The White Rabbit Society: A Lesson in Nonsense

A rose so red. Leaves so green. In dirt well fed. Clear stones so pure. Eagles shall not endure. 

Miss Celia Spencer is a danger to society, and she knows it. After six years in the Arledge Asylum, she has resigned herself to a lifetime of digging graves, attending cowboy therapy, and hankering for her next dose of laudanum, but it all changes when she takes the wrong medicine. 

Transported into Wonderland, Celia discovers the truth behind one of her favorite novels: Lewis Carroll is a political dissident, the Red Queen was so named for her bloodlust, and most of the population is either addicted to pharmaceuticals or wanted for resisting treatment. 

As she navigates seas that react to emotion, woods ravaged by the land’s largest producer of hallucinogenic Caterpills, and a lawless town ruled by the ruthless Blackjack, Celia discovers it was no accident she ended up in the Arledge Asylum, never mind in Wonderland itself.

The clocks of London struck midnight, and Macks Pinkerton tore down the street like a flamingo fleeing a feathering on the Red Queen’s stage, the Westminster Quarters pursuing her like a shuffle of Suits. 

“Three of hearts,” she recounted Earl Fabble’s directions, “ten of diamonds, ace of clubs, king of diamonds.” She turned west and sprinted three blocks before skidding around the corner and running ten north, splashing through puddles as she went. 

If not for the gryphon-hide boots she had traded for her former favorite hat and a wheel of Mainland cheese, she would have slipped in every direction except that in which she needed to slide.  

She skidded to a stop when she came upon the thirteenth block north and caught herself on a lamppost. She clamped her hand down atop her head for fear she might lose her new favorite hat to the wind and squinted in search of a waterway. 

Her ears twitched between claps of thunder, but the only water she heard came from the rain and drains. 

Just as she began to fear she had misread Earl Fabble’s code, she caught the scent of pipe smoke. She whirled around in time to catch a glimpse of a black and white checkered coat before a mottled hand snagged her by the collar and yanked her into the nearest alleyway. 

Macks gasped, but she did not reach for the revolvers at her hips. She knew better than to struggle against the likes of Reuben Rooks, a veteran of the Dodo War and a former prisoner of the Looking Glass Dimension, at least according to Earl Fabble. 

Whether the old Reptilian told the truth didn’t much matter to Macks, not when she found herself in the shadow of a man known as the Ghost Rook. He might have been attractive if not for the three thick scars across his face, never mind the burn scars on his hands. 

He had a certain way about him, Reuben Rooks did, a certain way no amount of glaring could perturb. Macks knew because she had tried to crack him dozens of times, only to turn her ire on Bertie Woolahan instead when she failed, just as she did that night. 

“You said waterway,” she snapped at the other man in the alley, older in appearance than Reuben but younger in demeanor, crunching on Sugar Shrooms like the world wasn’t about to go topsy-turvy. 

“Water or alley, I did say way.” His tongue darted out from between his lips to catch the sugar on his chin. 

“Yes, but which way? Which way matters, Woolahan.” 

“Is there not water in this way?” Came the wry voice of Earl Fabble, the Reptilian leader of their band of snatchers. He walked down the wall and onto the ground, right into a puddle. He crossed the narrow alleyway and stalked up the opposite wall, hands folded behind his back and head tilted down, the brim of his hat casting shadow enough to hide the scales on his left cheek. 

“You’re lucky I’m no Mouser,” Rooks scolded Macks, paying no mind to their boss. “You should have heard me before you saw me.” He reached into his checkered coat and pulled out a jar of orange marmalade. 

Macks straightened. “My senses are perfectly sharp on their own, thank you very much.” 

“No, they are not.” Rooks grabbed her hand and forced her to take the marmalade. “And where is your monocle? The Federlines are out tonight. You could have been followed.” He sank back into the wall to chew on his bottom lip and cast wary glances at the street. 

“I broke my monocle getting here, but it’s no matter. I left all the Federlines behind in our land. I saw them with my own eyes, no monocle necessary.”

“You know what I see with my own eyes? A squawked snatcher.” Woolahan scratched the shadow of stubble along his jawline, bits of sugar falling onto his metallic green waistcoat. With multiple hoops in both his ears, a turtle tattoo on his hand, and permanent signs of windburn on his cheeks, he still rather resembled the pirate he’d been when Fabble recruited him. “I’ve got a covey waiting for me at the Tempting Temptress, and if a covey hates anything, it’s waiting. No coin in waiting.” 

“Cop a mouse, gibface,” Macks shot back, far too rattled to endure his griping. “The only dollymop willing to clean up your mess was probably sentenced to the Looking Glass Dimension forever ago.” Normally, she would have waited for Fabble to chortle and Rooks to chuckle, but she kept on before one of them got her off track again. “I was late catching my ride because I ducked into the Wild Card thinking I’d find some inebriated Suits.”

“Slithy hornswoggler!” Woolahan roared. “You kept me waiting here so you could stack your chips, and you tell me to cop a mouse?” 

“Quiet yourself, Woolahan,” said Earl Fabble. “The Federlines might hear.” 

“The Federlines are not on the Mainland,” Macks insisted. 

“Place of repute, the Wild Card.” Rooks leaned forward. “Why were you gambling there, of all places?”

“I don’t gamble,” Macks started, only to be interrupted again by Woolahan. 

“You’re thinking of the Tempting Temptress, there, Rooks. Very reputable, what with the posture girls and all that. The Wild Card, on the other hand, is indisputably a place of ill repute.” 

“Well, in that case,” Rooks looked to Macks, “why ever did you leave?” 

Macks stomped her foot. The sound echoed off the walls. “Because we’ve had another Jumper!” With a huff, she reached into her coat and pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment. “I snatched this from the Wild Card’s dartboard.” 

Thud. Earl Fabble dropped down from the wall on which he had been pacing and took the wanted poster from Macks. 

“From the purse of the Queen of Hearts herself,” he read, his brows drawn, “a sizable reward in exchange for the latest Mainlander who jumped into Wonderland.” Fabble turned to better view it in the moonlight. “They’ve used a sketch of the last one.” 

“The reason I verified it with some Suits,” Macks said. “I figured it would be safest to approach them while at their cups.” 

“Into?” Repeated Rooks, peering over Fabble’s shoulder. “What sort of Jumper jumps into Wonderland and not onto it?” 

“The kind that brings an earthquake. The Spades figured he was a miner, jumped straight into one of their quarries, but they found no trace.” Macks shivered, and though she knew it had nothing to do with the cold, she turned up her collar. “Pure luck, the last boy had, to land directly in the Circus Extravaganza’s safety net. I wonder what ever happened to him.”

Woolahan tossed a handful of Sugar Shrooms into his mouth. “You’re just a church bell on a Sunday morning, aren’t you, Pinks?” 

“What does that mean?”

“Just some Mainland nonsense I picked up a few trips ago. Think it means you’re chatty.” 

Rooks grunted. “What’s with the fuss? Jumpers are simply fools who snatch themselves, cutting into the pay of hardworking snatchers like us. Remember that one we had forever ago? Landed in a seat at a blackjack table, didn’t even bother to ask how he’d gotten there.” 

“Jumpers are a sign of the times,” Macks insisted. “A sign of these times.” 

Fabble stepped into the only sliver of moonlight to be found in the alleyway, the silver light glinting off the scales on the side of his face. “A sign we need to do something other than snatch Mainlanders to fill our casinos? Yes, I dare say it is.” 

“Don’t be a gudgeon, Pinks.” Woolahan went for another handful of Sugar Shrooms. “If Wonderland got another Jumper, one of the Suits got another plaything. That’s all.” 

She cast a glance back over her shoulder. “It cannot be a coincidence. We’ve not had a Jumper in forever, and of all nights, for it to happen on this night-” 

“Forever means nothing in this land,” Fabble interrupted her. “In this land, there is a past, there is a present, and there is a future. In this land, we have a future, because, in this land, they have a future.” 

Macks thought if she had feathers, she would have ruffled them. “You know, just because you lot have reached the dizzy age doesn’t mean I haven’t got some youth in me still. I cannot spend forever in a barren land. If what happened to the Eagles happens to-” 

“Did you know Mainlanders only ever use these four suits of cards?” Fabble interrupted. “How’s that for a prophecy?” 

Macks didn’t find any reassurance in that, but just as she opened her mouth again, Rooks said, “there is no point in arguing about it now. The ride upset the crown jewels. I would not take the journey again, would not dare.”

All at once, the band’s eyes fell on the shabby portmanteau beside Rooks. 

Macks could only bear to look at the thing for so long. 

“This is wrong,” she said. 

Fabble waved his hand. “Right is wrong, and wrong is right.” 

“Right is right, and wrong is wrong.” 

“Nonsense.” 

“Nonsense is the idea that they will be safe on the Mainland.”

A shadow passed over the Reptilian’s face. “I will not risk another Suit falling to ruin, not as the Eagles did, and neither will the White Rabbit. He can measure time, even in Wonderland, with that pocket watch of his. He can be certain we will not lose the crown jewels to Mainland times past. Eighteen years, that’s as long as we have to wait.” 

“At this rate, we’ll be snatching Dodos by the dozens and serving them to the Queen of Hearts for breakfast.” Macks looked Earl Fabble in the eye. “We don’t snatch our own, Fabble, even at the behest of the Society, and especially not at the behest of the White Rabbit. I do not trust that bouncy bugger.”

“You do tonight.” 

“It will be forever before they return, if at all.” 

“This forever will last only a second, just as the White Rabbit said.” With that, Earl Fabble knelt in front of the portmanteau and opened it up, revealing. 

Macks flinched and took a step back. With a grimace, she peered down at the contents: Wonderland’s crown jewels.

The four infants slept soundly as if still safe and sound in their palace cribs. One of the girls had a spade-shaped beauty mark on her cheek, and another had a lick of diamond-blonde hair. The third clutched a club rattle with four leaves instead of three. 

Macks’ gaze landed on the fourth girl, the smallest of the bunch. She with a troubled expression rested on her heart-shaped face. 

“Royal flush,” said Woolahan, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back and forth on his feet. “I must be the first man in history to feel wrong about it.” 

“It’s not a royal flush,” Macks replied. “We don’t have all five.” She cut Rooks a look. “How did you manage it?” 

He shrugged. “Not all of the Federlines have been collared, if you can imagine.” 

“Of course the Federlines did the heist,” grumbled Woolahan. “Invisible bastards.” 

“We’ve wasted too much time already,” Rooks said, shaking his head. “It makes no sense to bring the crown jewels to the Mainland, so it’s the first place the Suits will look. The Hearts will catch up quickly. Thanks to that bloody baker of hers, Queen Kennedy has enough tarts to feed a whole army.” 

Earl Fabble nodded in agreement. “And the other Suits won’t be far behind.” He reached forward and picked up the girl with the club rattle, careful not to let the toy fall. 

“Desperate to rescue their children,” Macks told him, though her voice lacked its former conviction. 

“Desperate to kill one another’s children. We cannot lose another.” Fabble rose to his feet, taking care to tuck the infant inside his leather coat. “We will not.” 

“To think the White Rabbit isn’t even paying us.” Woolahan knelt before the portmanteau nonetheless and scooped up the diamond-blonde infant, rocking her with a tenderness Macks had only seen him show his hound. 

Rooks approached with caution, his face grim as he lifted the one with the spade-shaped beauty mark. He stood petrified when she stirred and for a moment thereafter, but managed still to hold her in his arms. 

“Diamonds to the Duke of Westminster,” said Earl Fabble, “and Spades to the home of a Mr. and Mrs. Wiley Winston, old friends of mine. I’ll make sure this one gets to Canterbury, and Macks- you take the Hearts to the widower Lady Sylvia Beckett. She lives alone in Kensington.” 

“Alone. A widower all alone.” 

Woolahan looked up from his charge. “No compunction, Pinks. That’s our rule.” 

“No compunction.” Macks rolled her shoulders and shook out her hands, energy welling inside her. “I suppose I have no choice.” She walked over to the portmanteau and pulled the last remaining infant into her arms. “Lady Sylvia, it is.” 

“Keep your wits about you,” Fabble said, already halfway up the wall. “We’re in for a long night.” Without another word, he disappeared. 

Rooks followed suit, Woolahan on his tail, but Macks lingered in the alleyway, her only company the rats scampering into the sewers for shelter before the storm worsened and the infant she had to work up the courage to look down at awoke. 

When she finally managed, Macks found the girl had opened her green eyes, and that was all it took for Macks to find the determination she had been so lacking that night. She weighed it in her head, what Earl Fabble would do to her for disobeying compared to what the White Rabbit would do should he ever get his albino paws on the Princess of Hearts. 

“I swear it on the Tumtum Tree,” Macks whispered to the girl. “You will always have an ally in Macks Pinkerton.” Chin held high, she stepped onto the street, deciding once and for all that Lady Sylvia would just have to remain alone. 

Celia drove her shovel deeper into the ground, determined to make twice the progress she had made the day before and therefore half the progress she needed until the day after demanded the other half, but the gardener had other ideas. 

“You’ve yet to tell me what bignoniaceous means,” Mr. Patrick said between bites of his afternoon apple. A stout man with short limbs, a thick gray beard, and an utter disregard for time as it passed, he quite reminded Celia of her old Latin tutor, neglecting his job to tempt Celia into neglecting hers. 

Determined to not let it be so, she blew a stray strand of red hair out of her face and said, “I told you last Wednesday what bignoniaceous means.” 

“No, you told me what bulbaceous means.” 

“I told you last Thursday what bulbaceous means.” She paused to grit her chattering teeth and toss a shovelful of dirt back over her shoulder. “Bulbaceous has everything to do with plants that produce bulbs, and nothing to do with bulbous heads, as you so insisted.” 

“Bignoniaceous?” Mr. Patrick dragged the word out as long as he could. 

“It refers to bignonias. Trumpet vines, that is, not begonias. Another insistence of yours, I’m afraid.” With that, she jammed her shovel back into the ground, at least as best as she could in the bitter cold. She rather thought of herself as a miner when the autumn months rolled around and the dirt grew more stubborn. 

“I would never insist upon such nonsense,” Mr. Patrick declared, “but I would insist you define ranunculaceous.”

As she pondered the word, Celia stood on the step of her shovel in hopes it might sink deeper. Down, down, down she tried to drive it until she thought she must have hit bedrock. 

But that couldn’t be the case, not two-feet deep. 

Crunch. Mr. Patrick took another bite of his apple, and with his mouth full, he said, “I’m waiting, Miss Spencer.” 

“Ranunculaceous relates to buttercups, Mr. Patrick. Brilliant yellow flowers, the sort you would be planting if you ever did your job.” 

“Buttercup is a weed, a weed far too radiant for an English autumn. And if I ever did my job, you would have nobody to distract you from yours.” 

When she found she had no witty response, Celia pressed her lips together and scooped some more dirt out of the hole in which she stood. With the dirt went her breath, and she faltered. 

Black ravens appeared in her vision. She squinted up at the sky to be sure they were not buzzards circling overhead. Though the spots remained, she found tufts of white clouds to fixate on. She sucked in a deep breath but it did her no good. 

The birds advanced. 

“Another word,” she told Mr. Patrick, tightening her grip on the splintery shaft of her shovel and returning to work before her work got the better of her and she could no longer work. “Give me another word.” 

“Hmm.” Mr. Patrick paused to think. “What about papilionaceous? I don’t believe we’ve done that one yet.” 

“Yes, we have.” A smile ghosted Celia’s lips. “A papilionaceous plant’s flowers resemble butterflies, hardly the sort of thing you would see around these parts.”

“I take great offense at that.” 

“You should.” 

“You should define erinaceous.” 

Celia paused to catch her breath. She pried her fingers from the shovel only for them to shake. She wrapped them back around the handle before Mr. Patrick noticed and hurriedly said, “if something is erinaceous, it resembles a hedgehog.” 

“Ha!” Mr. Patrick threw his apple core at her. “Heather! Erinaceous refers to heather!” 

“No, Mr. Patrick, it does not. Ericaceous refers to heather, and erinaceous to hedgehogs.” She scooped the apple core up with her shovel and tossed it into the mound of dirt on the edge of her hole. “Asclepiadaceous is milkweed, cucurbitaceous is cucumbers, melons, and gourds, and I really must say, I preferred solving your riddles to defining your words.” 

“Nobody who poses riddles has good intentions. Otherwise, they would speak plain.” Mr. Patrick returned to his task of weaving a wreath of white roses now that he’d finished his apple. 

It reminded Celia of how she used to sit and weave daisy chains while her father baited his hooks and traps. 

“My father always posed riddles,” she said, “and my father always had good intentions.” 

“You’re useless at riddles, Miss Spencer.” 

“I answered every single one correctly. The answer key in the newspaper said so.” 

“And the newspaper always tells the truth, does it?” 

Celia flung another shovelful of dirt from her hole. “You’re going to get me into trouble, Mr. Patrick, if you continue to make such sense of nonsense.” 

“You’re going to get yourself out of trouble, Miss Spencer, learning to do the same.” 

“I’m afraid there’s no risk of that.” With a sigh, she slumped against her shovel. She pried her blue fingers from the handle, wiggling and flexing them in hopes of regaining some amount of feeling, the digits as stiff as those of a corpse. 

At the thought of a cold, dead body, a chill ran through Celia, the sort that did not come from the outside but started on the inside, the sort accompanied by a restlessness as if her very organs shivered, as if someone had walked over her grave. 

Before she could stop herself, she turned and looked at the weathered wooden box waiting ever so patiently for her to finish digging. Her eyes shifted to the mound of dirt beside it, void of the worms and bugs Celia had come to expect. 

“Empty,” she said under her breath. Her gaze drifted to the hedge maze on the edge of the nearby wood, a remnant of a once lively property. She liked to imagine it lush and green, perhaps with flowers, but the hedges were barren. “Dead.” 

Celia sniffled and looked at Mr. Patrick. 

The gardener sat beside the headstone of Lady Lacie Whittemore, born twenty-two years ago and declared dead twenty-two days ago, putting the finishing touches on the wreath of fresh white roses he’d woven for her. 

Celia’s eyes drifted to the headstone beside Lady Lacie’s, and then the one beside it. She scanned the cemetery and took stock of all seventy graves fading in the shadow of the Arledge Asylum, a behemoth of pale stone situated on the cliffs of what Celia believed to be Dorset. She closed her eyes, imagining the Dorset she recalled, awash with color. 

When she opened her eyes, the hedges remained as they always had been, reaffirming her suspicion nothing so beautiful could ever bloom on the grounds of the Arledge Asylum. White snow dusted the white building behind her, and the white cliffs overlooked the white-capping sea, white clouds dotting an otherwise gray sky. 

Celia cleared her throat. “You mentioned the newspaper, Mr. Patrick.” 

“I have been known to skim The Daily Telegraph from time to time,” he said, “but I have never known it to show me anything worthwhile. It’s all a bunch of flimflam, the Main-” He cut himself off, only to tell her, “you’re barking at a know with the newspapers, Miss Spencer.” 

“I would much rather bark at a know than never know.” Celia’s voice cracked. Her eyes burned. “No blessing, no service. It’s just a regular box.” She sighed, leaning into the shivers and shudders she had worked so hard to avoid since her day began. 

“The cold got her,” Mr. Patrick told her for the thousandth time. 

“And what about Elsie Winston? She cannot have disappeared in the hedge maze like the nurses say. Nobody could disappear in that maze. There’s nothing there.” Her eyes flittered again to the maze in the distance, little more than a bare thicket. “Young women don’t just disappear in hedge mazes, certainly not naked ones.” 

“I was unaware Miss Winston was naked when she disappeared.” 

“You know that isn’t what I mean, Mr. Patrick. The maze is naked. Bleak, barren, bony.” 

“If that’s a slight toward my gardening, Miss Spencer, I won’t hear it. It’s hardly my fault the hedges shrivel up at the mere thought of a cold snap.” 

“I can believe Elsie’s disappearance was an accident, or I can believe Lacie’s was. I can’t believe both, Mr. Patrick.” 

“Everyone knows Lady Lacie had a habit of sneaking out of the ward at night. Something terrible was bound to happen.” 

“Terrible things always happen to disobedient girls,” came the adenoidal voice of Mr. Cummings, a porcine man with beady eyes and a ruddy complexion. With his rotund build, he had strength enough to heave a coffin into a grave, but he always returned breathless from his frequent trips into the nearby wood to relieve himself. 

Upon his approach, Celia’s heartbeat got away from her. She rallied her muscles to catch it, stabbing her shovel into the ground before the resident gravedigger and general groundskeeper could accuse her of slacking on the job. 

“I thought we decided on the plot in the east corner,” Mr. Cummings said. He plopped down on his stool with a huff and wrestled with his belt buckle a bit before he leaned down and grabbed his beloved bottle of whiskey. 

“The east corner is for chloroform deaths and lobotomies,” said Celia. “The west corner is for dysentery and typhoid. I put unknown deaths here in the middle. Besides, I’m saving that plot for myself, Mr. Cummings. The ground is tougher over there in the east corner, the sort only a man such as yourself could penetrate.” 

In a poor attempt to hide his chortle, Mr. Patrick coughed. 

Mr. Cummings grumbled something under his breath but said no more. He uncorked his whiskey and brought the bottle to his lips. Some of the brown liquid dribbled down his chin, and Celia’s mouth went dry. 

The black ravens returned with a vengeance, bringing with them a new weapon: nausea. If not for her shovel to steady herself on, Celia would have collapsed in the grave, though she did not think for a second she would die. 

Fate, it seemed, never had the gall to do anything other than make her miserable.

“I don’t know why you insist on not wearing gloves,” Mr. Cummings said, pausing to spit ambeer in the snow before continuing, “you don’t want your hands going rough like a servant’s.” He pulled out his tattered handkerchief and dabbed from his brow the sweat he had managed to work up in the crisp air. 

“I work better this way, thank you.” 

“Must have a lot of splinters.” 

“I don’t mind.” 

His stool creaked as he shifted. “Let me take a look.” 

“No, thank you, Mr. Cummings.” 

“Not a lot of wood inside those white walls,” Mr. Patrick piped up. He rose to his feet and laid the wreath atop Lady Lacie’s coffin. “She had best get a feel for it while she can.” 

“Get a feel for it? Why would she need to get a feel for wood?” 

“To do your job, of course.” 

Mr. Cummings grunted. “And what about your job, Patrick? That hedge maze over there sure is looking dead. What sort of gardener are you?” 

“Actually, I’m a psychiatrist, though I rather consider myself an engineer.”

Celia looked between the two as they went at it and noticed Hank, her father’s old hound dog, sitting just outside her hole. 

“Get out of here,” she whispered while the men went back and forth. “It isn’t safe.” She didn’t know what exactly compelled her to say it, but she had a bad feeling the nurses would not take too kindly to a slobbery old hound roaming the property.

“My job?” Mr. Cummings huffed. “I do my job all the time, thank you very much. I take that one,” he stabbed a stubby finger at Celia, “off the nurses’ hands so that they don’t have to watch their backs like rabbits in a fox’s den.”  

Celia stole a glance at the man, then, taking stock of his dilated pupils, whiskey-stained shirt, and Lancaster Pistol, a simple yet solid piece he always had on him. She tasted something metallic, and her ears began to ring. She almost mistook the sound for the Westminster Quarters, but Arledge had no bells. 

The ringing grew louder, and her field of vision grew smaller until she found herself in a dark tunnel with a single light at the end: cold to the touch, it weighed heavy in her hand. She heard a drawer open and loose ammunition slide around inside. She smelled old wood and stuffy air, like the drawer had not been opened in a good, long while. 

“Spencer,” barked a brusque female voice that, even in her daze, Celia knew belonged to Nurse Withers. 

With a jolt, Celia dropped her shovel. She blinked hard, and the tunnel opened up in time for her to watch Mr. Cummings hide his bottle beneath his coat and Mr. Patrick make a show of inspecting his wreath, both studiously avoiding the choleric stare of Nurse Withers. 

Celia did not have to turn around to see her standing at the entrance to the cemetery with her shoulders back, her pointy chin held high, and her hands folded behind her, a decidedly dour expression on her face. She wore a stark white uniform that Celia knew smelled of antiseptic and cigarette smoke, a noxious concoction Nurse Withers wore like perfume.

The woman’s voice sliced through the cemetery like a knife through warm flesh. “You’re off work duty early today. Dr. Arley has asked to see you in his office, and you know he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” She clapped her hands. “Now, Spencer. You know Dr. Arley does not like to be kept waiting.” 

Celia knew that for a fact. She scrambled to collect her shovel and climb out of her hole before Mr. Cummings came down to get her. 

Rising to her feet, she brushed the dirt from her shabby jacket, smoothed the threadbare chemise she wore beneath, and wiped her nose on her shoulder. She caught the reassuring gaze of Mr. Patrick, avoided the keen gaze of Mr. Cummings, and hurried deeper into the shadow of the Arledge Asylum, Hank trailing hot on her heels.