I exhale, feeling tired and sodden like a towel wrung out and left to grow mildew in the corner of a washroom.
I can do this. If Scarlett was able to endure it, then that is the least I can do. She told me what to expect. She told me about the waterboarding, the scalding baths, the chair binding. I was present every time she fell apart from sadness after being in those treatment rooms with her patients.
I grip the edges of the bathtub and lift myself from its comforting porcelain cocoon. I stash the drawing under the sink, even though I probably won’t ever look at it again. I’ve drawn hundreds just like it.
As I clean my face with cold water, I avoid the reflection that will peer back at me in the mirror. I refuse to stare into those cold green eyes. Scarlett’s eyes.
The eyes I gazed into as I lit her house on fire.
2. Pretty Little Doll
By the time I exit thewashroom, Aurick has left for the city.
I’m certain he doesn’t want to be here for what comes next.
An older woman, dressed in all black, with a tight bun of ash-colored hair and a pinched expression, steps out of the buggy. Aurick sent her to get me ready. Dressed. Makeup. All according to the theme that is so delicately placed around theoh-so-perfectcity surrounding the asylum.
I’ve lived a sheltered life in a stretch of land on the perimeter of the seven forests.The Bear Trap, the outskirts of the Chandelier City. I’ve never had to abide by the principles of the strange and particularly vain country we live in. Our small country, Dementia, is run by an invented vision of the perfect society.
Perfectly built estates, castles, and people.Oh, the people are stunning, Scarlett would say. Women as skinny as the elderly folks they’d bury. The physical appearance of a woman is thegospel. They go byThe Lady Doll Regimen.It’s a long nightly routine—hours of soaking in herbal water, a vigorous process to moisturize the skin and hair while also following the strictest dieting standards.Eat if you feel as though you might faint, she’d say. And topping it all off with their attire—dresses for every time of the day; tea time, household work, and evening gowns.
My father’s job was to cut lumber and deliver it to the city. If you have a job like this, you’re automatically exempt from falling into societal restraints. If you’re not seen or heard throughout the city lines, you might as well be a ghost. It’s in the laws written during first settlement, which has always seemed fair to the hardworking families.
Hearing about it through Scarlett was like peeking through a window to an alternate universe. After our mother gave birth to us, she ran off with Scarlett to live closer to the Chandelier City, leaving me with our father in the Bear Traps.
After aggressively making herself at home, the crone Aurick sent to get me ready set up shop in the cottage sitting room.
She roughly yanks a charcoal-gray dress over my head. Its sleeves are capped at the elbows, and the center of the dress is darted around the bust and fitted around the hips. I pull my arms through a women’s winter wool coat, with a nipped high-waist and puffed black bunch of fur covering my shoulders and neckline. My feet are the last to dress up with a pair of black leather pumps.
The taut woman pokes and rips small hairs from my eyebrows with metal clamps, sneering and shaking her head in silent judgment. Everything else is a blur as I say a prayer for my interview to go well.
“You’ve never been to the city,” she says. Not a question, but I nod anyway. “You’ll have to get used to abstaining from regular meals.” She pinches the skin on my waist. “Or at least purging if the temptation is too heavy.”
I blink. “Purging?”
“Yes, girl. Your bosom is full, and your backside is round. The goal is to see the skin stretch over your bone.” She assesses my nails and clucks her tongue. “And your nail beds are dirty. If you’re going to live there, you’ll need to start the Lady Doll Regimen the moment you get to Aurick’s estate. Otherwise, I’ll likely hear of your swift movement into the female ward of the asylum as one of the patients.”
She’s right. Scarlett told me that if Demechnef—our government that so keenly values a pristine presentation—were to observe a slipup such as gaining a couple of pounds, or God forbid, developing an outbreak of unwanted blemishes—they would discreetly be swept away from their day-to-day lives. Away from their families and friends, and as far as anyone knew—they’d simply disappear until they came back with knobby joints, slight hair loss, prominently outlined rib cages and gaunt facial features.
“Don’t fret, girl. Your body’s measurements are usually taken by a husband, or if unmarried, an official representative of Demechnef will arrive to oversee the process. But I’m certain your new friend will assist.” She pats the top of my head as she tucks my last curl in place behind my ear.
I swallow down the fear that builds in my throat. Iwantthis. Iaskedfor this.
I’m voluntarily stepping into this buggy that will lead me into the only life Scarlett knew. That will lead me into the only place I swore I’d never set foot in.
The Emerald Lake Asylum.
3. Emerald Lake Asylum
The road to the city isbumpy, and the seats are filled with a constant vibration from the uneven gravel. I’m dressed the part to enter this new society.
I can hear Scarlett’s raspy voice rattling around in my head like loose change in a dryer, telling me about the horrors, the screams, the begging for mercy that goes on within those walls. One thing she was more frightened of than the screams was that nearly everyone who worked in that building seemed desensitized to the pain they were inflicting. She described the emptiness in their eyes like a one-way window where you can’t see the entity of evil looking back at you—but you canfeelit, taking pride in and enjoying the torture.
The thought of meeting people like this turns my bowels watery.
As the remaining trees from the forest grow farther and farther apart, thinning like a receding hairline, the canopy overhead dissipates, and the sky shows its swollen face covered in bulging, smoky clouds. Our buggy moves forward on the road into the Chandelier City, and I lean against my window, closing my eyes to this new world as I rest for my interview to come.
~
