She cackled. “Oh, I like you. No. I am here because I tried to leave my husband. I packed what I could carry, and I walked out in the middle of the night. He spent ten years beating me, cursing me, pulling my hair, and spitting at me. He would fly into jealous rages, accuse me of cuckolding him, of mocking him behind his back, even of stealing his manhood’s strength while he slept so he had none left when he wanted to enjoy me. And I am mad for trying to walk away from that.”

She sighed, looking up at the cracked ceiling, the exposed beams mimicking the bars across the singular window in the room. “I did the same as you for the first while. Behaved. Tried to demonstrate how undeniably sane I was so I could be released. It took me two years to give up.” She grinned, winking at me. “The last eight years since have simply flown by. So whenever you are ready to give up, there is a place on the floor right next to me.”

She patted the scratched and scored wooden planks companionably. Then she smiled maternally at my obvious horror. “Ask the other women what they are in for and you will find more of the same. Though Maude does cry and sleep an awful lot. And Liesl—well. You should be glad your husband cared enough to purchase a private room for you.” She gave me an appraising look. “Why are you here?”

I could feel my back curving, my shoulders slumping. For two years she tried to convince them of her sanity, and all she had against her was an attempt to flee a horrible marriage. For all my work learning how to be what others needed, I had not realized I was already perfectly suited to this asylum. I was exactly who they wanted me to be. Who Victor’s father and mother had groomed me to be. Who Victor had created me to be.

I was a prisoner.

All my life of surviving, of being someone else’s Elizabeth, had led me here. And what was I left with? Who was I when I was not performing for someone else?

Even now I realized I had a false, pleasant smile on my face. For whom? For what? So this woman on the floor would not judge me? So the nurses would think me sweet?

I slowly released the smile, let my face be as still and unanimated as Justine’s when she lay dead on that horrible table. Let myself default to my most natural state. Wondered what, in fact, that state would be.

The woman on the floor watched me, curious. “Well?”