Behind Sanity

Chapter Forty-Five

Behind Sanity

 

Chapter Forty-Five

 

1

 

                Alice awoke to a dark ceiling above.  The air was cooler than she remembered it in her room at Rutledge’s hospital.  There was no moonlight streaming in from the window, and the only dim light came from several small candles –

                – and one beside her own bed.

                She sat up quickly, her large eyes searching in fear.  It was as she’d thought.  The beds… The candles…  She was in the basement.  She fought with the white sheet that covered her and pulled herself from the bed.  Her thin nightdress was oversized and drooped down across her slender shoulders and back, doing nothing to keep her warm.  It was also dirty and discolored, unlike the one they’d had her dressed in before.  How long had she been asleep?

                Alice stepped across the cold floor, her eyes falling over the many other beds in the room – empty.

                No!  Have they all died?  

                Her heart began to beat faster as she looked over the room frantically, running to the other side to pull the sheets from the empty beds in search.  This could not be!  How could she have let the sleeping ones all die?  How could it have happened so suddenly?  But perhaps it was just the reverse.  Perhaps they had all awoken instead.

                “They’re not here,” came a thick, low voice suddenly from behind her.

                She had not even been aware of another person’s presence in the room, so his outburst turned her abruptly around.  She thought she’d recognized the voice, but when she looked, she found something quite different than what she’d expected.

                On a bed behind her sat a man.  He sat upright, covered only with a sheet across his waist, wiping his eyes as though he’d just woken up himself.  His dark hair hung long past his shoulders, untamed strands in his pale face as he yawned deeply.  He had a wide mouth.

                “Where are they?” she asked, quite sure that he would have the answer she desired.

                But the man simply shook his head, not looking up at her while he scratched his hair.  He took a long pause before he spoke again.  It was only then that she noticed he was whispering, making it impossible to identify his voice.

                “I don’t know,” he said drowsily.  “Where did you put them?”

                Rage surged through Alice at this.  She was being blamed?  No.  She had done nothing!  She jerked forward, gripping the man by the shoulders harshly.

                “Where are they!” she demanded once more.

                He looked up to her slowly, his handsome face at once drenched with familiarity.  She looked into his green eyes, then released him immediately afterwards, her eyes narrowed with cautious uncertainty and she stepped back, making a short distance between them.

                She recognized him as the man she’d seen in the basement before: the one she’d spoken to – the one she’d made her promise to.  He had the slender face and those sharp eyes – even more cutting now that they were open.  Except now, he sat awake, looking back at her as though nothing was unusual at all.  Though he looked quite sure of his situation, she couldn’t help but keep the look of uncertainty on her face.