The noise began after suppertime.
Emily had just forced down the last of her tasteless shepherd’s pie when the sounds of shouts, bangs, and scraping began to seep through the floor above her.She sat on the exposed springs of her cot and listened, straining her ears to catch any snippet of information that might explain what was going on.
Ten minutes in, the noise had grown louder, and Emily reckoned it was concentrated in the dining hall and the main corridor.What could be happening?Had a fight gotten out of hand?She thought of Eliza and June telling her about the summertime riot a couple of years before, when the women had risen up in protest of the oppressive heat of the place.Were they doing the same now, about the extreme cold?Emily herself had been shivering for days, like the beggars she’d sometimes passed on her way to work.They huddled in alleyways, unseen by most passersby, who averted their eyes and pulled their expensive wool collars higher against the wintry wind.It was so much easier for the average John and Jane to not have to witness struggle that wasn’t their own.And that was the point of dreadful institutions like the Mercer.To pack away the undesirables behind locked gates and tall stone walls so they didn’t besmirch the otherwise pristine landscape of the city.
CRASH.
It took a second for her to identify the specific sound, which she took to be something large being overturned, followed by bellows and cheers of delight.Emily stood now, though she wasn’t quite sure why.Instinct had her on alert.She paced her tiny cell, padding back and forth in the worn-out slippers inherited from some previous miserable inmate, her nerves beginning to jangle.Her tapping finger drummed.
A few minutes later, there was a sound from down the hall, a door creaking open near the stairs that led to the main floor.
She ran to her door.“Hello?”
There was no reply, but soft, shuffling footsteps grew closer.
“Who’s there?”she demanded, suddenly on edge.“Grimes?”Another resounding crash from above, as a small woman came into view.Emily’s heart stopped.
Rose.
She stood before Emily’s cell door, hair dishevelled around a gaunt face with eyes black and piercing as a shark’s, the pupils dilated.Her blue dress was smeared with something dark, something…red.Emily gasped, and Rose grinned.Her sinister smile was devoid of two front teeth, giving her the disturbing appearance of a deranged child.
Emily scrambled backward to the wall farthest from the door, heart hammering in her throat now as she pressed her back and palms into the rough, cold brick.“What do you want?”she asked, trying not to sound frightened.“What’s going on upstairs?”
But the woman didn’t answer.She was bent over a little now, her blond hair hanging like dirty tentacles in front of her face.A flash of silver in the glow of the corridor lights.A knife.
Emily felt the blood drain from her face.“I didn’t kill Annie!”she shouted, but her voice cracked with the terrified conviction that she had.Rose ignored her, started trying to pick the lock with the blade…
“MATRON!”Emily screamed as her brain whirred wildly, casting around for a way to defend herself.But there was nothing in the isolation cell.There wasn’t even a sheet to strangle someone with, because an inmate could hang themselves with it.“HELP!”
“They ain’t comin’,” Rose said with a low chuckle.
Emily’s breath suspended.
“Rose,” Emily appealed through her fear.“What have you done?”No response.“Have the psych patients escaped?Is anyone hurt?”
This is it, Emily thought.After everything that had happened, she was going to be stabbed to death by a Blue in a basement isolation cell.
A crash and a scream issued from upstairs, somewhere directly above them.
She was still grappling with how to defend herself when she heard a voice down the corridor.“Hey!”it called.“I said I’d feckin’ do that!”
“ELIZA!HELP!”Emily bellowed.“Get help!She has a knife!”
“Jesus H.,” Eliza said, coming into view.She nudged Rose on the shoulder.“You’ll feck up the lock real good doin’ that!And cut yerself.Let me do it!”
Confusion gripped Emily.“Eliza, what—?”she began, but then June Jones stepped into the frame of her cell door.“June?”
June smirked, shook her head.“You look like hell, kid.What did I tell you about trying to blackmail Stone?Get back for a sec, and Eliza’ll have this open.”
Emily obeyed, now eyeing Rose.“Isn’t she…” She nodded at the woman’s dress, reluctant to say it.“Crazy?”She met Rose’s eyes.“Aren’t you crazy?”
Rose stared at Emily a moment with her wide eyes.“No.Are you?”She pointed at Emily’s blue uniform.
Emily’s shook her head, speechless.
“None of us up there are half as crazy as they say we are.It’s all the goddamn cages they shove us into that drive us mad.”Rose paused, then wiped away a drip from her nose.“Annie was my friend, too.And Stone killed her.We all know that now.”
Emily’s eyes welled with tears.
