It was an excellent idea for an entertainment. We quickly split up after entering the labyrinth hedge, none of us at first wanting the others too close by. Laughter drifted through the night air, Madeline’s louder than the rest. I’d never been particularly good at mazes—I’d forget which direction I’d taken when and found the only way I could make my way through was by not paying too close attention to the fact that I would have to encounter every dead end on my way to the solution.

After more than a quarter of an hour I still hadn’t found the center. As I reached yet another stopping point, a feeling of panic filled my chest, and it seemed as if the dark hedgerows were closing in on me. I slowed my breathing and turned around, continuing on. When I again dead-ended, I retreated back to the last junction I’d been at and tried to remember which way I’d gone before. Making the best guess I could, I marched on, finding myself in the same dark spot I’d been in only moments before. Back at the junction, I turned what I thought was the other way, but wound up yet again in the place I’d started.

Unless it was an identical dead end. I felt trapped, more scared than frustrated, my breath coming faster and my heart rate increasing. Surely I couldn’t have been going back and forth to the same place over and over again all this time? I dropped my handkerchief to the ground and returned to the junction, where I closed my eyes, concentrated, and went in the direction opposite from whence I’d come.

The white linen of my handkerchief struck my eyes like a blow. This time, I marched back to the junction and kept going, but the path only returned me to where I’d been. I’d somehow become trapped in a portion of the maze that went nowhere. I stopped, the feeling of claustrophobia pressing in harder now, and fear gripped me. I couldn’t get out. Couldn’t find my way. Couldn’t even backtrack. I was about to shout for help when I heard Cécile and Mrs. Hargreaves chatting in the distance. Reassured, I reminded myself this could not be so difficult, and set off for another try.

Only to find, once again, my handkerchief.

I could no longer hear my friends, but far away in the distance rose the sound of a thin wail, growing louder and louder as it came closer to where I stood. Shaking, I reached into the bushes, wanting to push my way through them and force my way out, but they were too thick. Running now, I retraced my steps, determined to escape.

This time, I didn’t find my handkerchief. Instead, crumpled on the ground in front of me, I saw a blue satin ribbon. The keening sound had followed me, weak and sad, and I felt as if it was nearly upon me, its eerie moan a plea for help or release.

Against all my principles and everything I believed in, I did something I abhorred with a passion.

I fainted.

31

I woke up to the sensation of someone tenderly rubbing my forehead. I opened my eyes, expecting to see Colin, surprised to find George instead. I parted my lips to speak but he covered my mouth, gently, with his hand.

“Don’t exhaust yourself, Emily. You need your rest now.”

“Rest? I only fainted,” I said, groggy and confused. “I’m fine.” I tried to sit up and realized that I’d been bound to the bed on which I lay. Leather straps at my ankles and wrists secured me, and instinctively I pulled against them. “George! What is this?”

“Just one more, my friend,” he said, and tightened something around my forehead. What a mistake to have thought I’d been awakened by sweet ministrations.

“Where are we?”

“In the tower I’ve convinced Madeline is unsafe. It’s the only way I could ensure privacy for my work.”

“Work? What work?”

“There’s no need to worry about that now, dear.” He stroked my cheek. I flinched.

“Where are the others?”

“At the house, resting happily after drinking the laudanum-laced brandy I poured for them after we came inside. There’s no danger any of them will wake up until morning.”

“What do they think became of me?”

“You, my friend, succumbed to a fit of the vapors after getting lost in the maze. I found you and carried you to your room, where everyone believes you are sleeping peacefully. Cécile herself tucked you into bed. I didn’t move you here until they were all asleep.”

“Our rooms are adjoining. She’ll check on me.”

“She won’t wake up.”

“Why would you do such a thing?” I asked, my heart racing.

“I need your help, Emily. Madeline needs it. Edith was taken away from me too soon—I couldn’t finish the work. But you’re the right size, and I was close, so very close to solving the problem. You must understand, though, that I can’t test it on her. The risks are too great.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I struggled to release my hands.

“Don’t,” he said, gripping my wrists. “You’ll only hurt yourself. Edith had terrible sores from trying to escape. I didn’t want to hurt her, you know. I was trying to help her, too.”

I looked around, desperate to find a way to escape. The architecture matched the oldest parts of the château, but there were no windows that I could see in the room, only unbroken stone walls. There was nothing else to do. I screamed for help.

“You really shouldn’t do that,” he said, forcing a dirty rag into my mouth. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I can’t have anyone finding you here. Not right now.”

I strained against the leather straps.

“This may hurt some, but it won’t kill you, and you’re doing so much good, so much for my Madeline.”

On a table next to me I saw a strange object: a metal cylinder with a crank and a jar full of clear liquid attached to it. A long wire, of which George held the terminus, extended from the end of the tube.

“It is through this the electricity flows,” he said, explaining as if I were his pupil. “A fascinating machine, elegant in design, simple to operate. We attach the wire here—” He put it on my temple, something sticky catching on my skin to hold it in place. I was struggling to pay attention to everything he said, to remain focused, as it occurred to me my only hope for survival was to understand this contrivance. “And then I turn it on. First, though, I’ll adjust the current.” He spun a knob on the base of the platform. I heard a whirring sound, a sudden pop, and my muscles convulsed as pain shot through me. Tears poured from my eyes. George wiped them with his handkerchief and removed the rag from my mouth, covering it once again with his hand.

“You mustn’t scream again, do you understand?” he asked. “Or I shall have to put a real gag on you.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making it so you can help your friend,” he said. “That’s all you need know.”

“No, George, tell me what this is. I’m scared.” Whatever he was up to, there seemed to be some small measure of compassion still present in him, and at the moment, appealing to it seemed all I could do.

“This is a treatment—medical electricity—that can be used for nervous disorders, but it’s not been much studied, and as you see, it’s painful. I think it may help Madeline, but I must be sure before I try it on her.”

“I don’t have a mental disorder, George. You can’t learn anything from doing this to me.”

“You’re just her size,” he said. “I didn’t notice it until you wore her clothes after you both got soaked in the rain. I have to figure out how much current is required—and how much is too much—so I can try to stop the progression of the hideous disease that’s destroying my dear girl.”

“But you won’t know the effect on her brain,” I said, hoping to keep him talking until I could make an escape from the leather straps. They weren’t terribly tight, but tight enough. I might be able to wriggle my way out of them if given enough time. I rolled my ankles, not wanting to draw his attention to my hands. “What you’re doing to me is futile.”

“No, no, you’re wrong,” he said. “Edith started to respond to the treatment and as the results got better and better I escalated too quickly, although I wasn’t giving her even half what this machine can generate. When the volts went too high, she fell into a coma. It was a horrible sight. She foamed at the mouth and twitched violently. She recovered in less than half an hour, but I could see that she was no longer herself. She was more crazed, and she broke free and lashed out at me. Knocked me against the wall and I lost consciousness for a brief moment. When I woke, she was gone.”

“You killed her.”

“I had no choice, Emily. If she’d made it to the village, she would have told them, she would have brought the police, and all my work would have been for naught. Would you have me let my wife slip into the irrevocable bonds of madness?”

“You can’t save her by killing others,” I said.

“Edith shouldn’t have died. I admit, it’s my fault for escalating the experiment at the wrong pace. But she left me no option once she’d fled. I found her easily enough—she was crying, couldn’t stop from the sound of it. All I had to do was follow the sound.”

“But the manner in which you killed her. It was so brutal, George…how could you?” The horror of being trapped so near a person capable of such crimes was beyond any words. I was sweating, my stomach churned, my muscles clenched. My very bones ached with pain as my entire body revolted at his proximity.

“I did it quickly. The knife was sharp. The rest…” He covered his eyes. “It was terrible for me, too, you know. But I thought if I made it look like something it wasn’t—if I mimicked a crime more famous…perhaps I would avoid all scrutiny.”

“You have to let me go, George.”

“Oh, Emily, I should like nothing better. But you know I can’t do that, especially now. I’ve always liked you, and Madeline adores you, so I can promise to be as kind as the situation allows. I have to figure out how much current you can take before the seizure, and that I will do slowly. But in the end…” He choked on the words. “I will do it when you’re unconscious. You will feel neither pain nor fear. And you can die knowing you’re giving back to me the woman I adore more than anything.”

I couldn’t speak, could hardly think. No terror could be compared to this, no dread, no hideous imagining. I let my eyes meet his, wanting to see if madness was visible on his face. His pupils were dilated, his skin flushed, but he looked otherwise like a perfectly ordinary man. To have found otherwise might have provided a slim parcel of comfort.

“Where’s Lucy?” I asked, desperate to distract him from the course of action on which he was bent.

“Don’t worry about the child,” he said. “She will come to no harm. I’m taking care of her and soon will introduce her to Madeline, who I know will be an excellent mother to her.”

“Why did you take her? Would it not have been better to leave her where she was safe and well cared for?”

“She may show signs of the illness, too. I might need her.”

“You can’t do this, George. The poor child! What must she think? Surely she knows something is dreadfully wrong.”

“No, I’ve taken exquisite care of her, even if I have had to hide her away. Sometimes she gets upset in the night and cries for her mother—which is to be expected, I suppose. I take her for long walks in the countryside until she falls back asleep. She’s come to quite depend on me. She knows that her mother’s illness was fatal, and all orphans, you know, long for a real home. I’ve told her she’s to have one.”

I shuddered, realizing the eerie keening I’d heard had been the child—a real one—weeping over the loss of her mother. The reality of this all-too-human pain, hopeless and devastating, felt far more frightening than any ghostly apparition could have.

“And what will you tell everyone else?” I asked. “You can’t just magically have a child appear in your household.”

“Lucy believes that her father, Vasseur, had an accident on his way home from the Foreign Legion, and asked me, as he lay dying, to look after her. She thinks her mother had to spend time away from her because she was ill, and that Madame Sapin was taking care of her only until I came for her.”

“What really happened to Monsieur Vasseur?”

“I served in the Foreign Legion with him—did a stint after serving in the British Army as a physician. We traded stories of the girls we loved. When he confessed to me his amour had been sent away in hopes of having her progressive madness cured—the symptoms of which I recognized all to well as those beginning to plague my own dear wife—I told him of Madeline’s troubles. In short order, he realized she was Edith’s distant cousin, a revelation that made me all the more interested in her treatment. If something worked for her, it would almost certainly help Madeline. I made note of the location of the asylum to which she’d been sent by her family, and when I returned to France, I visited her, telling her Vasseur had sent me.”