The Pawn and The Puppet (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 1)

I’m paired with Meridei of all people. The inky-haired, sneering-faced snake of a woman.

Or, The Water Warden, as I like to call her in my thoughts. It’s a suitable title for her after what I’ve seen. She does not smile, her eyes are as black as her hair, and she specializes in drowning patients.

I was given my uniform to change into in the lobby. Navy blue, with a bow pressed down across my chest. Delphine applied gray, shimmery paints to my eyelids and a blush red to my lips and cheeks before I left this morning. She unraveled the rollers from my hair and ran her nails through each curl. My hair was transformed then—each bouncy curl was smoothed out to assume the soft ruffling of a gold satin bedsheet. I didn’t mind it as much as I minded the smoke over my eyes. Delphine claimed it makes my iris glow like sea foam on the ocean floor. But I thought it made me look older, hardened like a garden path of mud that has had time to dry and only exists to be stepped on by strangers.

Meridei shows me around the dining hall, pressuring me with her soulless eyes to only grab one or two items from the buffet. I watch her fingers pluck two squares of cheese and a strawberry. My stomach gurgles on cue as I gaze hopelessly at the array of colorful fruits and steaming meats. I decide on one egg, cooked over easy, and a handful of blueberries.

I’m going to need to learn effective ways to sneak food out of Aurick’s kitchen at night. I don’t know how I’ll ever think straight enough to accomplish anything here if I’m constantly reminded of my empty gut and unquenchable cramps of hunger.

Meridei does not look back as she glides across the dining hall to find an empty table. With my glass of orange juice in one hand and my plate in the other, I quicken my steps to meet her at a table directly in the center of the hall. The voices flowing happily at each circular, mahogany table begin to slow and lower to hushed tones. In the back of the room, the gentleman playing a grand piano slows his contact with each key. My breath picks up in pace, and my heart thumps loudly under my chest and in my ears like a war drum, sounding off that an enemy is about to attack.

“It’s like seeing a ghost,” someone whispers.

For a moment, I thought this was because I was new. But with that sharp whisper, I’m reminded of the opinions that must be circulating about me. The fresh rumors that have blossomed in my wake.

She killed her own sister.

Was it because they were twins? Because she wanted to steal her life?

Keep a close eye on that one.

She should have been checked in as a patient.

I suddenly wish that the floor was covered in fluffy carpet. My heels clapping down on the shiny hardwood floor are the loudest sounds in this room, like a trumpet sounding off my arrival.

Meridei waves me over with a taunting smile.

I want to slump my shoulders in defeat. The walk of shame to eat my five blueberries. I expected unwanted attention, but that was brutal. That is only the energy pouring out across the floor, into the roomful of people—negative and judgmental—devouring me in a flood as it reaches my ankles and pulls my head underwater. I even hold my breath to keep from swallowing it all too fast.

“That was lovely,” Meridei says softly as I sit down in the chair across from her.

I don’t respond.

She keeps her dark eyes leveled with mine as she takes a bite of her breakfast slowly, savoring every flavor. I take small sips of my glass of orange juice, rolling the pulp over my tongue, waiting several seconds to meet Meridei’s eyes again.

“The rumors are only going to grow in volume,” she says again.

I decide she’s baiting me. Testing the length of my fuse. Studying my levels of strength and tolerance.

“I am sure you’re right,” I say, squishing a blueberry between my teeth. The sweet tartness bursts over my gums.

“And the ladies and gentlemen behind those rumors can be quite cruel.”

“Most likely.” Get on with it before you bore me to death.

“Then you’ll come to know how short lived your stay here will be.” Her head tilts mechanically, like the gears in her neck have thick layers of rust.

I set my fork down and hold her stare without a single bat of an eyelash. Scarlett once had a confrontation with a woman named Belinda here. She threatened her in the washroom. Scarlett said that she stared at the blonde-headed switchblade without blinking and began to laugh hysterically. She told me that if her mind seemed unpredictable, then Belinda could only assume her actions would be as well.

I don’t dare to laugh like a maniac—yet. But perhaps, burning her internally with a stare so closely resembling a dead girl’s will do the trick.

“But I’m certain you’ll get on fine.” Her eyes drop. She licks the yellow yolk from the busted egg from her fingertips. A slight shrug from her narrow shoulders. “Just as I am certain training you today will be the most fun.”

~

My pulse racing and erratic under my skin for the remainder of the day. The other conformists stare wide eyed as I cross their paths. Their lips purse tightly, and their drawn-on eyebrows rise in holy judgment. They exchange whispers like I’m a notorious harlot that was found in a married man’s bed.

I follow Meridei to the chair-binding treatment room. She refers to this treatment as “boring” because it lacks the thrill of seeing them fight for their survival. She believes that particular part of the simulated drowning treatment is what convinces the patient to conform, to act how we want them to.

The patient undergoing this treatment today is Sun Ravendi. Her illness is extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder. Sun is a danger to herself and others. When she was admitted to the asylum, a neighbor caught her cleaning herself and her daughter with bleach and other chemicals. Her three-year-old daughter was screaming so loud, the neighbors thought someone was being murdered and stormed into the house to check. Their skin was burned and blistered from the hot water and chemicals. They were both rushed to Survivah Medical, but Sun’s daughter did not make it. The autopsy found that Sun had sodomized her three-year-old little girl with objects soaked in bleach.

Now that Sun is locked up for good, they have to keep her under constant supervision. She’s hyperactive with her need to clean herself. Meridei shows a definite dislike for Sun. Thankfully, Meridei is not in charge of this treatment. We are watching a man named Ash conduct it.

He has strawberry-blond hair, a hook for a nose, and a pair of wandering light-blue eyes. At first, I think he may be the only one here that likes the patients. That shows them mercy and hospitality.

Ash seats Sun in the chair centered in the room. He caresses her arms and whispers to her sweetly. She seems unalarmed by his gentle touch and soft-spoken voice so close to her ear.

She has an abundance of wrinkles over her forehead and brow but doesn’t look a day over thirty.

“Sun, I need to know that you understand that when you try to cleanse your body, you have to go through this treatment. Once you stop, the treatment stops. Are we on the same page?” Despite Ash’s message, he has a soothing delivery. He strokes the side of her cheek. She stares off into space, mustering up a small nod.

He smiles and squeezes her thigh once before standing up.

“Eight hours and counting,” he chimes.

Ash takes a long brown rope and ties a knot, binding her by her shoulders to the chair, then wrapping it around her over and over again, as tight as he can make it. Her face begins to wince as the rope gets shorter. He comes to a stop to tie it off. Another rope lies in a pile next to her chair, which he grabs, then starts on her waist. She whimpers while her midsection shrinks up, and then he ties off the lower half of her legs. I can see the blood rush to her face, the tension building.

“She has to sit like this for eight hours?” I ask, troubled by the thought of her legs falling off or her heart giving out.

Meridei smiles and looks at me from the corner of her eye. “Yes. It’s an agonizing process.”

“What good does that do?” I feel myself growing feverish with the lack of humanity in this room.

“It teaches her to ignore her instincts to harm herself,” Ash answers defensively. “The more we do it, the more her brain will remember this pain and associate it with her urges.”

We watch her for another hour, watch her whimper softly, watch her fingers turn purple, watch the whites of her eyes turn pink. I fight my basic instinct to untie her, hold her in my arms.

The rest of the workday is spent in a classroom going over procedural duties in the asylum. On a typical workday, a conformist checks the agenda board in the Director’s room. Our schedules change every day. Sometimes, we spend all day with a patient. We might run them through hours of treatment and then study their response and the results of their behavioral changes, if there are any. I asked if we keep records of their upbringing and evaluate their childhood to see what event might have triggered their current mental state. She laughed at me. She explained that we are taught not to bring up anything in their past. We focus on their future; reverting back to their childhood would cause their mental stability to worsen and reverse any progress they make during treatment.

After class, we walk back to Sun’s treatment room and untie her. I check Sun’s skin and see her bruises and discoloration, noting that her cheeks are stained with tears. Her soul, mangled inside her broken body. I caress her arm and whisper in her ear.

Hold on.

~

Once I’m dismissed for the day, I linger in the hallway after everyone has left.

I see faded glimpses of Scarlett walking in and out of the patients’ rooms. Her long honey hair, splashes of pink on her cheeks, the damage that painted her every expression. She’d watch the suffering with a clipboard in hand while she bit down on her tongue. This dark and disturbing place must have been part of why Scarlett could never heal from the abuse she suffered as a girl. This asylum must have acted as a pair of scissors, cutting open her stitches and making her bleed all over again.

My eyes squeeze shut out of reflex, like I’ve been pushed into a body of water.

The sound of metal clinking behind a wall comes from the end of the hallway, near the thirteenth room. And then another sound, like bolts on a door being unlocked.

The thirteenth door opens slowly, like it weighs two hundred pounds, and Suseas steps out. She closes the door, tightens two bolts, then leans her forehead against the metal. She uses a white handkerchief to dab at her cheeks, making soft whimpering sounds with each breath.

I quietly duck around the corner to keep myself from disturbing her moment’s weakness. But even after I’m several paces down the hall, her hushed cries haunt the walls like a lost ghost, saddened by whatever it is that lies beyond the wall of that thirteenth room.