Free The Fall of Never by Ronald Malfi

canopied bed; the pink silk drapes; the hand-carved hope chest with the heart-shaped keyhole; the cavalcade of stuffed animals at the foot of her dresser, around her bed, around the perimeter of the room itself. Against the opposite wall hung a full-length mirror. Both Kildare and herself were reflected in it, and she nearly broke out into a strangled laugh when she saw the mismatched image: this dark, pierced young girl from the pit of New York City standing beside this double-breasted suit, this eagle-like man with narrow little eyes and deliberate speech.
    I’m surprised he has a reflection at all, she thought, still fighting back a grin.
    Her bag was already on the bed, the black canvas looking so out-of-place in this pink pastel wonderland, like a sour bruise on the face of a beautiful child.
    “As I’m sure you remember,” Kildare the Eagle-Man said, motioning toward the closed door beside the bed, “there is the adjoining bathroom. You can freshen up there. You are familiar with the kitchen?”
    “I can find my way,” she said.
    Kildare did not offer any more information. He stepped out into the hallway and pulled the bedroom door closed behind him. Kelly listened to his footfalls recede down the corridor until they vanished.
    This is the bedroom of Little Kelly Kellow, the sweet little thing. See how everything is so perfectly preserved? Nothing has been touched since the day the little dear went away to the nuthouse.
    She went to the maple armoire, opened it. A small mirror hung on the back of one of the doors, and the interior of the armoire was stuffed with a selection of small dresses in a variety of muted colors. It felt odd staring at them, as if she’d somehow invaded some stranger’s room, some stranger’s life, and was here to take it away.
    No—you can keep this life. I want nothing to do with it.
    Before venturing back into the hallway, she washed her face and hands in the connecting bathroom and tied her hair back with an elastic band. The upstairs hallway was silent and cloaked in shadows, each door to every room closed. Like secrets , she thought. Remembering correctly, Becky’s bedroom was the one opposite her own, and her parents would be asleep on the third floor. She went to Becky’s door, touched the brass knob, jiggled it. It was locked. Looking down, she could see a soft blue light pulsing beneath the door, as if someone had left a television on inside. Moonlight?
    Lightly, she tapped her fingernails on the door. “Becky? Beck?”
    My God , she realized , I don’t even know what to call you .
    She watched as the blue light beneath the door slowly faded, but no one answered her.
    In the kitchen, Glenda Banczyk was hunched over the stove boiling a pot of water. She was a meaty, compact woman who now must have been in her mid-sixties. Kelly barely recalled the days of her youth when Glenda had moved around the compound in a starched white uniform (per regulation), her graying hair tied up in a bun (also per regulation), her thick arms laden with laundry. In those days, Kelly had recognized an almost admirable attractiveness in the woman, as if she had been destined to be beautiful if only she’d followed a different path. But she had always been kind, and that was what Kelly remembered most of all.
    Kelly entered the kitchen and paused by the table, watching the old housekeeper work with her back toward her. Glenda went to the refrigerator, grabbed several eggs, and dipped them one by one into the pot of boiling water. Still wearing the white uniform, the woman seemed to be caught in an inescapable time warp. She caught Kelly out of the corner of her eye and turned around, beaming.
    “Kelly!” She moved to her, hugged her warmly, then held her out at arm’s length for a full examination. “Oh, honey, you’ve grown up!”
    “Hello.”
    “Yes!”
    “You look good. How’ve you been?”
    “Good-good-good, healthy as a horse,” the woman said. Her face was fuller than Kelly