The Caretaker

When the sharp October air rustled the curtains open, when the clock struck 3:07 am, Babette's eyes snapped open as she sucked in a breath of terror. It’s grandma again, kneeling all of her weight atop her small chest, rocking side to side as if on a boat. She appeared grotesque, cadaverous. Glossy eyes, spidery white face-mold clinging to her nostrils and right cheek, mouth parted as if she were about to utter a secret. Babette’s neck was as stiff as wood, and her eyes refused to squeeze shut. She lay staring up at her, breath ragged. A fold of grey skin from her grand-mère’s forehead peeled and fell onto Babette’s own as she leaned downwards towards her ear, scent malodorous with dirt and death. Grandma rasped, gasping and sputtering, “Peregrine Hill…”

“We are so honored to have you here, Doctor Oleander.” Her mother reached out and shook the gloved hand of the doctor in the doorway.

Babette sat on the stairs, knees to her chest and her chin resting on her crossed arms. Her packed suitcase stood on the stair below her.

“The pleasure is all mine.” He took off his hat. “Ah, excuse me. This is my head nurse, Miss Lucretia Dauntler.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Miss Dauntler smiled. She was shockingly young for her title, a narrow woman dressed rigidly in a grey structured bustle. A large set of keys was hooked onto her belt, jangling like a wind chime with each step. Her dark hair was held so tight up in an elaborate bun that it looked to be hurting her, but her smile never faltered.

“Babette, would you like to join us in the sitting room?” Her father called.

“Are you going to tell me why I’m all packed up?”

“That’s not very polite, Bette. Mind your manners in front of our guests,” her mother demanded.

They gathered in the sitting room, Babette shuffling in last, settling in between her parents on the settee.

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” her father gestured to the two chairs across from the shabby settee.

“Of course.” Doctor Oleander handed his hat and coat to Babette’s mother, sitting with one leg over the other. “Your father tells me that you are having some bad dreams. Would you tell me about some of them?”

Babette shifted uncomfortably in her seat, tugging on the ends of her hair. “I’ve been dreaming about grand-mère. I miss her. I see her, but it’s not really her. It doesn’t feel real. She sat on my chest, and I couldn’t breathe, and she said nonsense in my ear. And when I wake up, I don’t want to sleep again because I’ll have another dream just like it.”

“Just how old are you, Babette?”

“Ten.”

“When was the last time you slept a full night without a night-terror?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t know. A long time.”

“Mère passed away months ago, on the ship to America,” Babette’s mother said solemnly. “She has barely slept ever since then.”

“Well,” Doctor Oleander said, pushing on his knees to stand. “I know just the thing to make Babette sleep soundly. Miss Dauntler?”

Miss Dauntler opened a leather case full of files, expertly pulling out a black and white photograph and handing it to Babette’s father. A box-looking contraption, with strange switches, wires, and dials. Next to it was a stand for headphones, connected to the box by a black wire.

“What is it?”

“This electrical marvel will make it possible for her to sleep again. It will also get rid of all of those bad dreams. America is leading us in a new age, Monsieur Beaulieu; An age of technology. I believe this is the future of treatment at Peregrine Hill Psychiatric Hospital. Why, in a week I believe she will be as good as new.”

Babette went pale. “Peregrine Hill?”

Her mother turned to her, grasping her hand. “It’s only for a few weeks, dearest. I know you have never left home for so long before, but it will help you get better. Besides, the papers say that Peregrine Hill is beautiful; Fresh air, the quiet countryside, a crystal clear lake … You might even make a few friends.”

A lump formed in her throat. “Will it hurt?”

“The machine?” Doctor Oleander asked, as if he wasn’t expecting that question. After a moment’s pause, “Oh, no, it won’t hurt; It simply manipulates electrical currents in your head. Your brain is somewhat of a machine itself. Dreams and delusions are excess currents. Now, thanks to this technology, we have the means to control these … excess currents.”

Miss Dauntler flipped open her pocket watch, standing as she read the time and put it away. She looked towards Doctor Oleander. “Shall we go before it gets dark?”

Her father knelt before Babette, holding her shoulders as he examined her face with an earnest expression and kind eyes. “Be good, will you? Listen to the doctor and head nurse. And remember, they’re just dreams. Dreams can’t hurt you.” He glanced over to the table, swiping a black sketchbook and charcoal off of it. “You can’t possibly become a famous artist one day if you forget this and lose practice.”

Babette nodded, feeling tears well in her eyes. But she held them back, and instead embraced her mother and father. With the suitcase and sketchbook in hand, she gave one last worried look to them before walking out the door with the doctor, the nurse, and her fortitude.

The buggy bumped along the uneven road. With a sigh, Babette turned her head back around and opened the sketchbook. She began to draw out the horse in front of her pulling the buggy. It barely resembled a horse, but she was satisfied nonetheless.

Miss Dauntler scoffed. “Art is such a waste of time, if you ask me. There’s no money in it.”

“I didn’t ask you,” Babette said.

Miss Dauntler expected Doctor Oleander to intervene, but upon pursing her lips and peering over found he was too occupied in his readings to pay attention to the women-folk.

“I thought your mother said to mind your manners.” Miss Dauntler glanced up, a strong wind coming in, blowing at the black feathers in her hat. “We’re here.”

A drab and crumbling building, surrounded by a tall wrought iron gate. The sky was cloudy, fog shrouding the bold words standing over the gate’s entrance, Peregrine Hill Psychiatric Hospital. When Babette stepped out, her foot sank in mud.

“Uck!” She cried, struggling to yank her shoe back out. “I’m stuck!”

With one arm and little effort, Miss Dauntler gripped her bicep and pulled her out. Babette sighed in relief and reached for her suitcase.

“You won’t be needing that,” Doctor Oleander told her. “Leave it in the buggy.”

With his back turned as he went to unlock the front gate, the head nurse turned her head and made a waving motion at her sketchbook. Babette nodded and slipped her sketchbook under her overcoat stealthily.

She listened to the jangling of Miss Dauntler’s keys as she walked down the narrow hall, her head moving side to side to take in the various wooden doors. A gurney shrieked past them, a man dressed in a white coat looking ahead with dead eyes. The woman on the gurney looked frail despite being strapped down, her intense sunken eyes staring into Babette’s. The gurney disappeared around the corner, and the head nurse stopped at what Babbette presumed to be her own room. It took a few minutes for Miss Dauntler to search through the many keys on the loop until she stopped at a simple small key. She unlocked the door, pushing it open with a heavy creak.

It was a room so large that it made everything in it feel small. A bed with one pillow and a thin blanket stood across the doorway underneath a small barred window. The rest of the room was empty, save for a plain white dress on the bed.

“Get changed, and I will see you tomorrow morning at breakfast. Goodnight.”

The door closed behind her. Babette heard it lock, thinking it odd that it should lock on the outside. She tucked her shoes neatly under the bed, taking off her green dress and sliding the scratchy white one on. She tore her old drawings from the sketchbook and hung them around the room to make it feel more like home. She peered out the barred window into the foggy bog outside. Babette jolted when she saw a face reflected in the window, whirling around.

“How did you get in?”

The girl who spoke appeared a year or so older than her, barefoot in the same white dress with straight blond hair as opposed to Babette’s wavy brown.

“You’re in my room,” she said. She walked towards one of the drawings on the wall, studying the jagged charcoal lines of Babette’s house with her finger. “That’s beautiful. You made this, right?”

Babette slid off of the bed, standing by her side. “Miss Dauntler says they’re a waste of time.”

“That’s too bad. I think they’re good.” She turned to her with a smile. “I’m Cecily.”

“I’m Babette.”

When they shook hands, Babette observed parallel scars on her wrists.

“Why did they put you here?”

Babette sighed, sitting down on the bed. Cecily sat next to her, waiting. “I’ve been having nightmares. They want to take them away, with some machine.”

“Machine? Anyone who they use the machine on gets put in the cellar, and I never see them again. I hear them yelling when it’s quiet.” Cecily grabbed her hand tightly. “You have to get out of here, Babette!”

“How? Everything’s barred off.”

Cecily thought for a moment, biting her thumb. “The adults have keys on them. There must be a set to the back gate, then all you have to do is go through the bog. Then you’re free.”

“But what about all the others still in the hospital? It’s not fair.”

Babette also wondered how she could even begin to escape. Surely her parents would be upset, but they didn’t know the machine was dangerous, she reasoned.

“Then we have to get the word out,” Cecily determined. She plucked up her sketchbook and handed the charcoal to her. “Drawing is your strong suit, right?”

“Right.”

Babette smiled to herself, rolling over onto her stomach to sketch a rough image of the bog from the view of her window, the open gate, and the words ‘Meet after breakfast.’ Unknowing how many would join her, or how many patients were in the hospital to begin with, Babette ended with nine of the posters made by the time she dozed off.

She couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or shut, but she could see the entire room. She felt the weight of her grandmother next to her. The hag’s head spun to the side like rubber, eyes as sunken as the woman in the gurney.

“I’m not scared of you,” Babette whispered. “I’m not. Not anymore. So go away. Go back to sleep.”

By the time Babette awoke, the sun shone directly in her face through the window. Grunting, she turned her head to the side and the wide open door blurred into her view. She rubbed her eyes and stretched her arm out next to her to feel for Cecily, but Cecily was no longer there.

Babette gave a disgusted look as she knocked the rock solid bread against the table.

“And the potato is cold, too,” she told Cecily. “Is every meal like this?”

“Worse.”

Babette shook her head. “In any case, I was thinking, how will I know which key opens the gate?”

“The gate?” The voice was not Cecily’s, but the voice of a wrinkly woman, seated across from Babette. She raised a thin eyebrow, watching Babette talk to herself, then stuffed moldy bread into her mouth with knobby fingers.

“The gate to the bog,” Babette explained, sliding over her drawing of the meager escape plan. The woman picked it up only to scoff and drop it down on the table.

“Hopeless. You’re not the first to think of getting out and crossing Lunatic Bog.”

“Lunatic Bog?” Babette asked slowly.

The woman’s voice dropped low as she leaned in. “There was a girl your age, a few years ago. She fit through the bars, went into Lunatic Bog. They tried to get her out, but she drowned. Oh … That poor girl … I think it must’ve hurt the head nurse, deep down. She was the only one of us the self-titled “savior” didn’t mistreat. Treated her like her own daughter.”

Babette’s heart sank. “But we can’t stay. It’s awful here.”

“For old crones like me, for the poor, for the immigrants, the amnesiacs … There’s nowhere for us to go. Peregrine Hill is our home now. Our home and our graveyard.”

A nurse knocked rapidly upon the head nurse’s office. Miss Dauntler sighed, slipping her reading glasses off her face. “Yes? Come in.”

The nurse stood in the doorway. “The inmates are all catching colds from their baths.” Her apron was soaked with water from when she dumped three ice cold buckets of water on the inmate's heads. It didn’t matter that they screamed and tried to jump out, or that they shivered, or that they had to reuse the towel up to fifty times; one towel per inmate would add up to one thousand six-hundred towels.

“And?”

“You said to look after Babette Beaulieu in particular. We found her shivering and coughing up water on the stairs.”

She rushed past the nurse. “Thank you, Miss Wilder,” she uttered.

Babette found Miss Dauntler at the other end of her bed when she began to open her eyes. “You’re awake. Do you feel better?”

Babette felt her forehead. “I think I have a headache.”

“I’ll bring you tea.”

With her head still balanced on her hand, she heard the keys flop onto the bed and the door shut gently. No time to lose, Babette snatched the keys and frantically began looking through them, only to remember she had forgotten to ask Cecily what key opened the gate. Babette’s heart drummed in her chest, blood rushing. Who did the footsteps outside her door belong to? Patients? Nurses? Miss Dauntler? Her hands shook, and as the door began to open she dropped the keys and resumed her prior position with her head in her hands.

Miss Dauntler sat across from her, bringing the spoon up to her mouth. Tastes like copper.

“I tended an old patient of mine in this bed.”

The spoon dipped back into the teacup, scraping the edges with a slow grating grind.

“She’s dead now. But I …” The teacup screeched slowly. “... cared for her. Bathed her, combed through her hair … I made her better, and my work was wasted when she drowned. But I will make you better. I promise.”

Miss Dauntler left the room soon after, Babette waiting a moment for extra measure before leaping to her feet with the vitality of someone who wasn’t ill to begin with. Her breaths as she sprinted were short and labored. She couldn’t get the key. Perhaps she could still fit through the bars, but then no one else would be able to escape ...

Babette wasn’t concerned about getting to the backyard; With the iron gate and the bog, the staff didn’t mind that the inmates go outside. She slipped out easily, the night air chilling her wet hair from the bath earlier. There was no one outside with her, which meant that not one of the nine people she had given the posters to decided to break out. With one last back glance to the hospital, Babette turned her head and squeezed through the bars, sucking in her stomach.

Miss Dauntler’s foot crushed a piece of paper. She plucked it off the ground. ‘Meet after breakfast.’

Babette’s bare feet sunk into the cold wet bog, ankles sinking deep into mud. A shiver ran up her spine as fish rubbed against her leg. She waded through the murky water until her feet could no longer grip the ground. As she swam, frogs hopped from lilypad to lilypad, landing and splashing dirt up into her eyes. Babette’s head bobbed into the water, above the water, into and above again as she coughed and spat.

Miss Dauntler shoved the key in the gate’s lock and yanked it open, diving into the water with no hesitation. She shouted after her.

She heard Cecily’s voice as the nurse’s body hit the water; “Swim, Babette! Swim!”

Miss Dauntler thought it was her own imagination, kicking and pushing aside waves until her grimy hand reached out inches away from Babette’s hair. A chilled pale hand grasped the nurse’s wrist tightly, and she turned her head to face the ghostly apparition of Cecily, her old patient. Her chin tilted towards the black foggy sky, black water frothing from her mouth, eyes as wild as an animal. Her gurgling voice, quiet and low and commanding.

“The hand that feeds deserves to be bitten when it beats.”

Miss Dauntler and Cecily plunged directly down into the dark water together. Babette reached the bank and crawled onto it, coughing and rolling onto her side, panting as she stared at the ripples in disbelief.

When the spring air blows and the frogs sing, a woman paints the bog, the abandoned hospital, and the grave of Cecily Halloway.