On January 2nd, Datura Books are due to publish Alice McIlroy‘s new crime novel, The Glass Woman. To celebrate, and to pique your interest, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt from the novel. First, though, here’s the synopsis:
When you wake up without your memories, who can you trust, if you can’t even trust yourself?
Iris Henderson wakes up in a hospital bed alone, with no memory of why or how she got there. Moments later, she is introduced to her husband Marcus, a man she does not even recognise. And things only get stranger from there.
Iris is told that she volunteered to be the first test-subject for a ground-breaking AI therapy, and that she is the pioneering scientist behind the experimental treatment.
Whilst everyone warns her to leave it alone, a confused Iris continually scratches beneath the surface of her seemingly happy marriage and successful career, setting a catastrophic chain of events in motion.
Secrets will be revealed that have the capacity to destroy her whole life, but Iris can’t stop digging…
*
CHAPTER ONE
My name is Iris and I am thirty-five years old. My husband is called Marcus. I was born in Suffolk, England. I work at the London Research Institute. It is Wednesday, the first of May. This is what I have just been told.
CHAPTER TWO
Waking is like wading through deep water. I am half within my body and half without. I look down at this body I inhabit – it is dressed in a crumpled blue cotton gown. Pain, which starts in my head with a drilling sensation, spreads.
As my eyes adjust to the light, the room before me becomes clear: a single bed, a chair, a closed window. A tube attached to my hand wires me to a machine. The room is still, silent, save the machine’s heartbeat.
I hear a man’s voice as he appears from the hallway:
“Iris?”
His voice sounds as though it comes from a great distance, above the water’s surface as I’m drowning below. In a swift movement, he sweeps a hand across his head.
“Iris?”
I open my mouth to speak, only no sound comes. Then a jumbled mix of consonants and vowels with no recognisable pattern escapes. My mind reels and twists, trying to form the words I want to say.
I try again.
He moves towards me and sits beside the bed. He edges the chair closer. He is tall, with dishevelled hair, sunken cheeks, amber eyes. Tentatively, he reaches his hand to my face, moving hair from my eyes. I grasp the mattress.
“It’s me,” – a pause of several seconds – “Marcus. Your husband.”
My mind tremors, as though he has flicked a switch in my brain and my vision shifts. I have no recollection of him, or me, or anything that has come before this moment.
I tell myself, Don’t panic, Don’t panic.
I manage to gasp out a word on repeat, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
I don’t know what it is I am apologising for.
I dig my nails into the palms of my hands forming tiny crescents. I look down at them. They are thin, parched and papery. But sitting there, on my fourth finger, is a band of lighter skin, untouched by the sun.
The man called Marcus, in his dark suit, stands over me now. His shoulders seem cowed beneath a great weight. He leans closer, peering into my face. “How do you feel, Iris?”
The room is hot, oppressively hot, and I want to get up out of this bed and open the window to let in fresh air.
“You’re safe now,” he says. He reaches out and holds my hand in his. His is cold and clammy. I do not feel safe. I feel a rising nausea at this touch, and I wish I were alone.
I find the words now and the voice to speak them. I tell him my head hurts; I am in pain, tired, confused.
The man called Marcus listens. “Do you remember anything, Iris?” he asks.
“No.” I shake my head and my voice rises. “Nothing. Why don’t I?”
My eyes meet his and he holds my gaze: “Your name is Iris. You are thirty-five years old…”
I look at the needle inserted into the back of my hand. I start to pull the drip from my skin. A second monitor wires me to the machine. Marcus places his hand on my shoulder, gripping too tightly. I try to push him away.
He is standing over me now and I am struggling to get up.
“PLUTO,” the man says, urgently. “We need you now.”
Two doctors appear in white coats. They murmur to each other and scrutinise something on the machine beside the bed.
“I can’t remember anything,” I tell them in the hope that they will have answers. My voice wavers. “Why can’t I remember anything?”
I just catch Marcus’ hissed words to them. “We didn’t expect this.”
I am shaking now, trembling, as I realise fully, for the first time, that I know nothing of who I am. My breathing is heavy and shallow, my chest heaving. I look at the catheter in my hand. I want to tear it out, to be free of this encumbrance. I start to pull at the tape securing it, exposing puckered red skin beneath.
Marcus places his hand on my shoulder again, in an attempt to stop me, but I push back.
The doctors are standing over me now and I notice one of them does not look human. I am filled with a cold dread. “W-what are you?” I stammer. I wish I could remember how I got here, any frame of reference. I start to hyperventilate, tears rising.
“Breathe, Iris. You’ll be fine as long as you don’t panic,” the first doctor tells me. His voice is familiar, but I cannot make out his features, my vision blurring with tears.
I try to get up and out of the bed, when a voice commands, “Hold her still.”
There is movement across the room. Then there are hands restraining me with an iron grip. Someone reaches for a syringe on the trolley and moves towards me. I am struggling still, despite all strength having drained from my body. Marcus pins my arms to the bed with practised force. His face a grimace, he stands over me. I feel the metallic tip of the syringe as it pierces the exposed flesh of my arm. I hear myself cry out. Then, with a sharp, sudden sting, my body slackens.
CHAPTER THREE
It is Wednesday, the first of May. My life before this date is a blank.
My name is Iris and I am thirty-five years old. I was born in Suffolk, England. I work in research at the London Research Institute. I know only these facts. Marcus is my husband. Or so I have been told.
*
Alice McIlroy’s The Glass Woman is due to be published by Datura Books in North America and in the UK, on January 2nd, 2024.
Civilian Reader 