IRIS BLUM

“The basement?” Iris asked. “That’s where the tunnel entrance is. Horrible places. I think they’re all blocked off now.”

Gloria nodded. “They are. But there’s a room down there where we can sleep. My friend with the key brought me here one night last winter when it was really cold. It’s not nice, but it’s warmer than outside. He swore he’d never come back because he saw ghosts in the tunnel. He decided that a warm and dry place to sleep isn’t worth ghosts stealing your breath while you sleep. Or whatever they do. He passed the key on to me and warned me to watch out for the night guard.” Gloria shined her flashlight on her watch. “We’ll have to be quiet and keep the lights off. The guard comes through here every few hours and I don’t know the schedule. I’ve thought about sleeping here, but never have.”

Iris squeezed Lexi’s hand. “Gloria lost her home. She lives in her car. With her cat. And she rescued me.”

Lexi stared at the homeless woman. Then she took a deep breath and smiled wanly. “Thanks for helping my mom. I know this basement a bit too. Kids in the neighborhood broke in here all the time. This was our local haunted house.”

“You did that?” Iris asked.

“Great place to smoke weed and have sex. Not me, of course.” She glanced at Iris. “Until some of my friends got lost one night and ended up in the hallway to the morgue. They found jars with parts of brains in formaldehyde.”

Iris covered her mouth with her hand. She knew that Lexi liked to sneak out at night. Harmless fun, she had thought, but brains in jars were nasty.

Lexi shined her flashlight on the entrance to a stairwell. “Those go downstairs.”

Iris took the stairs slowly, using her cane and holding Lexi’s arm. The thick mustiness of the air in the basement made it hard to breathe. Or maybe it wasn’t the damp. Maybe it was the crowding of ghosts, even though she didn’t believe in them. Could they really steal breath from the living?

“That corridor leads to the tunnel,” Lexi said, pointing the light to the left.

Iris nodded. “When Asher worked here, I sometimes walked with him through the tunnels from one building to another. I wonder if . . .” Her voice faded into silence.

“I know about Harriet, Mom,” Lexi said. “I know what Dad did.”

“I can’t talk about all that now, dear.” Her mother squeezed her eyes closed. “But I do wonder if Harriet ever stood right here. In this very spot where we’re standing.”

“It’s possible, I guess,” Lexi said.

Iris turned to Gloria. “I need to see the tunnel entrance. Just for a minute.”

The hallway to the tunnel sloped downward and the air became thicker, fouler. Water filled the tunnel almost to the entry. The musty smell was harsh and raw, making the women clear their throats every few seconds.

Iris stifled a gag. All that rain. She took Lexi’s hand and shined the light on the tunnel wall ahead, mottled with mold and who knows what else. Ameboid shapes, large and free form, flowed from concrete floor to ceiling in shades of grays and greens.

The cat growled.

“I suppose those could be the ghosts my friend saw,” Gloria said. “Canary senses something here and he’s smart.”

“The ghosts might be real.” Iris pointed to the person-shaped figure on the left. “Look. That could be Harriet. Something about the stoop of her shoulders and all that hair.” She leaned forward to study the shapes. “I want to feel Harriet’s presence here.”

Iris felt the worried gaze of her daughter and her friend, but this was no time to back down. It had taken her decades to find Harriet and she couldn’t stop now. “See. She’s standing close to another shape. Maybe Harriet had a friend.” Iris staggered slightly with the rush of her feelings. Lexi tightened her grip on Iris’s arm.

“Rebecca,” Gloria offered. “That other shape could be her friend Rebecca. You know, from Rebecca’s Way?”

Iris smiled, then shook her head, trying to find some inner balance, some control over her wild imaginings. “What am I saying? There’s no such thing as ghosts. Maybe your father is right about me losing my mind.”

“Don’t go there, Mom. His pills made you confused. Your mind is fine.”

Iris closed her eyes and swayed again, then regained her balance by leaning against an old wood-slatted laundry cart on rusty wheels. She imagined Harriet hiding in the cart, burrowed under dingy sheets and towels, easily big enough for a woman trying to hide. She wondered if Harriet ever had tried to escape. The Harriet she knew would have tried to get free, even if she had been doped up and restrained and locked away. Did people ever manage to break out of this place? How horrible was it, day to day? How did the hospital staff treat people like Harriet?

Her daughter read her mind. “Do you think the people who worked here, who worked for Dad, were kind to Harriet?” Lexi asked.

“I hope so,” Iris said, but she didn’t know. She knew the reputation state mental institutions had and all the stories she had heard from Asher over decades. It was possible that the attendants and nurses had been sympathetic and gentle with her dear Harriet.

“Harriet is one of my lost women,” Lexi said.

“Who are they?” Gloria asked.

“The women who didn’t belong here. Whose husbands or fathers used this place as a garbage can,” Lexi said. “I collect their stories.”

How odd about those women! Her husband had a major role in locking them up and her daughter wanted to collect them. What did they want? Their accusatory voices bounced and echoed in the tunnel entrance, a thick and constant murmur, an imagined chorus of unhappy souls. Come on, Iris told herself. It’s just an old tunnel, flooded and musty and gross. There’s no such thing as ghosts.

Gloria’s voice interrupted her musings. “Let’s go back. I’m worried about the guard. The storage room has a little heat. We can sleep there.”

Sleep? How could they possibly sleep in that awful place?