Free Silence for the Dead by Simone St. James Page A

knocked,” said a voice.
    Unlike the other men’s rooms, this one had a large window, dark now, looking out over the vista of trees and marshes behind Portis House. I could see the low humps of soft hills rolling away into blackness that must be the ocean.
    The curtains were tied back from the window, framing a narrow alcove. A man sat there, visible only in silhouette, his knees drawn up, looking out the window at the darkness.
    The sound of the voice jolted me from my strange, exhausted reverie. It was familiar in some impossible way, the sound resonating in my brain like an itch. “I came for your dishes,” I said.
    â€œDid you?” Again, the familiarity stunned me; I tried to place the voice. He sounded as if he cared not at all. “I left them on the dressing table.” He glanced at me only briefly, his face in shadow, before turning back to the window.
    I took a step into the room. From the shape of him, he looked like a normal man—all legs and arms present, no fits or shakes. His wrists were draped over his drawn-up knees, his back pressed to the wall of the window seat. I saw an outline of hair, tidy and short. His body was big but lithe, curled with the thoughtless ease of an athlete, his large bare feet on the ledge. I knew I had been picturing some kind of monster—deformed, perhaps, unrecognizable, like the ones Ally had described.
Better off dead,
she’d said of them.
    But now I knew that made no sense. No patient would require
clearance
for a set of injuries, no matter how awful.
A confidential case,
Boney had said. It was something to do, then, with the man himself.
    Someone important. Someone secret. Someone no one was supposed to know was here, in a madhouse. And I knew that voice.
    He was still looking out the window; he seemed to have forgotten me, lost in whatever he was contemplating. I walked to the dressing table and looked at the tray. He had arranged the emptied dishes in a tidy stack, centered for easy balance, the cup placed in the middle of the empty bowl. Considerate, then. I couldn’t ask him who he was, why he was here. Once Matron found out what I’d done, how I’d lied and broken the rules, I’d never be allowed in this room again. But there was nothing to do but obey, take away the dishes like the servant I was, and leave.
    I had raised my hands, nearly touched the edges of the tray, when he spoke again.
    â€œNice weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
    I looked up. He had turned toward me now, squaring his shoulders in my direction. He slid one elbow over and crooked it on his knee, the better to see me. At this angle the lamplight fell more fully on his face; I saw dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a sharp, shadowed jaw. His eyes on me were kind, and as I watched, he tried a tentative smile on his lips, as if it were costing him a great effort.
    I dropped my hands. He must have heard my intake of breath, for his smile slowly faded.
    â€œMy God,” I said, “it’s you.”
    The smile nearly disappeared, just the last remnants of it touching the corners of his mouth. His eyes narrowed and he looked at me more closely.
    I walked toward him, staring at his face. It was all there now, every one of his features burned into my brain, familiar from the dozens of times I’d seen them everywhere—the magazines, the newspapers, the newsreels. His voice familiar from the one unforgettable time I’d heard it. The dark curling hair, the blue eyes under winged brows, the high cheekbones, the elegant jaw now covered in second-day stubble. Though I’d never seen him close up and in person, I could see now that the photographs, the films that made him look so handsome to hundreds of poor, stupid factory girls like me—none of them had lied.
    â€œOh, God,” I said, unable to help myself, “you’re Jack Yates.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    W hen I said his name, the expression in the man’s eyes dimmed