“Hey, copper!”Gert bellowed.She leapt down from the table with impressive agility and tapped him on the behind.He spun back around to face her, enraged.“How fast can you run, pig?”And she sprinted away toward the kitchen door, the officer hot on her heels.
“Go.Go,” June pressed, shoving Emily forward as the incessant fire alarm tore their eardrums.“Over there, that’s the chief.It’s all you now, kid.”
Then she threw a heavy arm around Emily’s shoulders and went half limp, eyes closed.Emily staggered a little, adjusting to her weight and the sudden feeling of being left alone, then lurched toward the man in uniform at the end of the hall.She’d never had cause to speak to a policeman before, and a knot of nerves tightened.He squinted at her coat as they approached.
“Hello, uh…doctor?”
“Stone, yes.This woman needs the hospital.She has a bad head injury.”
He took in the blood on June’s face.“Jones, eh?Serves her right, pulling some bull like this on bloody Christmas Eve.Little shits.”
“Has the warden been called?”Emily demanded in her best authoritative voice.
He nodded.“She’s not answering her phone, or the door.It’s all dark over there.Do you have an emergency number for her?”he shouted.“One of the matrons was trying to reach her at some relative’s in Scarborough…”
“No, I don’t, I’m sorry,” Emily said, relieved, though she knew that they could reach Barrow soon.Their time was limited.“Where are all the matrons?”she asked.
“Most of ’em locked themselves in the chapel down that hall a few minutes ago,” he shouted, indicating the south corridor.“With three infants.”
Emily nodded.“Well, uh, I’m glad they’re all safe.We’ll get this nonsense sorted out shortly.But this woman, she needs the hospital immediately.How can I get her there?”
He looked June over with distaste, but nodded.“This way.Not her, though,” he added, indicating Eliza.Emily’s brain buzzed, but she couldn’t find a plausible reason for Eliza to come with them, and if she tried to press the matter, that could draw unwanted questioning.Emily met the girl’s eyes, and hoped Eliza would see the honesty in them.
“Get on back to your cell, inmate,” she said.“We’ll call for you later.”
Eliza glowered at her, but there was something else beneath the anger, something pitiful, like a wounded animal who has been kicked one too many times.Like she should have known better than to trust this time, either.But she stayed back, jaw set.
Emily’s heart ached with disquiet as she followed the policeman to the south doors of the prison that emptied out onto the unused courtyard and the loading dock.The empty nursery was on their right; on the left, the chapel where most of the matrons had apparently barricaded themselves, praying for God to save them while leaving Toronto’s finest to carry out His will.
Most of the noise was now coming from the dining hall, and began to wane as they made their way down the corridor.Emily ducked her head a little behind June’s as they passed the chapel, not wanting to be spotted through the small windows on the doors.She had one arm around June, whose eyes were half closed as she faked semi-consciousness.And then they were at the exit.The officer explained what was happening to the policeman guarding it.
“Tremblay, run the doctor and this inmate over to St.Joe’s,” he shouted, “then come right back.”
The back doors were heavily bolted on a normal day, but he unlocked them all with one of the massive key rings he’d evidently gotten off a matron, and they stepped out into the freezing night.
This is it.
Emily’s insides flooded with relief at her deliverance.
The wind stirred up a little cyclone in the open courtyard, swirling snow around her and June’s thin skirts.She shivered, but kept her eyes on the three police cars parked in a line beyond the fence.There must be others surrounding the place, more on King Street at the front doors.
June continued to walk as though requiring Emily’s support, and as Emily guided her across the courtyard and through the gate, she felt an eerie warmth, a sense of her life coming full circle.She could hardly believe that six months ago she’d met June right there, at that very spot, and now they were escaping together.
June got in the back seat of the police car, and Emily walked around the trunk to the other side, slipping a little on the slushy curb and splashing water up onto her ankles.Stone’s coat was flapping in the wind, exposing the front of her blue dress.She glanced back at the prison to see three matrons with their faces pressed against the glass of the Protestant chapel’s back window, pointing and gesticulating wildly, mouths open in alarm or shouts, she couldn’t tell.All she knew was that she had absolutely been recognized.Two of the matrons disappeared from the window.There was no time to spare.
Emily slipped into the back of the car.It was hardly any warmer in there, though at least they were protected from the wind.She felt as though she’d left her insides back in the isolation cell.
But the car wasn’t moving.Emily glanced at June and saw, through the window beside her, two matrons and the chief of police standing at the now-open back door, a bar of yellow light flooding the courtyard.Matron White was pointing at the car and shouting.
“Officer,” Emily snapped at the man in the front seat, her voice rising.He was looking down at something in his lap.“We need to gonow, right now, this woman is in serious condition.”
Emily heard a faint shriek.Something else was happening at the back doors now.Another woman had appeared, a tiny woman—a girl—in a brown dress, her strawberry-blond hair illuminated in the backlight from the door.
Eliza.
For a fleeting, horrid moment, Emily feared Eliza was trying to chase them, perhaps afraid now of being left behind, afraid that June wouldn’t come through on her promise.But then she screamed again, and threw something toward White and the police chief.It shattered at their feet and she jumped up and down, hands in the air.
“Come and get me then!”Emily heard her cry as she bolted back into the prison, drawing the aggrieved chief away from the door and Matron White, who stood powerless, watching June and Emily’s flight…
