Page 73

Upon the wood, upon the field, upon the brave young knight

His sword gleamed silver and his horse was fleet, no worry creased his brow

He thought not of war but of the sweet maid free and the love she did avow—

I stopped. “I’ve forgotten what comes next,” I said. “But it’s about a noble knight who loves a girl from a nearby village.” A girl who’s beneath him, I didn’t say. A peasant.

“She dies,” my mother blurted.

“Right,” I said. “I guess that’s what happens.”

“They meet again in heaven, though,” Conn said, insistent.

“Yes, you must be right,” I said. “Anyway, it’s time for bed. You’ll sleep well tonight, won’t you, with your full, fat belly?”

Conn nodded. His eyes were heavy already. “But where’s my soldier?”

“Your what?”

“My wooden soldier! Merrick found him in the cart—there was a whole pile of them. Vincy got one, too.” Conn began to paw frantically among the tattered blankets. A moment later, he pulled out a small, intricately carved knight. When he held it up and gazed at it, his face shone with delight. “There you are,” he said, and he hugged it to his chest.

The baron had thought to includetoysfor the village children? I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

I went to bed not long after Conn. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke to the sound of fists on the door. Rising from the rough mattress, I walked past the dead fire as fear trailed icy fingers down my spine. “Who is it?”

There was no answer. Grabbing the knife from the table, I opened the door. It was Ryia. She was bathed in cold moonlight, and she was holding her little baby in ragged blankets.

“She’s gone,” she screamed, thrusting the bundle toward me.

I didn’t understand what she was talking about. Then I looked down and saw the baby’s lifeless face.

“John’s fever—choking—gone—” Ryia was crying so hard she could barely speak. I pulled her into my arms. I felt her dead baby against my chest. Grief and horror pierced my heart.

“I loved her so,” Ryia wept. “My Sophie, my little Sophie.”

CHAPTER 68

After Sophie Forrester’s suicide, sadness hangs over the ward like a fog.Or maybe it’s guilt, Jordan thinks. When he makes his way through the locked doors in the morning, he can feel its invisible weight pressing down on him. It almost makes it hard to breathe.

I am a ghost of myself, Sophie’s note had said.I’m sorry about the mess.

The words might as well be burned across Jordan’s retinas. Along with every other Belman employee, he feels like he failed Sophie Forrester. Because they did. They were supposed to take care of her, but she died on their watch.

Two of the ward nurses have asked for a leave of absence, and Dr. Klein is resigning. Jordan will miss the doctor’s frankness, her quiet, chilly competence. But he won’t miss Mitch, who’s being transferred to a different ward on a different floor. Was Mitch the last person to see Sophie alive? Is Mitch any more or less to blame than anyone else? Jordan has no idea, and he’s not about to ask.

There’s no farewell party for Dr. Francine Klein. On Friday she’s in the office, and on Monday she isn’t. An interim medical director takes over her office, a lithe, dark-eyed woman named Dr. Ager. When she calls her first staff meeting, she doesn’t invite Jordan.

All that week, Jordan makes his observations, tries to engagepatients in board games in the lounge, and performs his duties as stunned as the rest of the staff. He walks the halls with Andy, talks to Beatrix about the dissociative identity disorder community on TikTok, and helps Sam, a new patient, write a letter to his parents:I forgive you for putting me here, but don’t come visit. He makes Sam cross outor else.

Meanwhile Hannah wanders the halls, talking to herself. Singing to herself. Oblivious to him and everyone else. Not even Michaela or Indy can bring her back.

But then on Friday morning, when Jordan walks into the lounge, still shaking the rain from his hair, she’s eating a breakfast sandwich and calmly talking with Indy.

Jordan hides his surprise—his nearly giddy relief—as he sits down at the table with them. “Good morning, team,” he says, like there’s nothing different at all. As if Hannah isn’t just back from some incomprehensible and indescribable internal journey. “It’s a beautiful day out there.”

“Liar,” Indy says, sounding bored, and Hannah smiles faintly at him. Her hair’s still uncombed and she looks beautiful and feral.

“Belman Psych has the shittiest coffee in the world,” she says. “Have you tried it? It tastes like boiled cardboard.”