Page 32 of The Lost Girls of Willowbrook

Sage hooked her pinky through Norma’s and they shook. “Pinky swear.”

Satisfied, Norma opened the door, entered the supply room, and pulled a string above her head. A bare lightbulb buzzed to life, casting a yellow glow over an oversize closet lined with stained straitjackets on hooks, coils of rope, a jumble of waste buckets in one corner, industrial-size barrels of Pine-Sol, and battered metal trays piled on wooden shelves. The room smelled like old wood and warm dust, and something that reminded Sage of whiskey. Before she could ask why they were there, Norma squatted and pushed on the back wall with both hands. A wooden panel creaked open and Norma moved it to one side to reveal a knee-high opening. When Norma crawled through it, Sage stood frozen, trying to decide what to do. What if she was right about Norma wanting revenge? What if she had lured her there to lock her in a hidden room where no one would find her? She scanned the room for a weapon, just in case, but didn’t see anything she could use other than the metal trays or rope.

Before Sage could act, Norma popped her head out of the opening and gaped up at her.

“You coming with me or what?” she said.

“What’s in there?”

“You’ll see. Hurry up.”

“Shit,” Sage said, and got down on her knees. She’d come this far; there was no backing out now. Maybe Rosemary was hiding in there. Maybe Norma had known where she was this whole time.

When Norma backed up to let her inside, a rank odor hit Sage in the face, like a mixture of cow shit and rotten eggs. She recoiled and sat back for a second, then stuck her head through the opening.

“You’re blocking the light,” Norma said. “You need to come in all the way.”

Sage hesitated for a moment, then crawled through and moved to one side, sitting back on her haunches, ready to scramble out again if necessary. Norma stared at her, waiting for a reaction. Sage looked around, one hand over her nose and mouth. The cramped space was half the size of the supply closet, with a slanted ceiling reaching down to the floor on one end. A torn, stained mattress lay among dozens of open tin cans, half-eaten pigeons, and the heads of dead mice. Here and there, dark piles that looked like animal shit dotted the moldy floorboards.

“What is this place?” Sage said behind her fingers.

Norma turned her head and nodded to her imaginary friend. “Yes, I’m going to tell her that too.”

“Tell me what?”

“We think Cropsey hides in here sometimes.”

A jolt of fear yanked the air from Sage’s lungs. She had to get out of there. She turned toward the opening, then stopped. No. Her imagination was running away with her. This hidden room might look like the perfect hiding place for a mental patient turned serial killer, but that didn’t make it true. She was just being paranoid and ridiculous. And so was Norma. “Oh my God,” she said. “Is that why you brought me here? I don’t care about Cropsey. He isn’t real.”

“Yes, he is. But don’t get scared. He only hides in here sometimes.”

“Even if that were true, how would you know?”

She shrugged. “My friend told me.”

“Which friend?”

“I don’t know his name.”

Suddenly it dawned on Sage that Norma was talking about the voice inside her head. She had no idea what was true and what wasn’t. Sage should have known better. “Is that why you brought me here? To show me this room?”

Norma nodded.

“Is this where Rosemary . . . I mean, is this where I was hiding when I was missing?”

“I don’t know where you were. You never told me.”

“But you think Cropsey hides here sometimes, so you wanted me to see it?”

Norma nodded again.

Sage clenched her jaw. This was a waste of time. The room was creepy as hell, and she couldn’t imagine why it existed, or who’d been doing God knows what in there, but if it didn’t have anything to do with Rosemary, she needed to leave. Norma was only thinking about Cropsey, and Sage had risked getting caught for no reason. “We have to go back before someone notices we’re gone,” she said, turning toward the opening. She crawled out and waited near the supply room door while Norma followed and put the hidden panel back in place.

When Norma straightened, she said, “Don’t you want to know how I found out about it?”

Sage reached for the doorknob. “You can tell me on the way back to the ward.”

“The person who used to bring you here showed it to me.”

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