Free The Arcanum by Thomas Wheeler

police officers stationed at the front stoop.
    After an hour’s wait, a gorilla-sized orderly with a sprout of wispy hair on his pointed head led Doyle down a set of stairs. A smooth club hung from the orderly’s belt. It looked well used.
    “Ten minutes. No more,” the orderly grunted as they descended to the basement level.
    Doyle felt a chill scuttle up his back. He did not like this place. He could feel his hands dampen through his leather gloves.
    The orderly pulled open the door at the bottom of the stairs and a sickening waft of urine and ammonia stung Doyle’s nostrils.
    IT IS 1869. Ten-year-old Arthur struggles to be brave. There
are no electric lights in this corridor, only the fire of lanterns. He
has never smelled anything like this place. It is what Hell must
smell like. He looks down at his untied shoes. Papa will be upset
if he sees. As Doyle kneels down to tie his shoes, voices call to him
on both sides. They say foul words. They spit. They scream.
Doyle’s bottom lip vibrates, but he will not cry. He will not
cry . . .
    STILL FOLLOWING THE orderly, Doyle stepped into the corridor. The intermittent electric light gave it a ghostly hue. Sounds bubbled up: gentle laughter, weeping, frantic whispers, barks, shouts, blabbering screams, gibberish. All at once, bodies slammed into steel doors. Wide, staring eyes rolled in their sockets, struggling to glimpse Doyle through the tiny slats at the top of their doors. A lunatic symphony deafened him. His breathing quickened. The gorilla orderly, a few steps ahead, loosened the club from his belt. Everywhere, Doyle saw chattering mouths of yellow teeth, or bloodshot, glaring eyes. The sounds, the sights, reeked of desperation.
    “Shaddup! Shaddup!” The orderly rapped his club on the door slats, sending the prisoners skittering away.
    “Fuck you, motherfucker—”
    “I hear Jesus—”
    “They’re in my mind—”
    “I fuck you! I fuck you!”
    Doyle winced.
    DOYLE STANDS SHAKING outside a cage door. He is dressed in
his church clothes and carries a single flower. A blue-capped
guard with a long face and a longer beard scrapes a key in the
lock. The door creaks as it opens. Doyle wants to run but his legs
won’t move. It is even darker inside the cell. A man moves from
where he sits on the edge of a wooden cot nailed into the floor. His
dirty bare foot pushes a slimy bedpan aside. He turns, embarrassed, to young Doyle. His face is unshaven.
    Doyle raises his arm, presents the flower. “Hello, Papa.”
    His father’s smile looks like a frown. His face, cheeks, and eyelids move on their own. He gestures hesitantly to some sketches
leaning against the wall.
    “I drew ye some pictures, Arthur.”
    The sketches are of woodland scenes: nymphs and faeries atop
pebbles in streams; pixies peaking out from between rose petals.
    “Don’ stan’ there like a fool, boy. C’mere, then.”
    Doyle swallows and steps inside the cage, and it slams shut with
a thunderous clang.
    THEY STOOD OUTSIDE the quietest cell on the block. The madness quieted, giving way to a milder din of muttering and weeping. Keys slid into the lock. The door groaned wide. Doyle took a deep breath and entered the cell.
    Six delicate bands of light squeezed through a six-barred window, set twelve feet up the wall. Doyle could make out a curled body huddled at the end of an army cot. The door shut behind him. Again, the crawling silence. For all he knew, Lovecraft was dead, the body was so still.
    Doyle whispered, “Howard?”
    The body did not stir.
    “Howard, it’s Arthur. I’m here.”
    Still nothing. Doyle tried not to think of what the conditions in the asylum would do to Lovecraft’s particular mental framework. The cells looked like they had never been cleaned. If Lovecraft had not been mad when he entered, surely he was now.
    “Howard, I brought you something. I thought you might . . .” Doyle took a pair of clean white dress gloves from his jacket pocket. “Gloves, Howard. I know