She thought about this, chewing slowly as she stared ahead. “For some, there’s no escaping what binds us. Whether here or there.”

I looked her over, this woman who managed to be content in an asylum. It was as if she chose captivity, because true freedom was beyond her comprehension.

“Perhaps some of us are simply trying to make the best of our circumstances, rather than wasting energy trying to change them. Me dearest Paul had a way of doing that. Making a home of any place he was.”

“I will never stop trying to escape. Never. And this place will never be home.”

She ate in silence, stealing glances at me. I had no mirror, but I saw reflected in her guarded expression how truly wretched I’d become. I fingered the long strands on my shoulder. Pale and frantic with trembling fingers, I almost didn’t blame Richard for leaving me here.

“Bridget,” I said softly. “Do you often recall your dreams?”

“Sure, sometimes. Until I get out of bed, of course. Then they’re gone.”

“And are they . . . very realistic?”

She gave a short laugh. “Not a bit. Winged creatures and falling rocks and a voice that don’t work when you call out for help. That’s the sum of it usually, and thank the stars, it’s nothing like real life.”

When they herded us into one massive bare-floored room—the waiting area for the weekly drownings in metal bathtubs—I perched on the edge of the bench along the wall and looked about. There had to be a chink in the armor, a cracked-open window or a misplaced key on a table. “What if I hid in the laundry one afternoon, in those great big piles . . .”

Bridget eyed me with a pitying look and defeat settled over me. Life was suddenly an unfamiliar melody and I was expected to play it.

The music box began again, right beside me this time. The lanky older woman in a lace cap curled around the box each time it played, clinging to it like a life raft. The entire left side of my body was pressed up against hers on the crowded bench, but she didn’t even seem to register my presence. She stared straight ahead and saw nothing outside of herself.

She hummed deep in her chest where the remainder of her lived. That was her only sound. No voice, no laughter, just a quiet melody. When some patient screamed in a distant ward, she wound that little crank frantically, then bent over and melted into the music as if she needed to drown out the sounds of Hurstwell.

I understood.

Richard had proposed to me once—or nearly proposed. He’d been the only man who’d truly appreciated me, who’d known me forever. But now he, of all people, believed me mad. Which made it harder to believe I wasn’t.