“Well, that’s her problem.” Henry swiped his stick through the grass. “I heard we’re going to get a new one tomorrow. I hope they’re not going to be put in our room. They’d need to add a new bed, and there’s no space as it is.”

  Leanne didn’t mind having more bodies sharing their bedroom. At night, when she lay awake, the gentle breathing and rustling of sheets was a comfort. More than anything, she was afraid of being alone, especially when the thudding cane passed along the hallway.

  The bell chimed, deep, angry booms that seemed to jangle her bones and ring through her skull. Leanne looked towards the tree line. Jayne was out of sight.

  “She’s going to be in trouble,” she repeated and turned to run after Henry as he beckoned her towards the door.

  Children emerged from all areas of the yard, some brushing grass out of their clothes, others tossing aside sticks and woven toys that were not allowed inside. Patience stood at the door, her back ramrod straight, ringing the bell with steady, long pulls of the rope. Leanne fell to a walk as she filed up the steps. Running was not permitted in Bellamy.

  As she passed Patience, she looked over her shoulder. Jayne still had not emerged from the forest. Leanne frowned. She couldn’t have gone that far.

  The last child passed through the door. Patience stood in the opening a moment longer, her milky eyes scanning the gathered children. One long arm extended, indicating towards the stairs in a silent instruction to wash and prepare for bed.

  As Leanne climbed towards their rooms, she heard the doors to the yard close and lock with a heavy click. She looked back. She didn’t see Jayne. Patience stared at the closed doors, her hands clasped on top of her cane, the knobby knuckles pale in the dim light.

  * * *

  Leanne stepped back from the glass, letting her hand fall to her side. She didn’t remember what had happened to Jayne, whether the girl had knocked to be let in, or whether she had been subjected to a punishment. She shook her head. It seemed like something she should remember.

  She remembered the new girl who had arrived the following day, though. A tiny mousy thing with drooping cheeks. As Henry had worried, she’d been put into their bedroom. But they hadn’t needed to add an extra bed. There had been one empty and waiting.

  “Jayne’s bed?” Her lips formed the words, but no sound left. Leanne’s throat was dry.

  She turned to face the desks. She could picture her schoolmates. Leanne raised a hand and pointed at each desk as she called out their names. “Helen. Poppy. James. Susan. No—that’s not right. Paul sat at that desk.”

  She approached it and ran her fingertips across the wood surface. Paul had sat there. But so had Susan. She’d taken his place once he’d left. “Left to where?”

  Bellamy was a children’s asylum. It was never intended to be a permanent home. Parents would reclaim the children they had been forced to give up. New families would adopt in an effort to give them a better life. Any unclaimed children would be sent out to find work and their own home once they were old enough. But, as Leanne stared at Paul’s desk, she couldn’t remember why he had left.

  She couldn’t remember why any of them had left. There had been no scenes of children greeting long-lost relatives. No families had ever been allowed into the home to adopt. There had never been any talk of jobs or leaving. Her last memory of Paul involved him sitting at that very desk.

  * * *

  The cane clicked on the hardwood floor as Patience approached. She paced along that hallway ceaselessly during their studies, watching over all of them.

  Leanne could hear the cane coming well before it arrived. It was like a screw in her back, winding her tighter and tighter the nearer it came. She kept her head down, pretending to read a passage on European history in the tattered book she and Henry shared. If she kept still, the cane would pass, the way it always did, and she could breathe freely for another few minutes.

  A cackling laugh came from two desks to her right. Paul clamped his hands over his mouth, his shoulders shaking. His desk-mate had doodled an image into their workbook. Leanne craned her neck. The drawing depicted Patience; the dark cane was unmistakable. But in this image, Patience’s head rolled on the floor.

  The tapping was almost upon them. Leanne put her head back down, feigning focus on her book, but through her peripheral vision, she watched Paul. He rushed to flip the page, to hide the crude drawing, but mirth had him in its grip. His back shook, his eyes watered. Both hands were pressed across his mouth as he fought the cackling laughter that wanted to escape.

  Patience’s tall frame moved into the doorway. Her black hair nearly reached the ceiling. Her shoulders blocked Leanne’s view of the hallway beyond. The cane clicked a final time as it was set down in front of her. She stared into the room, her face an expressionless mask.

  Paul was trembling. He hunched, head nearly touching the desk. Leanne’s stomach turned cold and sick. She stayed so still that her muscles began to ache. There was not a single noise in the rest of the room, not even a drawn breath.

  Then a whining giggle escaped between Paul’s fingers. Patience lifted her cane. She slammed it into the floor. The single ringing thud made Leanne jolt. Then one of her white-knuckled hands left the wood. It rose and pointed towards Paul, then the fingers turned and beckoned.

  Paul was no longer laughing. He kept his hands clamped over his mouth, below two wide, frightened eyes. He turned to look at the rest of them in a silent question, a request for help. They didn’t move, not even to raise their heads. Paul finally dropped his hands away from his mouth. His lips had turned white. He stood and slowly, unsteadily walked towards Patience.

  His desk-mate reached towards him then thought better of it, putting his head back down. Patience turned and wordlessly began walking along the hallway. Paul sent them one final plaintive look, then followed.

  * * *

  “Oh.” Leanne pressed her hand to her throat. She remembered now. She recalled listening to Patience’s cane as she left the study hallway and took Paul deeper into Bellamy, beyond where Leanne could hear them. Paul had not returned. The next day, a new girl took his seat.

  The boy who had sat beside him—the one who had drawn the image that had made Paul laugh—had become withdrawn after that. He’d no longer made jokes or spoken during their meals. He hadn’t done much except sit in the grass during their hours outside. Five days later, his desk was empty, as well.

  Leanne backed towards the door. She’d forgotten all of that. And it hadn’t just been them. There had been others. Her eyes darted across the desks, lips moving to form the names. Stevie, Laura, Mary… She’d met them all during her first day at Bellamy, but a month later, they were gone. Richie had left his bed to go to the bathroom late one night and not returned. Harriett had been sent to fetch more soap while they were washing the windows one afternoon, but they had finished the job without it. Neil was playing a game of tag outside and did not return for the bell. There were so many missing children. Too many. All gone without a whisper.

  “How could I forget?”

  She knew how—because she had tried to forget. After leaving Bellamy, she had done everything in her power to excise it from her mind. She thought if she could forget, the dreams would stop, as well.

  Seeing the building brought it back. The acidic taste of fear that permeated the hallways. The urge to keep her back to a wall. The sense of dread that had come with the sound of that cane.

  Leanne was shaking. She wiped her hand across her forehead, feeling the cold sweat there. This visit had been planned to give her closure, to end the nightmares. But all it had done was re-open old wounds.

  “Henry.” She turned towards the end of the hallway. Behind a door, a set of stairs led to the third floor… and its bedrooms.

  Sick dread weighed her legs down. The shivering torchlight ran across the narrow walls and brass doorhandle as Leanne neared it. She didn’t want to see more. She didn’t want to remember more. But she had to. Without this last step, without knowing what had happened, she would never be able to rest.

  The handle, disused for thirty years, didn’t want to turn. Leanne fought with it. Her skin ached as it slipped on the metal, but then the latch screeched as it retracted and the door fell open.

  These stairs were chaos. They listed to the right then tilted back to the left. Some were shallow, others so narrow that Leanne had to balance on the balls of her feet. She pressed her hands to the walls for stability and felt the rotting wood sag under the pressure.

  Then, at the top, was the hallway she remembered so well. To the right was a row of doors. To the left, a wall filled with windows. At its end stood a heavy door made of grey wood that they were not allowed through.

  When she had been a child, gauzy curtains had framed the windows. They had been old even back then—relics from the wealthy family who had once lived in the building. The thin material billowed in even the lightest breeze, flowing across the narrow hallway and obscuring the door at its end. Some nights, when Leanne was forced to leave the safety of her bed to seek out a bathroom, she had thought she could see Patience standing in front of the door. Back straight, her dark dress blending into the grey wood behind. All that had been visible through the twisting curtains were her pallid face and milky eyes.

  Leanne pointed her torch along the hall’s length. The curtains were in scraps. Weathered threads still hung from the rods and spiralled in the disturbed air, but more of them lay across the floor, a layer of moth-eaten, decayed fabric that almost looked like soot.

  The windows were open, just like they had always been during Leanne’s stay there. Night air came through, warming the hall and helping fight off the chill that permeated the building. Leanne angled her torch towards the grey door. She remembered it being imposing, larger than any other door in Bellamy. Thick, a deep, worn grey, the door was one part of the house that hadn’t changed with an adult’s perspective. The dread in her stomach solidified at the sight of the barrier.

  Her bedroom had been two doors along. Leanne stepped over the rotted fabric, feeling stiff threads crumble from the first disturbance in decades. She reached her door and let her fingertips graze the surface. It was discoloured around the edge, caused by sweat from dozens of little hands pulling the wood open and shut multiple times a day. The doors did not have handles or locks. She pushed on the wood and let it fall open.

  Eight beds had been fit into the small area inside. Children’s sized. The mattresses, quilts, and pillows were all decayed, rotting through the frame. Too much moisture had come through the open windows, Leanne supposed.

  She recognised her own bed. She’d been lucky enough to have one under the window. On nights she couldn’t sleep, she’d risen onto her knees and watched the mist drift through the trees below.

  A toy rested beside the pillow: a small brown hand-stitched bear. Leanne didn’t recognise it. Once she had left, another girl had come to take her place, just as always happened in Bellamy.

  * * *

  “Leanne.”

  She’d been staring though the window, lost in thought, waiting for her mind to quiet enough to let her sleep. At Henry’s voice, she lowered herself back to her knees and turned to face him.

  He lay in the bed to her left, his hands folded under the pillow for warmth, his brown hair messy. His eyes glittered in the wash of moonlight.

  “What?” she whispered back. They weren’t supposed to talk after bedtime. She glanced towards the doorway, half expecting to hear the thuds of Patience’s cane.

  “I can’t sleep,” Henry said.

  She didn’t know what he expected her to do about that when she couldn’t sleep, either. “Try to count sheep.” It hadn’t worked for her, but it might for him. Around them, the other six children breathed slowly and deeply, absorbed in their dreams.

  Henry shuffled closer to the bed’s edge and lowered his voice even further. “Mike told me something earlier.”

  “What?”

  “He said Patience sometimes wakes children in the middle of the night. He said if they go with her, they don’t come back. He said it happened to Margo last night.”

  Margo slept in one of the other bedrooms. Leanne squinted through the shadows, trying to read Henry’s expression. She was sure he was trying to scare her.

  But, suddenly, she realised she didn’t remember whether Margo had been at breakfast that morning. And she hadn’t been in the kitchens, preparing lunch, or in the yard as they played in the evening.

  Gooseflesh rose over her arms. Leanne licked her lips, trying to find something to say. Henry wasn’t teasing her, she realised. He was looking for comfort. He was afraid.

  “We’ll be all right,” she whispered. “We can look after each other, okay? I won’t leave you.”

  * * *

  Leanne turned towards the bed Henry had slept in. Her throat tightened. Burning tears, growing quickly, spilt over her lower lids. She closed her eyes and took ragged breaths, waiting for the thundering of her heart to fade.

  The dreams came most nights. Henry sat alone in a dark room, his face pale and his eyes wide. He reached towards her. His voice was slow and distorted as he called to her. “Why did you leave me, Leanne?”

  Years of counselling. Bottles of sedatives. Meditation. Cognitive behavioural therapy. Hypnosis. Anti-depressants. Nothing could stop them. Nearly every night, she saw him, calling to her, begging her not to leave.

  Thirty years should have been enough to forget. She had forgotten everything else—the house’s layout, the children’s names, even the steady thud of Patience’s cane. It had taken this pilgrimage to bring all of that back. But she had not forgotten Henry or that she had left him to the house.

  Leanne folded her arms across her chest and took a deep breath. She turned slowly, surrounded by darkness, as the memory of Henry’s last night resurfaced. It had been eight months since their arrival at Bellamy. Of the six other children in their room, five had disappeared and been replaced.

  * * *

  Sleep evaded Leanne, as it often did. Facing the ceiling, hands laced over her stomach, she let her gaze trace the familiar patterns in the plaster above. She was physically exhausted, but her mind wouldn’t stop moving.

  She heard it. The creak of a door. Not one of the bedrooms. She had lived there long enough to be familiar with how they sounded. No, it was the grey door, the massive slab at the end of the hall, grinding open.

  The cane began to beat its path along the hallway. The heavy rhythmic thumping was accompanied by the muffled scrape of Patience’s steps. Drawing closer.

  Leanne held still, not even trusting herself to breathe. It wasn’t uncommon for Patience to roam the house late at night. As long as Leanne stayed quiet, Patience would pass their bedroom, and the cane would echo through the halls below for hours.

  In the bed to her left, Henry moved. He rolled over then sat up, rubbing his palm across his eyes as he stared at the door. Leanne wanted to tell him to lie back down, to fake sleep like she did, but she couldn’t risk making noise when Patience was so close.

  The cane stopped right outside their door. A lump grew in Leanne’s throat. She couldn’t see the door from where she lay, but she could see Henry, his eyes fogged with sleep and his mouth slack. He stared at the door, unflinching, as it creaked open. Then he pushed his blankets aside and lowered his feet over the edge of the bed.

  “No,” Leanne hissed.

  Henry didn’t respond. Instead, he dropped to the floor, his bare feet nearly silent as they hit the wood. He disappeared from her sphere of view as he walked towards the door. A second later, the cane’s rhythmic tapping returned. It led away, back along the hallway, towards the grey door. Heavy. Thumping. The beats matched her pulse. And then the grey door ground closed.

  Terror’s thrall broke. Leanne bolted upright, her heart thundering, one arm stretched out.

  The bedroom door was closed. Pale sunlight came through the window. Bodies began to stir around her as the children woke. A boy in the room’s corner stretched then rolled to his other side.

  It had been a nightmare. Leanne’s body was covered in cold sweat, nausea sticking in her throat. But it had just been a dream.

  She turned to check on Henry. His bed was empty. The panic redoubled. Leanne leapt up and ran for the door, bumping into the crowded cots as she passed them.

  The curtains swirled through the hall as a chilled early-morning breeze blew through the windows. Leanne looked to her right, towards the grey door. It was closed. She did not have the key for it. She turned left and ran for the bathroom. Sometimes Henry woke earlier than her and left to have the first bath. She beat on the doors, calling his name, but there was no answer.

  Leanne ran for the stairs. Her breaths were shallow and painful, her head buzzing, her feet turning numb from the chilled floor. She raced through the building, looking for Henry in all of his favourite haunts, but they were empty. She became lost. Eight months had been long enough to become familiar with the house but not long enough to understand it.

  She caught the quiet murmur of voices. Leanne slowed to a quiet walk, her lungs aching and heart knocking on her ribs. The voices came from one of the small rooms tucked into the back corners of the house. The door was open a fraction. Leanne approached it, moving silently, and put her eye to the crack.

  Grace sat at a desk. She leaned over the wood, one pale arm holding her up, head drooping and golden hair hanging in limp strands around her damp face. Patience loomed over her. The older woman had put her cane aside as she carried a small china teacup. Leanne saw her lips twitch as she spoke, but she didn’t hear any words. Patience placed the teacup on the desk at Grace’s side then straightened and turned sharply. Her milky eyes pierced through the gap in the door.

  Leanne jolted backwards, out of sight. She couldn’t run; her footsteps would give her away. But Patience would catch her if she stayed where she was.

 

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