Gutter Child

by Jael Richardson

  “But what if they take someone else? What if, in eight months, they don’t want me anymore?”

  Mr. Gregors waves a hand at me as though this is hardly a concern. “They will pay for you or they will lose you to someone else who will,” he says, and I see a coldness in his expression that makes me feel angry and ashamed.

  “Sir, please,” I say, but he raises his hand to stop me from arguing further.

  “I will tell the Freemans that there’s legal paperwork that requires a little more time. I will delay as much as I can. But I will not make any promises, Elimina. This is your doing and these are your consequences to bear.”

  I see in his face the same expression I saw when he took the red coat back, that tight-jawed disappointment, and I remember what Rowan said about Mr. Gregors holding our future in his hands.

  “I don’t want to go, Mr. Gregors. Please don’t make me go,” I say.

  “Elimina, there are rules and laws for these situations, and I have a duty to enforce them. That’s my job.”

  I think of my conversation with Ida about children and the Deco she sent away because he wanted to have a family, how she didn’t want to bring a child into this world.

  “Where am I going?”

  “Somewhere where they can take care of you. Your things are packed. There’s a car waiting for you.”

  I lean forward, rubbing my forehead. “What will happen to the baby?”

  “The baby will go to a junior academy. Perhaps the same one where Louis grew up,” he says.

  He smiles, but I don’t smile back at him. I just hold on to my belly as my stomach bends and swerves.

  “Focus on taking care of yourself, Elimina—delivering the baby and staying well, and getting back here as soon as you can. I can reduce your debt if the child is healthy, and the child can have a strong future too—minimal debt, good work ethic. These are the kinds of students all academies want.”

  I look up at him, letting his words settle slowly.

  “I will encourage the Freemans to wait. I’ll take care of things as best I can. No one else needs to know,” he says. “You’ll be back in no time, Elimina.”

  I nod with both hands on my belly, thinking about the child that’s growing inside me, and all the changes that lie ahead.

  Riverside

  18

  MISS CHARLOTTE’S HOME FOR TROUBLED GIRLS IS A lonely gray house at the southern tip of Riverside—a town that takes so long to get to, it’s a whole other day by the time I arrive. I pause for a moment as I read the sign on the lawn because “troubled” is exactly how I feel right now, and I wonder who else lives inside.

  “Is this it?” I say, staring up at a house with a long covered porch surrounded by bright-colored flowers.

  The driver nods as he takes my bag and places it on the front steps. He’s an old Gutter man with a curve in his shoulders and a crackling rasp in his voice. “If you need to reach your people, your family or whatever, find Duncan. He’s the Network man down here,” he says before hopping back into the car.

  I don’t tell him that there’s no family for me to write to. I just stand on the grass and watch him pull away as a pear-shaped Mainland woman walks out of the house, followed by two Gutter girls in matching gray dresses.

  “Isobel, did you move your belongings into the other room like I asked?” the woman says, wiping her hands with a tea towel.

  The younger girl nods as she pulls her black hair over her shoulder and weaves it into a braid that almost touches the curve of her belly.

  “I don’t see why the new girl gets her own room,” the other girl says. “Is it because she’s a project case? Cuz I don’t think it matters who raised her, Miss Charlotte. Besides—”

  “Matilda, that’s enough,” Miss Charlotte says, raising her hand. “Why don’t you go over and show some good manners by properly introducing yourselves?”

  Matilda makes her way over to me with movements that are labored and slow. While the younger girl is tiny everywhere but her belly, Matilda is thick all over, with a wide stomach that moves and sways as she walks. I smile at both girls even though standing in front of them makes me feel awkward and small. Other than the sick, dizzy mornings and the red lines that have begun to form around the lines of my underwear, my body hardly feels different at all.

  “I’m Tilly, as in Matilda. But I prefer Tilly. Always Tilly,” the older girl says, looking back at Miss Charlotte as though this clarification is just for her. “And this here is Isobel. Never Izzy.”

  “Tilly and Isobel,” I say, and Isobel smiles.

  “Why don’t you join us for a walk, Elimina?” Miss Charlotte says. “I daresay you’ve been cooped up in that car for far too long. You could use a little exercise, and I’d like to get you registered in town.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, wanting to be obedient, even though I’d much rather lie down.

  “Delightful. Isobel, take Elimina’s luggage upstairs, and Tilly, show her the bathroom on the main floor so she can freshen up before we go,” Miss Charlotte says, tossing her towel over her shoulder and returning to the house.

  Tilly leads me down a narrow hallway covered in black-and-white pictures of Mainlanders with round chins and thin lips.

  “Those are Miss Charlotte’s people, if you couldn’t tell,” Tilly whispers over her shoulder, and I cup my hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh because they all look the same, each one more miserable than the next.

  In Miss Charlotte’s living room, there’s a piano and a coffee table, and two heavy quilts that are draped over the back of a couch and a chair. The rugs on the wood floors and the metal ornaments on the walls make everything look neat and tidy like a display—a room you’re only meant to admire.

  “How long have you been here?” I say, and Tilly stops, one hand on the back of the chair, the other resting on the side of her belly, her Xs pink and rough.

  “I’m almost six months along,” Tilly says. “Hid it longer than most cuz the nurses at my academy weren’t quite on top of things and, well, I’ve always been a big girl. Got here after Isobel, but I’ll be heading out first. Been here about two months.”

  “So it’s just the two of you,” I say, nodding at the thought of living with two girls who seem nice enough so far as I can tell.

  “It’s just the two of us now,” Tilly says. “Three with you. My roommate, Sarah, left last week. Other girl left a month or two before that. Supposed to have a full house again by next month, so I guess we got one more coming. Is it true you came all the way from Mainland City?”

  “Yup. Capedown before that, on the Sunset Coast,” I say, looking down at my scar and thinking about my arrival at the academy two years ago and how much has changed since then.

  “From the Sunset Coast to Mainland City to the gates of the Gutter. You sure been around,” Tilly says, smiling and shaking her head, like she’s almost envious.

  “The Gates of the Gutter? Is that what they call this place?” I say, because it sounds like a terrible name.

  “Well, that’s what it is,” Tilly says. “I can practically see the red gates from my window when the sky is clear. Riverside’s the last stop on the Mainland, and Miss Charlotte’s house is about as close as you can get.”

  Tilly opens a narrow wood door and steps back, pointing into a small room with a large, deep sink and a small toilet. But I just stare at her, shuddering at the thought of being so close to the Gutter.

  WHEN I RETURN to the front of the house, Tilly shows me the river that wraps around the back of Miss Charlotte’s. I watch the water move fast and noisy like it’s headed somewhere in a rush.

  “Gutter looks different from this side,” Tilly says. “Although you probably don’t remember it at all. Did they really take you straight away? Were you always raised with Mainlanders?”

  “The only person I had in my life before I got to the academy was Mother, and she was a Mainlander,” I say, and Tilly shakes her head like this is impossible to imagine.

&nb
sp; She points at a bridge that crosses over the river and at the wall on the other side where tall pipes spit yellow smoke somewhere far away.

  “Well, that’s Dead Man’s Bridge. And that wall, well, that wraps around the entire Gutter. So I guess this is kind of your welcome home,” Tilly says, smiling and wiping the sweat off her brow as the sun beats down hard.

  I stare at the bridge and the wall, imagining those red gates as Tilly’s words echo in my head. Home.

  In Capedown, Mother read the Mainland News every day. By the time I was eight, she encouraged me to follow along to help develop my reading skills. The paper was filled with all kinds of articles about the Gutter: “Guards Attacked in the Gutter,” “Ten Gutter Employees Fired for Fraud,” “Gutter Births on the Rise—Will They Take Over?” The articles included pictures of angry Gutter folks, their teeth bared and sharp, or pictures of sad children in oversized clothing. Whenever I looked at the paper, I always felt grateful to Mother. Grateful I wasn’t there. Grateful I wasn’t them.

  Now, here I am, closer than ever, separated by only a bridge. And despite what I’d heard from Josephine, Ida and Albert, something about being this close makes me afraid. As though the Gutter is a magnet, a powerful force, that can pull people away from their dreams.

  MAIN STREET RUNS through the center of Riverside, splitting the town neatly in two. The street is crowded with marked vans and curious Mainlanders who watch us arrive in a line that’s led by Miss Charlotte, with Isobel and Tilly following behind me.

  “As you can see, Elimina, Riverside is quite the busy little town. Everyone knows most everyone here, so it’s very friendly,” Miss Charlotte says, raising her voice and turning her head so I can hear her over the crowds. “Despite our location and our proximity to the Gutter, you’ll find that Riverside is one of the safest cities on the Mainland. I say that as a woman who finds herself alone in a big house on occasion. I’ve always taken great comfort in the fact that the Mainland Guards outnumber the civilians.”

  Miss Charlotte waves at acquaintances and pauses to chat with a friend while the three of us wait in the shade. Isobel keeps her head down, gripping Tilly’s hand tightly, and whenever folks snicker or stare in Tilly’s direction, she raises her chin like she’s proud to have won their attention.

  “Wait right here, I just need to pick up some chicken for dinner,” Miss Charlotte says when we reach the Riverside Country Store, where the sign is shaped like an apple.

  She enters the store, just as five Mainland Guards exit, pouring onto the street in their muddy-green uniforms, heads shaved low. They laugh and wrestle as they move across the street, punching and grabbing one another as drivers in the marked vans honk on their way by.

  “Seeing them makes me so mad,” Isobel says somberly.

  “You been around a lot of guards, Elimina?” Tilly says, rubbing Isobel’s shoulder and holding her close.

  I think about the guards on my first day at Capedown Elementary and the day Josephine disappeared. “Just a few times,” I say.

  “You’ll figure out pretty quick how this guard town works. Most everyone here works for them in one way or another,” she says.

  We watch the guards lean up against a building across the street, laughing and yelling loudly as Isobel scowls and shakes like she’s cold.

  MISS CHARLOTTE TAKES me to Riverside’s Mainland Guard Detainment Facility while Tilly and Isobel head back to the house with dinner. Gutter men are crowded in a small cell in the corner while a drunk Mainlander sits in a stall of his own, yelling and cursing at the guards.

  A guard standing behind a tall counter asks for my information—the name of my academy, my total debt, my expected field of employment. When I answer his questions, he takes a picture of me with a camera that flashes loudly while Miss Charlotte removes a photo of a young girl with thick braids from a wall of photographs and tosses it in the garbage. The wall includes photos of Tilly and Isobel, posted under a sign that says “Registered,” but I stare at the photos marked “Wanted.” I look at each Gutter face, studying their features, looking for some kind of resemblance.

  “You grew up on the Sunset Coast, did you, Elimina?” Miss Charlotte says as we step out of the detainment facility. “I’ve never been there before. But I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”

  “Have you always lived here?” I say.

  The sun is hot and strong, and I raise my hand over my eyes as Mainland Guards pass us on the street, greeting Miss Charlotte without acknowledging me at all.

  “I slept in the very same room where you’ll be sleeping for my entire childhood,” she says. “My parents bought the house when there was practically nothing here other than the Mainland Guard Detainment Facility and a few dorms for the guards. My father built an addition a while back, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else or calling any other place home.”

  I feel a sense of envy at the way Miss Charlotte talks about Riverside and the way Tilly spoke about the Gutter. And I wonder if I’ll ever feel that way about a place—like it’s somewhere I belong and somewhere I want to stay. I wonder if I’ll find that at the Hill.

  We head back to Miss Charlotte’s on the other side of the road, passing stores with neatly drawn signs—a deli, a bank, a tailor, and a shop for paper and cards. Miss Charlotte points out landmarks, and I gently rub my belly, which is moving and stirring like something might come up if I don’t.

  “When I was growing up, my very closest friends were Gutter girls,” Miss Charlotte says. “Dad practically ran the whole town, so Mother opened up our home to young Gutter women who needed a place to go. It was quite the controversy at the time. But they were always such sweet girls, and the people in town came around. They always do. I grew up with those girls, and I adored them. I often wonder how they’re doing. I never really knew what became of them after they left. You remind me of one of them, in fact. Leeza. She had hair just like yours.”

  Miss Charlotte tugs gently at a lock of my hair, and I tilt my head slightly out of reach.

  “I tried to do the same thing to my hair once and Mother lost it. I made quite a mess of it. She nearly had to cut it all off,” Miss Charlotte says with a smile.

  I try to smile back, but I can feel my whole body slowing down, like the walk is getting longer, like we’re getting farther and farther away from the house.

  “It was different back then. Things have changed. The girls are just not as friendly, I find. Which is a real shame.”

  I pause on the sidewalk, waiting for things to stop spinning, hoping I don’t fall like I did in the academy workroom.

  “Elimina, are you alright?”

  I shake my head, unable to talk.

  “It’s the heat. You’re not used to it yet,” she says.

  Miss Charlotte places her hand on my back and guides me toward a tall tree in front of a large pink house. I lean over the fence, covered in shade, and I wait as my skin starts to feel cooler, my head more settled while Miss Charlotte rubs my back.

  On the front porch of the pink house, a Gutter man with a thick black beard tinged with gray and an old Gutter woman watch us.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Charlotte,” the man says.

  “Oh, hello, Duncan. And hello and good afternoon to you too, Miss Lulabelle.”

  The old woman has thick white hair, and she squints in our direction as the man leans closer to her. “Momma, Miss Charlotte said hello.”

  “Who?”

  “Miss Charlotte, the woman who takes care of all of them girls.”

  The old woman continues squinting at us.

  “See you got yourself a new girl, Miss Charlotte,” Duncan says, nodding in my direction while I read the message under the sign for Cranberry Manor Assisted Care: “Hope for a Better Tomorrow.”

  “Yes. This is Elimina,” Miss Charlotte says, watching me closely to see if I’m okay.

  “She alright?” Duncan says.

  I lift up my head and try to smile, raising one hand to show that I’m alright.

/>   “Could I bother you to grab a glass of water and maybe a cracker or two from the nurses?” Miss Charlotte says, and Duncan nods.

  “Momma, don’t you go anywhere,” he says, disappearing into Cranberry Manor while the old woman watches me closely.

  Miss Charlotte rubs my back in slow circles, searching her purse for something to eat but finding nothing. “You’re eating for two now. You’ve got to pay attention to when you eat and how much. You can’t overdo it,” she says.

  Lulabelle stands and heads toward us, moving slowly, her expression eerie and still like a ghost.

  “Lulabelle,” Miss Charlotte says, as the old woman gets closer. “I think Duncan wants you to stay up on the porch.”

  Lulabelle ignores her, and when the old woman is standing in front of me, she takes both of my hands in hers and stares at them before letting out a long, loud wail.

  “Momma,” Duncan says as he rushes out of the Manor.

  When he reaches her, Lulabelle looks up at him and starts crying, like her whole body hurts.

  “Momma, Momma, it’s alright,” he says, holding her close. “It’s alright. It’s going to be alright.”

  “Lulabelle? Lulabelle? It’s me. It’s Miss Charlotte. Lulabelle, let her go. Elimina, don’t worry. It’s okay,” she says. But when people stop and stare, Miss Charlotte whispers through clenched teeth, “Duncan, do something.”

  “Shhh. Shhh. Shhh, Momma. It’s okay, Momma,” he says as she cries into him. “She’s okay. It’s okay, Momma.”

  Lulabelle doesn’t let go, but I feel her grip relax as she places my unmarked hand against her face. She turns to her son, and when he nods, I’m reminded of Josephine and David—the way they shared secrets and memories without words.

  “Lulabelle, please let the girl go,” Miss Charlotte says, pulling at Lulabelle’s fingers while I stand there, watching everything.

  “Come cool waters of paradise. Come find me in the waters of paradise,” Lulabelle moans through tears.

  I think of the times Mother sang this song, how it comforted me when I was filled with thoughts of monsters hiding somewhere in the dark. I think of the night I sang the song to Rowan, how it helped him too, and as the tears start to trickle down my cheeks, I sing along with her: “Come find me in the cool waters of paradise.”