Katalepsis

Cygnet Asylum loomed out of the misty rain and drizzling droplets, peering through the saturated trees and shivering leaves like a rotting manor house abandoned in the heart of a swamp; the layers of enclosing woodland peeled back like disturbed grave dirt, moist and sticky with the leavings of distant thunderstorms, revealing the face of the asylum like the contours of a buried skull. A hundred empty eye sockets peered down at the drenched greenery of the lawns, the slippery wet pathways, the benches with their wooden slats gone slimy and slick. Each window was streaked with the slow accumulation of weak and watery raindrops, massing together on the glass and sliding downward like insensate tears upon the mirror of ossified eyeballs. Brick walls were darkened by the swirl of pinprick moisture, stained to blood red and tainted clay and strangled sunset, like the memory of ancient veins dried hard and crusty on the side of empty, windblown bone. The toothless mouth of the main entrance hung wide, flanked by the osseous wound of the side-door. Worms and beetles shifted and shuffled within — nurses, going about their business.

Two fresh incisors stood to attention just inside the main entrance — a pair of Knights, clad in black, clean and alive and upright amid the fleshless skull. They were visible all the way across the open lawns, as if picked out in greater clarity than the background of the nightmare play.

Very few patients choose to brave the damp and dreary weather of the rainy morning. As I crept from the tree line, pushing Evelyn’s wheelchair ahead of me, and felt the oppressive weight of the hospital’s vacant stare, I spotted only four other inmates abroad upon the asylum grounds. A pair of girls were walking off around the left side of the hospital buildings, huddling beneath the shelter of an umbrella as they hurried along. Another girl was peering out of the tall vault of the side-door — flanked by the watchful presence of a nurse; she was quickly encouraged back indoors. A second umbrella-shaded figure was heading off to the right, toward some other wing of the hospital, clutching folders and loose papers to her chest. She was flanked by a pair of burly nurses, also carrying umbrellas.

We, on the other hand, were not so lucky as to have acquired such fantastical and advanced technology as the lowly and humble umbrella, let alone two or three. No such luxury of equipment for renegades and revolutionaries — as Raine had put it. Those who fought an insurgency from the depths of the woods had to make do with the tools they had, or what little they could steal.

Raine’s metaphors left a lot to be desired, but she had a solid point.

As I walked a slow and steady route down one of the red brick pathways, heading for the front of the hospital, surrounded by the swirl and churn of misty raindrops, I peered out from beneath the rim of a towel draped over my head and shoulders. The towel was growing damp already. Moisture kept dusting my face.

Evelyn was in much the same condition, hunched down in her wheelchair. Between her big grey dressing gown and the towel over her shoulders and hair, I couldn’t see anything of her unless she turned her head — and she was concentrating much too hard for casual sightseeing. I felt like I was wheeling a lump of moist laundry toward the mouth of a skull.

Step one of a plan which already filled me with doubt.

My heart was fluttering in my chest like a caged dove, and we hadn’t even reached the doors yet. I tried to keep my breathing steady, but found the air sticking in my throat. My palms were sweat-soaked and slippery on the handles of Evee’s wheelchair. My left leg ached with every step, the wound in my shin throbbing, muscles stiff and slow.

If this all went wrong and ended up fleeing, we had to trust that our backup was going to be swift and capable, because I was not.

“Stop,” Evelyn said.

I halted instantly, heart pounding, lips sealed. The misty rain swirled around us on the feathery breeze. I tried not to move a muscle, eyes flicking left and right.

Had the first step failed so early? We’d barely started! Had somebody seen us? Did we need to retreat, or give Raine the signal, or—

“Heather,” Evelyn murmured from down beneath her towel. Her voice was gentle and measured, easier and more relaxed than I’d ever heard before. “Take a deep breath. Hold it for the count of ten. Then let it out again, slowly.”

“ … E-Evee? But—”

“Just. Do it. You agreed to follow my orders. Do as I say. Right now.”

I took the prescribed deep breath, filling my lungs and counting to ten. Then I let it out, nice and slow, my inner air joining the rain in front of my face.

“Good,” Evelyn murmured. “Heather, you need to relax and stay calm. You need to clear your mind and focus on the actions of your body. I can only sustain this if you stay calm and collected. Do not panic. Do not let go of the chair. Do not hesitate to do as I say.”

She spoke so calmly and softly, in a way I’d never heard from Evelyn before we’d set this plan in motion. I’d never expected Evee to be capable of such meditative serenity. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said she was high on muscle relaxants or had gotten in Kimberly’s supply of special tobacco. Evelyn, in my experience, was not a calm or relaxed person. She was proving me wrong.

I swallowed and took a second deep breath before speaking. “If you’d rather have Raine do this—”

“Raine has to be our backup in case something goes wrong,” Evelyn said, with just a touch of her usual irritation creeping into her somnambulant tone. “You can hardly sprint to our rescue with a weapon, can you?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think I could.”

“Besides,” Evelyn continued with a little grumble, “if Raine took your role for this caper, she would undoubtedly break our stealth to do something stupid and dangerous. That is her style, after all. You know that as well as I do. And she’s no different in a dream. It has to be you, Heather. You are my arms and my legs. I am your brain and your shelter. We do this together.”

“O-oh. Evee. You didn’t say any of that back when we were planning this, back in the pavilion.”

“Huh,” Evelyn almost chuckled. “Sometimes even I am capable of subterfuge.”

That wasn’t quite what I had meant — but I just cleared my throat and said, “Of course you are.”

“Then we stick to the plan,” she murmured. “Are you ready to continue?”

I glanced back over my shoulder at the tree line, and at the area where the woodland snaked toward the hospital on our left. Raine was hiding in those woods right now, ready to dart across the open ground to huddle in the lee of the hospital building. She was our backup, ready for violence, ready to respond to a set of pre-arranged signals. If we had to abandon our stealth, Raine would come in swinging, all cylinders firing. The Saye Fox was with her, or at least somewhere nearby, our unpredictable wild card in russet fur.

I couldn’t see Raine. I decided that was a good sign, because she was sticking to the plan.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m ready.”

Evelyn gestured ahead with both hands, concealed inside the joined sleeves of her dressing gown. Within that sealed tube of fabric, her hands were wrapped around the Fadestone.

“Take the left-hand fork up ahead,” she said. “Go in through the side entrance.”

“Why the side entrance?”

Evelyn sighed. “Because the main doors don’t have proper disabled access. There’s no ramp. You can’t get me up there.”

“Oh, right. Whoops.”

“No, not ‘whoops’,” Evelyn grunted. “Fuck this place.”

“Quite right,” I agreed, and on we went.

The wheels of Evee’s chair whispered across the damp brickwork pathway, turning without the slightest squeak of metal. I flexed my fingers around the handles, careful never to fully let go, lest I lose the protection of Evelyn’s magic. I took deep, slow breaths, and reminded myself that we were invisible.

The nurses and the Knights inside the entranceway did not respond to the bizarre sight of two girls approaching down the pathway, one in a wheelchair, both of them draped with damp towels; the Fadestone hid us from all sight, even from memory.

Raine, somewhere away to our left, could not see us either. She was operating on pure memorised instructions, from my lips to her ears.

Before we’d left the pavilion to put our plan into action, we had tested that theory, to make sure that it would not be a load-bearing point of failure. If I delivered Raine an absolutely clear set of instructions and orders, totally independent of reference to where I was or what I was supposed to be doing, would she be capable of following those instructions, even when Evelyn and I were concealed under the mind-veil of the Fadestone?

The answer was yes. With Evee and I ‘vanished’, Raine had followed her set of test orders to the letter. She had walked three times around the pavilion, tapped a bench with her machete, and barked like a dog. Even without the memory of why she was following my orders, she had stuck to them without the slightest doubt.

Raine trusted me without question, believed in my vision and my purpose without hesitation, and would do exactly as I ordered, even if she didn’t recall where I was.

Which was useful for this plan, of course, but still a bit worrying. We didn’t have time to address the root of that right then, let alone work through the reasons. We had to go bait Twil out into the woods, with or without her pair of Lillies. If Raine’s unquestioning obedience to even my blurred memory helped, then we would use that tool too, at least for now.

Our other primary tool was no less reliable, but far more temperamental — Evelyn assured me that the Fadestone would work to cover her, the wheelchair, and myself. When we’d used it to hide from Sevens and the Governor, Evelyn had been in a state of panic and shock, so moving while operating it had presented a challenge. But like this, she was calm and prepared, so covering me with the effect was less difficult. As long as I held on.

But she did have to concentrate.

“It’s working,” Evelyn muttered as we eased into the shadow of the hospital. The face of the building loomed above us, eyes blind to our presence, framed by the black and wrinkled sky.

“Mm,” I managed, throat tight, breath short.

“You can talk, you know,” Evelyn said. “You don’t have to stay totally silent. As long as you don’t make me jump or jog my shoulder or say something to shock me. And don’t test that last one, please.”

“I would never,” I whispered. “Sorry, Evee, I just … I’m very focused on getting you out of the rain. This can’t be healthy for you.”

“Huh,” Evelyn laughed. “This? This is hardly worth the title of ‘rain’. This is damp air. Last I checked, you’re as English as me. We both grew up with a hundred times worse than this. Rainy weather is in our guts.”

I sighed. “I never like that idea. That whole stereotype. ‘Why are we out in the rain?’” I put on an exaggerated posh voice, the best good-girl tone I could muster. “‘Because we’re English, and good little islanders don’t complain about the rainy weather.’ Tch. Maybe we should stop going out in the rain so much. Maybe it would do us some good. Culturally. Or … or something like that.”

“I never had much chance to go out in the rain, when I was little. And I don’t get much these days. I’m not exactly robust.”

“I think you’re robust,” I said. “You’re one of the most robust people I’ve ever met.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Evelyn muttered. “But it’s also a great big stinking lie.” She forestalled any further debate on her robustity by nodding at the building ahead. We were just about to leave the pathways and cross the open area in front of the hospital. “Focus on our entrance, Heather. Go ahead, wheel me up there. Take it slow, watch for anything out of place.”

“I wish Raine hadn’t made that joke earlier,” I hissed.

“Which one?”

“The one about watching for things out of place, about me wheeling you into a minefield. There’s no minefields here!”

“Don’t count your chickens until they’ve hatched.”

“Tch,” I tutted again. “The only person who would dream up a minefield is Raine. If it happens, we can blame her.”

The front of Cygnet Hospital had two sets of doors. The main entrance was all modern glass and metal set in the surroundings of ornate red brick; that was the one through which Raine and I had joined the riot yesterday. The side entrance stood slightly to the left — a large pair of open double doors made of dark, sturdy wood, which looked like they belonged to a Church. They were propped permanently open, presumably so the girls could wander the grounds without using the main way in and out of the building. Both entrances led into the same large hallway, but the one for patients had a disabled access ramp, a short switch-back of featureless grey concrete with a handrail on either side.

We reached the ramp. My left leg complained at the weight of Evelyn and her chair. I ignored the pain and pushed, peering out from beneath my damp towel.

The hospital building seemed to tower over us, growing vast in my peripheral vision. Three stories, four stories, then ten, then fifty, then a hundred — a leviathan of brick and glass, a mountain in the sky.

But when I glanced up from the wheelchair, the hospital resumed its normal form, outlined against the wrinkled black surface of the Eye’s underside.

I frowned at the asylum, daring it to try that again.

It did not.

Evelyn stayed absolutely calm as I pushed her up the ramp. We turned the switchback corner and faced the double-doors. Two Knights were visible just inside, looming among the shadows of the entrance hallway, flanking our only way in.

“Just keep moving,” Evelyn murmured. “They cannot see us. Ignore them. Take deep breaths. Ignore them, they cannot see us. Ignore them. Ignore them. They cannot see us. Ignore them.”

Evelyn kept up her improvised mantra, but my nerves almost couldn’t take the tension. My heart raced against my ribs as I walked the last few paces. Cold sweat broke out down my back and on my face as I passed beneath the shelter of the door. A flush of adrenaline — burning hot and pounding in my head — rushed into my veins as I passed between the twin sentinels of the Knights on guard duty.

The Knights didn’t react. They didn’t even glance down at us. They ignored us completely.

I paused right between them, wiping my slippers on the doormat, then carried on, home free.

Evelyn and I were swallowed up by the vastness of Cygnet Asylum’s entrance hall. Wet wheelchair tires squeaked on the tiled floor. The rain swirled at our backs, left behind outdoors. A wall of warm air tickled my face, pumped from a dozen radiators deeper inside the building.

“Stop,” Evelyn said softly.

I halted just beyond the Knights. I probably would have done so even without Evelyn’s orders.

The entrance hallway looked much the same as my previous visits to this part of the asylum — a large airy open space with a high ceiling, from which several corridors wormed off into the depths of the hospital. To our right was the reception desk, walled off by glass dividers. Beyond that, in the corner of the room, was the metal door through which we had passed in order to save Evelyn yesterday. On our left were the pair of archways which led to the mess hall and the main dayroom.

Evidence of yesterday’s riot was everywhere; the staff had cleared up the worst of the mess, of course — picked up the pots and pans, cleared away the broken glass from around the reception desk, and mopped the blood off the floor. But several areas of floor tiles were still stained with red shadows; those would take more than elbow grease and bleach to scrub clean. The area in front of the mess hall was covered in scratches and dents — the aftermath of the avalanche of pots and pans. Several patches of wall were scuffed or scraped. A huge chunk of plaster was missing from one corner, as if gouged out by a set of claws or the head of a mace. One of the glass wall sections behind the reception desk was simply gone, missing like a shattered tooth with the stump yanked from the socket. The reception desk itself was empty — no nurses on duty, no computer or phone on the desk, no chair or stool behind. Normal functions had been suspended during this state of emergency.

Nurses and Knights were everywhere. Each corridor and archway was flanked by at least one Knight, more often two, hands loose and lazy on their submachine guns strapped over their chests. Nurses hurried back and forth on their tasks, always moving in pairs or trios. Some of them looked haggard and worn out, drawn tight by insomnia and stress. Some had visible bruises on their faces, hands, or forearms. A few carried weapons — nightsticks and short clubs, wrapped in fabric or foam, nothing bladed or sharp.

Not a single nurse or Knight looked our way. A pair of nurses walked right toward us — then swerved around Evee’s wheelchair, as if they could sense us despite their conscious minds refusing to acknowledge our presence.

I felt like a beetle inside an anthill, coated in looted pheromone, unseen by the swarming automatons all around.

“Mm,” Evelyn purred. “Security’s heightened.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I said with a strangled sigh. “I’m trying to stay calm, but we are surrounded on all sides. I don’t like this.”

“If you want to retreat, we retreat.”

“But— Evee, you said to follow your orders for this.”

“It’s your plan, Heather. If you doubt it’s feasible, or you think it’s not doable anymore, then we turn back and rethink. You follow my orders for execution, but the executive decision is up to you. Do we go back, or push on?”

“You trust me to—”

“I trust you absolutely. Make the call.”

I took another one of those nice slow deep breaths, and counted to ten. Evelyn waited.

Truth was, I didn’t know.

Abyssal instinct — the gut-feeling which had guided me through so many dangerous and difficult situations, though sometimes with unintended side-effects — was silent. My decision making was impaired, missing six sevenths of myself. In a very real way, I was suffering a traumatic brain injury, though I still had all the grey matter inside my skull, untouched and undamaged. I felt like nothing more special than a scared young woman surrounded by threats. I let my attention linger on the Knights, then on the nurses. My eyes wandered over the subdued light of the entrance hall, illumination muted by the rain outdoors. I listened to the clack of shoes on the tessellated wooden tiles of the entrance hall floor.

And then I frowned.

“Wait a moment,” I murmured. “Wasn’t this floor made of lino, earlier?”

“Mm?” Evelyn grunted. “Heather?”

“Nothing, nothing,” I said. Had the dream changed, or were my memories incomplete?

The dream had changed, of course — the asylum had increased its security.

But it still couldn’t see us.

I made my decision. “It’s still doable. These differences change nothing.”

“Alright. Keep your hands on the wheelchair,” Evelyn murmured — though I could hear the slight tremor in her voice. She swallowed before she continued. “That’s all you have to do, Heather. Follow my instructions. Keep one hand on the wheelchair, but get these bloody damp towels off our heads.”

“Right, right.” I did as Evelyn requested; I kept my left hand tight on the wheelchair handle as I gently lowered the towel from over her head, smoothing out her mass of blonde hair. Then I did the same for myself, settling the makeshift rain-guard across my shoulders. My yellow blanket had kept the rest of my body mostly dry; I wished I could give it to Evee, but I had no idea what would happen to my position in the dream if I took it off. Perhaps the blanket was the only thing anchoring us to Sevens-as-Director.

Evelyn took a deep breath and straightened up in her chair. “Alright, Heather. Dayroom first. Let’s hope our assumptions were correct.”

“Dayroom first,” I echoed, and set off across the entrance hall, pushing Evelyn ahead of me.

Nurses wheeled and dodged around us as we walked, their eyes often glancing over us without truly seeing. It felt like crossing a busy road by walking straight ahead, praying that none of the cars would plough right into us. The archway to the dayroom yawned wide, flickering with soft blue light and the distant murmur of voices on television. The Knight to the right of the door seemed to glance at us briefly, eyes hidden by the helmet visor. But then the Knight looked away again.

The wheels of Evee’s chair sank into the soft white carpet on the dayroom floor. My footsteps vanished, soaked up by the plush fabric.

Cygnet Asylum’s main dayroom appeared to have been spared the worst of yesterday’s riot. None of the many televisions were broken; more of them were switched on than yesterday morning, casting a cold blue glow over the white carpet, ghosting across the armchairs and sofas, draining the colour from the faces of their audience. None of the bookshelves had been overturned or ransacked, though I spotted a few places where the books themselves had been taken, seemingly without any collateral damage. The various board games on some of the tables had not been disturbed either; perhaps the patients had a special respect for those. I spotted Evelyn’s game — the one with the little tokens of tanks and infantry and military symbols. It was exactly where she’d left it, spread out on a table close to the massive window which looked out across the grounds.

The only obvious casualty of the riot was one of the computers in the far corner. One of the row of desks was empty, the computer had been stolen, screen and tower both spirited away, along with cables and keyboard and mouse and all.

One addition had appeared in the dayroom — a whiteboard was standing toward the rear of the space, in front of the long, low counter top which supported the terrariums and animal cages. I couldn’t read the text from the entrance.

“Lots of nurses,” Evelyn hissed. “Damn. They’re not taking any chances with another uprising.”

“Yes … that’s a … well, it’s to be expected.”

“Pity.”

Groups of patients sat in quiet huddles, dotted about the room on the sofas and armchairs. Every group of girls was accompanied by a nurse.

Some of the nurses sat apart from the girls they were assigned to watch, aloof and distant. Others stood tall, arms folded and eyes narrowed. Many of them sat among the girls themselves, chattering along, trying to be friendly, watching television alongside the inmates they were keeping an eye on. Others still were napping, nodding off in their chairs. A few were playing board games or cards with the patients, alternately grumpy and irritated or open-faced and bright.

The girls were subdued and sedated and stubbornly sullen. Murmurs of conversation broke out in hushed voices, then dribbled away to nothing. Some of the patients cast sidelong glances at their unwanted chaperones. Others kept careful arms around less confident girls, as if the nurses were wolves stalking through a vulnerable flock. Most girls just stared at the flickering televisions, saying nothing, unsmiling as they watched brightly coloured morning cartoons.

Were these the ‘good girls’ who had not participated in the riot? Or were these the troublemakers, now kept under close and watchful eyes?

“There,” Evelyn whispered, nodding toward the huge window on the left. “That’s her, right?”

Twil and her pair of Lillies were sitting on a sofa just in front of the huge window, their heads framed by the misty rain and dark green lawns outdoors. Twil was sat between Lily One and Lily Two. They appeared to be playing some sort of board game on a wide table.

A very familiar nurse was sitting opposite them, her back toward us, apparently joining in with the game.

“Yes, that’s Twil,” I whispered.

“Tch,” Evelyn tutted with open disgust. “She looks like a parody of herself.”

“Mm. And that nurse, I think that’s … ‘Horror’.”

“Eh?”

“Horror, it’s on her name tag. The nurse who took you away yesterday, and confronted us after we freed you. She keeps cropping up every time I try to make a move.”

Evelyn squinted. “I thought the King in Yellow killed her.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think she can be killed. I think she’s some kind of main avatar or representative of the asylum itself.”

“Huh,” Evelyn grunted. “Maybe we should bait her out to the woods instead, have Raine cut off her head. See if she can come back from that.”

I winced. “Not that I’m feeling merciful toward her, but I doubt that would work. Shall we head over there?”

“Not yet,” Evelyn replied. She nodded toward the rear of the room, where the cages and terrariums waited, with the message written on the whiteboard. “Take me over there, I want to see what it says. But keep an eye on Twil, just in case she moves.”

We crossed the razor tension of the dayroom at a walk. I examined the slack, bored, distant faces of the patients we passed.

A few of them were making small talk, but fewer still dared smile. I sighed in despair — we had failed these people, failed to free them, despite all of Lozzie’s hard work. Now they were beaten down and defeated, without much energy left, watched by a panopticon of nurses.

But then, as I observed from within the invisibility of the Fadestone, I began to spot scraps of paper being passed hand-to-hand, slipping from furtive fingers to soft palms — secret messages, circulating whenever the nurses weren’t looking. I noticed heads leaning on shoulders while girls pretended to watch television together, fingers tapping code on other’s thighs, squeezing silent replies against close-snuggled hips. I noticed meaningful glances cast across the room, winks and squints and tongues poking at the corners of mouths; isolated groups were communicating with each other, below the notice of the nurses.

“Oh my gosh,” I whispered. “Evee, are you seeing this? They’re still going, they’re still rebelling!”

“Ha,” Evelyn laughed, soft and gentle. “I certainly am. Lozzie’s work, I’m guessing.”

“Probably!”

“Wonder where she took them.”

“Yes, I— sorry, pardon?”

I halted Evee’s wheelchair just shy of the whiteboard, then realised she was talking about the message written in block capitals.

‘THE CATERPILLARS ARE VERY SENSITIVE CREATURES AND CANNOT SURVIVE FOR LONG OUTSIDE OF THEIR TERRARIUM. IF ANY PATIENT HAS INFORMATION ON WHO TOOK THEM OR WHERE THEY HAVE BEEN TAKEN, PLEASE COME FORWARD TO THE NURSING STAFF. YOU WILL NOT BE PUNISHED FOR PROVIDING INFORMATION. IF YOU KNOW THE CULPRIT AND HAVE KEPT THIS SECRET, COME FORWARD AND YOU WILL NOT BE PUNISHED.’

I peered around the sign; the big glass tank which had held the shrunken Caterpillars was completely empty.

“Oh!” I breathed in delight. “Oh, thank heavens for that. It horrified me seeing them in there.”

“Like I said,” Evelyn muttered. “Lozzie, freeing her creations. Good on her. We’re all working toward the same end, bringing this place down and freeing everyone and everything within.” Evelyn clucked her tongue. “Though I have no idea what kind of wild card factor they could introduce.”

“It would be lovely if they got large again,” I said. “An instant win for us.”

“Mm, they could just shout the place into rubble,” Evelyn muttered. “Though I doubt they’ve managed to grow yet, I think we’d know about that. We need to contact Lozzie again, as soon as we have a chance. Right, mystery solved. Heather, wheel us over to Twil.”

“Part two of the plan, here we go,” I whispered, trying to stay nice and calm.

I approached the rear window and Twil’s trio via a circuitous route, winding in and out of the sofas and armchairs and little tables and televisions, so as to avoid drawing near to any nurses — which was almost impossible, since every group of girls was accompanied by at least one white-clad member of staff. Several nurses looked up at us as we passed by, their eyes sliding off Evelyn and I as if we were not there, warded away by the power of the Fadestone. A few of the patients looked our way as well, though with less regularity; most of the girls in the dayroom were either entranced by the television shows or focused on slipping messages and nods and even hand signals below the notice of the ever-present nurses.

Eventually we emerged from the tangle of seating, with no further obstacles between us and Twil’s group.

Twil and her pair of Lillies had not changed since the previous day. Twil herself was still barely recognisable — straightened hair, bottle-thick glasses, her usual toned athleticism swapped out for the reedy, delicate physique of a bad romance novel protagonist, designed for the sole purpose of being swept off her feet or pressed against a wall, overwhelmed by taller, bolder, older girls.

The Lillies were sitting either side of her, their backsides dimpling the uncomfortable grey sofa. The waspish blonde was on Twil’s left; the redhead tomboy with the freckles was to Twil’s right. I couldn’t recall which was which — one of them was ‘Lilly’ and the other was ‘Lilii’. Internally I dubbed the blonde Lily One and the redhead Lily Two. I could apologise to them later, if this ever came up. This was a military operation, one of Raine’s ‘sneaking missions’, so there was no margin for messing up my Lillies.

All three of them were dressed in those matching grey school uniforms, with ties and blazers and unflattering skirts. All three wore much darker tights than yesterday. A concession to the cold and rainy weather, perhaps?

Lily One and Lily Two were both leaning forward over the table, dominating the space.

Lily One was twirling a lock of platinum blonde hair about one finger, elbows on the table, tresses trailing down and pooling on the corner of the game board. She was chattering away about some minor point of the rules, putting on an easy-going, giggly tone.

“—and if you take two moves in a row after using the mind control token, you have to sacrifice one of your size three monsters, and you only have one left on the board right now. It’s soooo silly, but them’s the rules, you know? We can’t go easy on you because you’re such a lovely nurse, you know? Right? That would be like, reverse cheating! Hahaha! Don’t blame me, blame the game!”

Lily Two was sitting with her legs crossed and stuck out to one side, sprawled across the opposite corner of the table as if intentionally taking up as much space as possible. Her short red hair cupped her head like a flared helmet. Her eyes looked unimpressed. She ran her tongue over her teeth, behind her lips.

Twil was sunken down between the pair, sitting straight-backed against the sofa, hands folded neatly in her lap, amber eyes peering through the thick lenses of her ridiculous glasses.

“Tch!” Evelyn hissed in open disgust.

“Evee?” I whispered.

“Look at them, boxing her in like that. I know you said it was bad, but I didn’t realise it was this bad. They have her pinned, psychologically. If you painted that set of poses, it would be too cliché for belief. She’s—”

“No,” I whispered, amazed at what I was seeing. “Evee, look closer. Really look.”

The trio were all sat on one side of the table; on the other side, playing the opposing force in their board game, was Horror — comfortably plush, young, straight-backed, and very blonde, hair pinned up behind her head in a loose bun.

She was listening to Lily One’s explanation with an indulgent smile. One of her hands was toying with a piece from the board game — a little grey plastic castle. She nodded along as Lily One rattled on, with the look of an adult humouring a child about some juvenile flight of fancy.

Her left arm was strapped across her front, immobilised inside a medical sling.

“What?” Evelyn hissed. “The nurse? At least she buggered up her wrist punching out the King in Yellow.” Evelyn sighed. “Now there’s a sentence I wish I’d never had cause to say.”

“No, Evee, look at them. Really look at them. What are they doing? What are the Lillies doing?”

Evelyn went silent. I couldn’t see her face without leaning forward and risking letting go of the handles, but I could picture her squinty frown.

“Explain,” she hissed.

“They’re not boxing Twil in,” I whispered. “They’re protecting Twil from Horror. They’re covering her flanks. Horror can’t reach her.”

I expected Evelyn to snort. I had no evidence for this theory except the rumblings of my own compromised gut instinct. But Evelyn just sighed. “Perhaps. But why? Who are these two, aren’t they just more dream-actor patients?”

“Maybe they’re more than that.”

Evelyn clucked her tongue. “We can speculate later. Wheel us close, about two feet out from the table. Let’s see if you were right about our target.”

I nodded, though Evelyn couldn’t see me. We crossed the last fifteen feet to Twil’s table. The huge rear window loomed wide as we approached, rain swirling against the glass, hazy droplets fogging the view beyond. If we had timed this right, Raine was on the other side of that wall, hunkered down below the level of the window, just out of sight. Our emergency back up.

As we approached, Lily One stopped talking and Horror looked around, as if they could both see us. I kept moving, though my hands were slick with sweat and my legs were shaking. Horror’s eyes lingered for a second, then slid away. She turned back to Twil and the Lillies. I halted Evelyn’s wheelchair alongside the table, with a good safe two feet between us and the edge.

“Well!” Horror said to the grey-clad trio of schoolgirl cosplayers. “Be that as it may, I think this game is almost over. You girls have put up a very good fight, especially for so early in the morning. I’m very impressed. I am, really!” Horror nodded, smiling brightly. Then she clacked her little plastic castle down on the game board. “But I’m two moves from victory. I’ve got you whittled down, cut off, and surrounded. Hmhm!”

Lily One tutted and rolled her eyes — she was smiling with all the toxic insincerity of a queen bee about to lose her temper, doing her best to conceal the raging torrent beneath her face. She swept her long blonde hair back, smiling like a snake. “Don’t be so sure, Miss,” she drawled. “You never know, we could have a trick up our collective selves. I mean, sleeves. Collective sleeves. You know what I mean.”

“Uh huh,” grunted Lily Two. She was staring, level and cold, like a thug loitering outside a Mafia-owned bakery, tapping her fingertips on the table in a slow and steady rhythm. “Tricks and traps and nasty trips. You know us, nurse.”

Horror let out a warm, bubbly chuckle. She inclined her head as if extending courtesy to an already vanquished foe, tucking one lock of blonde hair behind an ear with her uninjured hand. “Weeeeeeeell,” she said, with the tone of a particularly indulgent preschool teacher. “What does your leader say to that? Got anything left in your arsenal, Twillamina?”

Horror turned to Twil.

Lily One clamped her lips shut, visibly bristling. Lily Two narrowed her eyes at Horror; her fingers ceased their tapping.

Twil smiled, innocent and clueless, beaming beneath her huge round glasses. “I’m not sure, Doctor,” she said in that too-high, ultra-girlish tone, so unlike her real self. “I’m not really that familiar with the game. This is the first time I’ve played, after all. Maybe if we have a rematch, I could learn more?”

Horror sighed, smiling and tilting her head, as if speaking with a patient who was too far gone to understand how to dress herself. “Oh, bless you, dear. How many times must I tell you, Twillamina? I’m not a Doctor, I’m just a nurse. It’s alright to use my name, really, I promise. I won’t get angry or grumpy about that.”

Lily One cleared her throat. She spoke with false lightness, all sunshine and smile. “Actually, I think respect for one’s elders is very important.”

Horror laughed, bright and bouncy. “Tch, you! Don’t be silly. I’m barely ten years your senior. Some of the other nurses are old enough to be your grandmothers. But not me.”

Lily Two added, low and soft: “Important to show respect for the authority invested in Cygnet Staff too, you know?”

Horror sighed with significantly less patience, her bright smile dimming. “Alright, alright, you two, if you insist. But you can hardly call me ‘nurse’, there’s just so many nurses here that—”

“We’ll muddle through,” said Lily One. “Nurse.”

“Yes, Nurse,” said Lily Two. “You’d be surprised.”

Twil looked rather lost, eyes darting left and right behind her glasses, mouth open as if confused by the reaction from her bodyguards and lovers. I realised with mounting concern that she did not comprehend the position she was in, nor how hard her companions were fighting to protect her.

But protect her from what?

Horror endured the veiled insults with a beatific smile, then returned her attention to Twil. “So, Twillamina. Back to the game. Do you have anything left in your box of tricks? Go ahead, if you do. I’m ready for it.”

Twil bit her lower lip and peered at the board game.

The game itself was impenetrable to me — the board appeared to represent the streets and major locations of a fictional town, studded with little plastic monsters, important landmarks, and towering castles which had burst from the rock beneath the streets. A reserve of monsters great and small were gathered in front of Horror. Her remaining troops, I assumed. Little player tokens showed Twil’s dwindling forces — gumshoe detectives with little plastic revolvers, mostly, their ranks bolstered by an occasional helmeted soldier or mobsters armed with stereotypical Tommy guns. Their numbers were few, most of them appeared to have been killed by the monsters or removed to a special box on the board labelled ‘Outside’, which caught my attention. The remaining player tokens were scattered all over the town, hopelessly cut off from each other, fighting individual battles against the plastic monsters.

On the table directly in front of Twil was a little plastic box with a hinged lid, raised so that Horror couldn’t see the contents, but Twil and her companions could — and so could I, from my angle beside the table.

The box was almost empty. Only one piece remained within — a little plastic figure of a cone snail, peeking out from inside its shelled protection.

Twil reached for the piece, but then Lily One grabbed Twil’s hand. “Ah ah ah!” She laughed and smiled, but I could see the tension crinkling around her eyes. “Twillamina, don’t be so fast. Don’t give anything away, right? For all she knows, we have a dozen moves left. Or none at all!”

Twil leaned back. “R-right. Right. Of course. Be smart, yes.”

Horror sighed. “It is your move, you three. And we can’t sit here all day, can we?”

Evelyn hissed to me: “Heather, does she have the book? I can’t see from down here in the chair. It’s not in Twil’s lap.”

“Ummm,” I murmured. “Yes, yes, she does. It’s by her side, down on the sofa.”

Our target was within reach; propped against Twil’s left hip, front cover facing outward, was the heavy hardback book which I’d seen her carrying yesterday morning, and which she’d been reading from when we’d interrupted her little picnic with her ‘lovers’. The words we’d overheard yesterday had sounded quasi-religious, as if the tome was a holy book of some kind. She’d clung to the thing, pressed it over her chest like a shield when threatened, and then dropped it when she’d almost been goaded into her werewolf transformation. I hadn’t gotten a good look at the cover before, but now I could see it clearly: there was no title or author, just leather cut and shaped into a raised illustration. The design showed a trio of feminine figures locked in an embrace — two were dryads, unearthly and fairy-like, wrapped in mantles and veils of leaf and blossom, while the figure in the middle was clearly meant to be a werewolf, trapped and protected by a cage of roots.

“Oh, you’re joking,” I whispered as I squinted at the book. “Can you get any more obvious?”

“Heather?” Evelyn hissed. “What do you mean?”

“The cover of the book, it’s a metaphor for Twil. You’ll understand when you see it, but … ”

Lily One and Lily Two were sharing a difficult glance. Horror just smiled, so soft and serene. Twil cleared her throat gently, but the tension refused to break. She pressed her hands tightly together in her own lap.

Evelyn hissed through her teeth: “Can you reach the book? Whatever you do, don’t let go of the wheelchair handles completely. Wheel me closer if you have to, they won’t be able to see us. Just don’t touch any of them, especially the fucking nurse … Heather?”

“Now, girls,” Horror was saying, with a tone of forced reason and patience in the face of foolish dreams. “I said we can’t sit here all day, but that’s not strictly true.” She gestured at the window and the rain-streaked glass. “Nobody’s going outdoors in that, I think. If you need time to consider your move, I can come back after my rounds. I’d hate to leave the game unfinished, after all.”

Twil started to say, “We can finish right—”

Lily One grabbed Twil’s knee. “Maybe give us time to confer, yeah, nurse. Right. Great idea.”

Lily Two sat up a bit straighter, easing out of her slouch. “Yeah, like, think it over. Think about the implications. Consider what comes next.”

Horror’s eyes twinkled. “But you’ve only got one move. Do I have to force you into taking it? That’s not very sporting, is it?”

Evelyn half-twisted in her wheelchair, frowning at me over her shoulder. “Heather, we’re going to lose our window. Grab the book.”

I shook my head. “No. No, we have to change the plan.”

Evelyn opened her mouth to argue — then stopped and nodded. “You’re in charge. Just stay calm and move slowly. Tell me what you’re going to do before you do it.”

I nodded. “Okay. Um … the book, well … ”

Our plan was not yet in tatters, but it was probably no longer viable — because a second, unexpected force had already closed on our ultimate aim. Horror was pressing Twil’s trio for something we did not yet comprehend.

The institution — Cygnet Asylum, the dream, the play — was trying to access Twil, trying to defeat her bodyguards.

The original plan was both simple and crude. Step one: get close to Twil while under the protection of the Fadestone. Step two: snatch the ‘holy book’ from under her nose. Step three: Evelyn and I would transport the book away from Twil and her bodyguards, while watching to see if Twil began to panic. Step four: when we were at a safe distance, we would intentionally show ourselves to Twil or her lovers, revealing that we had taken her book, thus beginning the wild goose chase — either Evelyn and I could do it ourselves by vanishing again, or Raine would take over that role, being faster on her feet. The idea was to bait Twil and the Lillies without exposing ourselves to the entire asylum and the staff, leading the trio deep into the woods. Even one of them alone would do. As long as we could start a chain reaction.

The whole plan might take several hours. We needed multiple openings for it to work. Stealing the book itself was just the start.

But now Horror had Twil cornered, and Twil didn’t even seem to understand that she was fighting with her back to a wall, her ‘lovers’ at her shoulders. The Lillies got it, but Twil was still too deep in the dream.

“Horror has Twil cornered,” I whispered to Evee. “I don’t understand how, but we need to get her out of here. We need to bail her out. We can’t have Twil get taken away. Not like you were.”

Evee’s eyes widened as she finally understood what I was getting at. She glanced at the board game, then at Horror’s innocent smile, then at the increasingly tense looks on the faces of Twil’s Lillies.

“Shit,” Evelyn hissed.

“One move,” said Lily Two. She sat up and rolled her shoulders back, then smoothed her hair with a hand.

I recognised that pose, that tightening of the muscles.

Lily One nodded, rolling her head from side to side. She pushed up the sleeves of her neat grey blazer.

They were preparing for violence. Against the nurses, against Horror! They would never win, they’d never even get out of the dayroom. There were dozens of nurses within sight, and more within earshot. Knights would come running as well. The whole place was teetering on the edge of more violence, and these two were willing to throw down to protect Twil from consequences I didn’t even yet understand.

“I—I need suggestions, Evee,” I hissed, trying to stay calm and collected; I couldn’t risk breaking the cover of the Fadestone. “And quickly. We need a way to—”

“Mess up the game.”

“Ah?”

“Mess up the game!” Evelyn repeated. “God, I’ll do it! Wheel me closer, quickly!”

I did as Evelyn requested; I wheeled her right up to the edge of the table, so she was barely a foot from Horror on one side and Lily Two on the other.

Evelyn ignored them both. She took one hand off the Fadestone, yanked back the sleeve of her grey dressing gown, and reached onto the game board.

She scooped up pieces and tokens, dropping some of them into her lap, placing others back down in new board positions. She rearranged the formation of Twil’s embattled soldiers and detectives, rescuing dozens of them from the ‘Outside’ box, placing them at choke points and stuffing them into the illustrations of sturdy buildings. Within seconds she had Twil’s plastic army occupying a newspaper office and a canning factory, the streets outside stuffed with barricades and sandbags.

I knew nothing about tactics and strategy, but even I could see that position was much more defensible.

All four people at the table watched Evelyn’s changes as she worked to re-order Twil’s forces. Twil herself, the Lillies, and Horror, they all stared at the moving pieces as if this was entirely natural, as if some exterior force was not reaching into the visible world and making mysterious changes to the game they had been playing.

I stayed very still, trying not to let my skin crawl; they could see us, but they also couldn’t. The feeling was bizarre and unwelcome, like I was only partially real.

After shoring up Twil’s board position, Evelyn started thinning out the ranks of Horror’s monsters, plucking them off the board and placing them into reserve. Once she had scattered their hordes and broken up their assaults, she picked up a particularly large piece — a floating eyeball on a cluster of jellyfish-esque stalks, and went to drop it into her lap.

“Evee!” I hissed.

“Heather, don’t break my— ah.”

Evelyn froze.

Horror was looking right at us.

She could not see us, could not see our faces or acknowledge our presence. She was calm and breezy, as if doing nothing more than glancing to one side. But she stared and stared and stared.

“She doesn’t want to let that piece go,” I hissed — then hiccuped, painfully. “Hic. Ow. Evee, don’t. Just put it back on the board or—”

“Better,” Evelyn whispered. She reached forward and waved the eyeball-piece in front of Horror’s face. Horror tracked it back and forth; I wanted to scream. Evee whispered to her: “You want this? You need this one to win, huh? Okay.”

Then Evelyn turned and pressed the piece into my hand.

“Evee?! Wha-what—”

“Throw it. Now. As far as you can. Toward the back of the room. Now!”

With no time to think, and certainly none to argue — for Horror’s eyes were sliding toward me and the bait in my hand — I turned aside and hurled the little plastic playing piece across the room. It sailed with all the aerodynamics of a piece of lead shot, and landed with a tiny click-click-clatter among the animal cages at the rear of the room.

Evelyn sat back from her meddling.

Horror turned toward where the piece had fallen and let out a soft tut. “Oh dear, I think I must have dropped one of the more fiddly pieces. Excuse me for a moment, girls, I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere now!”

Horror got up and hurried off toward the rear of the dayroom, to retrieve the fallen piece. Lily One and Lily Two shared a look, while Twil was still watching Horror depart. Lily One drew a fingertip across her own neck, then thumbed at Horror’s retreating back. Lily Two nodded in acknowledgement.

Evelyn huffed. “These two are as bad as Raine. For fuck’s sake, get out of here, all three of you. Go on!”

But Twil just leaned forward and examined the new board position, smiling beneath her glasses, amber eyes twinkling in delight.

“Am I a strategic genius?” she said. “Look at all this! I didn’t think I’d be any good at this game, it’s an unsuitable pursuit for a young lady. But I’ve done really well.”

Evelyn ground her teeth. “Yes, please, take credit for my intellect. ‘Unsuitable pursuit for a young lady’ my arse. Fuck. Heather, grab the book, before I cuff her over the head.”

“But—”

“Wait!” Evelyn held up a hand. “Actually that wouldn’t be enough. Change of plan. We need to get Twil to follow us, right now.”

“But how—”

“Be ready to run!” Evelyn announced.

She leaned forward again, halfway across the board game. She reached out with one hand, her maimed hand, toward Twil — and cupped Twil’s cheek.

Twil’s eyes snapped upward, locking with Evee’s gaze. Her mouth opened in a little ‘oh’ of silent shock.

“Remember me, bitch?” Evelyn grunted.

“What— I— where did you—” Twil stammered and stuttered.

“You should do, because you once knew what my cunt tastes like. Now, do try to keep up.”

Evelyn yanked Twil’s glasses off Twil’s face. Twil sat back, spluttering with confusion, glancing left and right, no longer able to see us now she was not in contact with the Fadestone. She blinked rapidly, blinded by the blurred world without her glasses. “My— my glasses!” she spluttered. “Where— who took my—”

The Lillies turned toward Twil. Twil looked like she was on the verge of a scream.

Evelyn raised the stolen glasses into the air. “Heather, grab the book. If this doesn’t make them move, nothing will. Grab that tome and wheel me the hell out of here, before we all get sucked into Twil’s lesbian boarding-school fantasy.”