Chapter 32 Emily
EMILY
The day after the fire, the smell of smoke still hung thick on the air despite the circulation from the open windows, which, as Emily had predicted, seemed to have merely frozen the inmates and done nothing whatsoever to curb the stench of the blaze.
What had before been a comforting scent that called to Emily’s mind memories of summer campfires and Christmas in her parents’ cozy living room now stank of adrenaline and the chilblains she’d woken up with on her second and third toes after the frigid night’s fitful rest.
She’d risen with the others at the sound of the bell, wondering how many of the prisoners had gotten any sleep at all, with the combined onslaught of the wintry air and the psych inmates’ cries.
After lining up outside her cell for the morning roll call and Chamber Pot Parade, she’d followed her fellow inmates, all half numb and grumbling, past the psych-wing gate toward the staircase.
She peered down the hall and saw the open doors, the splintered wood around the lock and handle area from the firemen’s axes.
Several of the psych inmates were moaning and talking, one was screaming for a man named Lester.
“Oh would you SHUT THE HELL UP?!” a woman shouted on her way by, then launched herself at the gate, giving it a furious rattle. “SHUT UP!”
The matrons didn’t even admonish her, and several women in line cheered their support.
Emily’s insides clenched. The state of the prison today was all her fault.
But, she reminded herself as she descended the stone stairs to the dining room—which felt slightly warmer by virtue of the stoves in the kitchen—this was all for the good of these women, when all was said and done.
If she could succeed with her article. She simply had to make something of this whole debacle. She must.
When they reached the main floor, there was a flurry of conversation and pointing down the east corridor.
Emily saw that the burned-out factory had been blocked off with tape.
She didn’t have factory duty today, but wondered how the women who did would be re-deployed.
They would probably just languish in one of the empty classrooms.
Emily thought back to the two times she’d tried to teach the women typing, and Stone’s assault when one of the inmates—Thelma, most certainly—squealed on her.
The surge of rage she felt at the woman—or women—who had betrayed her reinforced for her how tired she really was of being held in such a terrible place with these women who often didn’t seem to know what was best for them.
But then, she knew rationally that she couldn’t entirely blame them for it, not when so many of them were coming from situations where they were forced to eat what they killed, always on the lookout for an opportunity to secure some sort of favour or leverage for themselves.
They were never handed advantages. They had to scrape and snatch them wherever they could.
It was the whole system’s fault they behaved the way they did, not the individual women’s.
In the dining hall, Emily filled her tray, then made a beeline for Annie’s table. The relief she felt at seeing Annie safe and well was profound. She set her tray down and slid into the hard seat.
“Good Lord, Emily,” Annie said, setting down her fork and reaching out a hand. “Last night…that was dreadful. Are you all right? Was anyone hurt? What happened?”
Emily searched her blue eyes. “Everyone’s okay. It was uh—” Emily shifted in her seat. “It was part of a plan to get some records out of Stone’s office. It didn’t exactly go as I thought it would, but…”
“You started the fire?” Annie blanched.
“No. Well, sort of. I don’t have time to explain, I’m sorry.
” She shoved it all aside. She had to speak to Annie, and had absolutely no idea how much time she had before Stone and the warden came down on her and ejected her from the prison, or had her arrested.
Surely, by now, Stone would be informed and seeking answers.
She would have seen that her files from the drug trial were deliberately targeted, and the other matrons would tell her that Emily and Eliza had emerged from the prison much later than all the others after the fire broke out.
Emily would be at the top of the doctor’s suspect list, a place cemented by her clash with Stone over the typing classes.
She was already a “problem” inmate. She could come for Emily any time now.
But not if Emily got to her first.
“Emily—”
“Annie, if you got out of here, what would you do?” Emily asked without preamble.
Annie blinked in confusion. “What? I…I don’t know. It used to be all I thought about, but…” She shrugged. “Why do you ask? What’s going on?”
“You would want to see your son, surely?” Emily pressed. “Get some custody of him?”
Annie looked at Emily as though she were suggesting Annie might wish to fly to Mars.
“If you were discharged,” Emily said, “you’d be a free woman, and unmarried. But you could see your son.”
Annie puffed out a long breath, made a soft drum-roll sound. “I mean…that’s just a dream, isn’t it? I’ve asked Dr. Stone so many times—”
“Annie,” Emily’s heart thumped with anger at the mere mention of Stone’s name. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“All right.”
“I know you’ve asked Stone yourself for your release, but Annie, your mother has appealed to get you out of here four times in the past ten years. Stone has blocked every one of them because the law is set out so that the prison physician has the final say, not the judge.”
Annie’s mouth opened in shock. “My—my mother has tried to get me out?”
Emily nodded.
“Helen Sharrock?”
“Yes, that’s the name on the records.”
Annie’s hand came to her mouth. “How do you know this?”
Emily heaved a breath. “Because last night, I broke into Stone’s office and took both our files.”
Annie stared. “Emily, oh my God…”
Emily grabbed Annie’s hands and held them tightly, not caring at this point if the matrons saw. “I know. I know. But Annie, the point is, you have a place to go. Your mother wants you released. She hasn’t abandoned you. It’s Stone that has prevented your release.”
“But why? Why would—”
“Because Stone is corrupt,” Emily said emphatically.
“She has a whole business here, running drug trials under the table for kickbacks, taking bribes from inmates and who knows who else. You’re a test subject, Annie.
A lab rat she makes money off of. She controls all the psych patients with drugs and the authority this ludicrous law allows her.
” Emily was breathing heavily now, hardly able to channel her rage.
She couldn’t wait to get her fingers on a typewriter a week from now.
Her brain was utterly bursting with this story. She released Annie’s hands.
“So here’s the thing,” she continued, as tears began to course down Annie’s pale cheeks.
“We can use this. We can use this evidence to blackmail her into signing off on your release. I’ll tell her I know what she’s doing, and that I’ll go to the authorities with the evidence if she doesn’t release you. It’s that simple.”
Annie was wringing her hands now, panting. “Oh Emily, I don’t know, I told you before, Stone isn’t anyone to trifle with—”
“At this point, I don’t care,” Emily said firmly.
She could almost feel the fire burning in her own eyes.
“What’s she going to do? My family is expecting me tomorrow, and so is my boss.
My infection has cleared. She can’t keep me here.
I think we have her cornered, and I want to use this information to get you out with me.
” She looked into Annie’s eyes. “So you can see your son, Annie. Your son.”
Annie still looked doubtful, but Emily spied a crack of hope. The thought of her son was powerful motivation. It shone through Annie’s fear like a bar of morning light.
“God, I just want to be able to explain everything to him,” she said, blinking back tears.
“I want to hold him, tell him a day hasn’t passed that I haven’t dreamed of his little brown eyes.
” She sniffed, and held Emily’s gaze. “All right, say we do this,” she began, and Emily almost beamed.
Annie was so much stronger than anyone gave her credit for.
“Aren’t you lying to Stone?” She dropped her voice and glanced around.
“Aren’t you going to publish this article anyway? ”
“Yes.”
Annie hesitated.
“I have absolutely no ethical issue with double-crossing Eris Stone,” Emily said with conviction. “She doesn’t deserve either of our leniency. She sure as hell hasn’t shown us any, has she?”
“No,” Annie said quietly. “She certainly hasn’t.”
“She’s kept you away from Gregory for fifteen years, Annie.”
Annie swiped once again at the tears on her cheeks, which even had a little colour in them now.
“So do I have your blessing to do this?” Emily asked, placing her hands on Annie’s shoulders.
She rubbed a thumb back and forth, felt the rough cotton fabric of Annie’s blue dress.
How liberating it would surely feel for her to finally change out of it and shed the stigma of her illness, a butterfly emerging from a cocoon.
Emily would take her to Eaton’s and buy her any dress she liked, in any style or colour—except blue—with pumps to match.
Annie took a deep breath, then leaned forward and embraced Emily with surprising strength. Her dark hair tickled Emily’s cheek as they held each another for a long moment, a quiet little island in the middle of the raucous dining hall.
“Yes,” Annie whispered. “But please be careful.”
“I will. I’m not afraid of her.”
They pulled apart, and Annie sniffled. They stared at one another, and Emily suddenly knew she had found a friend for life. She couldn’t wait to visit with Annie on the outside. To meet her son, go for a walk through High Park in the spring and talk about anything, everything else.
The bell rang, slicing through the tender moment with obnoxious force.
“Well,” Annie said, rolling her shoulders back. “I’ll talk to you soon, I guess.”
“I’m going to try to confront Stone this afternoon,” Emily said as their fellows all stood and headed noisily for the doors. “I don’t know what will happen. But if I’m still here at supper, I’ll eat with you today, okay?”
“Okay,” Annie said, smiling, and for the first time, Emily saw true joy in her face.
As Emily exited the dining hall, making her way toward the chapel for prayer time, a sudden throat-clearing behind her made her whip around.
June was standing several feet away, lurking near the blind corner by the classrooms. “Those sound like some big plans,” she said.
Emily frowned at her. “June, how long were you—?”
“What do you expect that woman to do once she’s cornered?
” June demanded, brows narrowed over unblinking eyes.
“She’s gonna bite, that’s what. Trust me.
I know. And Stone’s got the sharpest teeth in this place.
Bribery’s one thing. Theft, another. But you try this, kid, and somebody’s gonna get hurt. ”
Emily scoffed. “That’s a bit rich, coming from the woman who set fire to the building,” she said, taking no care to file down the edge in her voice. She’d had about enough of June Jones’s self-righteousness.
June hissed like an angry goose and stepped toward her. “To help you!” Emily was aware a couple of other inmates were watching them.
“To help everyone in here!” Emily fired back. “To get the right people to pay attention! To get this place shut down!”
June pinned Emily with her sharp green-eyed gaze. “The most dangerous people are those with either plenty or nothing to lose, and Stone’s got plenty. Her job is everything to her, she needs the money to pay those creditors or she’s liable to end up in here with us.”
“I know,” Emily fumed, her anger coming out hot. “And she belongs in the psych ward! That’s why—”
“You’ve pushed far enough, you’ve got the evidence you need,” June said, voice low now. “Wait it out, and if there’s an investigation, that friend of yours might get released anyway. But if you try to blackmail Stone, I tell you right now, you’ll end up in an unmarked grave, kid.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Emily said firmly.
“Do you?” June spared her one more appraising glare before she swept past, leaving a trail of doubt in her wake.