A Feast Of Souls: A Dark Paranormal Romance

Chapter 29: The Mechanism of Madness

'What do you mean, Doctor?' Daniel asks.

The Doctor sighs and brushes at a speck of fluff on lapel of his coat. 'Miss Darby has been in a state of severe distress ever since she was brought here. I was even in the process of authorising sedation as you arrived, as no restraint or reasoning has calmed her. Your presence, however, Miss Elmes, has done just what the pharmaceutical intervention would have achieved, albeit of course, without rendering her unconscious.'

I glance at Daniel. 'Well, I would certainly not wish to render anyone unconscious, not when we have travelled all this way. Does this mean we can see her?'

'I will allow it,' the Doctor replies, gesturing us to enter.

Inside the high-ceiling foyer, the interior of the hospital is certainly far less charming than the exterior. A distinct tang of chemicals hangs in the air, an attempt to mask the stench of urine and worse that pervades even the hallway. The inside is as cool grey as Dr. Oliver's eyes and just as unwelcoming. Somewhere, a violin plays, no doubt to soothe and entertain the patients with music, but the sound is strange and discombobulated as it echoes through the building and makes my skin prickle with foreboding.

We follow the Doctor along the hall, my heels clicking against the wooden floors. Signs marking the segregated male and female wards hang either side, but Dr. Oliver leads us past these and continues until we reach a staircase leading downwards. The stench grows heavier as we descend, and I must retrieve my handkerchief to cover my nose. Even Otto of Roses cannot douse the foul odour that sticks to the walls like glue.

A corridor at the bottom of the staircase, dimly lit, stretches ahead. Closed doors line either side and as we pass them, I can hear the sounds of the asylum creeping out from the cracks underneath – moans, laughter, an incessant babbling of voices, and on occasion, muffled screams. Daniel lingers close to me, for his own benefit or my own, I know not, but I am glad for his comforting presence. My hand brushes his a few times, a whisper of connection that is sorely needed.

'Doctor, why are these patients housed in the basement?' I ask, trying not to cough as I remove the handkerchief just enough to ensure my words can be heard.

'These patients, Miss Elmes, cannot be housed with the rest of the inmate population,' he says, talking without looking back or stopping. 'Some are particularly violent and pose a threat to themselves and others. Some are disruptive to the congenial atmosphere we work hard to cultivate on the wards upstairs. Shelton Hospital is about rehabilitation. Patients take on employment, some working in the garden, or through carpentry and bricklaying. The female patients work in the kitchen or laundry room. We find it helps them to find a focus, a way back to rational thought. It promotes cure and comfort. The patients down here, however, have proved unable to rehabilitate. They are only focused on disorder and tumult. They have to be separated to ensure the smooth and cohesive mechanism of the asylum.'

'And Miss Darby is considered to be a patient focused on disorder and tumult? How can one make that assumption when she has only very recently been admitted?'

The Doctor stops abruptly and turns to face us. Shadows make his face look thinner, his eyes blacker.

'Miss Elmes, I understand that for a lady such as yourself, it must be hard to understand the dark complexities of the human mind for I am sure you have never had to witness the horrors it can contain. Madness is contagious and I do not mean contagious like a disease. The very idea of madness is contagious and once that idea is released into the mainstream population of a place like Shelton, it spreads. First one person, then the next, and the next. What once was a serene and calm place of rehabilitation, soon becomes chaos and bedlam. We cannot have chaos and bedlam, Miss Elmes. I will not allow it.'