Skip to content

Proserpina

#9430, from the orderly’s sloppy logbook. Proserpina tiptoes to slide open the viewing slot, and inside, Madeleine Havisham twitches back in reflexive fear.

“Ma’am,” she whispers, “it’s us.”

Miss Havisham says nothing–this isn’t her first hallucination, in here–but leans closer.

From down the corridor, Emily-Jane gives a pigeon’s whistle: at school, it would mean a teacher approaching. Radiane’s throat is pounding. “Can we circle back?” she hisses.

The door is double-bolted and bound with steel. Proserpina looks at it, thinking of filmstrips, of her father, of six boards placed in a stack.

She draws back her fist.