Chapter 7: The Crying Chamber
Hunters who are good at tracking are able to follow a Squonk by its tear-stained trail, for the animal weeps constantly. When cornered and escape seems impossible, or when surprised or frightened, it may even dissolve itself in tears.
--William T. Cox, Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods
The asylum by night was an entirely different place than during the day. The later was presentable to outsiders. Since Grace cooperated with the bird experiments so well, without any disruptions to the staff, she was allowed to see one parent each Friday, at noon, in a small room to the side of the ground floor reception desk. Institute rules meant a patient could only have a single visitor at a time.
Grace’s mother came first. She wore her nurse’s uniform. Her eyes were red, which she insisted was solely because she had driven all night immediately after a full shift, just to arrive on time. Grace saw a mass of used tissues hanging out of her pockets, and more in her handbag.
Over the weeks, Grace met her mother and father in roughly equal measures. Both assured her the only reason Grandmam never visited was because the journey upstate might prove too much for the old woman, who became frail at unexpected times. No matter how cruel it felt that these visits proved so short, Grace’s parents were living reminders a world existed outside the innards and bones of the castle. In her daily existence (it would be wrong to call it “life”) she was denied any chance to go outside, even just a stroll along the grounds. The last time she felt direct sunlight on her skin was leaving Agent Grammery’s car.
Parents could only remind her of the real world once a week, and only during daytime. When Grace really felt she needed such proof was at night. Heavy fluorescents cast the whitewashed halls of Ward Nine in green sickness, hurting her eyes. At night, most lights dimmed, and others turned off entirely, but the lights in her cell resolutely blazed on. She tried sleeping on her stomach to block out the brightness, but had trouble breathing. She shaped her blanket and pillow into a cocoon. If she kept her eyes shut tight, she could almost experience darkness.
Every night, the door to Grace’s closet locked at exactly 8 P.M. The Institute’s routines were much less fun than the ones she made. She once had no trouble sleeping, but that was in her own bed, near her Grandmam, with her parents in the other room, and no bright lights.
The best to come into her existence was Jackanapes, though he hated being there. “Nothing to do with you, a’ course,” he said while rattling his cage. When Director Ambrosius asked Grace what the crow said, she conveniently left out Jackanape’s escape plans. She was just explaining the game called “anting” to the Director when Agent Grammery kicked in the door.
The woman’s wooden face showed no anger, but the way she urgently tugged the Director into a corner revealed her true feelings. Agent Grammery held a handful of gravel wet with some red fluid.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Grace reached towards a thick binder and swiped a paperclip. As her gown lacked pockets, she hid it in the curls of her hair. Agent Grammery previously threated to shave her bald, which proved a hollow threat. The girl wished to wash it more, though. The only showers allowed were intense hosings each Thursday evening, with the Agent present and watching the whole time.
Months before, Chiaroscuro taught her how to pick locks. It began with bragging. “You might say I picked it up on an island near Australia. A female crow named Qua-Qua could take sticks and bent them into hooks. With them, we could break out of anywhere.”
“When were you in Australia?” Grace had asked. She knew little except the continent lay clear on the other side of the world. “Also, why?”
“Er.” The old raven started pulling individual leaves off a branch. “That’s strictly confidential. I can say Qua-Qua might have been the love of my life. But it was simply not to be. We were different breeds…” Suddenly, it did not sound like Chiaroscuro was bragging. He kept his evil eye to the sky.
Grace still recalled the method he illustrated. A paperclip spared the trouble of plucking leaves. She thought to use her hook to test her cell door, but hesitated. Could there be escape, or would she just fall into further trouble? She leaned against the cool metal door and shut her eyes to the light.
Then, she heard a persistent tapping at the window. Standing on the bench, she could see Jackanapes, flapping free. That settled it. She easily picked the handle-less lock. No alarms screamed, or extra lights flashed.
The hall outside was dark. The nurse who sat at Ward Nine’s front desk was gone. Grace would swear she was the nurse who provided check-in documents, but had no idea how the woman could travel up so fast. Even with an elevator. Most nurses lacked wings, unlike Jackanapes, Offal, and Ragamuffin.
All three sat at the desk’s counter. Though corvids normally slept at night, same as humans, the youngest members of the Murder were staying up past bedtime. It transpired Chiaroscuro had secretly followed Agent Grammery’s car as it carried Grace away. Even for a raven used to wandering, this was a far journey. Though it took weeks, he found his way back to the city. It took further weeks for Jackanapes to arrive at the Institute, and more for his two siblings. They feared Mr. Aitvaras’ involvement when the fledgling disappeared.
“Couldn’t believe normal humans would be able to catch one of our own,” admitted Ragamuffin.
“I don’t think anyone here’s normal,” responded Grace. “The Agent that brought me here once turned into wood.”
“Shouldn’t keep us from escaping!” Jackanapes stretched his legs. (He had been locked in a small cage for quite a while.) He took the hooked twig brought by Offal and unlocked the door out of Ward Nine. No alarms or lights went off this time, either.
Watching for Institute workers, Grace followed her friends to the heart of the Kirkbride. It really felt like a castle the more one took it in. Not the place a charming prince lived, but one where opening a wrong door might expose a grisly, gory pile of corpses. Grace felt it proper to navigate the semi-dark halls with a candelabra. In posters for scary movies her mother refused to let her see, the lady in her too-thin nightgown always held one. There was always a big, ugly monster always lurking right behind her…
Grace turned around quick! While there was no monster behind her, the girl had the too-thin gown, which failed to guard against drafts. She rubbed her forearms, trying to keep warm and asked where the crows wanted to go. The asylum halls held enough shadows to keep an entire army of monsters comfortably hidden.
The Murder’s chatting and joking provided diversion from Grace’s bloodcurdling thoughts. Jackanapes especially wanted to know what happened to Bennu’s egg and the gold scroll.
“The adults say Bennu needs to incubate,” Ragamuffin explained. “We find the hottest places we can think of and just sorta throw his egg on top. No sign of hatching yet. Or cracking. We keep the scroll apart.”
Grace was distracted by a sound of hail coming from the far-left wing of the Institute. Ragamuffin and Offal insisted they head that way. Which the orderly said had been demolished.
In the span of a snap, Murder gossip ceased. The four had crossed, and now were gazing at a hole in the ceiling. It went straight through the roof, several floors above the level of Ward Nine. This hole was just the length of Grace’s hands put together. In that space, she could see a few stars. No clouds obscured her view, and no hail or precipitation fell down the gap. While cold, it was an otherwise calm night. Yet the not-hail sound continued echoing from further left.
“So, this is how you two got in.” Jackanapes flew to inspect the floor above them.
“Offal had some problems squeezing through,” Ragamuffin said in a bright tone. “But we can all esc…oh,” she glanced at Grace from the side.
“Gracie can’t fly. But could a swarm of us birds lift her by her arms and shoulders?” suggested Offal.
“No, that’s stupid,” said Ragamuffin.
“I think it’s worth a shot.” Offal puffed his chest. “What if Gracie jumped up first? Do part of the lifting.”
“Problem’s not her weight,” Ragamuffin snapped. “A human couldn’t possibly fit through a crack that small.”
“No, but I figure doors aren’t much trouble.” Jackanapes fluttered about. “She picks locks like us, why not go out the front door?”
Ragamuffin shook her head. “No good. We searched a lotta’ spots before finally finding your level. Bottom floor has a guard with one of those silly metal objects that make too much noise. What’re they called again, Gracie?”
“Guns,” Grace answered.
“Right, so there’s always a guard down there with a gun.”
“Maybe Director Ambrosius will let me go home,” Grace chimed in without much conviction. “I mean, once tests are done, and…” She went silent.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Her crow friends left. First Jackanapes, then Offal. Ragamuffin stayed back longest, repeatedly promising to find some way to release the girl from that horrible place. Grace said nothing in response. Then she had no one to respond to.
At first, the girl assumed she was alone. The fake hail sounds might simply be a broken machine. Then, an additional sound accompanied it, one much harder to attribute to an inanimate source. She heard crying: a terrible keening which added to the prickles across her skin already caused by drafts. A banshee, like her Grandmam talked about and Chiaroscuro claimed to have actually met. Spirits supposed to only appear where deaths would happen soon.
As Grace listened, though, the crying just became sad. A perfect match of her own frustration. She had little notion of the exact day, but had definitely missed Christmas with her family. Grace’s father insisted there were plenty of present intended for her, but no packages could be carried into the Institute. A gift might put the country’s safety in jeopardy.
“So, you’ll just get to open them all when you come home!” Grace’s father had said at the time. His voice was excited, but his eyes were dark. Neither knew when that might be.
Director Ambrosius’s ultimate goals for the bird tests were muddled. He spoke vaguely about spying, and talked plenty about “patriotic duty.” But if Grace did not find a way out herself, she might be stuck for the rest of her life. She could easily pick her way out of her closet, but the broken asylum was simply a bigger cell.
Still, she did not want to return to her hard bench and scratchy blanket-and-pillow this instant. Gingerly, she took a step in the direction of the new noises. Without friends distracting her, she became acutely aware how cold the floor tiles felt under her bare feet. She checked for monsters behind her numerous times—always coming back negative—but there could be anything in front of her.
While the crying figure sounded innocent, they might be crying because they had a demon menacing them. After that time in her family’s kitchen, Agent Grammery had never turned to wood in front of her, but Grace had no idea what she did at night. The girl did not much feel like a hero.
She turned on her heels back to Ward Nine. Her cell door locked automatically, as proven by a click. Grace kept the paperclip on her. The next night (and every night after) she heard the hail sound and weeping. Some nights just hail, other nights just crying. Once she knew to listen, she could never keep from hearing at least one. The two sounds never traveled across the Kirkbride during the day. Probably because there were plenty other noises to drown them out, such as birds.
***
Jackanapes had been missing several days, but nobody accused Grace of having some involvement, and it was not like Agent Grammery was any stranger to accusing. Regardless, Director Ambrosius stocked plenty other birds for Grace to talk to. According to the subjects themselves, most came from the same pet store.
A few days more, and still no sign the Murder remembered their friend. No corvid ever came rapping at her chamber door. Just the noise of hail-not-hail and weeping. One night, when sleep refused to come no how she wriggled inside her blanket cocoon, Grace snuck to the supposedly destroyed half of the Institute. Then, just as quietly snuck back.
Next night, she did the same, and the next, till it became her ritual. Neither the Director nor Agent Grammery ever caught Grace out of bounds, which did little to embolden her over time. Fear pooled in darkness; shadows slippery as oil. At one spot in particular, her body balked. Some part of her decided that in the distance between one black tile and the white tile after it, there existed a chasm.
Grace could not actually see the hole that would swallow her alive if she took just. One. More. Step. Not just because of limited fluorescents. Instincts were what told her the chasm existed, that her solid footing would be stolen from her and she would be left in dust among the worms and dinosaur bones forever. The Murder might finally arrive, but rescuers would never find her, not matter how long they searched. Her parents and Grandmam would eventually move on and forget her. All because of a single misstep now.
Yet, Grace continued leaving her room. She stood beneath the hole in the roof that opened right to the stars, hoping this would be the time she would overcome her cowardice. On this, one night after many, the hail-not-hail continued its reliable pace, but the crying was replaced with a horrified scream.
“Oh no! Not me! Ohhhhhhhhhh, boo.”
Grace had the understanding only ghosts said “Boo!”, but the voice was too miserable to be frightening. Actually, they might need help. The girl stepped over the line where the fissure should have been. Flooring remained solid as ever. Grace continued walking at a steady pace, to a set of lights down the hall.
Three bulbs hung over the same number of chambers. The middle cell’s door lay ajar, but those on either side were closed. All were metal and quite beat up, with teal verdigris between the rivets screwed into the edges. Instead of a glass window as in Grace’s closet, these doors had silver wire mesh, lower to the ground and easier to peer through.
The leftmost cell, where what was now a low moaning leaked, held a squat figure. Grace could not tell if they were a boy or girl, but they wore a white uniform like her gown. Unfairly, they got to have trousers. Their hands and arms were wrapped in moist bandages. A brown paper grocery bag covered their whole head. In one bandaged hand, the bag-headed child held a pencil with a broken lead. The other hand crumpled a piece of paper and threw it against the wall.
“Boo, I’ll never write as good as it sounded in my head!” The masked figure sounded female. Casting aside the pencil as well, she spotted Grace gazing in, and started weeping in earnest. Wide and red, their eyes made Grace’s own water in sympathy. A froglike croak started which dragged on as Grace checked the cell on the far right.
This figure proved even stranger. She wore an off-white coat with cushioned padding. While tall—she might have been as old as twelve—the coat was still several sizes too big, trailing to her knees. The coat came with a hood, which the girl had pulled up. Beneath, strings of brittle, silvery hair stuck out in odd directions. Her face was pale, but unwrinkled, and kept an aggressively blasé expression. Bruises and scratches covered her exposed hands. Under heavy plastic goggles, her eyes were supported by purple bags.
Only later did Grace notice these minute details, because what she mistook for hail all this time stole her attention. A constant stream of pebbles dropped from above the coat-wearing girl. Grace expected things that fall down to first go up, but the stones did the former without any regard for the latter. They just seemed to pop into existence in thin air, then let gravity do its usual job.
If the second girl was surprised to see Grace peeking in, she gave no expression. She sauntered to the opposite side of her cell. The rain of stones followed. Leaning against the wall, she finally said “Whoever you are, I’m not in the mood for visitors.” Her monotone sounded as colorless as her hair and skin. She sucked air, a noise midway between a hiss and whistle.
“You’re never in the mood for anything!” yelled a voice from the leftmost cell.
“Oh, you’re one to talk,” the second girl slapped a hand to her forehead. “You only ever mope around, ruining everybody’s rest.”
“That is simply not true.” The bag-headed girl sniffed. “I don’t always mope. Sometimes I angst, other times I whine. To say nothing of when I cry, lament, complain, grumble, bellyache, weep, sob, scream hysterically, gaze into the abyss, or when feeling part-i-cul-arly artistic, brood.” She drew out every syllable of “particularly,” in a way she probably thought sounded dramatic.
“Yeah, well all that adds up to squat.”
The bag-headed girl croaked. “Well how would you feel if your whole existence started as a prank?”
“Don’t mind her,” the tall girl suddenly remembered Grace. “A long time ago, she convinced herself she was a creature from a book because her family treated her badly for being fat…”
“…And ugly!” The bag-headed girl cried so hard she started to choking.
“Hmm,” the other girl stared at a wall. “Can’t vouch for that. Never saw her without the bag. You know, she even wears it while eating.”
“How does she do that?” asked Grace.
“The Director lent me a straw,” answered the bag-headed girl.
“How do you do that, with the stones?” Grace wanted an answer quick. Morning was coming, and she needed to be back in Ward Nine.
“Director says it’s hormones.” The girl with the coat sighed. “A ‘Poltergeist phenomenon’ or whatever. He’s got no interest in stopping the rocks, either, which is why I came here in the first place. What a cheat!”
“Why were you brought here?” Grace turned to the cell with the bag-headed girl.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” the girl lay on her side. “Though there’s a legend told in this country about squonks, it’s not like anyone ever seriously believed in them, like with fairies. I’m only a lie lumberjacks in Pennsylvania made up around a campfire. Why? Because they were bored. They thought it was funny!” At the last word her body set to a fit of spasms.
“A…squonk?” Grace never heard the word before, not in her Grandmam’s books or her mother’s Anansi stories. “How can you be a lie if you’re sitting in front of me?”
“Oh, even if I’m real, I’m still a useless creature.” The bag-headed girl came to the mesh grate. “I really must be the ugliest thing in the world. Oh, just leave me alone. That’s safest. When people are mean, I hate it, but if they’re nice to me, I get scared. I heard,” she gasped, “…you can be killed with kindness.”
“Er, I don’t think that’s true,” Grace chewed her bottom lip. “You can’t possibly be so ugly you’d need a crummy old bag on you head. But I just realized, we never introduced ourselves.” She forgot that was something you were supposed to do. These were the first people around her age she had interacted with in well over a month. Previously, she was shy around other children, but found some comfort now in meeting these two. “My name’s Grace Grey.”
“Ehm, well I’m Diana Hemlock,” the bag-headed girl responded with clear reluctance. “The girl in the coat is Tatum Esther Levinson. So sad I never got a middle name!”
“Don’t tell her that!” the other girl finally had an expression on her face. It was far from happy. The pebbles falling above her suddenly turned bigger, sharper, as if responding to her surge of anger. While the majority fell away from Tatum, like she had an invisible umbrella, one landed on her face, near an eye. It was apparent now why she needed to wear goggles. Without, she might have easily been blinded.
“Why not, Tate. It’s you name, right?” Diana asked, not at all rhetorically. “Or was it something else? Argh, I can never remember anything!” She curled up into a ball.
“No, Di, that is what’s on my birth certificate. But it’s not the name I want to be called.” For the second time, the coat-wearing girl smacked a palm to her forehead. “It’s plain horrible. ‘Esther’ especially. I wasn’t born a miserable old spinster! I’m a miserable young maiden, and I want people to call me Fox.”
“Hello Fox,” Grace waved slightly. “And Diana. If you’ve worn that bag a long time, don’t you think you might look different now? That happens all the time. Pigeons look gross when they’re born. No feathers, and heads with wattles. But then they grow up and look better.” Grace hoped she could convince Diana to stop crying. Honestly, it would rid her of one thing keeping her awake at night.
“Yeah, like adult pigeons are so good looking,” Tatum (or Fox) interrupted. “I mean, they’re stupid rats with wings.”
“Not true,” Grace had to defend the birds. “Even if they aren’t pretty like peacocks, some pigeons are real smart. Postmaster Crumb is…or was plenty fun to be around.”
“You name pigeons?” Fox smirked and her pebble entourage shrunk in size and numbers. Several minutes after hitting the floor, the stones vanished. Perhaps returning to where they had been summoned in the first place. “You must be crazy, girl.”
“She’s in the right place, then,” said a clipped voice behind Grace.
Under the goggles, Fox’s eyes expanded in horror, as did Diana’s. Agent Grammery turned into a hollowed-out tree trunk. Slick moss and mold coated her. Holes where eyes once were bore straight past where a human kept their skull and brain, clear to the other side. With fingers thin and sharp as twigs, she lunged at Grace!