Books: Ghosts of Roswood Asylum by Stephen Prosapio

Prologue

 

July 4, 1900

Amelia Lovecroft continued to pretend that the evening’s firework show was important to her. Other girls her age were likely eager for the festivities—busying themselves with trivial affairs, such as wondering if their hair ribbons matched their dresses, or if their mothers might let them finally wear a corset. Those issues didn’t matter to Amelia. At least today they didn’t. At dusk, Amelia was supposed to rendezvous with Boy.

She looked out the window from the administrative building of Rosewood Hospital. Her mother, still wearing black since Father had died, worked at Rosewood as a nurse. Amelia didn’t understand how the patients were sick—they didn’t look sick. She saw them strolling through the gardens from time to time, but Mother said those weren’t the really troubled ones.

“Mother, these clouds won’t hide the fireworks will they?” Amelia said looking skyward with a frown.

“Well aren’t you the little patriot? A girl your age so interested in celebrating our country’s birthday.”

“Tell me, Mother!”

“Don’t be getting your head full of bees,” Mother said. “You know I’ll answer by the by.”

Mother had been in a foul mood all afternoon. Despite the Independence Day holiday, she had been tasked to stencil room numbers onto small placards. Mother had taken offense and had groused to the doctor in charge, Dr. Johansson, that she was not a maid.

She set down room number 217 on the table and looked out the window. “Perhaps the clouds will drop, but I’d be surprised if they obscure the fireworks.”

Amelia made a gleeful clap that caused her mother to smile. But her real worry was that she would miss Boy. She only saw him at Rosewood and only during twilight hours. Last time, he had promised they would see each other more often. She edged toward the door.

“Hallo, where are you going?”

“May I walk?” Amelia held her breath as Mother produced a timepiece from her pocket and examined it.

“Well, the patients are locked in their quarters,” she said. “But I want you returning before it’s fully dark.”

Amelia bolted for the door.

“And stay out of the dirt,” Mother called after her. “I don’t want you looking all a ragamuffin tonight.”

“Yes ma’am.” She passed through the doorway and rushed down the garden path toward the pond. Lined with heavenly white roses, lilies and carnations that blocked her view on both sides, they exuded a heavy floral scent that made Amelia feel a bit giddy.

“Boy? Are you here, Boy?” Amelia called out. She had reached their meeting point out beyond the gardens. “Boy?”

He’d never told her his name. At first she thought it a secret, but once when she had asked, it seemed as though he himself could not recall it. Amelia thought that very odd, but Mother always said, “Keep your breath to cool your porridge. Others can manage their affairs without the help of a meddlesome girl.”

Amelia did not want to be rude to Boy, so she had not broached the topic again.

She ventured off the path and nearer the tree line—the woods which walled in the hospital’s eastern border. So as not to soil her dress, she stepped carefully. “Boy?”

“I’m here.”

She whirled about. There he was, standing in the path from whence she’d just come.

“How do you do that, Boy?”

“Never you mind,” he said with a smile.

Boy was near her age, perhaps a year or two younger, but he could do things that Amelia only wished she could do. He always seemed to know when an adult was nearby and how to navigate through the bushes and trees to avoid discovery so that they could explore on their own.

“Let’s walk in the woods,” he said.

“But I mustn’t get dirty tonight.”

Boy shuffled ahead of her. He took his steps gingerly as though both of his feet were painful to walk on. Boy’s clothes were not ragged, but they looked old-fashioned. His hair was cut short, in a way she had seen in old-time photographs. Amelia followed him.

“Boy, is it your mother or your father who works here at Rosewood?”

He grabbed for the green sprig of a plant, but it didn’t move. “No. Neither.”

Amelia focused on Boy as she followed him deeper into the woods, but she soon noticed her inattention to the path had caused her to step in a tiny puddle of mud. Her shoe would come clean, but she’d also soiled her hemline. Mother would almost certainly scold her. Boy continued to limp ahead of her on the path. Rather than try and clean her dress, she scampered after him.

“If neither works here, then why do you come?”

“I’m looking for helpers.”

“To help you with what?” she called out.

He turned and faced her. There was something about his expression, or perhaps the look in his eyes, that made him appear older and certainly less innocent. “I’m different.”

“Oh, I know,” she said.

Amelia tried to act nonchalant. She swatted at the branch of a sapling and pretended not to pay Boy any attention, but she could feel him staring at her. Her stomach quivered with an unusual excitement and she could no longer contain her curiosity. “How did you get this way?”

His voice came out deeper. “I did something special that made me this way.”

Boy smiled and gazed into her eyes. It made her feel lightheaded—not dizzy but tingly. Amelia had seen older girls act silly and scatterbrained around boys, but she was determined not to let that happen to her.

“Would you like to be special too?” he asked.

“What did you do, Boy?”

Before he could answer, a howl arose from somewhere further down the path that could not have been made by mere wind. Its tone changed, and the shrill pitch hurt Amelia’s ears. She plugged them with her fingertips. Above her, the treetops swayed mightily.

The noise stopped and the air became icy cold, prickly against Amelia’s skin in contrast to the warm July evening.

“No,” Boy said, looking up into the tree branches, “this is my place.”

Just off the path from where Amelia and Boy stood, a hazy vapor began to form. Amelia blinked, as she saw it change from a swirling outline of smoke and light into the shape of a young woman with delicate features. Her shoulder-length blonde hair fluttered in the breeze, looking every bit as real as Amelia’s own curly hair.

“My place,” he repeated at the woman.

“It is not your place,” the woman said. Her stern voice contained an odd echoic quality.

Amelia trusted Boy to protect her and she took a few steps toward him, shivering. He remained motionless. His face expressed both petulance and fear.

“Boy,” Amelia whispered, “who is she?” Her knees trembled but her feet felt locked to the path beside him.

“I’m not strong enough yet,” Boy said to her. “Go. I’ll find you.”

Amelia looked back at the woman. Her beautiful complexion began to transform into charred, black flesh.  Her shimmering hair burned away leaving ragged, uneven stalks. Clumps of it peeled from her skull. Her dress smoldered. Amelia smelled the rank odor of soot.

The woman pointed a blackened finger at Amelia, who stood rigid with fright. “Get away from this place.”

“B-but I c-can’t…” Amelia stammered.

“Get away!”

Amelia desperately wanted to run, but how could she desert Boy? And her legs still wouldn’t move. This feeling reminded her of the day Father died. When Amelia had heard the news, she’d felt woozy and unbalanced, yet frozen. The doctor had called it shock. She hadn’t been able to feel anything, even sadness, until the next day. But this kind of shock was already wearing off. The numbness being replaced by something worse; something both electrifying and foul. She remained frozen, but her insides felt like everything was trembling.

“Well then,” the woman said, her lips forming a sardonic grin, “you can watch what I do to him.”

Boy flinched at the woman’s words, but held his ground.

Slowly the woman evaporated back into a swirling mist. White plumes silently swept toward Boy. Upon contact with his skin, the mist, or Boy’s flesh, sizzled. His mouth opened emitting a noise that seemed to be comprised of many cries. Amelia once again found herself forcefully plugging her ears. It was as if his throat contained a dozen discordant voices. Amelia had learned about hell in church, but she had never conceived of tortured wails so disturbing. Screams that must have originated someplace far away from Pullman, Illinois.

Boy’s mouth seemed to stretch and pull as the wails continued to escape. Then they stopped. Boy was gone.

In the place where he’d stood, the woman’s apparition reappeared. Her charred face scowled. Black sockets stared out where eyes had once been.

“Do you wish to be next?”

Amelia turned back toward Rosewood and began running, not caring about soiling her shoes or dress. As she ran, she could sense the woman approaching silently from behind. She inhaled deeply. “Mamma, help! Help me!”

Amelia reached the tree line, but fell. Above her, a cold mist swirled about kicking up dirt and mud onto her dress. Would the ghastly woman do to her what she’d done to Boy?

Lightheaded, Amelia struggled to regain her footing. She attempted another step toward safety, but it was no use. The charred woman now blocked her way.

Alone on a desolate path, Amelia Lovecroft blacked out.