The Deep Read online

  ALSO BY ALMA KATSU

  The Taker

  The Reckoning

  The Descent

  The Hunger

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Glasstown Entertainment LLC; and Alma Katsu

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  ISBN: 9780525537908

  ebook ISBN: 9780525537915

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  CONTENTS

  Also by Alma Katsu

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1916Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  1912Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  1916Chapter Eleven

  1912Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  1916Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  1912Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  1916Chapter Twenty-Four

  1912Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  1916Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  1912Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Diary of Lillian Notting

  1916Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Dedicated to the memory of the souls lost to the tragic sinkings of the Titanic and the Britannic

  For a moment, the falling feels like something else entirely—like a brief, wild glimpse of freedom.

  But the surface comes too soon, shattering against her skin—a pane of glass—knocking the air from her lungs. Or perhaps it is she who has shattered. She is no longer herself, no longer a single person but divided and adrift in the darkness. The burn in her lungs is too unbearable; her mind begins to soften to make room for the pain.

  Strange thoughts come to her through the cold: Here there is no beauty.

  This much is an unexpected relief.

  But the body wants what it wants: please, it begs. Her body begins to fight; her face seeks the sparse starlight above, already so far away. Someone once told her that the stars were merely sewing pins, holding the black sky up so that it did not come down on the world and suffocate it. Her brief calm gives way to panic. A powerful, unstoppable desire possesses her—it isn’t life calling to her, demanding another chance, but love. We all deserve a second chance. The thought seems to arise not from within her but around her, even as the currents pull her deeper, as a frigid fog entangles her mind.

  The surface is unfathomably high now, untouchable. The cold is everywhere, pushing, begging to be let in.

  I can give you another chance, the waters seem to say. I can make all of this go away if you let me.

  It is a promise. The waves are no longer pulling her down but holding her in their arms, waiting for her response.

  She opens her mouth at last. Water floods in, forming the answer.

  1916

  18 September 1916

  For the attention of the director

  Morninggate Asylum, Liverpool

  Dear Sir,

  I write in the hope that you may be of assistance in a very sensitive matter.

  My dear daughter, Annie, disappeared unexpectedly from our home in the little village of Ballintoy four years ago. My wife and I have been searching for her ever since. We have made inquiries of hospitals and convalescent facilities, as our daughter was in a distraught state when we last saw her and suffering from injury, perhaps of a more grievous nature than we thought at the time. We began with facilities close to us, in Belfast and Lisburn and Bangor, but when we failed to locate her, we worked our way out, eventually crossing the Irish Sea to Liverpool.

  We wrote to fifty-five hospitals in all. Having met with no luck, it was suggested that we might expand our inquiries to facilities such as your own. Since childhood, our Annie has always been extraordinarily sensitive to the emotions possessed by all members of her sex. These emotions, however, can be both a blessing and a curse: a woman without these qualities would be a cold, heartless thing indeed, but to be possessed of too much love is no kindness. As her father, I at times cannot help but wish there had been a way to temper this quality in my dear Annie.

  And so I write to you, kind sir, to inquire as to whether there might be a woman in your establishment matching my Annie’s description. She would be twenty-two years of age and stand five foot six inches tall. She is a shy, soft-spoken lass who can go a week without a word to anyone.

  I pray that you will be able to end our nightmare and return our Annie to us. Yes, in a word, she ran away from the home we provided for her, but we suspect that it is merely her own fear of censure that keeps her away. Please know, sir, that we are pursuing this matter outside the law in order to preserve Annie’s privacy and dignity. I pray we may count on your discretion. I imagine, in your position, you see a goodly number of women in situations like my Annie’s.

  She is our only daughter and, despite her frailties, her weaknesses, despite anything she may have done, we love her dearly. Tell her that her brothers pray nightly for her return and her room remains exactly as when she left it, in the hope that we will take her again in her family’s loving embrace.

  Yours respectfully,
>
  Jonathan Hebbley

  Ballintoy, Civil Parish, County Antrim, N. Ireland

  25 September 1916

  Morninggate Asylum, Liverpool

  Dear Mr. Hebbley,

  I received your touching letter concerning your daughter, Annie, Friday last week. While I am not unsympathetic to your tragic situation, I regret to say that I am unable to cooperate.

  The Lunacy Act of 1890 has wrought many changes in the legal constraints governing institutions such as Morninggate. The act has driven facilities to create hitherto unimagined internal policies, designed—in my opinion—to protect the institution against spurious legal claims rather than for the benefit of its patients. At Morninggate, these policies extend to safeguarding our patients’ privacy. It is for this reason that I must respectfully decline to answer. It is a matter, you see, of protecting the privacy of the afflicted, who often suffer greatly due to the general public’s prejudices against those with disorders of the nerves and mind.

  Please do not construe this reply as either affirmation or denial of knowledge of your daughter’s presence at Morninggate. As administrator of this institution, I am bound by law.

  Your servant,

  Nigel Davenport

  Physician and Director, Morninggate Asylum

  Byshore Mews, Liverpool, England

  Chapter One

  October 1916

  Morninggate Asylum

  Liverpool

  She is not mad.

  Annie Hebbley pokes her needle into the coarse gray linen, a soft color, like the feathers of the doves that entrap themselves in the chimneys here, fluttering and crying out, sometimes battering themselves to death in a vain effort to escape.

  She is not mad.

  Annie’s eyes follow the needle as it runs the length of the hem, weaving in and out of fabric. In and out. In and out. Sharp and shining and so precise.

  But there is something in her that is hospitable to madness.

  Annie has come to understand the erratic ways of the insane—the crying fits, incoherent babblings, violent flinging of hands and feet. There is, after days and weeks and years, a kind of comforting rhythm to them. But no, she is not one of them. Of that she is certain.

  Certain as the Lord and the Blessed Virgin, her da’ might once have said.

  There are a dozen female patients hunched over their sewing, making the room warm and stuffy despite the meagerness of the fire. Work is thought to be palliative to nervous disorders, so many of the inmates are given jobs, particularly those who are here due more to their own poverty than any ailment of mind or body. While most of the indigent are kept in workhouses, Annie has learned, quite a few find their way to asylums instead, if there are any empty beds to keep them. Not to mention the women of sin.

  Whatever their reasons for turning up at Morninggate, most of the women here are meek enough and bend themselves to the nurses’ direction. But there are a few of whom Annie is truly afraid.

  She pulls in tight to herself as she works, not wanting to brush up against them, unable to shake the suspicion that madness might pass from person to person like a disease. That it festers the way a fine mold grows inside a milk bottle left too long in the sun—undetectable at first but soon sour and corrupting, until all the milk is spoiled.

  Annie sits on a hard little stool in the needle room with her morning’s labor puddled in her lap, but it is the letter tucked inside her pocket that brushes up against her thoughts unwillingly, a glowing ember burning through the linen of her dress. Annie recognized the handwriting before she even saw the name on the envelope. She has reread it now at least a dozen times. In the dark cover of night, when no one is looking, she kisses it like a crucifix.

  As if drawn to the sin of Annie’s thoughts, a nurse materializes at her shoulder. Annie wonders how long she has been standing there, studying Annie. This one is new. She doesn’t know Annie yet—not well, anyway. They leave Annie to the late arrivals on staff, who haven’t yet learned to be frightened of her.

  “Anne, dear, Dr. Davenport would like to see you. I’m to escort you to his office.”

  Annie rises from her stool. None of the other women glance up from their sewing. The nurses never turn their backs to the patients of Morninggate, so Annie shuffles down the corridor, the nurse’s presence like a hot poker at her back. If Annie could get a moment alone, she would get rid of the letter. Stash it behind the drapes, tuck it under the carpet runner. She mustn’t let the doctor find it. Just thinking of it again sends a tingle of shame through her body.

  But she is never alone at Morninggate.

  In the dusty reflection of the hall windows they appear like two ghosts—Annie in her pale, dove-gray uniform, the nurse in her long cream skirt, apron, and wimple. Past a long series of closed doors, locked rooms, in which the afflicted mutter and wail.

  What do they scream about? What torments them so? For some, it was gin. Others were sent here by husbands, fathers, even brothers who don’t like the way their women think, don’t like that they are outspoken. But Annie shies away from learning the stories of the truly mad. There’s undoubtedly tragedy there, and Annie’s life has had enough sadness.

  The building itself is large and rambling, constructed in several stages from an old East India Company warehouse that shuttered in the 1840s. In the outdoor courtyard, where the women do their exercises in the mornings, the walls are streaked with sweat and spittle, smeared with dirty handprints and smudges of dried blood. Luckily the gaslights are kept low, for economy’s sake, giving the grime a pleasantly warm hue.

  They pass the men’s wing; sometimes, Annie can hear their voices through the wall, but today they’re quiet. The men and women are kept separate because some of the women suffer from a peculiar nervous disorder that makes their blood run hot. These women cannot abide the sight of a man, will break out in tremors, try to tear off their clothes, will chew through their own tongues and fall down convulsing.

  Or so they say. Annie has never seen it happen. They like to tell stories about the patients, particularly the female ones.

  But Annie is safe here, from the great big world. The world of men. And that is what matters. The small rooms, the narrow confines are not so different from the old cottage in Ballintoy, four tiny rooms, the roiling Irish Sea not twenty paces from her front door. Here, the air in the courtyard is ripe with the smell of ocean, too, though if it is close by, Annie cannot see it, has not seen it in four years.

  It is both a comfort and a curse. Some days, she wakes from nightmares of black water rushing into her open mouth, freezing her lungs to stone. The ocean is deep and unforgiving. Families in Ballintoy have lost fathers and brothers, sisters and daughters to the sea for as long as she can remember. She’s seen the water of the Atlantic Ocean choked with hundreds of bodies. More bodies than are buried in all of Ballintoy’s graveyard.

  And yet on other days, she wakes to find plaster beneath her fingernails where she has scratched at the walls, desperate to get out, to return to it. Her blood surges through her veins with the motion of the sea. She craves it.

  On the far side of the courtyard they enter the small vestibule that leads to the doctors’ private rooms. The nurse indicates that Annie should step aside as she knocks and then, at a command to enter, unlocks the door to Dr. Davenport’s office. He rises from behind his desk and gestures to a chair.

  Nigel Davenport is a young man. Annie likes him, has always felt he has the well-being of his patients in mind. She’s overheard the nurses talk about how difficult it is for the parish to get doctors to remain at the asylum. Their job is discouraging when so few patients respond to treatment. Plus, it’s far more lucrative to be a family doctor, setting bones and delivering babies. He is always nice to her, if formal. Whenever he sees her, he thinks about the incident with the dove. They all do. How she was found once cradling a dead bird in her
arms, cooing to it like a baby.

  She knows it wasn’t a baby. It was just a bird. It had fallen out of the flue, hit the hearth in a puff of loose feathers. Dirty, sooty bird, and yet beautiful in its way. She only wanted to hold it. To have something of her own to hold.

  He folds his hands and rests them on the desktop. She stares at his long fingers, the way they fold into one another. She wonders if they are strong hands. It is not the first time she has wondered this. “I heard you received another letter yesterday.”

  Her heart trembles inside her chest.

  “It is against our policy to intrude too much on our patients’ privacy, Annie. We don’t read patients’ mail, as they do at other homes. We are not like that here.” His smile is kind, but there is a slight furrow between his brows and Annie has the strangest urge to press her finger there, to smooth the soft flesh. But of course she would never. Voluntary touching is not allowed. “Here, you may show us only of your own free will. But you can see how these letters would be a matter of concern for us, don’t you?”

  His voice is gentle, encouraging, almost a physical caress in the stillness. Bait. She remains silent, as if to speak would be to touch him back. Perhaps if she doesn’t respond, he will stop pressing. Perhaps she will vanish into air if she is quiet enough. She used to play this game all the time in the vast fields and cliffsides of Ballintoy—the recollection returns with startling clarity: the Vanishing Game. Generally, it worked. She could go whole days drifting in the meadow behind the house, imagining stories, without ever being seen or spoken to. A living phantom.

  The doctor stretches his neck against his high collar. He has a good, solid neck. Hands, too. He could easily overpower her. That is probably the point of such strength. “Perhaps you would like to show it to me, Annie? For your own peace of mind? It’s not good to have secrets—secrets weigh on you, hold you down.”