It is dark outside the high barred windows before I venture in with the others. Dinner had been served not long before and is still sitting out on the wide oak serving table. I grab a roll and pick, uninterested in it yet knowing I should eat. Many of the girls have retreated back to their rooms already, so the common room is mostly deserted. Louis sits in one of the corners, leaning back in a chair, feet propped up on the table in front of him, reading the St Louis Dispatch. The second attendant, most likely to be Samuel, is nowhere to be seen. I wonder briefly if Gypsi has him locked in her room. Van Buren had no doubt left long before, so the good behavior they exercised during the day was no longer applicable. I'd heard Mr. Lawson was taking over the night ward, but I had not yet seen him to confirm the rumor.
Someone had donated a piano to the hospital, and it is there that I find Stacie, rocking back and forth in time to the melody she is playing. Her fair blond hair falls only to her shoulders, barely brushing them as she moves. A small oil lamp sputters atop the piano's lid, casting her tiny features in an ever-changing glow.
"What are you playing?" I ask, sitting on the worn bench beside her.
"Chopin's Nocturne's. This one is Opus 27 number two, D major," she says it as though it should be obvious, but then looks towards me and smiles, her lithe fingers never faltering on the ivory keys. "It helps me sleep. Soothing I guess. My mom used to play."
It is indeed calming, the notes filling my head, and I find myself wishing I knew how to make something so beautiful. I thought she might elaborate upon her mother, but she doesn't, and I don't ask. Instead I sit in fascinated silence as she ends the piece and begins another.
The footsteps fall in time with Stacie's, which tap out the rhythm she plays by, so well that at first I do not notice them until they are quite close. A hand on my shoulder gives me a start, and I turned to see Tammany looking down upon my face. He smiles, slow and deliberate. It gives me a chill.
"Lights out in twenty minutes, girls."
Stacie's fingers, so light just moments before, come down hard in an abrupt stop. She gives a short, frustrated sigh, shoots Tammany a buggered look, and stands to leave. I sit there only a moment longer, then follow Stacie to the double doors, our slippered feet barely making a noise on the cold marble floor. As I reach the doors I hesitate, though I can't say why, and look back.
Tammany and Louis are in conversation, and I turn away quickly when Tammany's gaze lifts to mine, my cheeks already beginning to burn.
{}
I didn't know what time it was when I was woken, or how long I had been sleep, but the moon is high in the cold winter sky. I lay there, somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, staring blankly out the window, the frost accumulating at its edges looking like far-off stars all bunched together.
I thought I caught a small movement out of the corner of my eye in the deepest shadow of the room, but when I turn my head to see there is nothing. Just the inky blackness and the chill. I am tired but restless, so I lay staring at the ceiling, where my eyes and the moon can't play any more tricks on me.
