Annie wasn’t in the dining hall, which made Emily nervous.But perhaps she was ill; seasonal colds and flus were circulating now.Hopefully she would make an appearance at dinner or supper.Emily sat downinstead with Gert, Lizzie, and Peggy.As Emily hurriedly ate, Eliza arrived with her tray, and Emily greeted her with a warm smile.Once they were in the narrow corridors and shadowy corners of the basement, she was going to ask Eliza for her help.
“Where’s your nutty Blue friend?”Eliza asked, swallowing a huge bite of toast before washing it down with milk.Emily sometimes forgot that she was a teenager, and had the insatiable appetite of one, along with the accompanying underdeveloped sense of empathy.Emily bit her tongue, refraining from any admonishment.She needed Eliza primed to cooperate with her.“I’m not sure, actually,” she said.“Perhaps she’s feeling unwell.”
“Isn’t she unwell every day?”Eliza snarked.
“I heard Matron Carnegie talking to her when I was passing the psych wing,” Gertrude said quietly, shooting Emily a look.Her eyelids drooped a little in sympathy.“She had electroshock yesterday, and it sounds like she didn’t handle it well.Carnegie was trying to soothe her.”Gertrude shrugged.
Emily was aghast.Annie hated the electroshock, and it hadn’t done her any good.Yet Stone was once again subjecting her to it.But Emily suppressed her outrage for the moment.She had a plan to deal with Stone.
Later that afternoon, she and Eliza were finishing cleaning duty in the basement.Over by the boiler, Eliza did a half squat and wiggled her bum back and forth, discomfort pinching her strawberry-blond brow.“Goddamnit,” she muttered.
Emily saw the opportunity, and pounced.“Is that feeling any better yet?”she asked softly, nodding discreetly in the direction of Eliza’s lower half.
“Hardly,” Eliza said with an aggravated sigh.She ducked her head behind a large hot-water tank to sweep in behind.“Ugh!”she shrieked a heartbeat later, scrambling back toward Emily.“There’s a nest!”
As she backed away, Emily couldn’t stop the squeal that issued from her mouth as one large and three smaller dark-brown rats darted past their feet and out of the boiler room, silky tails disappearing beyond the rusted metal door frame.
“This place is disgusting,” Emily said, revolted.“I can’t believe they make us do things like this.”
Eliza didn’t answer; she just continued to scrunch up her face.Emily gave her a pitying sort of look.“Had a treatment yesterday,” Eliza explained.“It’s always worse after, then gets a bit better.Was it the same fer you?”
Emily nodded.
“And now yers is gone?”
“Yes.Mostly, anyway.My treatments are done, thank God.”She paused, leaned on her broom.This was her moment.“I hate this place, don’t you?”
Eliza was silent for a moment, then swallowed.“Yeah.But there’s rats everywhere.Had ’em in our shitty little flat in Cabbagetown, too.At least here, they stay in the basement.In that flat they used to come up to the kitchen and get into the pantry in the middle o’ the night.There’d be holes in the oatmeal bags and feckin’ droppings on the floor.Then Da’d scream at Mam like it was ’er fault.”
Emily watched her, feeling her chances of success draining away.Eliza still believed the Mercer was better than being back in her parents’ home.And perhaps it truly was.But Emily gathered her determination and pushed on.Their uninterrupted time together was limited—and the noise from the boiler muted their conversation.
“Listen, Eliza,” Emily said urgently, “I need to tell you something.”She paused, heart hammering.It felt dangerous to expose herself to someone as fickle as Eliza, but at this point, it was worth the risk.She was so close to the end of her sentence, so close to scooping this story, and she needed this girl’s help.
“I’m a reporter,” she said.“With a magazine.”
Eliza blinked at her in the yellowish light of the bare overhead bulb with eyes far older than her years.“What?”
Emily took her in, how small she was, how young.She would need to phrase all of this simply.“I’m a reporter, I work for the news.I got put in here on purpose to get information about how the women are treated.I’m writing an article on it, so people will know how bad things are here.”
“What?”Eliza asked again.“Wait, yer not incorrigible?”
She said it so earnestly that Emily nearly smiled.“Well, technically yes.My dad told a judge I was unmanageable so that I could get into the prison.”
“But you didn’t do anythin’ wrong?”
“No.But I think the same can be said for most of the women in here,” Emily added gravely.
“So you been lyin’ to us all?This whole time?”Her brows knitted in offence.
Emily nodded, surprised by the guilt she felt.“In a way, yes.I couldn’t tell anyone what I was doing.”
Eliza stepped sideways and squinted, as though trying to see Emily better.
“And why you tellin’ me?”
“Because I need your help,” Emily said sincerely.
Eliza crossed her arms.“Why?”The boiler hissed behind her.
