Annie shrugged.“The medicines help—some of them, anyway.But some of the experimental drugs Dr.Stone’s tried me on have made me feel more insane than I did when I came in.Others dull the pain.And I guess that’s the point.Dull us into submission.”Her face twisted in frustration as she tried to cut some beef with the edge of her fork.“Speaking of dull…”
“Here,” Emily said, handing over her knife.Emily glanced up at the table of new girls only to find Matron White staring back at her, green eyes piercing Emily’s like a cold syringe.
Annie followed her gaze.“Did she see you give me that?”
Emily nodded.“Yes.Don’t worry about it.Just stay calm.”She swallowed the hot little flicker of foreboding.“Can I ask why you keep taking the medications?”She did her best to appear nonchalant, though she could still feel the matron’s eyes on her.“If you say you don’t feel unstable anymore, why are you still on them?”
Annie took a slow sip of her lukewarm tea.They were never served drinks any warmer than body temperature.“Because,” she said to her plate, pushing some mushy beans around, “I can’t very well say no, can I?”
Emily nearly pressed her as to why not, then thought better of it.She recalled Dr.Stone’s tray full of silver instruments, the cupboards of drugs and the restraints she’d spotted on the hospital bed.If an inmate refused to comply, the staff had the means to force it.And the psych cells and washroom were gated off with controlled entry and exit.
“So Stone tries different drugs on you?”Emily asked.
Annie nodded.
“Why you?”
Annie sighed, glanced up at Matron White, who was no longer watching them, sharp eyes on the new girls instead.
“Well, that’s the biggest question of my life.Why me, indeed.”
Emily was quiet a moment, silently composing lines for her article, heart fluttering with mild triumph.Annie was corroborating the claims of experimentation in the Incorrigible note.
“I guess I’m definitely one of the calmer psychiatric inmates,” Annie mused.“I’m afraid of some of the others, honestly.Though I think most of them wouldn’t be as bad as they are if they weren’t stuck in this place.”
“Are they drugged as well?”
“Yes.Sedatives mostly.And nearly all of us have electroshock therapy.It helps some more than others.”
“Does it help you?”
Annie shrugged.“Not especially.Afterward my whole body aches.Sometimes I’m sick.It makes me terribly tired, and more sensitive, I think.”She pauses.“And then when I get emotional, they call me crazy.”She raises her eyebrows at the irony.
Emily’s insides contorted in anger and grief on her friend’s behalf.“And this is still happening today all becausefifteenyears ago, you had a bout of psychosis?And you’ve felt mentally healthy ever since?”
Annie simply looked at her in confirmation.Emily swore under her breath as the bell clanged outside the dining hall.They rose with the swell of chatter and movement, then made their way upstairs to the second floor.Annie always had to return to the psychiatric wing after meals, and Emily wanted to use the toilet before she hurried back downstairs for chapel.
The two women pulled over at the locked psych wing gates, Emily lingering for a moment as Annie flagged Matron Carnegie on the other side.Carnegie was a small, round sort of woman with a plain but kind face.She had pale brows that rarely furrowed in anger and disdain like so many of the other matrons’ did.She was fairly new to the psychiatric wing, Annie said, and perhaps that accounted for her kindness and compassion.
Just as Matron Carnegie unlocked the gate, a woman about her size but thin as a child and with dirty hair came racing up behind her, eyeswild, lips pulled back in a sort of snarl, like a lion baring its teeth.Emily screamed just as Annie cried, “Rose, no!”
The matron turned in alarm as the madwoman launched herself at the gate and gave it a violent rattle.Her eyes were on Emily.“Get away from Annie!”She shrieked.“Get away!Go away!She’s not yours!”
“Rose—!”Annie protested as Carnegie seized the wild woman and shouted for assistance.Emily backed away several paces, horrified.Two more matrons came rushing down the hall and all three struggled to subdue the insane woman.After a moment of struggle she was dragged away, raving, and eventually her growls dissipated as the solid door of her cell shut behind them.
“Who was that?”Emily gasped, heart flinging itself against her collarbone.
Annie entered the psych wing and shut the gates behind her before responding.“Her name is Rose,” she said.“She’s a friend of mine.Sort of.At least, I thinkI’mthe only friend she’s got.”
“I don’t wonder!”
“Don’t,” Annie implored, and Emily was surprised into silence.“She’s not as insane as she seems.She—” She glanced over her shoulder, but the psych hall was now deserted.“Everyone says she murdered her husband in cold blood.Stabbed him in the back.”
Emily blanched.“Did she?”
“Well…yes.But he’d beaten her senseless for years before that, she says.The night she killed him, they’d had a terrible fight, and she was all bloodied.He had a knife, and told her if she didn’t get him first, he was going to kill her.She says he handed it to her, like a dare, almost.Then he turned his back, so she lunged for him.”
Emily’s hand came to her mouth.
