Wendy fights the urge to smile, afraid it will cause the girl to turn sullen and angry. This girl may not be Tiger Lily, but in this place with its screams and its glaring nurses and attendants, she’s the closest thing Wendy has found to a friendly face. The fact that the girl hasn’t gotten up and stormed away makes Wendy think she might feel the same way. Under all the bluster and bravado, maybe she’s lonely too.

The girl rolls her eyes as if telling Wendy her story is an imposition. But there’s an edge to her voice that makes Wendy think it’s been a long time since anyone listened to her.

“My father died when I was a baby. An Englishman married my mother when I was ten years old. He brought us to London from Canada. He didn’t want to bring me, but my mother wouldn’t leave me behind.”

There’s a fierceness to the girl’s expression as she speaks of the man who married her mother. Wendy doesn’t blame her. What sort of a man would ask a mother to leave her child behind?

“A year after we came to London, my mother died giving birth to my baby sister. The baby died too, before she even had a name. My mother’s husband kept me with him for a while. I slept in a room with the maidservants where he could pretend I didn’t exist. Then he met an Englishwoman he wanted to marry, and she didn’t like being reminded that he’d been married before, so he sent me here. I was fifteen. That was four years ago.”

Wendy’s mouth drops open, a sick feeling in her stomach. She can’t imagine anyone treating another person that way, let alone a child, but the girl shrugs when she’s done speaking, as though the story doesn’t cut at her anymore, at least not on the surface.

“That’s terrible.” Wendy reaches to touch the girl’s arm, but the look of disdain the girl throws her stops her cold.

The ice on the imaginary lake shifts under her feet and she drops her hand into her lap, examining her nails as if that’s all she meant to do. The nurse who helped her change her clothes yesterday also trimmed her nails painfully short, another measure for her supposed safety, just like her locked door.

“What about you? How did you end up here?” the girl asks.

Now it’s Wendy’s turn to make an unladylike sound that’s almost a laugh.

“I make up stories. Lies. I can’t tell what’s real and what’s make-believe.” Wendy’s lips twist; it’s all so absurd when she says it aloud. “At least that’s what my brother and Dr. Harrington tell me.”