a man I didn’t know and could never love?”
“See? Even now, your voice rises with hysteria. You are quivering. Your body knows you are lying and is trying to tell you so.”
“I never lie!” she shouted. “Never. But my father does all the time.”
The doctor turned and opened the door. The man from before entered, accompanied by another one.
“You know what to do,” Cheshire said. “Matron.”
He hurried from the room as the two men started toward her.
“Don’t touch me!” Anna cried. “Don’t. I’ll scream.”
They both looked at one another and then burst out in laughter. Before she could try to move, they took hold of her, forcing her into the chair.
Matron approached, scissors in hand.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Cutting your hair. We don’t have time to care for it.” She snickered. “It will soon be covered in lice.”
As the men held her in place, Matron unpinned Anna’s hair. “How very pretty,” she remarked. “This will go for a good price, being such a unique color.”
She cringed as she heard the scissors and felt the pull against her scalp. In but a few minutes, Matron held long shanks of strawberry blond hair, placing them on a table. Mortification filled Anna, seeing the loss of her hair.
“Take her to the baths,” Matron commanded.
The men dragged her from the chair and across the room, down a dark hallway and into a cold room. They tied her to a chair, her wrists to the arms of it and her ankles to the chair’s legs. What followed was a nightmare as they doused her with dozens of buckets of freezing water. Her teeth chattered noisily as gooseflesh covered her body. At one point, she thought she might even drown.
Finally, they stopped slamming the water into her and untied her. As they did, they told her she was to have no opinions. She was to comply with every command. She was never to speak unless given permission to do so. As she trembled with cold and hunger, they marched her down the hallway, which was eerily silent, and opened the door to a room. It was bare except for a small bed with a thin mattress. Bars stretched across the lone window.
As they brought her closer, she saw the bed covered with dark specks that moved. She cringed, digging in her heels. They forced her onto the mattress, still dripping wet, and tied her to it, her hands above her head, her legs spread wide apart.
“Why are you doing this?” she cried. “I am not mad.”
“That’s what they all say,” one of the men said. “Now be quiet. If you make noise, you’ll suffer the consequences.”
They left, closing the door behind them. Her body quaked with cold.
Anna knew she had been left in Hell.
Chapter Four
A week had passed. Anna knew because she counted in her head each morning as she was escorted from her room. She had remained docile and silent yet inside her head she constantly screamed, frantic to find a way out from this horrible place.
She was tired of being meek. Dalinda would have already rebelled if placed in this situation. Anna looked to her courageous friend and decided today would be the day she would begin to fight back. She had to—or she might truly go mad.
An attendant came to her room to bring her to breakfast and she remained obedient as she forced the slop they called food into her mouth. As usual, after the meal she was led to a long hallway lined with benches. The patients were spaced out on these benches and sat for a majority of the day. When Anna was shoved onto a spot, she bounced back to her feet.
Steadily eyeing her attendant, she told him, “I believe I would like to walk the corridor today and take some exercise.”
She looked out and loudly said, “Would anyone wish to join me?”
Not one patient looked her way. Heads remained bowed. She could see tension in shoulders and bodies beginning to tremble—but the silence was deafening. She glanced back at the attendant, who shook his head in disbelief, and then he walked away. She glanced around and saw all other attendants had left. She was free to roam as she pleased.
Savoring her small victory, Anna slowly walked the length of the corridor. She spoke to a few of the women but no one returned a word in her direction. Turning, she moved back up the hallway.
At the end of it stood Matron with an attendant by her side,