Chapter 6: The Castle and Its Skeleton

I know why the caged bird beats his wing

Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;

For he must fly back to his perch and cling, —

When he fain would be on the bough a-swing

--Paul Laurence Dunbar, “Sympathy”

As a young American without the expenses to travel beyond the borders of home, Grace had never seen a castle. While there are a few grand, beautiful structures on United States soil, none quite live up to the castles dotting Europe like mailboxes. Whatever their outward appearance, US buildings are simply not old enough to count as genuine castles. Things like moats to repel invaders, unscalable stone walls topped by battlements where artfully-placed severed heads decorate the points of pikes, or dizzying towers leading up to spires waving royal banners… are merely superficial.

Castles have histories, lives of their own, with biographies rich as any who might have dwelled within. They are places that make the most hardened skeptic seriously reconsider the possibility of ghosts. Because nothing is more historical that ghosts. America is built atop many bodies, but plays residence to few ghosts. That being said, when Grace first caught sight of the Ambrosius Institute—lurking among trimmed fields that had once been acres of tangled marsh—it is perfectly understandable she mistook the mental asylum for a castle.

While it might lack a merry feasting hall, it probably had some dreary dungeon. From its central body spread two symmetrical bat wings. (It felt unfair to compare them to birds.) They were also wings in the hospital sense. While once built of red brick, water erosion diluted it to pink. Above the curved, gilded gables of the main building peaked a spire.

None of this conveys the feeling Grace had that the Institute was alive, intelligent, and watched the world through what seemed like a thousand pristinely clear windows. Wherever she positioned herself in the backseat of Agent Grammery’s black-and-silver Plymouth Cranbrook, it felt like the place stared right at her.

The car itself seemed twice as long in its hood as the place people were expected to sit in. Agent Grammery turned her head from the driver’s seat, almost striking Grace’s forehead with her blocky chin. “This is one of the original Kirkbride models,” said the Agent. “Dates to the Victorian Era—not that you would know history. Designed as self-sufficient communities, where patients were made to live socially, understanding the value of honest work. Nothing like modern hospitals, where crazies do nothing except drool and swallow drugs to help them drift off to their personal nonsense-lands. If I were in charge, I wouldn’t tolerate this waste of taxpayer money. Most Kirkbrides are shut down, except the Ambrosius Institute.”

Grace had nothing to say. After all, Agent Grammery threatened to accuse her of starting the church fire, despite knowing Mr. Aitvaras was responsible. The log-woman might be a demon herself. The Plymouth ride felt like it had gone on forever, and so had taken Grace forever distant from her city, family, and friends. Paved road had reduced to gravel, which in turn petered out to dirt. There was no sign to mark the building as the “Ambrosius Institute,” but with a lurch and a bump, the Plymouth stopped at its front doors.

Agent Grammery exited and, unlocking the backseat, yanked Grace’s wrist with a knotted hand. The Agent’s hand felt like rough wood, with her nails being splinters and fingerprint whorls abrasively grainy. Since the night of the church-burning, Grace had gone numb. In a way, this pain helped her return to the world. She matched the pace of the woman’s strides, even appreciated the ability to finally stretch her legs a bit.

Past ornate, gold-trimmed doors—not a cranking drawbridge, unfortunately—sat a boringly beige reception desk, with an equally beige nurse insisting the “new patient,” needed “checking-in.” While she felt in a daze, Grace did not feel especially sick. What followed was a boring period involving Agent Grammery signing large stacks of paper in black ink, then having the nurse stamp them in red ink. The girl wished she could skip all this…

…a bald orderly took over dragging Grace by the arm. Waiting for an elevator, Grace got her first chance to look around. It seemed miraculous these gutted wooden bones could prop up the pink skin outside. No structure so vast should ever expect to not, eventually, collapse in on itself. Still, there existed some essence of grandeur. The sheer ego someone must have had to build something so big in scope! Then again, with all the holes in the walls, floors, and ceiling, that essence had mostly leaked out while cold leaked in.

After a rickety elevator took them several flights up, she was pulled down a long hallway. The orderly on one side, Agent Grammery on the other. They stopped at a door with “Ward IX” written above it. The orderly let go of Grace’s arm to rifled for keys.

“Ward Icks? Ecks?” Grace asked, more to herself than anyone else.

“It’s pronounced ‘Ward Nine’,” corrected Agent Grammery.

“Oh,” Grace said. “Roman numerals. Like a clockface. Ten is ‘x’, so nine before has an ‘i’ added in front. Writing eight, you’d need a ‘v’ instead, with three ‘i’s’ afterwards.”

“Don’t go thinking about Ward Eight.” The orderly finally located his keys. “In fact, forget about the entire left wing. Totally demolished. I’ll prepare your room.”

The “room” Grace was brought to was more of a closet. Narrow, bare, and painted a white which hurt to look at directly. Instead of a bed there was a bench built into the wall, with one pillow and blanket.

“Director Ambrosius will see you in his own time,” said Agent Grammery, clipped in speech as ever. The door automatically locked behind her.

From Grace’s side, the handle had been ripped off, leaving only a keyhole. The door had a round glass window, and if she stood on the bench, the girl could see… not much. With nothing to read or do, she lay on the starched, scratchy blanket and closed her eyes. In some places, the pillow was too flat. In others, too lumpy. There were no sheets with the blanket, nor a mattress. In her thoughts, she worried about home. What would her parents and Grandmam do for Christmas?

From below came the faint sound of a cuckoo clock, interrupted by Agent Grammery shoving open the door. She carried a hospital gown like it was a soiled rag. “If you’re going to stay, you must dress appropriately.” She thrust it into Grace’s hands.

It was the same starched material as the blanket and pillowcase. Grace wished for a place to change, but the Agent blocked the door. “Um,” she said.

“Hurry up.” Agent Grammery started tapping her foot. “I can get others in here if you lack the mental strength to dress yourself.”

Grace hardly wanted anyone to see her naked, but as she removed her coat, shoes, and so on, Agent Grammery never glanced away. In fact, she glared straight at Grace. The girl never felt anything more invasive in her life. With a shudder, she finished pulling down the thin gown.

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“It only makes sense to burn these old clothes.” Grammery left the room, motioning with her hand to follow.

Grace wanted to mention the red coat had been given by her father to match his own, her mother knitted those checkered socks herself, and Grandmam personally polished those silver slippers. All she said aloud, though, was “But…”

“Don’t dare speak profanities to me, brat. I have enough trouble with urchins. As if I’m supposed to play schoolmarm solely because I’m a woman.” Agent Grammery’s words sounded like they should be shouted. Her tone was less than mechanical. If there were other children in the Institute, as Grace’s father mentioned, they must have been on some other ward. Aside from the orderly, there was only a nurse at a desk. Agent Grammery turned a corner to an unmarked office door. She barely cracked it open, and pushed Grace through the narrow gap. The Agent did not enter herself.

Some mild effort had gone into making the office appear homey. The cracked wallpaper featured woodland animals and smiling clowns. A small bowl of butterscotch sat on the desk in front of Grace. In hunger, she considered taking one, then remembered how horrible they taste.

The man whose badge read “Director Ambrosius” (No mention of a first name, unless it actually was “Director”) looked like Santa Claus if jolly old Saint Nick had gone on a diet decades ago. He wore a paper-white lab coat instead of a vibrant red suit. Nonetheless, he had the long beard down pat, as well as rosy cheeks. He greeted Grace with a merry chuckle as she took the seat across from him.

“Hello Miss Grey.” The Director’s smile never exposed teeth. “I’m sure you’re homesick already. But really, Mal—Agent Grammery to you—was the hero who protected you from a rather hot situation. You don’t have to thank her, but that’s the truth. Perhaps you can return the favor. What do you know about the man, Mr. Aitvaras?”

“He’s not a man,” Grace blurted before she could stop herself. “He looks like one, but it’s pretend.”

Rather than reacting in offense or disbelief, the Director nodded. “So Mal was right. You can see into the Astral. Never possessed that gift myself, but I value it in others. Hence why we’ve invited you to our Institute. Now, you might have heard this place is a school. That’s as close as we can describe it to civilians. Really, we can learn a great deal from you, as well.”

“What?” Grace asked. Then, more specifically, “What can you learn from me?”

“If you have the abilities I’ve heard you possess, you might make the difference in a coming war. With birds to spy for you, you might collect information unavailable in any other way. Eyes in the sky could spot bombs and weapons that might steal American lives.”

“Abilities?” Grace’s forehead crinkled. “What do you mean? I don’t know anything about war. Only what my dad says. That’s over, or he wouldn’t have ever met my mom.”

“A report from the sorry incident,” the Director drawled while skimming a manila envelope, “occurring early this December, was taken down by a policeman. Describing the erratic, unusual behavior of a group of blackbirds.”

“Crows and raven, not blackbirds.” It just slipped out. Grace was told many times you should never compare corvids to blackbirds, which have tiny yellow eyes, and are much stupider.

The ends of the Director’s lips twitched upwards. “Those blackb…er, crows and raven weren’t mobbing by accident, were they? In fact, they attacked this evil being, Mr. Aitvaras! They saw you were in danger—as is anyone unlucky enough to encounter that imposter government agent—and came to your aid, is that so?”

Grace said nothing. She refused to say anything that might expose Bennu.

“If you feel anxious speaking about Mr. Aitvaras, know that he’s unlikely to enter this sanctuary.” The Director leaned back in his chair. “Really, the Institute’s the safest place you could be.”

“I remember,” Grace hesitated, but curiosity drove her on, “Agent Grammery saying he had this thing. Something that…controls minds. Do you want it, too?”

“Really thought I was the one asking questions.” The Director closed the envelop and steepled his fingers. “But okay. I’ll try answering in a way which won’t wholly endanger national security. Years ago, this hospital lost the funding to run properly. It passed into my hands, where I conducted experiments. Since the war ended, I had free rein. Until a larger group called Project ARTICHOKE absorbed all resources. They are interested in controlling minds.

I’d prefer to test what you can do with birds.”

“Does that mean we’ll go outside?” Even if winter proved terrible, Grace yearned for fresh air.

“No. Much simpler for birds to be brought to us. Speaking a’ which…” the Director paused, eyeing his office door. Nothing happened for several minutes, then, the same orderly wheeled in a food cart.

On it was a generous setting of turkey slices, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits, and an entire apple pie. Without her permission, Grace’s stomach rumbled.

“Thank you.” The Director tied a red-and-green napkin around his throat. “Miss Grey, would you care to join me for a meal? I hate dining alone, and imagine you must be famished.” Before receiving an answer, Director Ambrosius placed a plate before her. The orderly excused himself.

“I’m terribly sorry,” the Director started slicing into a hunk of meat that smelled savory and looked juicy, “but you don’t have trouble eating turkey? What with your ability to speak with them?”

“Not unless it’s a bird I know.” No point denying a secret he had already figured out. Grace dug in.

The next day, as the cuckoo clock rang several floors below, Agent Grammery escorted Grace into a room more painfully white than her closet. At a table sat two cold, metal chairs. She took one. The other remained vacant. Director Ambrosius paced excitedly until the orderly carried in a cage. Inside perched a lime-green parakeet.

“We’ll start with a bilingual bird,” the Director said. “Ask what fruit it wants: apples or oranges.”

“She, not it.” Grace got her face close before asking. As the bird preferred apples, the girl asked “Where do you keep those?”

The Director only laughed. It sounded much less jolly than his previous chuckles. “I heard it ask for “apples”, too. Perfect—albeit squeaky—English. Now, I want you to whisper, as you might to your blackbird friends. Explain we won’t actually be providing any fruit, and ask its honest opinion. But not in English.”

Grace took down a long list of grievances. “She’s not saying anything my parents would let me repeat.” To her, the parakeet might as well have been speaking English, yet the Director took no offense at a long string of insults directed his way. He must hear something entirely different.

“Fair enough.” The Director was chuckling again. “I already envision how this gift could be applied to serve the best interests of the United States of America.”

Day to day, Grace never knew which caged bird she would be conversing with. Once, a cockatoo asked if she found his bright yellow pompadour impressive. She assured him “Yes.” During interviews, Director Ambrosius asked Grace to describe everything the birds told her, suggesting how she should steer the conversation.

“I don’t control them,” she explained. “They say what they want. Sometimes I can’t convince them I’m right, and can’t force them to do anything.”

The Director quickly wrote this down. Then, serious testing began. A pigeon was brought in. Grace was asked to identify where he hid a package.

At first, the pigeon stubbornly refused to answer. “Tampering with the mail’s a federal offense, you know!”

With a quick couple of compliments, Grace was able to coax the truth. “In a tree…yes, specifically, a cavity in the trunk!”

“What kind of tree?” The Director looked up from his notes.

Grace put her ear closer to the cage. “A birch tree! Also, it’s on the grounds of the asylum…yeah, on the back-left side, near a ruined gazebo.”

The Director’s pencil snapped in his hand. “Amazing.”

Next afternoon, Grace was to interview a kestrel employed in falconry. The query was “What had the bird been sent to hunt that morning?”

“A rabbit,” Grace answered almost immediately. “Not a hare, like that ‘busybody’ red-tailed hawk claims.”

The Director’s eyebrows raised. “Okay. Did the hawk eat the rabbit?”

“No, he behaved himself real well and brought it to be…skinned. Ewwww.” Grace felt sick. She would have actually preferred if the hawk had simply eaten the rabbit.

To this, the Director clapped his hands. The orderly came in with a—still bloody—rabbit’s skin on a silver platter.

One morning, after Grace finished the same colorless, tasteless gruel served every meal since the original turkey dinner, the Director personally escorted her to speak with another bird.

“See, Miss Grey, what makes this subject interesting is it’s wild, not those domesticated ‘pets’ we’ve had you consort with until now. I wonder, if these peculiar abilities you’ve displayed might expand to work in any country of the world. After all, birds are everywhere, no doubt noticing things our enemies would rather we not. Mal caught him snooping about our grounds.”

“What sort of wild bird?” Grace asked.

“See for yourself.” He opened the door to the white room. Atop the table, in a cage much too small for him, slumped a crow.

“Thank the Morrigan it’s you, Gracie!” cried Jackanapes.