as saying I see ghosts.” I was relieved to find that it was easier for the lie to roll off my tongue when I wasn’t facing him across a dinner table.
“But... why say it?” Wilson said.
