A Messenger from Nephelokokkygia

The Castle and Its Skeleton

Chapter 6: The Castle and Its Skeleton

I know why the caged bird beats his wing

Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;

For he must fly back to his perch and cling, —

When he fain would be on the bough a-swing

--Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Sympathy"

As a young American without the expenses to travel beyond the borders of home, Grace had never seen a castle. While there are a few grand, beautiful structures on United States soil, none quite live up to the castles dotting Europe like mailboxes. Whatever their outward appearance, US buildings are simply not old enough to count as genuine castles. Things like moats to repel invaders, unscalable stone walls topped by battlements where artfully-placed severed heads decorate the points of pikes, or dizzying towers leading up to spires waving royal banners... are merely superficial.

Castles have histories, lives of their own, with biographies rich as any who might have dwelled within. They are places that make the most hardened skeptic seriously reconsider the possibility of ghosts. Because nothing is more historical that ghosts. America is built atop many bodies, but plays residence to few ghosts. That being said, when Grace first caught sight of the Ambrosius Institute—lurking among trimmed fields that had once been acres of tangled marsh—it is perfectly understandable she mistook the mental asylum for a castle.

While it might lack a merry feasting hall, it probably had some dreary dungeon. From its central body spread two symmetrical bat wings. (It felt unfair to compare them to birds.) They were also wings in the hospital sense. While once built of red brick, water erosion diluted it to pink. Above the curved, gilded gables of the main building peaked a spire.

None of this conveys the feeling Grace had that the Institute was alive, intelligent, and watched the world through what seemed like a thousand pristinely clear windows. Wherever she positioned herself in the backseat of Agent Grammery's black-and-silver Plymouth Cranbrook, it felt like the place stared right at her.

The car itself seemed twice as long in its hood as the place people were expected to sit in. Agent Grammery turned her head from the driver's seat, almost striking Grace's forehead with her blocky chin. "This is one of the original Kirkbride models," said the Agent. "Dates to the Victorian Era—not that you would know history. Designed as self-sufficient communities, where patients were made to live socially, understanding the value of honest work. Nothing like modern hospitals, where crazies do nothing except drool and swallow drugs to help them drift off to their personal nonsense-lands. If I were in charge, I wouldn't tolerate this waste of taxpayer money. Most Kirkbrides are shut down, except the Ambrosius Institute."

Grace had nothing to say. After all, Agent Grammery threatened to accuse her of starting the church fire, despite knowing Mr. Aitvaras was responsible. The log-woman might be a demon herself. The Plymouth ride felt like it had gone on forever, and so had taken Grace forever distant from her city, family, and friends. Paved road had reduced to gravel, which in turn petered out to dirt. There was no sign to mark the building as the "Ambrosius Institute," but with a lurch and a bump, the Plymouth stopped at its front doors.

Agent Grammery exited and, unlocking the backseat, yanked Grace's wrist with a knotted hand. The Agent's hand felt like rough wood, with her nails being splinters and fingerprint whorls abrasively grainy. Since the night of the church-burning, Grace had gone numb. In a way, this pain helped her return to the world. She matched the pace of the woman's strides, even appreciated the ability to finally stretch her legs a bit.

Past ornate, gold-trimmed doors—not a cranking drawbridge, unfortunately—sat a boringly beige reception desk, with an equally beige nurse insisting the "new patient," needed "checking-in." While she felt in a daze, Grace did not feel especially sick. What followed was a boring period involving Agent Grammery signing large stacks of paper in black ink, then having the nurse stamp them in red ink. The girl wished she could skip all this...