“Would it have changed things?” I rubbed my wrist. “Clarence would still have died, and it would still be my brother’s fault.” And Mama would still have cracked, and I would still be friendless, handless, and fleeing Philadelphia.
Allison clenched her jaw and didn’t answer for several long seconds. Then she said, “Why are you going to Paris all by yourself?”
I tensed. “How did you know Paris? I only mentioned France.”
“Lucky guess.” She frowned. “Now explain. ”
“Do you . . .” I gulped. I had to keep talking—and I had to keep shoving my feelings aside as I did.
“Do you remember the séance my mother held in June? The one where all the guests fainted?”
“Of course.”
“Well, Mama did let in a spirit that night.”
Allison’s brows drew together. “So it wasn’t all theatrics as you claimed?”
“I wish . . . but no. The spirit was a dead necromancer named Marcus. He’d been waiting for years to reenter the earthly realm. His time in death had made him strong, and once he was out of the spirit world, he found my brother. Marcus used Elijah’s magic against him. When Elijah cast a spell to bring
Father back to life, Marcus was able to use the spell instead to bring himself back to life . . . and he was able to possess the nearest corpse.”
“Your father’s body?”
“No. Elijah’s.” I cringed as an image of my father’s skeleton, its jaws latched onto my brother’s throat, formed in my mind. “My father’s skeleton killed Elijah, thereby giving Marcus access to the freshly dead body. And the spell—a spell to bind a ghost to a corpse—was Marcus’s ticket to a new life in the earthly realm.”
A life I would end as soon as I had the chance.
Allison’s eyes grew wide. “So you’re saying your brother’s body is walking around with this
Marcus spirit inside?”
“Yes.” Yellow eyes and howling dogs flared in my mind, sending a ghostly pain through my wrist.
Distractedly, I massaged it.
“And your hand,” Allison said, her nose curling up slightly, “what happened?”
“One of the Hungry Dead bit it.” More memories, more flashes of blood and chaos, flooded through my mind. The Hungry who had bitten me—a long-dead Civil War soldier—had been so fast.
So rabid. There’d been no chance for me to escape.
“By the time I broke free,” I added softly, “it was too late. My hand was destroyed, and I had to have it amputated.”
Her face paled, but other than that she was surprisingly calm. It was . . . odd. And so very, very different from Mama’s reaction. “You are handling it all quite stoically,” I told her.
Allison’s eyes flicked to the window. “I would hardly call my reaction stoic. But I do not deal with my grief through hysterics.” She spat the word.
“My mother does not have hysterics,” I said sharply. “Mama has melancholia. For days I could not get her to eat, to leave her bed, or even to speak to me. Her mind—her will to live—simply vanished.
And Kirkbride’s,” I tried to say in a gentler tone, “was the only solution I could conjure.”
Allison gave no response, and I was grateful when, moments later, we rattled to the end of the street—to where Kirkbride’s famous hospital for the insane stood. I scooted to the edge of my seat.
“We’re here.” I pointed at the wrought iron fence, behind which were gold-tipped trees and an enormous white mansion. With its long, ever-growing wings and cupolas, and its beautiful grounds and gardens, the hospital was meant to be a soothing place for the mentally disturbed to regain their wits. A haven of peace and beauty right in the middle of Philadelphia’s hustle.
I set my hand on the door as the carriage slowed to a halt before the entrance gate. “Thank you for the ride.”
Allison’s lips puckered. “I am not finished with you yet.”
I hesitated. “I told you what you wanted to know.”
“And I want to know more. Now shut pan and get out. I’ll come with you into the hospital.”
“No!” I lifted a pleading hand. “It’s dangerous. Please, Allie—”
“Don’t,” she hissed. “Don’t you ever call me that. That was his name for me.”
Shame seared through my face, hot and heavy. I turned away. Of course I had to use Clarence’s nickname right when Allison’s heart was no doubt aching. But it was too late for apologies or for begging that she stay. I had lost the argument, and Allison was already pushing out the carriage door. I hurried after her.
We strode through the gate, where the guard bobbed his head at me in recognition. I spared a quick glance for the wide, grassy front lawn—sometimes Mama liked to sit there—but all I found were vacant benches and the bronze statue of William Penn standing guard.
“My mother is probably in the back,” I murmured to Allison, waving to a gravel path that circled the huge hospital. Despite more than a hundred acres of gardens and forest to entertain the mental patients, Mama was always on that front lawn or beside the same azalea bush in the back. There was a low fountain there that kept the summer heat away.