Asylum (10 page)

            “This
building is very old,” Seth began, “it’s been settling for a long time. 
Thousands of kids have lived here, walking the same path to the same rooms,
wearing patterns into the floors.  The University doesn’t put the amount of
upkeep into it that it should.  Sometimes in the spring, when the ice thaws, we
lose a roof tile or two.  Sometimes a chunk of plaster will fall right off a
wall.  These old radiators-” he nodded towards the cast iron loops under the
window, “make so much noise when they kick on in the winter that they scare
people.  So the floors are uneven.  You just watched a pencil roll six feet. 
Now, do you still think that the planchette moving an inch on its own is proof
that this place is haunted?”

            Sam
frowned and began shredding the label she had worked carefully to pull off in
one piece.

            “Well,
a bunch of the girls were saying that this place used to be an insane asylum,
and I can see why.  Anyone would think so, it’s creepy!” Sam snapped.

            Seth
groaned.  Chloe glanced at him again.  He was at the end of whatever patience
he had.  He was tired.  He had explained away everything that had happened to
the realm of natural occurrences.  He was less than a minute away from giving
up and going back to his bed.  When he did that, there would be nothing for
them to do but to go to bed themselves, and then she would lay in the dark
cringing at every little sound she heard…or thought she heard.

            “It
looks like one,” Chloe blurted out, speaking for the first time since they had
returned to the room, “The dorm does.  It looks like one of those old time
asylum places, kind of.”

            Seth
was watching her now, he gave her a smile that made her think he had more
patience than she had guessed.

            “What
do you mean, it looks like one?” he asked in his kindly, tired voice.

            “Well,
it’s just that…this building…I’m sure I’ve seen pictures or something of old
asylums, and this building it-it kind of looks like that.  It makes me think of
those places.  I can see why people say it,” Chloe stuttered.

            He
nodded thoughtfully.  Then with a crash, he let his chair fall forward so that
it rested again on four legs.  He looked slowly from Chloe to Sam.

            “If
I tell you guys something, you have to promise me you won’t repeat it.  You’re
not going to tell your little friends down at the end of the hall, right?”

            Sam
dropped the shreds of label and sat up straighter, she nodded eagerly.  Chloe
swallowed and tried her best to smile encouragingly.

            “Chloe’s
right.  It
does
look like one of those places, and that’s because it was
built to be an asylum.  It just never happened.  There was this guy, and I
don’t remember what his name was- it was way back in the 1800’s, he, the way
the story tells it, was the richest guy in Birch Harbor. 

            “Now
at the time, there wasn’t a lot here.  The college hadn’t been built yet, and
there’s never been any mining in the area.  I don’t think there was even a lot
of logging going on so the town was like a church, a post office, a store, and
a bar and that was pretty much it.  Back then, every state was building
asylums.  They thought it was the best way to deal with people that they didn’t
know what else to do with.  Before there were asylums they just put people who
had psych problems into jails or poor houses.  So they started building these
places, and all kinds of people wound up in them.  It wasn’t just the crazies
either.  They sent people that had seizures, or who were sick with consumption,
or who were just old and cranky, people that were depressed, or alcoholics…they
sent them all.  So there were a couple of asylums in Michigan, and they were
all pretty full.  They needed to build a new one.  Since all of them, at the
time, were below the bridge, this rich guy decides that they should build one
here in Birch Harbor.  He thought it would bring jobs to the area, and help to
put the place on the map.  He had a friend in the government, down in Lansing,
who told him that the state would definitely help with funding, so he started
to build the place.  And he hired an architect who designed it on something
called the Kirkbride plan.”

            “Kirkbride? 
Like the name of the hall?” Sam prodded.

            “Exactly. 
There was a doctor, whose name was Thomas Story Kirkbride, he was really
well-known for the way he treated mentally ill patients.  He had this belief
that they should be treated with kindness and concern, and that was really
different from how the system was dealing with them.  He wrote this book about
how to design buildings to house these people.  It was all about how the
building should be beautiful, and surrounded by gardens, with lots of fresh air
and stuff.  So his design was basically a large central part of the building,
which was for administration, and doctors’ offices and things like that, and
then on either side there was supposed to be an L-shaped wing that housed
patients. And the wings were kind of staggered, so that each patient would have
a room with windows that looked out onto gardens, or trees, or ponds, and that
they could open to get a breeze.  And most of the asylums built from then on,
were built on this Kirkbride Plan.  That’s why they kind of all look similar.”

            “Kindness
and beauty?  Are you kidding me?” Sam laughed, “Everyone knows about insane
asylums.  They tortured people.  They strapped them to tables and shocked them
and stuff, they experimented on patients, gave them lobotomies and all kinds of
crap.”

            “No,
no, no,” Seth disagreed, “Not at first they didn’t.  I’ve read up on this
stuff.  It didn’t start out that way.  There were these reformers that really
did care about people that were trying to make it better for the insane.  That
stuff did happen, but it was much later on.  You just think that because you‘ve
seen too many horror films.”

            “No,”
Sam defended herself,  “There are all kinds of scary stories about those places
out there.  Like this one place in Kentucky, they killed so many people that
they just put the bodies in this tunnel under the building that-”

            “Just
stop right there,” Seth demanded.  Chloe silently thanked him, “Before you get
into all your urban legends and start trying to tell me about your cousin
knowing someone who woke up in a bathtub full of ice missing a kidney, okay?”

            Chloe
snickered.

            “Well,
I find it really hard to believe that a bunch of do-gooders were trying to
build beautiful castles of kindness for the poor old lunatics.  Whatever you
say, I think those places are creepy as hell!” Sam shot back.

            “They
may be now, and I’m sure bad things did happen in them, but they didn’t start
out that way.  I mean, look at this place.  All the little details, the carving
on the newel posts on the main stairs, the crown molding around the ceilings in
the lobby, the brickwork, the arched windows on the fourth floor, and you
should see these old light fixtures they have stored away in the basement, from
back when there was gas lighting instead of electricity.  It’s all kind of
grand.  It’s just a beautiful old building, and anyone can see how much care
went into building it.”

            “You
really like this dorm, huh?” Chloe asked, recognizing, in his voice, the same
tone he got when talking about the outdoors.

            “Yeah. 
I really do.  They just don’t build things the way they used to.  Even the
doors,” Seth nodded towards the heavy oak door of their room, “solid wood.”

            “Never
mind.  Get back to the story.  The rich guy was building this place…” Sam
prodded.

            “He
was in the process of building it, had spent tons of his own money, and his
friend in Lansing didn’t come through for him.  The state gave money for them
to build an asylum right down the road from here in Newberry.”

            “So
what did he do?” Sam asked.

            “He
decided to finish building the place.  He thought he could open it on his own.
He went way into debt to do it, but right before it was finished, some nut came
out here at night and tried to burn the place down.  The guy saw the smoke from
his house and got a bunch of people from the town to come and put it out, but
it was pretty badly damaged.  He was out of money, so he couldn’t fix it, and
the place just sat here.”

            “So
when did it become a school?” Chloe asked quietly.

            “1900. 
The state gave funding to open it as a school because it was less expensive to
fix and fit it out for that, than to build another school entirely from
scratch.  So the main part of the building was used for classrooms and the
wings were student dorms and offices.  Some of the classrooms they still use,
as a matter of fact.  I think they built Goodman-Harker next and then Cambel
was the first women’s’ dorm.”

            “How
do you know all this stuff about the dorm?” Sam asked suspiciously.

            “May
told me,” Seth replied.

            “Wait
a minute, May…the waitress from the Eat?” Sam smirked.

            “Yes,
May, the waitress from the Eat,” Seth confirmed.  Something in his voice seemed
a bit threatening to Chloe.  Sam cast a long obvious look towards Chloe and
rolled her eyes.

            “May…the
waitressing guru and aspiring history professor,” Sam snickered.

            “May’s
lived here her whole life, she knows all the local history,” Seth voice was
cold, this time Chloe was sure she heard a note of warning in it.  Sam must not
have heard it because she laughed again.

            “Oh
I definitely believe she’s never left Birch Harbor in her whole life, I mean
she’s so-” Sam stopped when she realized Seth was glaring at her.

            “I’d
be real careful what you say about May around here,” Seth told her slowly, “May
is a friend of mine…a friend of a lot of students here.  I got to know her when
we had a literary appreciation class together my sophomore year and I consider
myself lucky to have sat next to her, because I never would have passed that
class.”

            “Oh
my God…May goes to school here?” Sam laughed.

            “No,”
Seth snapped, “May is a single mother who put two boys through college on
double shifts and the crappy tips that spoiled college kids left her.  She
always wanted to go to school herself, but there’s never been a time when she
didn’t have to help someone else first.  She took a class because she’s always
wanted to, and some day, she might take more, but in the meantime she helps
other kids who are struggling.  Kids like my friend Mike.  When he lost his
scholarship, by partying too much freshman year, it was May who got him a job
in town, and May that let him sleep on her couch until he could afford an
apartment, and May who bought his books for him.  And Mike’s not the only one
that could tell you they owe a lot to May.  So be careful what you say about
her!”

            Sam
looked stunned.

            “I’m
sorry,” she apologized, “really, I am.  I didn’t know all that about her.”

            “Keep
in mind that there’s always more to a person than the face they show you,” Seth
advised. 

            Then
he stood and stretched his arms towards the ceiling and yawned loudly.  Chloe
was glad his eyes were closed, he wouldn’t catch her gawking so obviously at
him.  She liked the way his body looked when he stretched.  Tall and toned,
like an athlete.  She would have liked to put her hand against his, his fingers
seemed so long, it would probably make hers seem tiny. His hands would be warm,
she was sure, warm and rough.  Like his voice was most of the time, warm and
rough and kind and comforting…he had to be the most calming person she had ever
known.

            Seth
dropped his arms to the side like dead weights and slouched over.

            “I’m
exhausted,” he complained, “I thought this R.A. gig was going to be easy.  If
you ladies are sure nothing is going to start flying around the room anytime
soon, I’m going to bed.”

            “Alright,
we don’t need your sarcasm, go to bed Mr. Doubting Thomas and I hope nothing
reaches out from under your bed and grabs your legs,” Sam threatened.

            Seth
rolled his eyes.

            “Night,
Clo,” he said.  He crossed the room to her bed, bent down, kissed the top of
her head, and ruffled her hair playfully.  He was out the door before Chloe
could say anything.

            “Chloe
and Se-e-eth sitting in a tree…” Sam giggled.

            “Shut-up
Sam!” Chloe grinned, “What the heck was that anyway?  Did you see that?  That’s
how you would say goodnight to, like, a puppy or something!”

            “Whatever. 
Did you catch that little stretch he did right before he went out?  All flexing
like ‘hey-Chloe-look-at-my-all-my-hot-muscles‘!”  Sam teased.

            “He
was NOT!” Chloe laughed.

            “Yes
he was! I saw you checking out the package!  He likes you, he’s just trying to
play it cool,” Sam affirmed.