“How did you become a?—a criminal?” Poppy’s eyes were wide with dismay.
This made Samina laugh humorlessly. “Don’t you remember? My first criminal charge was ‘stealing’ a necklace from the Sutherlands?—a family heirloom, so I’m told.”
Samina watched the blood drain from Poppy’s face. It was the admission of guilt that she had been looking for. For seven years, she’d wondered if Poppy had truly betrayed her, and now, she supposed she had her answer. “I hope you like your cell,” she said, injecting as much contempt into her tone as possible. “It’s nicer than the ones I’ve been in.”
“Wait.” Poppy stepped forward. “If you work for the Jackal, then surely you must know why I’m here. What does he want from Richard? When will I be freed? How many days have I been here? Do you know if anyone’s looking for me?”
Belatedly, Samina remembered what Hasan had said?—she asks far too many questions, and she is not to have any answers.Samina had already erred by coming here, and she could not afford to make any more mistakes because of Poppy Sutherland.
“Why should I tell you anything?”
“I won’t tell anyone you told me, I swear,” Poppy said.
“Just like you didn’t tell anyone about the necklace?” Samina shot back. “I owe you nothing.Nothing.”
With that, Samina turned and raced away, ignoring her name as it echoed down the hallway after her.
• • •
Seeing Samina had rattled Poppy to the core, and her parting words now shook her severely again. What had she meant, about the necklace? Poppy knew the incident she was referring to?—after all, it was her ultimate shame, the reason her father had decided to send her away. Poppy remembered it all too well, but she had never told another soul about it.
Samina had caught Poppy alone, near the gates of the estate. She hadn’t recognized her at first?—it had been a decade since she and Nanny were exiled, and Samina had changed. Her frame was thin and bony, and her haunted eyes, shadowed by dark circles, were too big for her angular face. But when Poppy looked at her properly, there was no doubt: This was the girl she had spent her early childhood with.
Of course, Poppy had asked about Nanny. “How is she?”
“Dead,” Samina said bluntly. “My mother is dead.”
Poppy reeled back as if Samina had physically struck her. In short, sharp sentences, Samina laid out the events of the last decade: how her mother had been unable to find respectable employment after being fired by the Sutherlands, how she had worked as a maid in a merchant’s household until she became pregnant and her belly was too big to hide, how after Samina’s half brother was born, Nanny had been forced to work in various factories to make ends meet.
“She got injured in a machine accident at the auto parts factory,” Samina said. “It got infected. We spent all our savings on her medicine, but she passed away three months ago.”
Samina’s mother wasn’t the first factory casualty that Poppy had heard of. Her father had told her the story of her own biological parents’ demise, lost to a fire in a textile factory in Andhra, a city south of Marnapur. Just like Poppy, just like thousands of kids on the island, Samina had become an orphan born of an industrial accident.
“I know we’re not really friends anymore,” Samina said, twisting her hands together, “but I want, just once, to take something back to my brother that I didn’t find in a trash can. It’s hard, finding work. The only places that will hire me are the factories, but after what happened to Ma...”
Poppy knew what her father would say: Handouts enabled laziness. The Founder decreed that everyone had a part to play, and those who did not play their part should not be encouraged by blind charity. She had promised to accept the Founder and his teachings, hadn’t she?
“I can’t get you food, Samina.”
Samina deflated, becoming impossibly smaller. “That’s okay. I shouldn’t have asked. You probably have other things to worry about anyway.” She offered Poppy a weak smile. “You look really pretty, Poppy. So grown up.”
Though Samina’s words had a genuine air, Poppy cringed. She could only imagine how she must have looked to Samina, wearing the latest fashions, living in the largest house?—the house that Poppy had inadvertently gotten her banished from when she’d exposed Nanny. And now, Nanny was dead, and Samina and her brother were starving, scavenging for scraps, while Poppy ate three meals a day. The guilt burrowed into her resolve, eating it away. What her father didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.
“I can’t give you food,” she repeated, lifting her fingers to the back of her neck, “but I can give you this, if you think it will help?”
Samina’s eyes grew wide as saucers as Poppy unclasped her gold chain and held it through the gate, the emerald pendant swinging back and forth. Samina had refused at first, but Poppy had insisted she pawn it and use the money for food.
She thought she’d done the right thing. Her chest felt lighter, and she slept easier knowing that she had atoned for what she had done to Nanny ten years ago.
That feeling of relief had evaporated like dew in the morning sun the moment her father had summoned her to his office, the emerald pendant dangling from his fingertips. The pawnshop owner Samina had sold the chain to had reported her to police, who had traced the owner back to Clarence.
“Will Samina go to jail?” Poppy asked.
“Damn it, Poppy,” her father said. “Even in your questions, you show a blatant disregard for our property. No, the girl will not go to jail?—since she’s under sixteen, she’ll be sent to an orphanage instead. What is it to you?”
Poppy had tried to explain, then, about Samina, and who she was, but the revelation only made him even angrier. “That woman was a traitor. She taught you heresy, Poppy. Do you still feel for her, even now? I thought you were changed. But perhaps not enough distance has been put between yourself and those wretched tales.”
Her father had written Headmistress Thornhaven that very night, and within a fortnight, they were on the docks, her trunks packed and loaded on the ship behind her. Though her father’s anger had cooled by then, the intensity in his eyes remained just as bright as he clasped that same emerald-and-gold necklace around her neck. The metal was cold as ice against her skin. “Make me proud,” he’d said, and then it had been time to board.
