I nod and Ida smiles.
“I remember watching my mother twist her hair. I remember her weaving her fingers through my roots. I remember what she told me when I left. ‘You are beautiful and strong, Idalaye Mason. The loveliest of lovelies. You have been chosen,’ she said.”
Ida turns my chair back to face the mirror, leaning over so our faces are close together, so we’re staring at our reflection.
“You are lovely, Elimina. Really lovely,” she says.
She repeats these words over and over, and I cry so hard my whole body shakes, because I desperately want to believe her. When I stop crying, she places both hands on my shoulders and squeezes gently.
“What do you want your hair to be like, Elimina?”
I look at her in the mirror, then close my eyes. “I want hair that sits around my shoulders, that I can pull up or let down. I want hair that I can twirl around my finger when I’m thinking—the way Alice Day did on the front stoop of the house next door. I want hair like Violet. Hair that will make me feel like a woman. A real woman,” I say.
When I open my eyes, Ida is smiling, like saying all this makes me brave.
“Can I have it? Hair like Violet. Can I do that?” I say.
Ida laughs, a big, hearty laugh that rattles her whole body. “Violet’s got something that don’t everybody got, so her hair does things that not everyone’s can do. You, baby girl, are no Violet,” she says.
I stare down at the tips of my shoes peeking out from underneath the white cloth.
“Now, I’m no Violet neither,” Ida says. “Nobody but Violet is Violet, so don’t go mourning that, baby girl. Don’t you go feeling bad because you got your hair and not hers. That kind of thinking will take what little you’ve got and make it so you’ve got nothing. I tell all you young ones that when it comes to beauty, don’t go looking for your reflection in someone else’s mirror. You hear me? You are lovely as you are. And you’re a woman either way, no matter if your hair is short or long.”
I stare into the mirror trying to find the girl I saw before, the face I loved when I was little, as Ida tugs at the scarf around her head, unwinding all of the fabric until her hair falls down in thick strands, tight black ropes of hair.
“This something you might like?” she says, leaning over and adjusting a few strands so they fall around my face.
I nod, smiling wide.
“It will take time,” she says. “And if you want to make it happen starting today, you’re going to have to suffer a little. But I never knew anything good that didn’t come without a bit of hurt.”
“I’m ready,” I say, and Ida grabs the comb and starts to work, pulling through the tight knots.
I bite back tears to show Ida that I am brave, that my life in Capedown did not make me weak. But it hurts so bad that I close my eyes and curse under my breath, trying to hold back the tears.
When Ida finishes combing, she twists and knots my hair in small sections, something she first saw her mother do and practiced on the other kids at her academy.
“Gutter folk are poor in position, but don’t nobody do family like us,” she says. “And we don’t have to be family to be family, if you know what I’m saying. Wherever we are, we find family.”
I nod, thinking about Josephine, wishing that were true. I didn’t have a family member alive in the world, and the only person at Livingstone Academy who would speak to me was Louis.
“Do you ever get angry that your family sent you away?”
Ida shakes her head. “The only reason my parents sent me here was because we all want what those Mainlanders got from birth, that Redemption Freedom, that sense of being fully free, not an animal that can be marked or leashed or put to work for someone else. When a creature is trapped, they’ll cut off their own arm to save their body. That’s what Gutter folks do. We cut off our own body for the chance to save the family.”
I think of how Ida has a whole family depending on her, and I wonder if that makes it harder, if I should be grateful to be doing this alone.
“Should I be happy to be here, Ida?”
She stops and sighs, resting her hand on my shoulder, like this is a question she’s not sure she can answer. “You have lived a different life, baby girl, seen different things. So I can’t answer that for you. I don’t know if I have happiness . . . But I found purpose, I suppose. That’s what drives me. Perhaps you can find that too. If you ask me, purpose is far more useful than happiness. Happiness is like sugar—sweet, but quick to go. But purpose is really something, baby girl. Purpose gets you through whatever comes.”
When she’s finished with my hair, I touch the ends, tilting my head to get a better look, smiling into the mirror.
7
I PAUSE AT THE DOORS OF THE FIELDHOUSE AND STARE INTO the dark, waiting for things to take shape—the wood posts, the stalls, the tools that hang on the walls. But all I see is black, and when someone grabs my arm, I jump and clasp my hand around my mouth to keep myself from making a sound.
“Did you follow me?” Josephine whispers, holding on tight.
For weeks, I had been watching Josephine at night, waiting for her to sneak out, so I could find out where she went that night they put the dead rat in my bed. When she stayed awake tonight, watching the other girls fall asleep before stuffing her sheets with pillows and heading for the back stairwell, I did the same and followed her to the Fieldhouse in my red coat.
“Ow, Josephine, you’re hurting me,” I say.
“You are such a rat, Elimina,” she whispers, shaking my arm. “Did you even check to see if you were followed?”
“Did you?” I say, and she grips my arm tighter, pinching the skin.
“Did Mr. Gregors ask you to do this? Did Louis? Have you told them?” she says, and I can hear in her voice a desperate kind of anger. “What have you told them, Elimina?”
“I haven’t told them anything.”
“You’re lying!” she hisses.
“I’m not lying. I came on my own. No one knows I’m here,” I whisper, pleading for her to believe me, frustrated that I can’t be mean and ruthless like Louis after all that Josephine has done.
“But you’re going to tell? That’s your plan, right?” she says.
“Josephine, relax. It’s okay,” someone says from the dark.
I squint into the shadows as a figure with wide shoulders and a thick, stocky frame moves closer. I hear a snap and then a hiss that glows into a flame as Rowan lifts a match to the base of an oil lamp, raising it up so his face is covered in an eerie yellow glow.
“Go on, Josephine,” he says.
Josephine looks at me, then back at Rowan. “But, Rowan, she could—”
“I’ll take care of it, Jose,” he says.
Josephine clenches her jaw and loosens her grip on my arm. But when Rowan nods for her to go on, she sighs and heads deeper into the Fieldhouse, leaving the two of us alone.
“What are you guys doing here?” I say.
“I’m about to show you, Elimina. But first, I need to know if you can keep a secret. Or if that red coat means you’re with Louis.”
“I can keep a secret,” I say.
He holds the lamp out with one hand so the light spreads wide around us, pointing his elbow in my direction the way Mainland men do when they’re asking a woman to dance at a fancy party. I slide my hand into the bend of his arm, pressing my lips tightly together to keep my smile small.
“Being a Red Coat has advantages, Elimina,” he says as we make our way down one hallway and turn down another. “But the real advantage is knowing when and how to use it.”
At the far corner of the Fieldhouse, past horses and cows that shuffle as we pass by, a second lamp flickers in the corner stall. I can hear voices whispering low. Josephine and one other, maybe more.
“So, you won’t tell?” he says, stopping and leaning in close.
“I won’t tell. I promise,” I say, closing my eyes at the gentle feel of his breath against my skin.
>
David, Josephine and Violet are sitting on blankets that are spread over the concrete floor, and when Rowan leads me forward with his hand pressed gently against my back, they immediately stop whispering.
Josephine doesn’t look at me, and when David makes room for me to sit down, Violet glares at him like she doesn’t want me here at all.
“Welcome to our little gathering,” Rowan says, sitting down next to Violet.
“No way in hell is that Red Coat welcome,” Violet says, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Violet—”
“Don’t even start with me, David. She’s not one of us,” she says, and I cover my bare hand with my scarred one so I look like I belong.
“Am I the only one who’s bothered by this?” she says. “She’s a rat. She’s friends with Louis.”
“We’re not friends. Louis is just the only person who’ll talk to me,” I say. “We’re supposed to work together.”
“You’re a rat, Elimina,” Violet says, and when I look over at David and Josephine, I can’t tell if they agree or if they’re nervous about something else.
“Violet, calm down,” Rowan says. “Maybe it’s good to have someone keeping an eye on things. I mean, if she’s got that red coat, it’s better she’s with us than against us.”
“If she’s willing to work with Louis, she can’t be trusted,” Violet says. “That’s just facts, Rowan.”
“I don’t know, Violet. I think Rowan’s right,” David says.
“She’s ruining everything,” Violet says. “There’s barely enough work in the office as it is. God help me if I get sent to housekeeping on account of her! If she replaces me, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“There’s nothing wrong with housekeeping,” Josephine says.
“Not for you,” Violet says, waving her arms and pouting her lips.
“Well, maybe when Elimina does take your job, she can arrange to put you in the Fieldhouse instead.”
Violet gasps and the two boys cover their mouths to stop themselves from laughing out loud.
“You’d certainly have plenty of work. There’s plenty of manure for you to shovel here,” Josephine says.
“Don’t even think about it,” Violet says to me.
Josephine looks over at me and we both fight back a smile, covering our mouths and laughing along with the boys when we can’t hold it in any longer.
Violet huffs, and when the laughter doesn’t stop, she reaches under a blanket and pulls out an old blue book, tossing it in front of her so it falls against the ground. “Let’s get on with things,” she says, crossing her arms again.
David reaches over and picks up the book, turning the pages gently until he reaches a spot near the center. When everyone is quiet and comfortably settled, he reads a poem about a dream that seems forgotten, a dream that’s bright like the sun.
I can feel Rowan watching me, studying my reaction as David sounds out words that flow together like music. When he pauses to clear his throat, Violet continues the poem from memory. She doesn’t stop or pause or falter as she recites the words, but her voice gets quieter near the end, and I lean in so I can hear all about the whirling dreams that shatter darkness.
When she finishes, I close my eyes, letting the words hover around me like a beam of light, flooding me with fire.
“What do you think, Elimina?” Rowan whispers.
I open my eyes and find all of them looking at me, waiting for me to speak, but I just shake my head because I don’t know what to say. Because I don’t know how to put what I think and feel into words.
“Did you write that?” I finally say to Violet.
She shakes her head. “I found it in my mother’s side table. It’s how I learned to read, and it’s the only thing I brought from the Gutter. It’s the only thing I want to remember from that place.”
I think of all the books Mother made me study for school—poems and stories about men searching for big adventures that never made sense. “I can’t believe it. It’s incredible,” I say.
“What, did you think we were idiots because we weren’t raised in a fancy Mainland city?” Violet says.
“No. I . . . I didn’t think that at all. I don’t think that,” I say, looking at Violet and then around at the others. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Did you read a lot where you lived?” David says with an expression that’s both kind and curious.
“Mother liked to read. She read to me a lot. And I read on my own. But nothing like this,” I say.
“I didn’t read much before I came—even less when I got here,” Rowan says. “I came when I was seven years old, but when I heard those poems, I felt like you, Elimina. Like it was a good song or a favorite meal from back home. It feels different, right?”
“You’ve been here at Livingstone for that long?” I say, and he shrugs with a smile that’s more cheeks than mouth, like he’s not sure if he’s embarrassed or proud.
“I’m a special project too, I guess, Elimina,” he says with a dimpled grin.
“Rowan’s a fighter,” Violet says, patting him on the arm like he’s a child she’s taking care of. “He was brought here to train to become a boxer. He’ll be the talk of the Mainland and the Gutter, and he’ll be out sooner than all of us. Redemption Freedom and all.”
She smiles at him and when he winks back at her, I see the way she straightens up her shoulders, like she wants more.
“I’m the youngest student they’ve ever brought into Livingstone,” he says, raising his arms and flexing his muscles while Josephine rolls her eyes. “They built a whole space for me to train in the basement of the East Hall, and they brought the older boys in to help me. Everyone else was at least twelve or fourteen. But I held my own.”
I look around at all their faces, how comfortable they seem together. “Have you all been on the Mainland that long?”
“Violet’s the only normal one. She came out right at five. Started at a junior academy, just like you’re supposed to,” Rowan says.
“Bayshore Academy,” she says proudly, like this should mean something.
“What about you?” I say to Josephine and David. I think of that day on the path and the closeness I see between them now.
“I came about five years ago. Straight from the Gutter,” David says, looking down and then at Josephine before continuing. “There was a fire and I ended up here. My parents didn’t plan it this way, but . . . I’m making the best of it.”
“Me too,” Josephine says. “I came out the same time as David. Same kind of thing.”
“And this?” I say, gesturing at the stall and the lamps and the book in David’s hand. “How did this happen?”
The four of them all look at each other, like they can’t decide who should speak first.
“David and me . . . just wanted to . . . meet up sometimes,” Josephine says slowly.
“She was having trouble sleeping,” David says, and she looks at him and nods. “Somehow Violet and Rowan joined too. I don’t even remember how. But one time, Violet pulled out the book and read to us.”
“It helped so much,” Josephine says.
Violet smiles, squeezing Rowan’s arm, while David and Josephine sit close, and I feel a pain that pulls at my stomach, an ache for what they have.
“Being so far away from family for so long . . . I don’t know . . . it felt like we made a family of our own,” David says.
I feel a catch in my throat at that word, and it reminds me of my conversations with Ida. “I don’t have a single bit of family anywhere,” I say, mostly to myself, but when I look up, I see how this saddens Rowan, Josephine and David, how they really seem to care.
“She just wants you to feel sorry for her,” Violet says.
“Violet, what the hell is your problem?” Rowan says.
“She’s a Red Coat, Rowan!”
Josephine frowns. “Being a Red Coat means it’s difficult to trust you, Elimina,” she says. “You being here—do you understand
what that means, what we could all lose if you turn on us?”
“I wouldn’t do that. You can trust me,” I say, trying hard not to sound desperate, even though that’s exactly how I feel.
“And we’re just supposed to believe that? You could get us leashed. Or worse,” Violet says.
“You could have us moved,” Josephine says, and I hear the fear in her voice. I see the way she looks at David and he squeezes her back, their need to be close.
“You could report me as well,” I say. “You could tell Louis I was here and you could have me sent away too.”
“Not without telling him about the group and wrecking it anyway,” Violet says, rolling her eyes like this is not a strong argument.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I say. “I promise.”
WE LEAVE UNDER the night sky in shifts. Violet first, then me and Josephine, leaving the boys to put out the lamps and close the doors. We run down the path quickly, my heart full and light, like the joy from tonight is greater than all my fears of being caught.
When we reach the back stairwell, we stop at the bottom of the stairs with our hands against our knees to gather our breath.
“So, you and David?” I say, and she looks over at me like she’s not sure what to say. “Is he your . . . Do you like him, Josephine? Is that what you don’t want to tell me?”
She shakes her head.
“Josephine, I know you don’t know me,” I say, taking one of her hands in mine. “But I’ve always wanted a friend. And I’ll be a good one.”
She looks down at our hands, then up at me, our faces close in the dark. “David is my brother,” she says.
I clutch my chest, like the pain and longing I’ve felt for as long as I can remember is suddenly stronger, more sharp. “Your brother?”
“No one else knows but Violet and Rowan,” she says, her voice tiny and low. “It’s against the rules, family being together. I don’t know why I’m telling you now. Especially since you’re a Red Coat.”
She takes her hand and puts it to her mouth, like she suddenly regrets sharing this.
“You can trust me. I will never tell Louis or Mr. Gregors about any of this,” I say.
Gutter Child Page 6