IT TOOK OVER an hour to move the cabinet. It seemed to have been nailed from the opposite side, which was impossible, of course. But they had to wedge the cabinet from the wall and awkwardly work at each nail. Ten in all. Finally, they pulled the cabinet away…to reveal a door, nailed shut.
“Fais une pause,” Tess said. Take a break.
“Non, ça va.” No, I’m doing fine.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead; dirt had trickled down with it, smearing his face. She didn’t mention that. The cabinet was filthy, and she must look just as bad. He’d been the one doing the prying, though, and while he might be in good shape, his lean biceps quivered from the exertion.
“Tu es un bon professeur,” she said, telling him he was a good teacher to distract him and give him a break whether he wanted it or not.
He only grunted in answer. She was beginning to learn that the grunts and snorts were a vocabulary all their own, equally translatable. This one wasn’t derisive but acknowledged the praise with mild discomfort, a boy who’d rather skip the niceties of polite conversation, even when they flattered him.
“You said you’re almost eighteen,” she said in French.
He replied with a nod and eyed the nails on the door, as if coming up with a plan of attack while also taking a moment to catch his breath.
“Are you still in school?” she asked. “I don’t know how it works in Quebec.”
“Junior matriculation is grade eleven. Senior is grade twelve.” He switched to English for that, but she still had no idea what he meant.
“Junior…”
“Matriculation. It means you can graduate from high school then, but if you want to go to university, you take the extra year. Senior matriculation.”
“So you’re done school,” she said, switching back to French. “Are you going to uni—”
“We need to move this cabinet farther. Give me more room.”
And that was the end of the conversation. As long as it stuck to the general, he was fine. Personal? That was none of her business.
They spent another hour working on the door. Finally, the nails were out. Jackson swung it open, and they peered down into darkness.
“Shit,” he said.
A hard look. Then. “Oui. Merde. The lesson ends here. We have more important things to worry about.”
“Je vois.” She cleared her throat. “Sorry. I mean, I see.”
Despite the darkness below, they could both see enough to know that they were not seeing something very important: stairs. The basement door opened into yawning darkness. Tess walked to the edge and put her foot down. Jackson yanked her back, only to release her arm so fast she nearly did tumble through the open doorway.
“I wasn’t actually stepping down,” she said. “I was checking.”
He picked up the flashlight and shone it through the doorway. “There. Better? No stairs.”
She moved forward, and he rocked on his heels, as if refraining from grabbing her again.
“I’m not stupid,” she said. “I won’t fall through.”
“Says the girl who already did so less than twenty-four hours ago.”
“But I can see this hole.”
“And it draws you, like a magnet, to repeat the experience. If you fall through again, I’m not rescuing you.”
“Of course you are. The alternative is to let me die, and I don’t think you want to be rid of me that badly.”
He muttered something under his breath.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just looking…” She peered into the basement, lit by the flashlight beam. “No ladder either. It’s a straight drop. Maybe ten feet? Twelve? About the same as the room I fell into. We can use that rope to get down.”
She expected him to laugh. Call her crazy. Refuse to help. But he walked a step closer, keeping his distance from the open doorway, as if she might shove him through. He angled the light down and said, “We can try.” Then, without another word, he went to get the rope.
They tied the rope around the cabinet, which, Jackson pointed out, was not only heavy but wouldn’t fit through the doorway, making it a safe anchor. He insisted on going down first and then made sure he could climb back up, lest they both found themselves trapped in the basement. Curious but cautious.
Jackson lowered himself to the bottom again and let Tess shimmy down. They found themselves in an empty basement room with closed doors on all four sides. Jackson walked to one, turned the knob and put his shoulder against it, as if ready to force it open. As soon as the knob turned, the door opened and he nearly fell through. Tess bit back a laugh and walked past him. He reached out as if to pull her back, then seemed to think better of it and said only, “Careful.”
“I know.”
This room was also empty…and again, it was a hub for three more doors. Jackson passed her this time, heading for the door on the left. Tess walked to the one straight ahead, threw it open and stepped inside.
Stepped into darkness. Complete darkness, Jackson’s flashlight beam already lost in the other room. Her hands shot out instinctively, the old nightmare flashing even as she told herself she was being silly, that her hand would not touch down on—
Wood. It touched on solid wood, right in front of her. Tess spun, hands still out, feeling wooden walls on either side. A box. She was trapped in—
“Thérèse,” Jackson said. He said something more, about wandering off, but Tess didn’t catch it. All she heard was the thundering of blood in her ears as she turned toward the door, and then she saw light and—
The door swung shut. Her foot had been holding it open, and as soon as she turned, it closed and Jackson said, “Tess!”
Her fists crashed down on the door, banging as she screamed and—
The door opened. The flashlight shone in her eyes and she stumbled back, panic filling her, seeing bright light, her gut telling her that was worse, worse than the darkness, worse than—
“Tess!” The light lowered, and Jackson grabbed her arm, steadying her. “It’s a closet. The door is on a slant, so it shut by itself.”
His lips twitched in a wry smile, as if about to tease her. Then he saw her face and stopped.
“Tess?”
She pushed past him and out into the main room as she gulped air.
“Are you claustrophobic?” he asked.
“Y-yes.”
“All right. Put your head down. Take deep breaths. Close your eyes.”
She did fine with the instructions…up to the part about closing her eyes. The moment she did, she was back in that room, clawing her way out, air thinning as she—
She opened her eyes and stuck with the deep breathing.
“That’s some serious claustrophobia. Have you talked to anyone about it?”
She shook her head vehemently, still bent over.
“You should. My mom’s a psychologist and—”
“Wh-what?” She jerked upright. “A psychiatrist?”
“Psychologist. That means she has a phD. A psychiatrist is a medical doctor. Doctor, doctorate, it’s confusing. They’re both called doctor, but a psychologist doesn’t have medical—”
“I don’t need a shrink.”
His face tightened. “It’s not like that. Therapy is for anyone who has a problem that interferes with normal life—”
“I don’t.”
“And I’m not saying you do. I was…Never mind. So you found a closet.”
“It’s not a closet.”
He sighed. “If you’re still upset over the therapy thing, I wasn’t recommending—”
“It’s not a closet.”
She strode over and looked inside. Four walls, enclosing an area of less than ten square feet. It might look like a closet, but she knew it wasn’t. She took the flashlight to shine it up on the ceiling.
“There’s nothing there, Tess,” Jackson said.
“Exactly. If it’s a closet, where’s the rod? Hangers? Hooks? Shelves?”
He went quiet, and she thought he was considering her words, but when she looked at him, he seemed to be struggling to figure out how to phrase something. “If this was a private psych hospital, it wouldn’t have rods or hooks in the closet. They present a…danger.”
“Of what?”
He searched her gaze and said nothing.
“Of what?” she repeated. “I’m not squeamish, Jackson. Tell me—”
“Suicide.”
She flinched. She didn’t mean to. The thought of suicide bothered her, of course. There’d been a girl in the Home, a couple of years older than her, who’d tried once, and Tess and another girl had found her. It’d been one of the worst experiences of her life, and maybe that explained why she flinched now, but it seemed more the combination of the two things: a psych hospital plus suicide.
“People who come to a place like this aren’t crazy,” Jackson said. “Not the way you read in books and see in movies—the wild-eyed nutcase. A lot of them are just depressed. If they’re depressed enough, they might try suicide.”
“I know. There was a girl, in the Home…” She trailed off.
He nodded. “And I’m sure she wasn’t crazy. So the closets wouldn’t have rods or hangers, Tess. There would have been a dresser or boxes. Safe storage.”
Safe storage. The nightmare flashed again, trapped in a box. Upright, screaming for—
“Tess?”
She snapped out of it. “So this main area is a bedroom?”
“Sure. The ones in the attic would be for patients requiring extra restraint—”
“Restraint?”
A flash of annoyance, his kindness fraying fast. “So they don’t harm themselves and, yes, possibly others. Hitting or scratching during an episode. Possibly delusions if it’s schizophrenia. People in a private mental hospital aren’t crazed killers, and the people keeping them there aren’t evil jailers. It’s a hospital, not a lunatic asylum.”
“I’m sorry.”
He deflated a little. “I don’t mean to get on you about it. Most people think the way you do. I know better, because of my mom, and it bugs me when people flip out at the mention of mental illness and psychiatric hospitals.”
“I’m sorry. I just…” She swallowed. “Too many books, I guess.”
A wry twist of a smile. “Nothing wrong with books, even those kind. Just…don’t take everything you read at face value. Educate yourself.”
“Yes, sir.”
He made a face. “That sounded pompous, didn’t it? Sorry. Let’s keep looking.”