A/N: Thank you all for reading and leaving reviews! May your 2017 be gayer.
The sight of her shaking hands left something heavy inside my chest. Perhaps a sense of guilt. I didn't know—and still don't know—what exactly I was expecting to see after that, but the sight had shuddered me inside, and gotten me to sober up a little, from whatever was controlling me.
Everything was uncharacteristically quiet as I sat on my bed at night. No crying, no screaming, no head-banging, no bed-creaking, no bible-chanting. From time to time there were some kind of howling noises outside—wolves resided in the forest, they said—but other than that, the night was an embodiment of true serenity.
The moon was dazzlingly gorgeous outside my cell window, illuminating more than usual in the clear air of night. I'd always been a night person. There was a kind of beauty in the secrets the sky hid underneath its dark blankets. Loving the night to me was like loving a woman.
A heavy metal door opened outside my room. Along with footsteps, the sound of jingling keys put a halt to the silence, reminding me of the limited freedom I was granted in this place. They were going the nightly rounds. The moment the footsteps stopped in front of my cell, the walls of my cell became bright, and I squinted at the flashlight.
"Go to sleep, Miss Winters," the voice said, and walked away without waiting for my response.
But sleep sounded the least interesting thing to do on nights like these. Looking at the moon, I thought about my secret pen pal. I thought about the letters from them.—I hid them inside my mattress. After Jude had found my notes in the pillowcase, I was forced to invent a new way of outsmarting her. I pulled a crooked nail out of a bookshelf in the library, and used it to cut a slit in the corner of the mattress, a tiny slit no longer than my pinky.
I'd told them to look at the moon.
Then, there was another noise right outside the cell, like someone or something touched the metal door. I waited for more, but there came none.
"Who is it?" I said.
No answer, though there was some movement, something similar to the rustling of clothes.
I glared at the dark. "I know you are there. What do you want?"
When my voice vanished in the air, the only sound left to be heard was silence. And then, when I was about to slide off the bed, a voice came,
"You shouldn't be up, Miss Winters."
The voice had a hint of trembling. I knew in an instant then, that it was Mary Eunice. Her husky voice was so distinctive there was no mistaking it.
"Hey, it's you," I said. I shot up from the bed and took four or five steps, and wrapped my fingers around the iron bars. Despite our closeness, her figure was still clad in darkness. "What are you doing up so late?"
She cleared her throat. "I'm— I'm making the rounds," she said.
"No, you're not." Despite the accusation, my voice was calmer, way softer than this afternoon.
"But I'm not—" she said. "It's not a lie."
"It is a lie, and you know it." I smiled. "You people only need to do that three times during the night. Someone else already did the third rounds tonight, sister."
I heard her clear her throat again. The faintest light from outside the window fell on her blonde bangs, making them slightly visible to me.
"Sneaking another journalist in?" I said.
"No, I am not." The blonde hair swam in the dark as her voice frowned.
"Then what?"
"I was— I was simply making sure everything was fine."
"The answer depends on the definition of 'fine', doesn't it?" I said. "This is an asylum for the criminally insane. Some of us inmates are held against our will." I scratched an iron bar with my zig-zag-edged nail, covering the ground with pieces of peeled paint. "But, nobody is making trouble if that's what you mean. Everyone seems to be asleep, except for me, obviously." I shrugged.
Her head remained still as she stayed tight-lipped.
"And you, too," I said. "What's keeping you awake?"
"I was . . . thinking." Her voice sounded somewhat far away. Perhaps she had her head hung low.
"About what?" I asked.
She didn't give me an answer, the crucifix clattering in her hand instead. There was another howl outside the window.
"Were you looking at the moon?" she said at last.
I glanced at the largest star in the sky. "Yeah. Has a calming effect when I can't sleep."
"Why couldn't you sleep?"
Now, this was a question I wasn't expecting. Her relative eagerness for conversation was endearing. It made me bold, too, but not the kind of bold that was synonymous to belligerent. It was the kind of bold synonymous to reassured, the feeling you get when you realize neither of you is the desperate one.
"Thinking, about stuff," I said. "Wishing for a person to talk to." I tapped lightly on a bar with my thumb. "Are you gonna keep me a company?"
It was a gamble, to ask her such a question. But as I said, I was feeling bold, and the silence I received from her made me even more so. I kept pushing, trying to see where the boundaries lay.
"If I get any more bored than this, I might actually start yelling or something to keep myself entertained," I said. "Stay with me, sister. What do you say?"
I thought she would go Sister Jude wouldn't like it, as it was her favorite card. But instead she said,
"What if someone overhears us?" Then her voice got suddenly closer to my face, her breaths stroking my cheek. "Someone might be overhearing us now."
"Then get me out of here. We can go somewhere nobody is around."
She let out a trembling breath, took a step back, and played with her crucifix. "Oh, I don't know." I could see her shaking her head. "I—I don't think I can do that. I'm sorry."
Though I knew it was too much to ask of her, a part of me was still let down. Funny how that works. Even in a place as wretched as Briarcliff, one could still hold on to hope, or at least something that resembled it.
"Right . . . yeah, I knew that. I know that."
"I'm sorry," she said again.
I slowly let go of the iron bars, keeping the fingertips in touch with the cold, rusty door. As much of a downer as it was, I never wanted to make her think her answer had upset me by walking back to the bed too quickly.
So, I waited in front of the door, until her footsteps disappeared in the darkness.
I lay in my bed after the door in the corridor had closed. Closing my eyes, I tried to talk myself into going to sleep, tried to tell myself the little talk with Mary was more than I could've ever wished for. But I couldn't. The coils in the mattress screamed rather pathetically as I tossed and turned. If the conversation did anything at all, it made this silence more unbearable, this solitude more painful.
And then, there was another set of footsteps echoing out in the corridor. The heels clicked against the concrete ground at a fast tempo, though the steps were kept relatively muted. It sounded as though the person was on a covert mission which required quick action.
A busy night for someone. I rolled over once more and sighed, folding my arm under my head. Then, a few seconds ticked away, and I opened my eyes. In silence. Everything was quiet, just the way it'd been for the past several hours. None of the quick footsteps. I thought my insomnia had fooled my ears. But the sound of jingling keys, accompanied by a hesitant cough, at my cell door proved me wrong—or rather, proved my ears right.
Though no word was spoken, I knew it was Mary. For whatever reasons, she'd come back. She waited until I was standing on the other side of the door, and with a cautious click, she unlocked it. In the heavy sound of the door opening, I heard a wave of the sea of infinite possibilities. It was Mary who opened it, but in that moment, the sensation and rush of it all made me feel like I was Moses, dividing the sea to clear a path to my future.
I took a step forward, and she put her hand on my forearm, gently pulling me out of the cell.
"Only this time," she said. "Just—promise me that you won't try to run away." Her grip on my arm tightened for a split second.
"I promise." I nodded, though I doubted she could see.
We walked without a word as I let her guide me through the long ward. Neither of us even dared try to open our mouths. As though there was a mutual understanding not to speak, until we were absolutely safe from potential eavesdroppers. She was wary, almost neurotic. A few times, something made a noise—the wind knocking on the windows, old doors creaking, someone snoring, what have you—and each time she would look around, and walk with more deliberation.
The door at the end of the corridor closed behind us. She finally stopped, leaned against the door, and took a deep breath. Her breathing had a tremor in it, and I could almost hear her teeth clatter. The lighting was kinder to us here in the entrance hall, where the skylight let moonlight in. We were standing on the second floor, near the Stairway to Heaven, and below us the statue of the Virgin Mary illuminated, eerily. I looked at Mary.—For the first time that night, I was able to see her face, in the dim light. Her lips were tight, her brows drawn together, veins in her neck pulsating —quite identical to her typical look in distress, only with more intensity. But the hand that held the keys did not tremble.
She met my stare, and I swore there was the enigmatic part of her, re-emerging before me again. Her eyes glowed as if to say, And now what? I smiled at her.
"What?" she asked.
"You surprised me back in there." I gestured at the path behind the closed door. "In a good way, though. A good surprise. I never expected you to actually let me out."
"That was what you wanted, was it not?"
"Yeah, so . . . thank you."
Her posture seemed to soften as she nodded her head. With her little grimace lingering between her brows, she looked about. I mimicked her, and wandered to the rail for a better view of the downstairs. Artificial light was absolutely absent in the hall, it turned out. All the lights—at the entrance door, in the guard room—were out. It didn't look or sound like there was anyone awake—or alive—in here, and it gave me a fleeting thought that I was looking over a graveyard.
I turned around, and saw Mary reaching to put her hand on my arm. When our eyes met, she hesitated, but did grab me anyway.
"Hey, can we go outside?" I asked, resisting her gentle pull. "I'm assuming we're not chatting right here."
"No, but—"
"If we need to move, I want to go outside and look at the sky."
She looked at the grand door over my shoulder, but shook her head. "No, it's not a good idea . . ." she said, with her brows knotted together. "I thought you could see the sky from your window."
"I'd like to be able to take deep breaths and not smell piss while admiring the moon," I said. "Please? Just a little would do."
"No, I can't let you do that, Miss Winters. I really can't." Her eyes pleaded, as if she was the one demanding the impossible. "I'm sorry, but it's not safe outside."
I sighed as I looked down. "Right. There're wolves out there."
"Wolves?"
"Or coyotes."
She grimaced, and glanced at the door again.
"Whatever they are, I heard them howl several times," I said. "They must be quite near us."
Then, she began to fidget all of a sudden, before pulling me by the arm again. "This way," she said.
"Where are you taking me?"
No answer was offered, though I couldn't be sure whether or not it was deliberate. She seemed incredibly focused as she led the way. Perhaps we should make the no-talking-while-walking rule official.
Going to the other side of the hall, we descended stairs from there.
As we did so, I felt déjà vu.—I had held her hand before. I had seen the back of her veiled head, had followed her, and had looked over the hall from above. Before. But not so long ago. The day I met Briarcliff for the first time, was the day she took a rose from my grip, on this very staircase. I was wearing my favorite green suit back then, not a decrepit hospital gown.
Oh, how I wished I could just walk right out of the door, just the same way I'd walked in. How I wished the thorns of the rose Pepper gave me had been sharp, enough to make me turn around and go home to Wendy. It seemed so easy.
But Mary walked past the door, and I had no choice but to follow her.
