Straining for breath, lungs burning from her short run, Sophia doubled over, hands on her knees, and coughed.
“We can’t linger here,” he whispered, gesturing to the buildings surrounding them, lights flickering in the windows.
Kent pulled Sophia away from the buildings. He grabbed a large canvas bag from behind a tree.
“Here, put these on.”
She pulled on a pair of corduroy pants, and Kent helped her strip off her nightgown.
“Grab my shoulder,” he said, as she struggled into heavy brown boots, not bothering with the laces.
A thick patterned sweater, followed by a camel colored wool coat, shut out the chilly morning air.
“Quickly, now,” he told her, and they hurried across the dewy grounds. Behind her the hospital loomed huge and bright, windows ablaze as the morning rituals of bathing and breakfast commenced.
Further and further from the light, the oak and maple trees rose, menacing against the half-light of dawn’s approach.
They stopped at the edge of the woods, and Kent pulled Sophia into his arms, crushing her in a hug.
“You’ve changed my life forever, Sophia,” he told her. “And I can never thank you enough.”
“I would say we’re even,” Sophia told him, muffled with her face pressed into his shoulder.
“No, not even close, but we have to part here, for now. There’s a path, it’s not very clear, but the sun will be up soon. The deer use it mostly. I’ve been leaving food along the way, for them, and I’ve tied some cloth in the trees. It will take you clear through the forest, there’s a big hill and you’ll follow the base of it. Don’t go up or you’ll get lost. You’ll see a footpath that leads to the road. My friend Barbie is waiting for you. She drives a black Pontiac.”
“I’ll see you soon,” he promised and kissed her on the forehead. Sophia watched him hurry back toward the hospital, his breath crystallizing in the early morning air. An emptiness gaped within her as he disappeared from her view.
She had the unnerving sense she would never see him again.
Sophia watched the sunset on her third day of freedom. It spread across the sky in frothy pink and orange waves, cascading over and through the trees, illuminating the yard in a rainbow of color. She longed for her paints for the first time in years. In the asylum, a little table contained a child’s watercolor palette and sheets of white paper. Sophia never touched them. Sometimes when she looked at them it made her sick to her stomach.
Now she longed to capture the sunset. Searching through the cabin, she found a yellowing notebook and dull colored pencils. She pulled a chair onto the porch and sat, propping a wooden crate in her lap as her easel.
As she drew, she thought of Kent. Barbie told her he would arrive the evening after her escape, but he never appeared. He had stocked the cabin with food, matches, a few pairs of clothes, some freshly laundered towels and a bar of soap. She took her first solo shower in ten years, delighted in the warm water, but also terrified. The shower blotted out other sounds, the creak of a door, footsteps in the hallway.
At night she slept fitfully, dreaming of Dr. Kaiser, and waking sure he leered over her in the darkness. After restless hours her first night in the cottage, she turned on a lamp and slept with a kitchen knife close by.
Something had happened to Kent. No, not something.
Dr. Kaiser had happened to Kent.
Nevertheless, she watched the rutted drive that led to the cabin hoping to see him walking in, his white orderly clothes replaced with a pair of jeans and a soft sweater. He was too young to have left the world and Sophia was responsible. He helped her escape and he’d paid with his life.
She drew for an hour, capturing a dozen versions of the sunset before retiring inside to eat a can of cold soup. Soup had been a staple at the asylum, sometimes so hot it scalded her tongue, and she wanted nothing that reminded her of that place.
When darkness fell, she locked the doors and windows and closed the heavy drapes. In the kitchen, she took out a butcher knife and went into the bedroom, barricading a chair beneath the doorknob.
Each night dread descended over her like a weighted blanket. Irrational fears that Dr. Kaiser and the others were surrounding her cabin. Maybe they would not try to take her at all. Instead they would burn it to the ground ensuring she took their secrets to the grave.
She lay curled on the bed with a book propped open, but couldn’t concentrate on the words. When she heard an engine break the silence, she shot out of bed. Blowing out the kerosene lamp, she peeled back the curtain and peeked out. In the darkness she could barely make out the silhouette of a car, but when the door opened the interior light turned on and she saw Barbie, the woman who had driven her to the cabin three days before.
Sophia removed the chair and hurried to unlock the front door. When she opened it, Barbie stood on the porch, red eyed, with a wad of tissue clutched in her hand.
“They killed him,” she wailed rushing into Sophia. Barbie sobbed into her shoulder. “They murdered him. I know they did. It happened only hours after he helped you. Got tangled in the bedsheets. Horseshit! What do they think we are, morons?”
Sophia didn’t have to ask who Barbie spoke of. She pulled back and drew the crying woman into the cabin, closing and locking the door behind her.
She bit back the words ‘are you sure no one followed you?’
Barbie slumped onto a floral-patterned chair with springs nearly bursting through. Her blouse was soaked with tears and her bell-bottom jeans had wet grass stuck to their hem.
Looking at the young woman, Sophia thought of her own daughters. Jude was probably a few years older than Barbie, Hattie younger.
“It’s my fault,” Sophia whispered, sitting on the couch, pushing her fingers hard into the worn fabric. She felt an irrational desire to tear into the cushion and send feathers exploding into the room.
Barbie shook her head.
“It’s not your fault,” she hissed. “It’s their fault. They’re killers, tormentors. Kent told me they were doing unspeakable things to you. He couldn’t turn a blind eye.”
Sophia nodded and then shook her head.
She touched a hand to her face remembering that dark room hidden in the woods.
“It wasn’t worth it. He should have left me there. Oh, poor Kent.” Sophia felt a heaviness she often experienced in the hospital descending over her. Sometimes days would pass, and she would lie in her bed staring at the ceiling, unable to remember the day, the year, her own last name. Kent was the only one who could pull her out. Other nurses tried in harsh ways with cold baths, but Kent did kind things. He brought her homemade oatmeal cookies, her favorite, or sang her the lullabies she had confided to him she used to sing to her children. He never pushed her to snap out of it because he knew Sophia was being experimented on, researched, tortured.
“Have you told anyone?” Sophia asked, swimming up from the depths of her own despair, refusing to slip away while Barbie sat before her in tears.
Barbie looked up and laughed, a short harsh sound.
“They’re blaming you, Sophia. A criminal history, they said. The police looked at me like I needed to be admitted too. Doctor Kaiser already reached out. He told them there was an escaped and dangerous patient on the loose. They’re hunting you.”
As the words left her lips another sound reached them. A car coming up the dirt two-track that led to the little cabin.
“Does anyone else know I’m here?”
Barbie stood, eyes wide.
“You have to run, Sophia. If they get you back into the hospital,” she didn’t finish the sentence. The engine grew louder. It sounded like more than one car.