Page 1 of Darkest at Dusk (Revenant Roses)

T he asylum crouched behind a high wall slick with moss.

Rain slid down the iron spikes and gathered in the grooves of the gate like tears.

Metal bars blocked the windows. Inside, the corridor smelled of limewash and soap, of scrubbed stone and stagnant water.

Edging closer to Papa, close enough that the wet wool of his coat scratched her cheek, Isabella Barrett made herself smaller. Smaller still.

He patted her hand.

“Only a consultation,” he had said that morning, his voice gentle and frayed, his gloved hand closing around hers as the carriage wheels struck puddles and dirty water fanned against the windows.

She had nodded and lied with her eyes as she always did when he asked if she was afraid.

She had practiced that lie in the looking glass, widening her eyes, keeping her chin steady.

It was not that Papa would be disappointed or angry.

It was that he would feel guilt that he had allowed fear to touch her. And that, she could not abide.

When she had been very small, the translucent people had been interesting, even pretty.

Imaginary playmates, Papa had called them, when there were no real children to be had.

But the years had taught them persistence, and the whispers had grown more insistent, braiding through her days and nights.

New people found her when she left the house.

They reached for her, touched her, pleaded with her. And she pleaded in return—for peace.

By the time she was eleven, Papa had no longer smiled or patted her head.

He had begun taking her to doctors and she had been poked and pinched and prodded.

They had given her tonics. They had prescribed hot baths.

Cold baths. Open windows. Closed windows.

Stoke the fire. Bank the fire. She had been bled and purged and dosed with all manner of vile potions.

Nothing quieted the voices or stilled the visions.

Only pretending helped, and even then, just a little.

Now Dr. Hargreaves, the third doctor she had seen in as many weeks, met them in the corridor of St. Jude’s.

He was a narrow man with a narrow mouth and a smile that was all teeth and no warmth.

“Mr. Barrett.” A pump of Papa’s hand. “Miss Barrett.” His glance landed and lingered, his expression cold and hard.

Matron joined them, a stout woman with wide shoulders and a thick neck, rings of keys at her waist, her mouth pinched prim with importance.

Papa settled Isabella’s hand in the crook of his arm as they were shown along a row of doors, each with a small square of glass webbed with wire.

Isabella gasped as a face suddenly appeared in one, nose scrunched against the pane, eyes wide and unblinking.

The pane fogged with the man’s breath and cleared again, fogged and cleared, and still he pressed against the glass.

When a woman drifted along the corridor beside them, a pale seam of cold moving with her, Isabella took care not to glance her way.

A palm slapped a wired window. A howl carried through a door, answered by another that came from deep in the bowels of the building. Isabella’s pulse jumped.

From within the wall came a tapping, slow and deliberate. Tap…tap…tap. The sound threaded up her spine on icy fingers. She began to count her breaths to drown it out—one…two…three…four—then lost count and started again.

“We prescribe hydrotherapy,” Dr. Hargreaves said to Papa. “Music. Fresh air. Gentle work. We are not practitioners of the former age’s cruelties.” He smiled his all-teeth smile.

Keeping her eyes directed straight ahead, Isabella stepped past a little boy sitting cross-legged in a square of light on the tiles, a boy Matron walked straight through.

The hum that began at the edge of hearing rose, a thin, needling chorus she had learned to bear over the years.

Usually, it was accompanied by a drift of cold and a feeling of being watched.

But today, it was muted, soft, even sad.

Hopeless. The feeling wormed through her bones like a January storm.

It was this place, she thought, that made even the wraiths sad.

Dr. Hargreaves brought them to his office, a small white room with a clean desk and two hard chairs. Matron crossed her arms and positioned herself at the door. When Papa moved to sit with Isabella, Dr. Hargreaves shook his head. “I will see her alone, if you please.”

“I do not please,” Papa said, and positioned himself behind Isabella’s chair. “You will see my daughter with me in the room.”

The doctor frowned, then smoothed it away and looked to Isabella. “Tell me about the things you see. The things you hear. Be precise.”

She had practiced sounding precise while being imprecise .

And so, she said, “Sometimes, I dream badly and wake with a start. Sometimes, the house creaks and I mistake it for footsteps.” She lifted one shoulder.

“When I was younger, I heard a woman humming in the afternoons. I told Papa I could hear Mama.”

He wrote something, nib scratching, his cold gaze flicking to Isabella then away.

“Hallucinations following bereavement are quite common,” he said.

“My wife died when Isabella was born. She never knew her mother,” Papa said.

The nib paused, then resumed. “A sensitive disposition, then. Perhaps, you have indulged a fancy, Mr. Barrett. Grief is a family ailment. It can be transmitted. I am certain that with care, your daughter can recover in time.” He rose.

“I suggest we further tour our facility. To reassure. To make plain that we are a house of science, not a gaol.”

Isabella looked back at Papa. She wanted to ask him if they could leave, to say that she did not wish to tour this place.

Papa’s jaw tensed, then he nodded at the doctor.

They passed the women’s ward, all whitewashed arches and iron beds. A girl stared at the ceiling and twisted her face in unnatural ways. In the corner, a woman sat on a rumpled bed, hugging herself and rocking to and fro. Both the woman and the girl were quite real.

They turned down a narrower corridor. More doors with wired panes.

Tap…tap…tap.

“Quiet rooms,” Matron said.

“To calm agitation,” Dr. Hargreaves added.

Papa said nothing.

On they walked until they reached a door with no window.

With a flourish, Matron drew a key and unlocked it.

Dr. Hargreaves opened the door, soundless on well-oiled hinges.

Isabella glanced inside. The walls were bare.

No furniture adorned the space, only a straw mat upon the floor.

There was no window, no air, no light but what crawled under the door.

“A seclusion cell,” Dr. Hargreaves said.

“A period of solitude can work wonders on an excitable disposition.” He offered an oily smile.

“Step in.” When Isabella hesitated, he added, “Unless you see something inside… Is that it? A spirit? A ghost? Oh, I know what you said in my office earlier, a whitewashed tale of hearing footsteps when the house creaks. But I have consulted with the doctors you saw before me and am well versed in your case. I know what you’ve claimed before.

Hearing voices. Seeing people who are not there.

You can be honest here. I cannot help you if you are not honest, my dear. ”

Isabella glanced at Papa. He was frowning, his jaw set.

“There is no need to be afraid,” Dr. Hargreaves murmured and gave the smallest nudge.

She stepped over the threshold just as Papa said, “No.”

The door slammed. The sound clanged like a bell. Iron was cold against her palm as she seized the handle. It did not yield.

“Papa,” she said, her voice high and thin. Do not leave me here. Do not lock me away. Papa!

“Open it,” Papa said, voice carrying through the door, calm and flat.

“Just a moment,” Matron replied. Keys chimed.

Dizzy with fear, Isabella turned a slow circle. Nowhere to go. No seam to pry. Only barren walls and ceiling and floor that she could barely make out in the paltry glow that eked under the door. She pressed her palm against the wall, smooth and cool beneath her touch.

Tap…tap…tap said the wall, delighted.

The air at her back tightened, colder, heavier, bringing the chill of cellar stone and the smell of old damp leaves.

Something touched her ear, something like breath or the weight of being not-alone.

She could not see in the dark, but she knew the presence of a wraith as well as she knew her own fear.

“Open. The. Door,” Papa said, each word its own blade. “Now.”

A key grated. The latch lifted. A slice of light cut the dark, burning her eyes. Then she saw Matron’s scowl, the doctor’s thin patience, and Papa, pale and unyielding. Heart pounding so hard she thought she might retch, Isabella stepped out as if she were not fleeing.

“That will do,” Papa said. “We are finished.”

“We should admit her?—”

“We should not,” Papa cut in, clean as a knife.

He settled Isabella’s hand in the crook of his arm and walked her through the corridors, past the wired windows and the faces behind them, out into the rain. The sky was a flat sheet of pewter, water stinging the air.

In the carriage, Papa cradled her cheeks in his palms. “Isa,” he said, fear humming through her name.

“You see nothing. You hear nothing. Never say it. Never show it. Never. One day I will be gone. I will not be here to protect you. If you speak then of voices and visions, they will lock you away. Do you understand?”

The words scored deep. “I understand,” she whispered.

It was no lie. She did understand. If she heard the voices, saw the wraiths, felt the icy touch of their fingers, then she was not of sound mind.

Those not of sound mind were sent to an asylum with iron bars on the windows, cold stone walls, the sounds of distant screams. A place like St. Jude’s that would cage not only her body but her mind, until the whispers were the only company left to her.

Leaning her forehead against the glass, she watched St. Jude’s recede into a smear of stone and water.

She did not look at the wraith who sat in the opposite corner of the carriage, eyes like hollow pits, watching her.

She fixed her gaze on the rain instead, and told herself, you see nothing, you hear nothing.

Because she could not afford to look at it or others like it ever again.