“Yes,” Caroline said. “I was very sick when I first got to the hospital. My fiancé died in a terrible accident at sea. I was really broken by it, and I didn’t want to live anymore.”
Kate was shocked and immediately filled with compassion. She wanted to hug Caroline, to comfort her.
“I’m so sorry, Caroline,” Kate said. “What was his name?”
“William. He was the best man in the world,” Caroline said, staring down. Kate saw tears drop onto the white fabric covering her knees.
“And somehow you wound up with these people?”
“Yes. I was targeted from the start. The older guy who was in the car with us just now—Crispin. William sailed with him, in the Bermuda Race. Before he left, he told me he thought Crispin was fixated on me.”
“How bizarre,” Kate said. “How did he know you?”
“I studied art history, and he knew one of my professors. He’s interested in art.”
“Yes, he is,” Kate said, thinking of the many hours she had spent talking about American Impressionism with him, listening to him talk about his collection and the paintings that he wished to add to it.
“I guess he spotted me in one of my classes,” Caroline said. “I never saw him, but he singled me out and got to know William.”
“Why did he want to know William?”
Tears welled in Caroline’s eyes, and she couldn’t hold back the sobs. It was so hard for Kate to not be able to hug her, let her cry for as long as she needed.
“They say it was an accident,” Caroline said, when she could talk again. “But I’ve stayed awake so many nights, running through the possibilities. William was in the Coast Guard. He knew boats better than anyone. Supposedly he was knocked out by the boom, in a big gust of wind, but I don’t believe it—it just doesn’t feel right to me.”
“That is so awful,” Kate said. “Are you saying you think Crispin killed him?”
“I didn’t think that at the time. All I knew was that William wasn’t coming home. I got so depressed, I stopped being able to eat or get out of bed. Crispin said he felt responsible for my breakdown, because William had died on his boat, and he insisted on getting me in here—Maynard-King, one of the best psychiatric hospitals in the East. And he made sure I was assigned to a woman he said was the ‘best therapist’ on staff.”
“Was she?” Kate asked.
“She has a PhD in psychology. She is very respected in the field. She’s written papers, been interviewed about her research, is quite well known. But she’s evil, Kate,” Caroline said. “Just like Crispin.”
“In what way?”
“She works at another institution, and she has a private practice,” Caroline said. “She convinces the women she treats to come here. She is a big believer in recovered memories. One of her tricks is to manipulate her patients into thinking they were sexually abused—that that is the root of their trauma. Of course, it sometimes is. And that is tragic. But other times, she found ways to warp people’s minds into remembering horrible things that never really happened.”
“Why?” Kate asked.
“To isolate them. Have them turn against their families for not protecting them. Have them hate their fathers or brothers or whomever. To get them to talk about sex. One of the worst parts is that it diminishes the women who reallywereabused in that way. But she doesn’t care. All she wants is to beat us all down so far that we’ll forget who we really are.”
“You haven’t forgotten who you really are,” Kate said. “I can tell.”
“Thank you,” Caroline said. “I think she knows that too. It’s one reason she gave me back my name—letting me be Caroline again, instead of Girl #3. She said I was ready to start training the others.”
“Training them?” Kate asked.
“Look,” Caroline said, gesturing. “Those sayings on the board? We have to memorize them. She makes us write them down, with pen and ink, and our handwriting has to be beautiful and perfect.”
Kate stared at the subservient phrases on the board in the front of the room. More grooming, Kate thought. It was the way abusers indoctrinated their victims, the lead-up to what’s to come. Teach them to please, to go along, to keep it all secret.
“Who are the sayings for? Who are you supposed to please?” Kate asked.
“Men,” Caroline said. “The members.”
“The members of 1740?” Kate asked.
“Yes. One at a time, we become Belle. And the men—whichever man whose turn it is—is the Beast. The owner of the castle.”
