Page 105

Then the door slams, and Jordan is alone.We don’t say crazy, he thinks.

CHAPTER 101

I called for Margery, but she never came. Hours passed, and I must have slept, because I was awakened sometime before nightfall by the sound of heavy footsteps. I heard the bolt sliding back, and then the door opened, and in came the doctor, Goriot, and all his black-robed consorts. They lifted me from the bed and dragged me into the hallway.

They were shouting at me, denouncing me, accusing me.

Of what, I didn’t understand. I started to cry.

Goriot shook his gnarled finger in my face. His face was purple with rage. “The countess would make him richer than the king! You have ensorcelled him, there is no other explanation!” Then he slapped me hard across the cheek, and a burst of light flashed inside my head.

I screamed—and then I was gone.

Everything was gone.

I had spiraled out of darkness into light.

CHAPTER 102

“Hannah?” Michaela’s concerned face was barely an inch from my own. “Are you okay? You’re crying.”

I put my hands up to my cheeks. They came away wet.

I blinked. The room was so bright, but I could see shadows in the corner, shadows in the shape of men in black robes. I scuttled backward in my bed. “Behind you,” I whispered.

She turned around. “There’s nothing there at all,” she said. “It’s okay, Hannah. It’s just you and me, your pal Michaela Louise Adeline Carrington.” She smiled, and behind her the shadows slowly faded into nothing.

“I never knew your full name before,” I said.

Michaela retreated to the other side of the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Did something bad just happen—in the other place?”

“I don’t remember,” I lied.

“I never remember my dreams, either,” Michaela said.

But these aren’t dreams.

“What day is it?”

“Like I have any idea!” Michaela said, reaching down and picking fuzz off of her grippy socks. “Actually, no, I take that back.Your boyfriend’s not here, so it must be the weekend.” She threw the fuzz at me and laughed.

Then there was a knock on the door, and a nurse in Mickey Mouse scrubs stuck her head in. “You have a visitor,” she said.

“Is it my mom?” Michaela said, rolling her eyes. “Ugh, she was just here the other day!”

“I was actually talking to Hannah,” the nurse said.

Michaela and I turned and stared at each other.

“What the hell?” Michaela mouthed.

What the hellwas right. I had no friends and no family—not inthiscentury—and I’d never had a visitor, not in all my time at Belman Psych.

I couldn’t think of anyone it could possibly be, unless the baron had somehow learned to time travel, too. Then I almost laughed out loud. Because that idea, I knew, was truly insane.

CHAPTER 103

A very pretty older woman I definitely hadn’t seen before sat in one of the visiting rooms, her manicured hands folded neatly in her lap. Her white hair was perfectly coiffed, and she wore a beautiful silver fur coat that I hoped was fake but probably wasn’t. She stood up when I entered, though she didn’t hold out her hand to introduce herself. Instead she offered me a strange, sad smile.