THE PATIENT IN ROOM 13
THE CHAPEL
Tuesday, January 9th – 8:00 AM
The chapel was small, built of gray stone, its windows dark, its roof sagging. It had been abandoned for decades, ever since the sanitarium closed, ever since the patients were moved, ever since the forgotten children were buried.
Sloane stood at the entrance, the map in her hands.
“The graves near the chapel are different,” she said. “They are not in the ground. They are beneath the floor.”
“Inside the chapel?” Cora asked.
“Inside the chapel.”
Sloane pushed open the heavy wooden door.
The interior was dark, cold, and silent.
The pews were gone. The altar was gone. The only thing that remained was the stone floor, cracked and stained.
“Where do we start?” Marta asked.
“The map shows a symbol. Near the center of the room.”
They walked to the center of the chapel.
The symbol was carved into the stone, barely visible beneath the dust.
A circle with a cross.
“Here,” Sloane said.
She knelt.
She touched the stone.
It was cold.
She pressed.
The stone shifted.
Beneath the floor, a staircase.
Narrow. Dark. Descending into the earth.
“I’ll go first,” Sloane said.
She climbed down.
The stairs were old, the wood creaking, the air thick with dust. The voices in her head stirred.
“The children are here,” Marian said. “Many of them.”
“How many?”
“Dozens.”
Sloane reached the bottom.
The chamber was small, the walls lined with shelves.
On the shelves, boxes.
Dozens of boxes.
Each one containing a photograph. Each one containing a name.
Sloane walked to the nearest shelf.
She opened a box.
“Elizabeth. 1745.”
Another.
“Samuel. 1758.”
Another.
“Sarah. 1763.”
She stopped counting.
There were too many.
They worked through the morning, carrying the boxes up the stairs, lining them on the chapel floor. The sunlight streamed through the windows, illuminating the faces of the forgotten.
“Who were they?” Cora asked.
“They were children. Children who were different. Children who were difficult. Children who were unwanted. They were sent to the sanitarium, to the poorhouse, to the graveyard.”
“And forgotten.”
“And forgotten.”
Sloane looked at the boxes.
There were dozens of them. Dozens of names. Dozens of stories.
“We need to find their families,” she said. “We need to tell them the truth.”
“How?” Marta asked.
“One at a time. That’s all we can do.”
They worked through the afternoon.
By evening, they had identified all the boxes.
Fifty-seven children.
Fifty-seven names.
Fifty-seven stories.
Sloane sat on the chapel steps, exhausted, her hands raw.
“What now?” Cora asked.
“Now we remember. Now we tell their stories. Now we give them the burials they deserve.”
“That will take years.”
“I have years.”
Sloane stood up.
She walked to her car.
She drove away.
The children waited.