not. She did feel as if she were running a fever, and her muscles were so sore that she wasn’t sure she could walk. The trembling didn’t concern her: the injections they gave her every two weeks made her shake, so they gave her little pills to stop the shaking. Now she didn’t have those pills, but since it was time again for another shot, the injection and its side effects would soon wear off.
“I’m going to bring you some tonic, dear. And Camilla will bring you some good nourishing soup, which you must try to take. Poor Cassilda, if we don’t nurse you carefully, I’m afraid you may fall dangerously ill.”
“But I can’t be such a nuisance to you,” she protested, as a matter of form. “I really must be going.”
“Where to, dear child?” Mrs Castaigne held her hands gravely.
“Have you someplace else to go? Is there someone you wish us to inform of your safety?”
“No,” she admitted, trying to make everything sound right. “I’ve no place to go; there’s no one who matters. I was on my way down the coast, hoping to find a job during the resort season. I know one or two old girlfriends who could put me up until I get settled.”
“See there. Then there’s no earthly reason why you can’t just stay here until you’re feeling strong again. Why, perhaps I might find a position for you myself. But we shall discuss these things later, when you’re feeling well. For the moment, just settle back on your pillow and let us help you get well.”
Mrs Castaigne bent over her, kissed her on the forehead. Her lips were cool. “How lovely you are, Cassilda,” she smiled, patting her hand.
She smiled back, and returned the other woman’s firm grip. She’d seen no sign of a television or radio here, and an old eccentric like Mrs Castaigne probably didn’t even read the newspapers. Even if Mrs Castaigne had heard about the bus wreck, she plainly was too overjoyed at having a visitor to break her lonely routine to concern herself with a possible escapee—assuming they hadn’t just listed her as drowned. She couldn’t have hoped for a better place to hide out until things cooled off.
The tonic had a bitter licorice taste and made her drowsy, so that she fell asleep not long after Camilla carried away her tray. Despite her long sleep throughout that day, fever and exhaustion drew her back down again—although her previous sleep robbed this one of restful oblivion. Again came troubled dreams, this time cutting more harshly into her consciousness.
She dreamed of Dr Archer—her stern face and mannish shoulders craning over her bed. Her wrists and ankles were fixed to each corner of the bed by padded leather cuffs. Dr Archer was speaking to her in a scolding tone, while her wardens were pulling up her skirt, dragging down her panties. A syringe gleamed in Dr Archer’s hand, and there was a sharp stinging in her buttock.
She was struggling again, but to no avail. Dr Archer was shouting at her, and a stout nurse was tightening the last few buckles of the straitjacket that bound her arms to her chest in a loveless hug. The straps were so tight she could hardly draw breath, and while she could not understand what Dr Archer was saying, she recognized the spurting needle that Dr Archer thrust into her.
She was strapped tightly to the narrow bed, her eyes staring at the grey ceiling as they wheeled her through the corridors to Dr Archer’s special room. Then they stopped; they were there, and Dr Archer was bending over her again. Then came the sting in her arm as they penetrated her veins, the helpless headlong rush of the drug—and Dr Archer smiles and turns to her machine, and the current blasts into her tightly strapped skirt and her body arches and strains against the restraints and her scream, strangles against the rubber gag clenched in her teeth.
But the face that looks into hers now is not Dr Archer’s, and the hands that shake her are not cruel.
“Cassilda! Cassilda! Wake up! It’s only a nightmare!”
Camilla’s blonde-and-blue face finally focused into her awakening vision.
“Only a nightmare,” Camilla reassured her. “Poor darling.” The hands that held her shoulders lifted to smooth her black hair from her eyes, to cup her face. Camilla bent over her, kissed her gently on her dry lips.
“What is it? ” Mrs Castaigne, wearing her nightdress and carrying a candle, came anxiously into the