Chapter Thirty-Seven
“THE WONDERFUL THING ABOUT YOUR committal is that your death won’t be questioned.
” Mrs. Reed pressed the plunger of the syringe until a brief stream of liquid shot out.
“Or if it is, the scandal of it will be swept under the rug for the sake of the asylum. Who can blame the new nurse for defending herself and her wards when you experience a violent paroxysm?”
Nora glanced around for anything sufficient for defense, but every possible danger to patients had been removed.
Even the writing utensils had been locked into a desk drawer when Nora was brought in.
The only thing at her disposal was the book of manners at her feet and an out-of-reach stack of other books near Mrs. Reed.
Behind Nora, Mrs. Beaumont’s voice trembled. “What’s happening?”
She and Mrs. Reed were in a game of cat and mouse, that was what.
Only Nora had more than herself to worry about.
Keeping Mrs. Reed at a distance was first priority, and the only object capable of serving as a shield was the chair Nora had been sitting in.
Lord, give me strength. The medicine and days of lethargy had left her feeling weak.
The movement was clumsy, but she swung the chair around and held it so that its legs protruded toward Mrs. Reed.
“Yes, Nora. What’s happening?”
Mrs. Reed stepped forward, syringe gripped in a stabbing position. Surely she wouldn’t dive at Nora and chance Nora ramming the legs into her instead.
“You appear agitated.”
The doorknob jiggled.
Mrs. Reed looked more pleased than Tristan with a can of sardines. With an audience on the other side, she had the upper hand.
The door jiggled again. “It’s Nurse Abbott. Is everything all right?”
Praise God! Of all the nurses, she would be the only one who might believe Nora. “Help!”
Mrs. Reed gripped the bottom of a nearby desk and flipped it into another one. The crash elicited a scream from the other patients.
“Calm yourself, Nora, or you might hurt one of the other patients.”
“Nora?” Mrs. Beaumont’s frail voice drew Mrs. Reed’s attention . . . and her wicked smile.
Mrs. Reed grabbed a book with her free hand and chucked it at Mrs. Beaumont.
Nora swung the chair to deflect, and Mrs. Reed lunged for Nora.
Nora couldn’t stop the chair’s momentum to change directions so she released it to fly across the room. Continuing the spin it left her in, she shoved Mrs. Beaumont aside and braced for the pierce of the needle.
Mrs. Reed crashed into her, sending them both toppling. Nora landed face down with Mrs. Reed on top of her. Thankfully, natural instinct had forced Mrs. Reed to throw her arms out to catch her fall, and the jolt of her landing sent the syringe skittering across the floor.
Mrs. Reed lunged for it, but Nora pushed up and threw all her strength into forcing them to roll away from the easy reach. She pinned Mrs. Reed beneath her back and jammed an elbow into her side.
The woman yelled, not in pain but in a guttural cry of rage. Her arms cinched around Nora’s waist, and a rolling side-to-side wrestle for dominance ensued.
Nora kicked and wrenched and elbowed but couldn’t get free of the woman. Far too quickly, her strength waned.
Mrs. Reed claimed her victory and shifted so that she pinned Nora in place with her legs and sitting weight. Hands closed around Nora’s throat. “It’s time for you to die.”
Ezekiel dug his fingers beneath the loosened barrel of the hinge and, with Abraham’s help, pried the door free of the frame.
The whimpers and cries, along with a crazed growl, from inside grew louder.
When the door tilted forward, the Guardians caught its fall and dragged it aside.
Visible from the hall, a nurse straddled a patient who thrashed beneath her.
Ezekiel didn’t need to see her face to know Mrs. Reed was attacking Nora.
He barreled into the room, but before he could reach Nora, Ma flew into his periphery and dove at Mrs. Reed. The pair careened across the floor and into an overturned desk.
Gasping, Nora rolled to her knees and scrambled the few feet to where Ma wrestled with Mrs. Reed.
The two women he loved most in the world fought for each other like fierce Amazons—both incredible and terrifying to watch.
He jumped into the fray and freed Ma from Mrs. Reed’s grasp, or was it Mrs. Reed from Ma’s?
Miss Pelton’s face appeared next to Ma’s. “I have her.”
In the momentary distraction of Miss Pelton assisting Ma to her feet, Mrs. Reed escaped. She crawled at a racing speed toward a silver object on the floor near a chair.
Nora grabbed fistfuls of Mrs. Reed’s skirt. “Don’t let her get the syringe. It has something that kills.”
Her hoarse warning came too late. Mrs. Reed grasped the silver syringe and twisted toward Nora with it raised in the air.
Ma must have realized what Mrs. Reed intended before Nora’s warning, because she flung herself across Nora’s body as Mrs. Reed jabbed downward.
The needle plunged into Ma’s back instead of Mrs. Reed’s intended target.
Ma screamed.
Her clear agony froze Ezekiel to the spot—too far away to help but close enough to forever sear her pain into his memory.
Miss Gibson tackled Mrs. Reed, and thankfully Miss Pelton had the presence of mind to yank out the syringe.
Seeing it half-depressed brought Nora’s horrifying words into focus. Whatever was in it was meant to kill, and Ma had just taken the brunt of the dose.
“Don’t move, Helen Reed, Ursula Eckman, or whatever name you used to procure this job.” Detective Hall directed his gun at the woman struggling beneath Miss Gibson’s knee to the back.
Ma rolled off Nora to lie on the floor. Her whimper propelled Ezekiel to race his heartbeat across the short distance and gather Ma into his arms.
Nora leaned against him and clutched his sleeve. “No. This isn’t right. That dose was meant for me and—” She gasped and looked at him with rounded eyes. “Mum. She had another one for Mum.”
Miss Plane took Nora’s hand and called for Nurse Abbott amidst the chaos that had claimed the room.
The dear woman abandoned the attendants calming the two patients in the back and rushed to them with hands fluttering. “What can I do?”
“Mrs. Reed sent Nurse Ingram with another syringe for my mum! You have to stop her!”
Nurse Abbott didn’t hesitate but took off at a run with Miss Plane close behind.
“Please, God, don’t let them be too late.” Nora turned back to Ezekiel, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Your mum didn’t get the full dose, so she has to be okay. Right?”
He had no words. No hopeful assurances. How could he when he’d been here before, cradling a dying Ma in his arms?
He should know how to save her, or even what to say to her.
But he was just as helpless as before. No.
More so. For he had no idea what was taking Ma from him or if there was any hope of recovery.
Ma’s agonizing cry quieted into an odd euphoria that left her smiling at him.
Really smiling at him, like melancholia had never robbed them of the treasured bond they’d once had.
Her glassy eyes looked peculiar, and it took a few seconds to realize her pupils had shrunk to pinpoints.
For several minutes, she mumbled sweet pleasantries about him and Nora, making predictions of a happy future and her hope to see it all.
It would have been wonderful were it not so out of character for her.
Death was a cruel tormentor, offering him a picture of everything he wanted yet drawing the flame of destruction ever nearer to its edge.
All too soon, Ma was nodding off in the middle of sentences, then words.
She moved from relaxed to limp in his arms. Her skin turned pale and clammy, her breaths slow and shallow.
Was this it? After all he’d been through, all he’d done to fight for a future with her in it, was he to lose her now? Here in this place of chaos and fear?
Somehow Ma revived enough to take Nora’s hand and move it atop Ezekiel’s. A single breath, a single word was all she had. “Yoke.”
Then her eyes closed, and she lay still.
He looked to Nora. Surely he’d heard wrong. “Did she say yoke?”
Nora nodded and then immediately burst into sobs.
He couldn’t latch on to why that word was so important. He couldn’t breathe, let alone think.
Orderlies rushed into the room with a stretcher.
Though he was there, being jostled by their movements as they lifted Ma from him, it was as if another person experienced it.
He saw her still form laid out on the canvas and rushed from the room, but he couldn’t feel anything.
Just a hollow emptiness as his mind failed to work.
He should stand. Go where they were taking her.
But as the chaos rumbled around him he could do nothing.
He just sat there with empty arms and Nora leaning against him, sobbing like they’d said their last goodbye.
Had they? Was Ma really gone forever and he hadn’t even told her one more time that he loved her?