A sarcastic remark caught in my throat. What’s the occasion? Has President Coolidge arrived to inspect the asylum? I swallowed it down. The fight had left me months ago. They didn’t even need to threaten me with the straitjacket anymore.

They led me to a wood-paneled office I’d never before seen. A tall man in a sharp suit stood looking out the windows at an expansive mass of greenery: the elaborate hedge labyrinth that Mother couldn’t stop chattering about as she praised the wonders of Mountain Pass Hospital last fall before depositing me here.

“Behave,” Big Sadie warned as she shoved me into the room and closed the door.

I stood on a Persian rug, hands clasped. The man flipped through the pages of a file and began to read.

“Waverly Hockney, 22. Here six months. General hysteria brought on by menstrual derangement, as well as tobacco use, jazz music, novel reading, and . . . goodness”—at this, he turned and gave a wink—“frequent masturbation. You had some difficulty adjusting to our program at first, but recently you’ve become a model patient.”

Being treated like a wild animal for noncompliance will do that, I wanted to say. I remained silent. He crossed the room.

“Come. Join me.” He indicated a set of armchairs arranged on either side of a small table. I sat and adjusted the hospital gown, feeling out of place in the ornate office. On the table was a porcelain tea set. A bowl of fruit. Rustic rolls of bread. Four types of jam. He poured steaming liquid into the delicate cups.

“I’m Dr. Jamison, Waverly. I have a unique proposal for you. Here, help yourself to some food while I talk.”

“Thank you,” I rasped, my voice unaccustomed to speech. I soothed it with a sip of tea. The crust of the freshly baked bread crackled as I broke it. It was still warm, and I almost burst into tears at the comforting, tangy smell.

“I’ve dedicated my life to helping troubled young women like you. Women from good families, with the opportunity to live rich, fulfilling lives, who shun that opportunity and instead fall into vice and delusion. Are you familiar with the psychiatrist Carl Jung?”

I shrugged, mouth full of bread and jam.

“Jung believed that we each have a shadow self, a black part within us that houses our darkest desires. Many individuals can repress this shadow self, but too often, the weaker among us give in. What if I told you that I discovered a way to sever this shadow?”

“Sever how? More pills? More shocks? Cut me open and poke at my brain?”

He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with an excitement that sent a chill of unease through me. “That’s the beauty of this remedy. It’s more . . . ritual, than treatment. More magic than science. But what is magic, after all, other than science that we have yet to learn how to explain?”

I raised an eyebrow and he giggled. The man actually giggled. “See, we physically extract your shadow self, and then it is up to you to, well, destroy it. No one can do it for you. Each must slay his own demon, you see.”

Wonderful. Clearly the doctor in charge of the asylum was a lunatic. “Look Dr. Jamison, tea was lovely, and I appreciate the offer, but if you want to know the truth, it sounds like bullshit and I think I’ll pass.”

His smile fell and he clicked his tongue. “Oh Waverly, when I said I had a proposal for you, I didn’t mean that it was optional. Ida! Grace!”

The orderlies reentered and held me down. One of them injected a needle into my arm, making the room blur.

🦇🦇🦇

I awoke outside on a stone slab surrounded by candles, foreign symbols drawn with ash on my limbs. I sat up and dangled my legs over the edge, noticing a large hunting knife had been left by my side. A half-moon in the sky shone on the green hedges that boxed in the clearing. I was in the labyrinth.

As I hopped off the stone, movement caught my eye. In a dark corner where two rows of yaupon holly met at a right angle, a woman crouched. She wore a white hospital gown, wide eyes taking me in. She stood and stepped into the circle of light, and my knees wobbled in a wave of dizziness.

She looked like me. She looked exactly like me.

That crazy son of bitch had really meant it. Through some sort of unknown magic, he’d found a way to sever a person’s shadow self. It seemed like impossible nonsense, but it was the only explanation for the figure now standing before me.

“There is your demon, Waverly,” a voice said from behind. I whipped my head toward the sound. Dr. Jamison stood by a line of greenery on the other side of the stone table, Big Sadie lurking at his shoulder like a gangster’s lackey. He crossed the space between us and took me by the shoulders. “Be like St. George and slay that evil. Embrace the good and the pure.”

I picked up the knife tentatively and turned toward my doppelgänger, my heart in my throat.

Before I could take a step, my double reached out a halting hand. In a voice identical to mine, she said, “You don’t really mean to end me, do you?” She chuckled. “How dull a life you would lead. Come away with me instead.” She rotated her hand and stretched it toward mine.

“Where would we go?” I asked.

Her mouth spread into a familiar, mischievous grin. “Anywhere we want.”

That sounded like an adventure to me.

I whirled and thrust the blade I held into Dr. Jamison’s chest, halfway to the hilt. The sudden strike washed the look of righteous fervor off his face like a bucket of ice water. In its place, the enormous eyes and rounded mouth of shock prevailed. He stared at the knife protruding from his heart, coughed an explosive spattering of blood, and fell to his knees before collapsing entirely.

Big Sadie, slow to react, didn’t stand a chance against my doppelgänger. The other me sprinted across the small clearing in a flash, white gown flapping, and climbed Big Sadie like a tree. Atop the woman’s shoulders, she grabbed a fistful of hair in each hand and yanked Sadie’s head back and forth violently, barking a high-pitched battle cry. Sadie thrashed and grabbed at the dervish on top of her, punching blindly at the legs locked around her neck.

Big Sadie soon lost her balance and my doppelgänger leapt nimbly from her shoulders as the orderly toppled like a felled tree. Sadie’s head caught the edge of the stone slab with a crack. Although she was now unconscious—possibly permanently—the other me grabbed her injured head by a handful of hair and bashed it into the stone table’s platform two more times for good measure.

My twin and I stared at each other as we caught our breath. She smiled at me, and I smiled back, and we released an identical laugh of delight. I knew our thoughts were the same in that moment: what fun we would have together! We clasped bloodied hands like a pair of sisters, and I let her lead me out of the labyrinth and into the night.