“I thought you were coming with me,” she said.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sage hissed.
“I told you,” Norma said. “I want to show you something.” She turned her head to address the invisible person again. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.”
Suddenly, Sage realized this might be her only chance to escape. “Do any of those keys open doors that lead outside?”
“You know they don’t,” Norma said, annoyed. “Those keys are kept at the nurses’ stations, and there’s only one set on each floor.”
Sage had the feeling Norma was either lying or pretending to know what she was talking about. But there was no way to tell unless she tried the keys herself. How that would happen, she had no idea, but it would be impossible if she refused to go with Norma. “What if we get caught?”
“I never get caught.”
“You’ve left the ward before?”
Norma nodded.
“What for?”
“You’ll see.”
Sage let out a heavy, frustrated sigh. If anyone saw them, there’d be hell to pay—or worse—but if this had something to do with Rosemary or was a possible way out, it was a chance she had to take. “Are you sure?”
Norma nodded again.
Shaking and uncertain, Sage slid out of bed again, got on her knees, and followed Norma across the ward. When they reached the door, Norma stood, quick and smooth as a snake, and put the key in the lock. Sage held her breath, keeping her eyes fixed on Marla. Thank God she was still out like a light. Opening the door just wide enough to slip out, Norma went through first, then let Sage through and quietly closed it behind them. After looking left and right to make sure no one was coming, she relocked the door, then slinked down the hall on her tiptoes, her stained yellow dress trailing behind her like a ghost.
Praying she wasn’t making a huge mistake, Sage followed close behind, her heart beating so hard she thought her ribs might crack. Norma flew down the main corridor in the opposite direction of the nurses’ station, then took a right down another hallway. At the end of that hall, she unlocked a set of double doors that led into a dim corridor lined with single steel doors, each with a grated window centered above a narrow sliding panel. Muffled sounds and voices came from behind the riveted steel—crying, loud talking, praying, singing, someone howling like a wolf.
“What is this place?” Sage whispered.
“You know what it is,” Norma said.
“No, I don’t. I can’t remember anything since I came back.”
“How could you forget the pit? You spent enough time here.”
“Why? What did I do?”
Norma looked at her like she was crazy. “Lotsa things.”
Suddenly someone pounded on one of the steel doors, making Sage jump.
“Let me out of here or you’ll be sorry!” a woman shouted on the other side of the door, her voice strained and muted, as if coming from under the ocean. “My husband is John Lennon and he’s going to come looking for me!” She pressed her face against the grated window, tormented and wild-eyed, her skin smeared with something that looked like dirt.
Sage moved to the center of the hallway, an icy mix of fear and sorrow making her shiver. Being locked in one of those rooms had to be torture. And it sounded like Rosemary had spent a lot of time there, alone and afraid, not knowing when she’d get out.
At the end of the corridor, Norma stopped at a door below a sign that read: SUPPLY ROOM. She regarded Sage. “You have to promise not to tell anyone.”
Sage nodded. “Okay.”
Norma held out her little finger. “Pinky swear?”
Sage hooked her pinky through Norma’s and they shook. “Pinky swear.”
Satisfied, Norma opened the door, entered the supply room, and pulled a string above her head. A bare lightbulb buzzed to life, casting a yellow glow over an oversize closet lined with stained straitjackets on hooks, coils of rope, a jumble of waste buckets in one corner, industrial-size barrels of Pine-Sol, and battered metal trays piled on wooden shelves. The room smelled like old wood and warm dust, and something that reminded Sage of whiskey. Before she could ask why they were there, Norma squatted and pushed on the back wall with both hands. A wooden panel creaked open and Norma moved it to one side to reveal a knee-high opening. When Norma crawled through it, Sage stood frozen, trying to decide what to do. What if she was right about Norma wanting revenge? What if she had lured her there to lock her in a hidden room where no one would find her? She scanned the room for a weapon, just in case, but didn’t see anything she could use other than the metal trays or rope.
Before Sage could act, Norma popped her head out of the opening and gaped up at her.
“You coming with me or what?” she said.
“What’s in there?”
“You’ll see. Hurry up.”
“Shit,” Sage said, and got down on her knees. She’d come this far; there was no backing out now. Maybe Rosemary was hiding in there. Maybe Norma had known where she was this whole time.
When Norma backed up to let her inside, a rank odor hit Sage in the face, like a mixture of cow shit and rotten eggs. She recoiled and sat back for a second, then stuck her head through the opening.
“You’re blocking the light,” Norma said. “You need to come in all the way.”
Sage hesitated for a moment, then crawled through and moved to one side, sitting back on her haunches, ready to scramble out again if necessary. Norma stared at her, waiting for a reaction. Sage looked around, one hand over her nose and mouth. The cramped space was half the size of the supply closet, with a slanted ceiling reaching down to the floor on one end. A torn, stained mattress lay among dozens of open tin cans, half-eaten pigeons, and the heads of dead mice. Here and there, dark piles that looked like animal shit dotted the moldy floorboards.
“What is this place?” Sage said behind her fingers.
Norma turned her head and nodded to her imaginary friend. “Yes, I’m going to tell her that too.”
“Tell me what?”
“We think Cropsey hides in here sometimes.”
A jolt of fear yanked the air from Sage’s lungs. She had to get out of there. She turned toward the opening, then stopped. No. Her imagination was running away with her. This hidden room might look like the perfect hiding place for a mental patient turned serial killer, but that didn’t make it true. She was just being paranoid and ridiculous. And so was Norma. “Oh my God,” she said. “Is that why you brought me here? I don’t care about Cropsey. He isn’t real.”
“Yes, he is. But don’t get scared. He only hides in here sometimes.”
“Even if that were true, how would you know?”
She shrugged. “My friend told me.”
“Which friend?”
“I don’t know his name.”
Suddenly it dawned on Sage that Norma was talking about the voice inside her head. She had no idea what was true and what wasn’t. Sage should have known better. “Is that why you brought me here? To show me this room?”
Norma nodded.
“Is this where Rosemary . . . I mean, is this where I was hiding when I was missing?”
“I don’t know where you were. You never told me.”