Asylum (34 page)

            “But
he’s dead now, I’m sure he probably died of old age like a hundred years ago or
something,” Sam argued.

            “Maybe,”
Will said and refused to meet their eyes.

            Seth
snorted.

            “Can
we see the letter?  We’ll buy it from you,” Sam remembered.

            Will
considered it, stretching out his fingers and staring at the back of his
hands.  His fingernails were filthy.  Long and yellow and caked with thick
black lines of dirt underneath where the nail met the skin.

            “I
suppose so,” Will said at last.  “I won’t take less than forty dollars for it
though.”

            “Done!”
Sam agreed.

            While
Chloe wrote out his name and the amount on Dr. Willard’s check, Will went and
pulled up one of the sticks on the hillside and began digging with his hands. 
In a few minutes he had uncovered a large ziplock bag filled with yellowed
papers.

            “Here,”
he said thrusting an envelope addressed to Dr. Whitney Chelis at Chloe.  She
took it gently and handed him the check, which he thrust into his pocket
without looking at.  “Now, take off,” he ordered.  “This ain’t the kind of
stuff I like having to think about no more.”

            “Gladly,”
Seth said.  “Which direction is the hospital?”

            Will
pointed the way, and the girls followed as Seth began briskly trekking back to
the road.

            “Wow,”
whispered Sam when they were far enough away.

            “I
know,” Chloe said.

            “Really…wow. 
I just…I wasn’t expecting all that,” Sam continued.

            “I
know,” Chloe said.

            Seth
stopped, and whirled on them.

            “You
are not, I repeat NOT going to go digging around Kirkbride Hall so that you can
try and smash up a foundation stone…right?” he demanded.

            “Of
course not,” Sam lied.  Her eyes connected with Chloe’s for a long meaningful
second.

            “I
saw that,” said Seth.

CHAPTER TWELVE

           
Chloe sighed and
flopped down on the bed.  With Sam gone, the room seemed depressingly empty. 
Out in the hall, she could hear students calling their goodbyes to one another,
some making loud plans to meet up over break.  Sam had gone the night before,
after receiving a call from a friend at home who had phoned to tell her about a
big party that weekend.

            Chloe
had different holiday plans.  The letter they had bought off of Will Gannon turned
out to be devoid of any meaningful information.  It was basically one doctor
describing to another the patient’s condition.  ‘Monomania’ was a term used
over and over, and the new doctor was advised to keep constant surveillance, as
the patient had always been deemed an escape hazard.  ‘Reasonably intelligent’
had been another term in the letter that Chloe hadn’t liked.  It made her
wonder how the doctors at Woodhaven would have arrogantly described her.

            Dr.
Willard had seemed very excited by the find, however.  When Chloe told him
about Abraham’s Men, he had leapt to his feet and began talking animatedly
about the importance of such a find, slapping his hand on his desk when trying
to emphasize that they had to find out more.  Like a kid at Christmas, Sam had
said, and she was right.  He had taken off on a fact finding mission only the
week before, having found the star mark on the walls of an old asylum down
south.  Another member of his department had taken over the last week of
classes with assurances that their professor would be back next semester. 
Neither Chloe nor Sam had a class with Dr. Willard in the next semester, though
they both assumed that he would expect them to continue with their work in his
library. 

            Dr.
Willard had been able to fill in even more details for them.  The term
‘Abraham’s men’ must have been somewhat tongue in cheek, as it had another
meaning.  It was used to describe a class of beggars who claimed to be lunatics
discharged from the Abraham Ward of Bedlam in 16
^th
century England. 
Dr. Willard had even postulated that it may have meant that the group members
considered themselves to be sane, but were acting the part of lunatics in order
to further their plans.  Though what those plans actually were, he didn’t
know.  Chloe hadn’t told him about Will Gannon smashing the cornerstone at the
old hospital, nor about the man’s theory that the old asylums were soul traps. 
It just seemed too…crazy, and Dr. Willard was, first and foremost, a
psychologist. 

            Chloe
rolled onto her side and stared at the bulletin board across the room.  Since
Seth was pretty much in on the whole thing, they didn’t bother covering it up
with the hockey schedule anymore.  It looked almost the same as it had when
they started it two months before.  Of course, now that they didn’t have Mel
and Jen to help them…

            Mel
had gone home that night-- the night Chloe and Sam had gone to Traverse City--
and never come back.  The rumor was that she was failing several classes and
had had a mental breakdown from the stress.  The rumors also went on to assure
the listener that though she had dropped out, she was living at home and was
planning on going back to a community college near there.  Jen, on the other
hand, had returned, though not to their dormitory.  She had moved in with
friends at a dorm on the other side of campus.  Vetch Hall, the most modern of
the dorm buildings, having been constructed some time in the 1980s.  Sam and
Chloe wouldn’t have known what had happened to her if Sam hadn’t run into her
at the library one night.  According to Sam, Jen had ignored her, and walked as
fast as she could in the other direction.  Chloe could have told her that you
can’t ignore Sam, and true to form, Sam had chased the girl down and started
hurling questions at her.  What had happened to Mel?  Where had Jen gone? 
Where was she living now?  Why hadn’t she heard from either of them?  Jen had
been vague on everything, even to the point of refusing to answer where she had
moved to.  When Sam had continued to press, Jen had basically told her off and
then said she wanted no further contact with her or Chloe. 

            Which
was fine with Chloe.  She didn’t blame Jen in the least.  College was supposed
to be about cramming for finals and binge drinking.  You shouldn’t have to
worry that you might be possessed by a ghost or come home to cryptic messages
written all over your walls.  It was Sam who had asked around and ascertained
that Jen had transferred to another dorm.

            And
now the bulletin board had no new clippings.  It wasn’t that they weren’t still
looking.  Both she and Sam had taken turns looking through reels of microfilm
and searching through binders full of old articles from the Birch Harbor
Gazette.  Sam had even asked a librarian how they might get their hands on
blueprints of Kirkbride Hall.  The librarian’s only answer was a suspicious
glare.  The problem was that they weren’t exactly sure how to proceed.  They
both agreed that they had to find the cornerstone of the building.  They had
tried that almost immediately, walking around the whole building looking at all
the blocks at eye level.  Seth had been the one to suggest that it would be
underground.  He explained that a cornerstone was usually the first block laid,
it was normally done with a ceremony, and the block would probably bare a date
or an inscription of some sort.

            They
had found an article or two about the construction, but so far, no pictures or
clippings of the groundbreaking, and no way of telling where the first block
may have been laid for the massive building.  But she now had the whole of
winter break to go snooping around in the basement.  The hall would be pretty
much empty, so she might even be able to dig around the foundation at night.

            On
her desk, to the left of the bulletin board, sat two beautifully-wrapped
packages, stacked on top of one another and tied with a bow.  It was Seth’s
present.  She had given Sam her gift (a fifth of vodka and a two liter of
redpop) the night before.  She had hoped that Seth would drop-in before he left
for home, but eyeing the present she started to feel a bit of anxiety.  He
might assume she had already left.  She might miss him somehow.  It would
probably be better to give it to him now.

            The
larger of the two packages contained a dark grey knit sweater that she had
found at a department store on a recent out-of-town Christmas shopping trip
with Sam.  The smaller package was a plastic Velma action figure, complete with
removable glasses…so that she could lose them, presumably.

            Holding
the present tightly to her chest, she merged into the hallway traffic, fighting
against the flow of outgoing students dragging rolling suitcases and
stuffed-to-bursting backpacks behind them.  She knocked on Seth’s door and
waited until she heard his “Door’s unlocked!” before she entered.

            His
suitcase lay open on the bed, displaying a mass of jeans, t-shirts, sweaters
and flannels.  Seth was holding a stack of games in one hand, obviously trying
to decide which ones he wouldn’t be able to do without for the two weeks of
break.  He dropped the entire stack into the open suitcase and turned towards
her with a grin.

            “What’s
this?” he asked nodding towards the gift.

            “Nothing
much,” Chloe said shyly, “just a little something for…you know…Christmas.”

            “Okay. 
So…you packed then?” he asked.

            “Yup,”
she said, dropping her eyes to the floor.

            “Heading
out today?” he asked.

            “Uh-huh,”
she lied.

            “Really.
Where to?” he asked innocently.

            “Sams’”
Chloe said, still staring at the ground.  Seth blew out a long frustrated
sigh.  She didn’t have to look up to know that he was watching her.

            “Sam
left last night.  I hate calling you out like this Clo, but I saw her and I
made sure to ask and she said you didn’t plan on going home with her for
Christmas, sooo…” Seth paused, waiting for her to explain.

            “Look,
I’m sorry.  I just…I just didn’t want you to feel bad for me or anything
because I don’t have anyplace to go for Christmas.  I don’t feel bad for me,
I’d much rather just stay right here.  I didn’t want to put a damper on your
holidays though-” she fumbled.

            “You
can’t stay here, Clo, no one can.  The dorm closes Sunday night and it doesn’t
reopen until the Saturday before classes start.  No one’s allowed in the
building over break,” Seth cut in.

            “I’ll
go to a hotel, it’ll be fun,” Chloe said lamely.

            “You’ll
come home with me,” Seth said and zipped his suitcase shut.

            “No…really,
you don’t have to do that,” Chloe said quickly.

            “It’s
done.  I already talked to my parents and they’re fine with it.  Can’t wait to
meet you actually.”  He yanked the suitcase off the bed and set it upright on
the floor.

            “I
don’t…I can’t…I don’t want to barge in on your family,” Chloe stuttered.

            “You
won’t.  They’re expecting you now,” Seth smiled serenely.

            “Oh
come on Seth,” Chloe argued.  “It’s just going to be awkward and strange. 
They’re going to be wondering what kind of person doesn’t spend Christmas with
their family the whole time!”

            “I
told them that your family was going on a skiing vacation over break and that
you don’t ski.  Therefore you were planning on spending your vacation at home
by yourself.  My Mom was the one who insisted I bring you home…didn’t even have
to ask,” Seth said calmly.

            “And
you set all this up when?  Last night after you talked to Sam?  Pretty quick,”
Chloe observed.

            “Set
it up weeks ago.  I had a feeling that you didn’t really have any plans, when I
heard you tell your mother that you were going to Sams’.  So let’s get packed.”

            “No,”
Chloe replied firmly.

            “You’re
going to break my mom’s heart,” he cautioned.

            “You’re
awful!” Chloe shot back.

            Seth
rubbed his chin thoughtfully and then put on his most mournful expression,
making the saddest hazel puppy dog eyes she had ever seen.

            “I
should have asked you first, I know that.  It’s just that I know you, I know
how you think.  I didn’t want to give you time enough to make up reasons why
you couldn’t come.  Maybe it’s not that I don’t want you to spend Christmas
alone, maybe…maybe it’s just that I don’t want to spend Christmas without you,”
he gave her a small, sad smile.

            “You’re
really
awful,” Chloe said, but she was losing the battle to keep the
smile off her own face.  He must have read the signs because he seemed to know
he had won his point.  He slid an arm around her waist, and with his free hand,
brushed the hair off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear.