“What blanks?” I ask, but I already know where this is going. Where it’s been going since the moment I arrived in this god-forsaken hospital. Or maybe the moment my dead sister somehow made an emergency call to this man’s hotline.
His gaze softens, as do his next words. “You self-harmed, Celeste. Attempted to end your life. I’m interested to hear what led you to take such a drastic action.”
“And I’m interested to hear your justification for kidnapping me and holding me in a prison cell against my will.”
“Regardless of your opinion of our methods, I hardly think your accommodations here could be compared to a prison.”
I bare my teeth in the kind of smile I hope conveys my fury over this whole thing. “Would you prefer I use the words medieval torture chamber instead?”
He sighs. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll personally review your accommodations if you tell me what led to your suicide attempt.”
I hesitate. There is no version of this where some crooked group of doctors can kidnap me, and I’ll just go along with it, crying on a shrink’s couch until I suddenly feel the will to live.
But one thing the maze of locked doors has already taught me is the only way out of here is their way.
Even Declan, who, if my eyes can be believed, is capable of changing into a true beast, hasn’t managed to escape their grasp. So I give him the smallest piece of myself I can.
“Six months ago, I lost my sister,” I say, and with each word comes the memory of that night.
The pain. The loss. The blood.
So much blood.
Like a trigger, the words send whispers through my mind.
I’m still here.
Find me, Celeste.
Free me.
“Your twin,” Dr. Livingstone says, proving he knows more about my life than he’s revealing. He watches me sharply, like he’s waiting for me to give something away. Something words can’t explain. “You were close to her?”
“Very.” My throat feels tight.
I ball my hands into fists, squeezing to channel the anxiety.
Any other day, it works well enough, but today, nothing diminishes the edginess inside me.
“Can you talk about what happened?”
I struggle to speak around the lump in my throat. “She . . . she died on purpose.”
“I see.”
The doctor frowns, and I hate that I notice how beautiful he looks even when he’s unhappy. My thoughts are scattered as I resist the memories that threaten to pull me under, a driving current intent on drowning me where I sit.
He’s the answer.
He’s not what he seems.
They’re all monsters here.
“That must be hard, to have lost both of your parents and your sister.”
Since it’s not a question, I don’t bother to answer.
He looks up from the file now open in his lap. My whole life boiled down to shorthand notes probably transcribed by some intern. “Do you think your mental health struggles are genetic?”
Yes.
“I don’t know.”
Something moves in the corner.
My eyes dart to a girl. She’s crying, but the tears that stream down her cheeks are crimson. Blood. She wears a faded gown like the one I woke up in. When our eyes meet, her mouth opens in the shape of a scream and freezes there.
She never makes a sound, but her terror vibrates within me, and then she’s gone, vanishing as if she were never there.
I blanch, frozen where I sit as I try desperately to make sense of what I just saw.
Am I hallucinating?
Has my legacy finally caught up to me then?
Is this what Estelle felt like before—
“Celeste.”
I blink and refocus on the doctor. He’s frowning again, much more deeply than before.
“Yeah?”
He tilts his head, studying me. “Where did you go?”
“I don’t know what you . . .”
“I called your name several times. You didn’t respond. What were you thinking about?”
Tell him about the curse.
“Your artistic technique is old school,” I say, flipping the subject around because this is safer. Easier. And I can be sure of myself in this. “Reminiscent of William Turner and Henry Fuseli. You have Turner’s talent for expressionist landscape and Fuseli’s way with hinting at the supernatural. Where did you study?”
“London.”
“Did you attend university there?”
“I did my PhD at Oxford.”
“For psychiatry. But not art?”
“Miss D'LeLune.”
“Celeste.”
“Celeste, what are your plans for the future?”
I blink, thrown off by the question. When I don’t answer, he doesn’t look surprised. In fact, the smugness in his expression tells me he expected this.
“I’d like you to take some time to think about that during your stay here.”
“Why do you care? Why does anyone here care about me?”
“All of us at Le Rêve are committed to your care, Celeste. We want to see you take an active role in your own healing while you’re here. You’ll have individual sessions with me, group art therapy, and other opportunities for care customized to your needs.”
“So there are others here?”
I think of the empty cells I passed on my way here. Are there others roaming these halls? Patients capable of becoming beasts like Declan?
“Each of our patients are moving at their own pace. Group sessions will be an opportunity for you to see how far others have come.”
“And the rest of the time?” I push. “I take it I’ll be locked away in the dungeon until Nurse Slap-happy comes to force me upstairs?”
He looks ready to argue with me again but says instead, “Would you like a quick tour before lunch?”
A tour means more chances for escape.
Or at the very least, a closer look at where the hell I am.
“A tour sounds great.”
I follow him out of his office and down the hall decorated in landscapes. The doctor stops and opens each door, offering me a quick look inside.
“This is where we meet for our group sessions,” he says, and I note the metal folding chairs in the center and a shelf on the far wall lined with stuffed animals and small pillows.
“We like to offer security items to our group members. It helps us feel safer when we share things that make us feel vulnerable.”
I roll my eyes.
Does he believe the shit he’s saying? Stuffed animals make us feel safe when we’re being held prisoner against our will?
“What’s down that hall?” I stop and point to a set of double doors bordered with red paint and a sign above that reads Restricted.
“That’s the research wing,” he says.
“What do you research?”
He hesitates only a second before turning back towards his own office. “I don’t know.”
“You work here, and you don’t know?”
He stops and looks back at me, his handsome face unreadable. “I focus on what I’m here to do.”
“And what’s that?”
“To help you make peace with yourself.”
His answer is so simple, yet his words hit me in a way I’m not expecting. Tears burn at the corners of my eyes, and I blink them back, horrified at the thought of crying in front of him. A single tear escapes before I can stop it, and my shock is complete when the doctor reaches out and swipes the tear away with the pad of his thumb.