care fer us, anyway. Why do ye stand there a-starin’ like ye got no sense? Up and over with the shift. We’re the all of us lassies.” Without any further preamble, Nell jerked Grace’s nightgown over her head.
Grace immediately crossed her arms in front of herself, but Nell and Elizabeth kept up a lively chatter between the two of them while they dressed Grace in the clothes they’d brought her. Nell glanced up at her skeptically while she buttoned Grace’s boots, fingers dexterously looping each button. “Janey said the doctor claims yer bright, but I’m beginning to wonder, meself.”
Elizabeth slapped her friend’s hand lightly. “You’ve only awakened her, made lewd suggestions, and stripped her in a matter of minutes. If you’ve driven the sense from the girl, there’s no wonder in it.”
Nell stepped back and took in Grace from head to toe while Elizabeth combed out her hair with her fingers and wrapped it into a bun. “You’ll do,” Nell said. “Though I don’t know about this no-talkin’ business.”
Elizabeth put her hand on Grace’s elbow. “Can you write?”
Eager to please the other girls, Grace nodded before considering if Dr. Thornhollow would want her communicating with the other patients at all. But the smile that lit up Elizabeth’s plain face told her she’d made the right answer regardless.
“We’ll get you a slate then and some chalk. Then you can say whatever you like.”
“Aye, it’s a fine plan for them’s that can read,” Nell said.
“I’ll tell you what she says,” Elizabeth said, steering Grace toward the door.
“And who’s going to keep ye honest?”
Elizabeth came to a dead halt and stamped a dainty foot so hard Grace jumped in alarm. “Nell O’Kelly, if you’re suggesting that I would tell a falsehood—”
“Ooooh, a false’ood, is it?” Nell said, throwing her hands in the air. “As long as the first thing the poor vacant dearie ’ere says is tha’ I’m the prettiest girl she’s ever seen, then I know you’re sayin’ it true.” She took Grace by the other elbow and the two of them walked her out into the sunlit hall.
Grace had escaped Boston under the cover of dark. When the other girls dragged her outdoors into the sunlight she recoiled as if struck, her hands going up to her eyes.
“Is it your bandages?” Elizabeth asked, misjudging Grace’s pain.
Grace shook her head, though she kept one hand on each of the girls’ shoulders for her first few steps. She blinked quickly, allowing her eyes time to adjust.
“’Ave ye got somethin’ wrong with yer ’ead?” Nell asked, peering at Grace’s temple. “On the outside, I mean?”
“Nell, shush,” Elizabeth said. “There’s no point pestering her with questions she can’t answer without a slate.”
“True enough,” Nell said, removing Grace’s hand from her shoulder, but not before giving it a squeeze. “I’ll be back, and when I do I’ll be expectin’ ye to write me a fine story.”
Elizabeth frowned as the other girl disappeared into the towering expanse of the asylum. “She’ll get a slate off one of the boys, no doubt. And I pity him if he takes any more in return than a smile.”
Grace tucked her hand into Elizabeth’s elbow and raised an eyebrow in question.
“Nell is a syphilitic,” Elizabeth explained, her mouth forming the word with distaste. Grace looked down at her shoes as they walked across the gravel path, accustoming herself to the unfamiliar pinch of having any to wear. “Don’t think worse of her for it,” Elizabeth added quickly. “She’s not had an easy life—” Elizabeth cocked her head suddenly as if she’d been interrupted. “String says it’s not my place to say more.”
Grace was happy to take in the grounds in companionable silence. The asylum in Boston had worn a skin as ugly as the heart beating inside of it, the darkness seeping from inside and staining the bricks that contained the mad. But this asylum was beautiful, its bricks an honest red that soaked in the sun’s rays and reflected the heat back onto those inside during the night. Even in the darkness of her room Grace had felt a calm that the building itself seemed to translate into her skin, a tuneless melody that sang her fevered brain into sleep.
Acres of green grass rolled beneath her feet, and Grace strayed from the gravel path with Elizabeth as a silent shadow. Green leaped at Grace’s eyes, and though the sun had slipped behind a cloud, the healthy colors beat into her pupils like a pulse she’d been separated from too long.