Rare Objects by Kathleen Tessaro

this girl still had a good head of hair. She must be new. The two of us were the youngest in the room by maybe ten years, although it was hard to tell for sure.
    â€œSo you’re a connoisseur, is that it?” I pointed to a thin, wiry woman in her mid-fifties with no teeth, furiously hooking across the room. “Mary’s pretty good. Why don’t you go bother her? She doesn’t speak. Ever. But she can make a rug in an afternoon.”
    The girl twirled the hook between her fingers. “But you have talent—a real feeling for the medium, possibly even a great future in hooked rugs. Provided of course that people don’t want to actually use them in their homes. So”—she leaned forward—“tell me, how long have you been here?”
    I yanked another yarn through. I’d been here long enough to wonder if I’d ever be allowed out again. Mine was an open-ended sentence: I needed the doctor’s consent before I’d see the outside world again. But I wasn’t about to let her see that I’d never been so alone and terrified in my life. I gave a shrug. “Maybe a month, I don’t know,” as if I hadn’t been counting every hour of every day. “What about you?”
    â€œI’m just stopping in for a short while,” she said vaguely.
    â€œâ€˜Stopping in’?” I snorted. “On your way where, exactly?”
    She ignored my sarcasm. “Why are you here? In for anything interesting?”
    â€œThis isn’t a resort, you know,” I reminded her.
    â€œAre you here voluntarily or as a ward of the county?”
    I gave her a look.
    â€œYou never know”—she held up her hands apologetically—“some people come in on their own.”
    â€œDid you?”
    For someone who liked asking questions, she was less keen on giving answers. Crossing her legs, she jogged her ankle up and down impatiently. “They say it’s an illness. Do you believe that? That we can all be magically cured?”
    â€œHow would I know? Where did you get those pearls?”
    â€œMy father gave them to me.” She ran her fingers over them in an automatic gesture, as if reassuring herself over and over again that they were still there. “I never take them off.”
    â€œNeither would I.”
    â€œI like them better than diamonds, don’t you? Diamonds lack subtlety. They’re so . . . common.”
    She was definitely crazy. “Not in my neighborhood!” I laughed.
    â€œWell . . .” Her fingers ran over the necklace again and again. “He’s dead now.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œMy dear devoted father.”
    I considered saying something sympathetic, but social niceties weren’t expected or appreciated much here. Besides, I didn’t want her to feel like she could confide in me.
    The girl watched Mute Mary across the room, working away. “What are you really in for?”
    â€œWhat’s it to you?”
    â€œCome on! Your secret’s safe—who am I going to tell?”
    I don’t know why I told her, maybe just so she’d shut up and go away, or maybe in some sick way I was trying to impress her. “I cut myself with a razor blade.”
    She didn’t miss a beat. “Deliberate or accidental?”
    â€œDeliberate.” It was the first time I’d ever admitted it aloud.
    But if I expected a reaction, I was disappointed; she didn’t bat an eye.
    â€œSo no voices in your head or anything?”
    â€œNo. What about you?” I looked across at her. “Do you hear voices?”
    â€œOnly my own. Mind you, that’s bad enough. I’m not entirely sure I’m on my side.”
    Actually, that made me smile—for the first time in weeks.
    â€œSo at least you’re not really insane,” the girl with the pearls cheerfully pointed out.
    â€œWhat about you? Why are you here?”
    â€œOh, they’ve given me all kinds