She didn’t know what had happened to change the boy’s mind, nor did she want to know. The answer had been given. And now it was late at night and he stood before the bars of her window as they talked about the plan in whispers.
“We don’t have any money,” she said.
“I don’t have any money either.”
“Can you steal us a bag of sugar? That’s worth at least forty dollars, now that the embargo is on.”
“Sugar is very precious to the chef. But I’ll try.” He paused. “I could also try to steal a bottle of laudanum.”
“Why would we need that?”
“For Ambrose. In case he has a spell.”
“He doesn’t need laudanum anymore,” she said, noticing the hard tone in her voice and correcting it. “I’ll take care of him.”
Wendell looked uncertain but nodded.
“Are you going to steal the keys to our room?” she asked.
He shook his head. “That would be impossible. Only two people have copies of those keys. The matron and the head guard. They keep them on their person at all times. There’s only one way for you to escape.” His voice had a confidence she found reassuring. “They have room check every night at eleven o’clock. And there are guards at all hours in both wings. The only possible way of escape is to steal away after dinner, instead of going back to the rooms.”
“But where would we go?”
“To my father’s office.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t understand.”
“I have a key. Father gave me one because he’s forever sending me to the office to fetch things for him. I will tell the nurse on the women’s wing that Father has called you to his office after dinner.”
“What for?”
“It has been quite a while, but he will go through periods when he schedules sessions at night. Usually when my mother is being especially difficult.”
“I see.”
“And I will find a guard in the men’s wing and pretend that my father has called Ambrose. You will both go to his office and wait there. When the time is right you can make your escape.”
“I’m afraid of the forest. The alligators and the snakes.”
“You won’t be going that way. You’ll go by sea. They won’t think to look by sea until it’s too late.”
“By sea? How?”
“You’ll take the chef’s canoe. He’ll be angry, but I’ll help him build a new one. My father always said we were going to build a canoe together, but we never did.”
“Isn’t there a guard at the dock all night long?”
“Bernard. He’s a very mean man, but I know he has one weakness.”
“And what is that?”
Wendell smiled for a moment, then the smile faded, replaced by his characteristic intensity.
“Never mind. I’ll take care of him.”
She sensed his anxiety but dared not investigate. She herself was shivering in fear and anticipation. She was escaping an island the way she’d entered into marriage—completely bewildered, unsure of the way.
Iris felt suddenly sorry to be leaving him. “You’re the only friend I made here, besides Ambrose.” She reached through the bars and touched his hand. “I’ll write you from Virginia.”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “Do they have boys there?” he asked.
“Yes. Many boys.”
“I wonder if I’m ever going to get off this island.”
“You will,” she said, her heart breaking for him.
She remembered something. “Wendell, can you bring me a pen and a piece of paper?” she asked.
Wendell crept through the courtyard, carefully holding the folded note Iris had written to her lover in his good hand. Tomorrow night the moon would be full. Full moons meant very low tides, and good shelling. His grandmother, who died when he was seven, believed there was a phase of the moon for just about anything: birthing a baby, curing a drunk, digging a grave, planting a garden. Perhaps there was even a phase of the moon for helping lunatics escape. If so, he imagined a night with no moon would be optimal. Of course, the woman wouldn’t wait. He could see that on her face. He’d agreed to help the soldier escape, out of anger toward his father, but now that he had committed to the plot, he felt an ominous dread that had grown athletic, flip-flopping in his stomach, pounding in his head, and making his phantom fingers throb all at the same time.
In this gloomy state, he turned off the path back to the cottage and took another path instead, one that wound around behind the citrus grove and ended at the tiny cemetery. He entered and stood over Penelope’s grave. The shells looked especially pretty in the moonlight. A single weed grew out of the bare circle at the center of the grave. He pulled the weed and smoothed the dirt. He could pretend that what Iris thought was true—that love could conquer all, and lunatics could be healed simply by the fact that someone wished it so. But he had seen too much and had lived too long to believe it in his heart.
He should just tell her no. But the plan was very big now. He was sinking into it, drowning, as though his pockets were full of stones.