One
Charleston, South Carolina
January 1853
These three things I know for certain: Arsenic has no taste, I did not kill my sister, and tomorrow, I will die.
I look through the barred window at the exercise yard two stories below, where Claudia Hamilton sits, her dingy, prison-issue skirts fanning out on the bench. A crow pecks at the ground near her feet. Claudia loves those birds. Talks to them. Sings to them in her high-pitched, reedy voice. Claudia also kicked me in the shins yesterday, for no good reason apart from boredom. Boredom is in ready supply here at the jail, but for me, the endless despair and monotony will soon be over. In the morning, I’ll become the second woman ever to be hanged in South Carolina history. I wonder what my predecessor, Lavinia Fisher, thought about in her final hours. I wonder if she was truly as innocent as she claimed to be. As innocent as I am. The stories say she was a coldhearted seductress who lured travelers to her roadside inn, only to poison them so her husband might rob them. But how much is true? No one will ever know, for certain. The evidence used to convict Lavinia was circumstantial. Just like with me.
The door to my cell creaks open, and the matron, Mrs. Banks, trudges in, feet shuffling across the straw-covered floor. “Brought your breakfast.”
I mouth the words silently as she says them. The same words, every morning, for the past two years. Mrs. Banks has only a handful of phrases, really, all of them said in a lilting Cockney accent:
Brought your breakfast.
Wash your bits.
Outside with you.
Lights out a’nine.
I sit at the narrow ledge that serves as my table. Mrs. Banks places a bowl of porridge in front of me, sprinkled with cinnamon (Cook must be feeling kind this morning), and a tin cup filled with bitter, tepid coffee.
“You can have whatever you like for dinner tonight. Anything at all.” Mrs. Banks presses her thin lips together in something that might have resembled a smile in her younger years.
“My last meal?”
She grunts, her gray eyes sliding to the window. “I suppose it is. Think on it, dove. I’ll be back in a bit.”
After she goes, I run my spoon through the thin gruel, lifting it to my mouth with a trembling hand. Memories of the food from my life on the outside drift through my head, tempting me. Oyster roasts in the fall. Veal cutlets, apple fritters, syllabub. I don’t miss much about the past, but I do miss the food. I often helped Mother decide our menus for banquets and holidays, deliberating over the enticing choices in our cook’s repertoire. I was preparing to run a household of my own soon, after all. At twenty-one, I was betrothed to Second Lieutenant William Cameron—freshly commissioned from the Citadel and easy to look at as a June day. We were going to live on the East Battery, in his family’s grand, three-story mansion, with wide windows overlooking the harbor.
But my sister stole William from me. Rebecca was ever stealing from me—whether it was a simple thing, like my best ribbon forher bouncing curls, or our mother’s attention. She used her frail constitution to her benefit, begging indisposition when it suited her needs, only to emerge from her moribund state whenever an engraved invitation arrived bearing her name. She was the cleverest of thieves, a born charmer with bright-blue eyes, blooming cheeks, and fragile, doll-like beauty.
“She needs someone to take care of her, Lil. More than you do.” That’s what William told me, on that summer day he asked for his ring back, so he might give it to Rebecca instead. Spurned and shamed by his rejection, I decided to become a governess, only to be forced to abandon my studies at Miss Murden’s Seminary School to help my mother care for Rebecca in her final illness. Two weeks later, my sister was dead.
Everyone believed I’d killed Rebecca out of jealousy. When I’d taken the stand to plead my innocence, even Mother’s tearful eyes had accused me. But although my very life depended on it, I could not bring myself to tell the judge and jury the full truth. And now, because of my reluctant tongue, I will die.
It’s not the thought of death that concerns me; it’s thegettingthere I dread.
I saw a man die here once, by hanging. The drop from the gallows wasn’t high enough to break his neck, so it took a long time. He made such sounds. He even soiled himself. I push the bowl of gruel away. No. I will eat no more food. What little dignity I have will remain once I’m dead. I take the cup of coffee and go back to the window. Claudia is gone. Only the crows remain, cawing and pecking at the ground. A breeze brushes my face, bringing with it the salt-tinged fragrance of an ocean I’ll never see again. I close my eyes. For the first time in many years, I pray.
The priest comes just as dawn breaks. I didn’t sleep last night, imagining the sensation of the noose tightening around my neck, the spectatorsjeering for my death like jackals, all the poor choices that led me here. The priest crosses the room and takes the chair next to my cot, his wrinkled cassock draped over his thin frame, the stole adorning his shoulders heavily embroidered with gold thread. He’s young for his station and handsome in a bland, nondescript sort of way, but with a world-weary air that does little to alleviate my anxiety over my impending death. He must be the jail’s new chaplain—the replacement for Father Mark, who died shortly after Christmas.
“God’s peace be with you. I’ve come to hear your final confession and to bestow the sacraments, Miss Carmichael.” An Irish brogue accents his words. I wonder if he’s one of the many recently driven from their mother country by famine.
“I have nothing to confess, Father.”
“Nothing? Are you certain, my child? Your sister ...” he continues, clearing his throat.
“Is dead. But not by my hand.”
He smiles patiently, as if he’s heard this sort of pronouncement a thousand times before.
“I can see that you don’t believe me,” I say. “No one does.”
“I’m only here to grant absolution. Not judgment. Let me offer you God’s forgiveness before you depart this life.” He beseeches me with watery blue eyes. At least there’s kindness behind them.
I turn toward the window. Despite the roar of the unrelenting rain, I can hear the crowd gathering in the jail’s courtyard. From the corner of the cell, I sense Rebecca’s spirit watching me. I refuse to look at her. I’ve been seeing her more lately, as my own death approaches. She looks much the same as she did the week she died. Pale, with vacant eyes and those horrid bruises on her hands. Outward proof of the arsenic that had damned me. I wonder if my spirit will soon join hers, cursed to wander this world without rest.
