Page 31 of The Lost Girls of Willowbrook

“Damn it,” she said under her breath, then slid out of bed onto her hands and knees. Norma glanced over her shoulder to make sure she was coming, her face blank, then kept crawling toward the exit. Where the hell was she going? Did she honestly think she could get out of the ward? When Norma reached the middle of the room, she disappeared beneath one of the beds like a spider scuttling under a cupboard. Sage stopped and peered over the tops of the beds filled with residents. Some lay with closed eyes; some were staring at nothing, others weeping, humming, talking, singing—a crumpled gray landscape of sheets and pale arms and legs and heads. Norma reappeared briefly, her head popping up in a narrow aisle, then went under another bed. Sage hunkered down, her elbows on the floor, trying to decide if she should follow her or stay put. Maybe this was a test. Or a game. Or a huge mistake. She peered over the beds again. When she saw Norma this time, her heart almost stopped.

She was inside the Plexiglas cubicle with Marla.

Panicked, Sage crawled as fast as she could back to her bed and scrambled beneath the blanket. Whatever Norma was up to, it was bad, and Sage didn’t want to be drugged again, or sent to the pit. A minute later, Norma reappeared at her bedside, dangling a ring of keys in front of Sage’s face.

“I thought you were coming with me,” she said.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sage hissed.

“I told you,” Norma said. “I want to show you something.” She turned her head to address the invisible person again. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.”

Suddenly, Sage realized this might be her only chance to escape. “Do any of those keys open doors that lead outside?”

“You know they don’t,” Norma said, annoyed. “Thosekeys are kept at the nurses’ stations, and there’s only one set on each floor.”

Sage had the feeling Norma was either lying or pretending to know what she was talking about. But there was no way to tell unless she tried the keys herself. How that would happen, she had no idea, but it would be impossible if she refused to go with Norma. “What if we get caught?”

“I never get caught.”

“You’ve left the ward before?”

Norma nodded.

“What for?”

“You’ll see.”

Sage let out a heavy, frustrated sigh. If anyone saw them, there’d be hell to pay—or worse—but if this had something to do with Rosemary or was a possible way out, it was a chance she had to take. “Are you sure?”

Norma nodded again.

Shaking and uncertain, Sage slid out of bed again, got on her knees, and followed Norma across the ward. When they reached the door, Norma stood, quick and smooth as a snake, and put the key in the lock. Sage held her breath, keeping her eyes fixed on Marla. Thank God she was still out like a light. Opening the door just wide enough to slip out, Norma went through first, then let Sage through and quietly closed it behind them. After looking left and right to make sure no one was coming, she relocked the door, then slinked down the hall on her tiptoes, her stained yellow dress trailing behind her like a ghost.

Praying she wasn’t making a huge mistake, Sage followed close behind, her heart beating so hard she thought her ribs might crack. Norma flew down the main corridor in the opposite direction of the nurses’ station, then took a right down another hallway. At the end of that hall, she unlocked a set of double doors that led into a dim corridor lined with single steel doors, each with a grated window centered above a narrow sliding panel. Muffled sounds and voices came from behind the riveted steel—crying, loud talking, praying, singing, someone howling like a wolf.

“What is this place?” Sage whispered.

“You know what it is,” Norma said.

“No, I don’t. I can’t remember anything since I came back.”

“How could you forget the pit? You spent enough time here.”

“Why? What did I do?”

Norma looked at her like she was crazy. “Lotsa things.”

Suddenly someone pounded on one of the steel doors, making Sage jump.

“Let me out of here or you’ll be sorry!” a woman shouted on the other side of the door, her voice strained and muted, as if coming from under the ocean. “My husband is John Lennon and he’s going to come looking for me!” She pressed her face against the grated window, tormented and wild-eyed, her skin smeared with something that looked like dirt.

Sage moved to the center of the hallway, an icy mix of fear and sorrow making her shiver. Being locked in one of those rooms had to be torture. And it sounded like Rosemary had spent a lot of time there, alone and afraid, not knowing when she’d get out.

At the end of the corridor, Norma stopped at a door below a sign that read:SUPPLY ROOM.She regarded Sage. “You have to promise not to tell anyone.”

Sage nodded. “Okay.”

Norma held out her little finger. “Pinky swear?”

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