Page 38 of The Witch's Heart
“Thanks.” I bite my lip. “What did you paint, if you don’t mind me asking?”
She tilts her head like she already knows the reason behind my question. Instead of answering, she says, “They make you see things here. It’s part of the experiment.”
My breath hitches. “Is that what this is? An experiment?”
“It’s different things on different days.”
“And today?” I press, because this girl knows things. Things that I don’t. And if I’m ever going to break free, I need to know what I’m dealing with.
She glances back at the burnt bedroom door. “Today, you reminded them they don’t know as much as they think.”
I frown, trying to understand what that means.
Before I can ask, there’s a click of footsteps in the hall that echo as they approach. By now, that particular click-click cadence is all too familiar. Nurse Schmidt. Even the sound of her heels on the floor give me chills.
Holly tenses. “Don’t let them catch you wandering,” she whispers.
It’s the same warning Maria gave me.
Before I can ask how she intends to get out without being caught, she’s gone. The blur of her limbs as they move is mind-boggling. I stare after her, mouth open, unable to make sense of her speed as the door clicks shut behind her.
It should be impossible.
Like everything else here.
The approaching footsteps remind me of the urgency, and I leap into bed just as they arrive and my door swings open again.
Shutting my eyes, I force my breathing to even out and my chest to rise and fall with the rhythm of sleep.
A long moment passes and I can feel Nurse Evil staring me down from my open door.
Finally, her footsteps start again and I listen as she leaves.
When she’s gone, I sit up, intent on returning to the warmth of the boys’ room across the hall.
But when I open my eyes, I gasp.
It’s back.
Impossible as it is, the plush bedroom with the burnt door is gone. In its place is the cold, wet dungeon with its iron bars and locked door.
I jump up and hurry to the cell door, grabbing it for proof that it isn’t just my imagination. But the feel of the cold metal is undeniable beneath my hands. Forcing my breaths even and calm, I shut my eyes and will the lock to slide free. I’ve done it enough times now that it should be easy. But when I open my eyes again, the door is still locked. I try a second time. And a third. But the door remains locked tight.
A sob rises in my throat and I return to my cot, drawing the thin blanket up and over me as I curl into a ball. Maybe the doctor is right and I’ve truly lost it. Maybe I’m imagining things.
Maybe we’re all mad here after all.
9
Istare down at my wrist, perplexed. As I run the pad of my finger over the thin white scar, Dr. Livingstone sits, watching me. Waiting.
Always watching. Always waiting.
For me to say something. To do something. To be something.
But what? What will get me out of this place? I don’t know anymore. I never knew. I’m in a prison within a prison. Trapped by them, by my own mind, by my fragile clutching of a reality that turns to glitter dancing on the wind.
“How long have I been here?” I ask. Wasn’t it just a few days ago that the doctor was rebandaging my wrist, the wound still full of stitches? When were they taken out? How am I already healed?
