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Ann's face registers disappointment, and then shock. "She's here!" she whispers.
"Who?"
Ann opens her fan wide. From behind its protection, she points to the far side of the room. I see only Mr. Snow waltzing with the laughing Mrs. Sommers, but then my eyes find something familiar. I do not recognize her straightaway in her pale lavender dress and exposed neck.
It is Miss McCleethy. She has come.
"What should we do?" Felicity asks.
Remembering Miss Moore's letter, I say,"We must keep her away from Nell at all costs."
The orchestra has stopped its playing, and the lamps are dimmed to a cozy glow. People abandon the dance floor in pairs, moving to the sides of the room. Tom takes his place in the center. He goes to run his fingers through his hair--a nervous habit--and, remembering his gloves and the pomade, thinks better of it. There is an excessive clearing of the throat. I'm anxious for him. At last, he finds his voice.
"Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention. Thank you for coming out on such a cold night. In gratitude, the Bethlem Royal players have prepared a small performance for you. And now, ah, well ... I give you the Bethlem Royal players."
Having acquitted himself well, Tom exits to polite applause. I find that I have lost Miss McCleethy in the crowd. A cold dread crawls slowly up my spine.
"I've lost Miss McCleethy," I whisper to Felicity. "Do you see her?"
Felicity cranes her neck."No. Where are you off to?"
"To look for her," I say, slipping into the cover of the crowd.
As Mrs. Sommers plunks out a tune at the piano, I move quiet as fog through the room, searching for Miss McCleethy. Mrs. Sommers's playing is somewhat painful to hear, but the crowd claps for her anyway. She stands uncertainly afterward, bowing and smiling, her hand covering her mouth. When she begins to tear at her hair, Tom bids her gently to sit. The eerie Mr. Snow delivers a soliloquy from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, He has a voice trained for the stage and would be impressive if I could forget his performance for me earlier in the evening.
I've gotten through half the crowd, but I haven't spied Miss McCleethy again.
Nell Hawkins is introduced. Dressed in her best, her hair pulled back neatly at her neck, she seems a dainty doll of a girl. Pretty, like the laughing girl I've seen in my visions. The corsage has been pinned to her shirt. It nearly dwarfs her.
Nell stands staring at the crowd till they murmur with confusion: What is she doing? Is this part of the performance?
Her eerie, scratched phonograph of a voice rings out. "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after."
A light sprinkling of low, polite laughter floats around the room, but I fear I shall cry. She promised me. And now I know that her promise was nothing more than another illusion spun from her disturbed mind. She does not know where to find the Temple. She is a poor, mad girl, and I could weep for both of us.
Nell grows animated, impassioned. It's as if she's a different girl.
"Where shall we go, maidens? Where shall we go? You must leave the garden. Leave it behind with a sad farewell. Down the river on the gorgon's grace, past the clutches of the slippery, nippery nymphs. Through the golden mist of magic. Meet the folk of the fair Forest of Lights. The arrows, the arrows, you must use wisely and well. But save one. Save one for me. For I shall have need of it."
A lady beside me turns to her husband. "Is this from Pinafore?" she says, confused, thinking it a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.
I'm on fire. She does know! She has found an ingenious way of disclosing the Temple's location. For who, save us girls, could understand this gibberish? Miss McCleethy steps from behind a pillar, her left side showing, her right hidden in shadow. She too is listening intently.
"Offer hope to the Untouchables, for they must have hope. Travel on, far beyond the lotus blossoms. Follow the path. Yes, stick to the path, maidens. For they can lead you astray, away, with false promises. Beware the Poppy Warriors. The Poppy Warriors steal your strength. They will gobble you up. Gobble, gobble!"
This makes everyone laugh. Several of the patients repeat "Gobble you up" to amuse themselves. They are like chickens clucking until they are shushed by the nurses into quiet again. The hair at the back of my neck stands at attention. It is as if Nell is
pantomiming for my benefit, speaking in a code I must decipher--or else she has slipped into total madness.
"Do not leave the path, for it is hard to find again once lost. And they will take the song to the rock. Do not let the song die. You must be careful with beauty. Beauty must pass. There are dark shadows of spirits. Just beyond the Borderlands, where the lone tree stands and the sky turns to blood . . ."
A few of the ladies flap their fans, uncomfortable with the mention of blood. ". . . in the Winterlands they plot and plan with Circe. They will not rest till the army is raised and the realms are theirs to rule."
There is unrest in the crowd, a sense that Nell has been indulged too long. Tom makes his way to the front. No! Not until she tells me where to find the Temple! Tom is already there.
"Thank you, Miss Hawkins. And now . . ."
Nell doesn't sit. She grows more agitated."She wants in! She has found me and I cannot keep her out!"
