by Tarah Benner
As soon as Lark had changed, the woman shoved her forward into another room with a long laminate counter, a sliding glass window, and a door that seemed to lead outside. It looked just like all the other doors Lark had been ushered through so far, but Lark could see daylight leaking through the crack at the bottom.
As she watched, M. Ríos unlocked the glass window and withdrew a shallow rubber bin like the kind they used for airport security. Inside was the plastic bag containing all of Lark’s belongings: a thin photo album, her mother’s silver bracelet, an embroidered pillowcase that her grandmother had made, two pairs of sunglasses, Classic Hikes of North America by Peter Potterfield, and a field guide to native plants.
She gave the bag to Lark and walked back the way she’d come, leaving Lark alone in the room.
“Hey!” Lark called, feeling a sudden jolt of nerves.
But it was too late. The door leading back to intake had slammed behind M. Ríos.
Lark swallowed. What was she supposed to do now?
Then a low beep sounded somewhere above her head, and she heard a heavy metallic click that sounded like a bolt being thrown back in a lock.
“Exit the building and follow the blue line,” came M. Ríos’s voice.
Glancing up toward the ceiling, Lark’s eyes locked on a domed fisheye camera. She blinked at it for half a second before stepping forward and pulling down on the heavy metal handle.
The door swung open with a gust of wind, and daylight flooded into the room. Lark squinted and stepped outside, searching the ground for the thick blue line. Outside, the line was sun faded and chipped, but it was definitely there. It led her away from the building along a crumbling concrete path, through an outdoor corridor contained by chain-link fencing.
Lark noticed at once that she was being led around the perimeter of the men’s colony. The corridor wound along a wide field, where neat rows of leeks or onions were sprouting from the soil.
She stopped. A man was standing about twenty yards ahead, and he was looking right at her. He was dressed in brown trousers similar to hers and a wide-brimmed hat. His bare chest was covered in dizzying swirls of ink, and his dark shoulders were speckled from the sun.
Trembling slightly, Lark started to walk again, and several more field workers turned to stare at her. One of the men pushed up the brim of his hat to get a better look, and she heard a distant whistle and several muted catcalls.
Even though there was a tall fence standing between Lark and the men, she felt uneasy as she continued her march toward the women’s colony. The arm holding her bag was sticky with sweat, and she could feel her face and neck burning with nerves.
Finally, her little concrete path dead-ended at another gate, and her eyes located the camera mounted just above her head. Somebody back at intake must have seen Lark, because she heard another beep, and the gate slid open of its own accord.
Taking a deep breath, Lark stepped through the gate into the prison. The gate closed behind her automatically, and the world grew very quiet as Lark drank in the place where she’d be living for the next twenty-five years.
The land there was green and wild, shaded by a smattering of deciduous trees leading toward the river. She followed the dirt path to a caged metal gangway some thirty feet long suspended over the rushing water.
The river seemed to split San Judas right down the middle, dividing the men’s and women’s colonies. The gangway clanged and swayed as she crossed, but she was so fixated on the river and the trees that she almost walked right into another gate. The heavy steel poles were camouflaged by trees, and a hundred yards up the bank, she could make out a path leading through the forest.
Lark heard the beep of the gate, and a second later, it unlocked. Her skin tingled as she stepped into the women’s colony, and her chest constricted with nerves.
Lark walked toward the path, wondering what sort of reception she could expect, when a sharp, blunt pain shot through the back of her head.
Her knees hit the hard dirt, and the heels of her hands scraped the earth as she collapsed. Lark shook her head, trying to jolt her brain back to normal function, but she was too dizzy and disoriented to stand.
Lark looked up to see what had hit her. She didn’t see the boot slam into her belly until she was lying flat on the ground.
Rough hands flipped her over, and another boot shot out of nowhere and collided with her ribs. Lark sucked in a scream of agony and squinted up at her attacker.
She half expected to see the Wong girl, but to her surprise, four strangers were hovering over her, their faces hidden in shadow. Two of the women were black, one was Hispanic, and another was so pale she looked almost albino.
“Fresh meat,” said the pale girl, bending down to pick something up off the ground. It was Lark’s bag of belongings.
“Give that back,” Lark growled, trying to sit up but failing to lift her head more than a few inches. It was throbbing in pain, and she felt as if she was on the verge of a blackout.
The women fell into a chorus of cruel laughter, and the girl who’d grabbed Lark’s things tore the bag open and began rifling through it.
“Awww, you gonna be in trouble,” said the Hispanic girl, looking concerned for the first time since they’d ambushed Lark. “You know Mercy likes first dibs . . .”
“I know,” said the pale girl. “I’m just lookin’ to see what she’s got.”
“Hand it over, Amber-Lee,” came a cool, commanding voice from behind her.
Several of the women stiffened, and two of them stepped aside and turned to look at the newcomer.
A large, imposing figure in a floor-length skirt was walking toward them, leaning heavily on a cane. Upside down, the woman resembled an angry black lion. She had a wild mane of curly hair, wide-set shoulders, and narrow, predatory eyes. When her lips parted, Lark could see that she had a small gap between her two front teeth.
“Well?” said the woman, turning to the others expectantly.
“Here you are, Mother,” said Amber-Lee, handing over Lark’s effects with a sheepish expression.
“Don’t be greedy,” said the woman, snatching the bag out of Amber-Lee’s pale hands and sticking her nose inside.
She rifled through Lark’s possessions for several minutes, examining the books she’d brought with disinterest and pocketing the silver cuff that had belonged to Lark’s mother.
Lark’s insides bubbled with fury.
Finally, the woman whom Amber-Lee had called “Mother” turned her attention back to Lark and examined her with a calculating expression.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Roland,” Lark choked, still trying to steady her head long enough to stand.
“Not your last name,” said Mercy. “We don’t follow those barbaric prison traditions in San Judas. We’re family here.”
“Lark,” she spat.
The woman seemed unfazed by Lark’s tone. “Nice to meet you, Lark,” she said. “You may call me Mother Mercy.”
“Give me back my things,” said Lark, pushing herself into a seated position and glaring at Mercy.
“You’ll want to show a little more respect for me and my daughters,” said the woman in a calm but deadly voice. “Otherwise, things could get rough for you in here.”
She flashed a smug gap-toothed smile and then strode away with Lark’s bag under her arm. Lark struggled to stand — summoning up the courage to run after Mercy — when the nasty face of one of her “daughters” appeared in front of her own.
Lark had only a second to take in the girl’s violent flashing eyes and demented smile before a fist flew toward her face.
“Welcome to San Judas, bitch.”
one
Lark
Five years later.
Lark awoke slowly with the very odd feeling that she was being watched. She could feel the flutter of hot breath on her face, and someone — or something — was perched on her narrow cot.
“What the —”
; Lark sat up with a start. She was staring directly into a pair of wild blue eyes, which were positioned just above a drooling mouth and two sharp, pointed teeth.
She let out a sigh of relief. The hot breath she’d felt belonged to Denali — the dog who’d latched on to Lark during her first year in San Judas.
He was some kind of blue heeler mix with large pointed ears and a splotch of black fur that fell over the left side of his face like an eye patch. He must have descended from the dogs that were placed in the colony years before to herd cattle. Most of the dogs had been killed off by inmates for their meat, and the few that were left were regarded as pests who chased off the colony’s goats.
Still, Lark couldn’t help loving Denali.
All of a sudden, the shanty door burst open, and Bernie bounded inside.
“Moooor-ning, sun-shiiiine,” she trilled in a musical voice, jumping onto Lark’s bed and pulling off the threadbare blanket. “Up and at ’em!”
Lark groaned and snatched the blanket back as cold morning air made goosebumps erupt all over her body.
As usual, Bernie looked as if she’d just stepped out of a magazine. She was fresh faced and rosy cheeked, with honey-blond waves that were always perfectly tussled and big brown eyes that screamed mischief. She didn’t look at all like an engineering major turned ecoterrorist.
In her enthusiasm, Bernie seemed to fill the entire house — not that it was difficult. The adobe structure they shared was tiny and very simple. Their cots were pushed up against the walls on either side of the small window, leaving just enough room for a rough wooden nightstand that held a kerosene lamp.
On the opposite end, several crude wooden pegs held nearly every item of clothing they owned. Their boots sat on a raised platform to keep out the spiders, and their extra socks were laid flat on the window sill to dry.
There were no dressers, no closets — nowhere they could possibly conceal anything. Mother Mercy did not tolerate hoarding, and her daughters were known to perform random house checks to make sure no one was hiding anything of value.
“I made you something,” said Bernie in a cajoling voice.
Lark looked down. She hadn’t noticed the slight bulge in Bernie’s pocket, but when she pulled out a tiny parcel wrapped in burlap, Lark felt a lump form in her throat.
“Happy fifth year served!” Bernie squeaked, opening the flaps of burlap to reveal a lopsided amaranth-flour cake roughly the size of a coaster. It was golden brown and slightly crusty, with a sprinkling of crushed pecans on top.
Lark gave Bernie a half-grateful, half-reproving look. “You didn’t.”
“I didn’t steal it!” said Bernie quickly. “Kira, er, lent me the ingredients.”
Lark let out a sigh of relief. Her position as a field hand dictated that she be served evening mess next to last, but Kira, the head cook, always gave her a big pile of rice and saved the nicest meat scraps for Denali.
Lark supposed that Bernie had started to grow on Kira, too, but her suspicions weren’t unfounded. Bernie worked in Salvage and was known to have sticky fingers. Her job was to round up threadbare clothing and broken equipment and make them like new again, but she had a talent for scavenging interesting materials and turning them into really cool shit.
In the two years she’d been in San Judas, Bernie had gotten into trouble several times for “liberating” swatches of fabric from the scrap pile and turning them into things she could barter for food. She’d made Lark the leather pouch she used to gather herbs, and she made all of Mother Mercy’s clothing.
“Thanks,” said Lark, eyeing the little cake with fondness. “But I’m not sure my fifth year in prison is really something to celebrate.”
“Of course it is!” said Bernie. “Five down, twenty to go!”
There was a long awkward pause as Bernie realized what she’d said. The prospect of twenty more years in San Judas certainly wasn’t the best way to get Lark in a celebratory mood, but she knew Bernie had meant well.
“It looks great,” Lark managed, squeezing off a piece of the cake and taking a bite. It was a little bit grainy — as though Bernie had cut the flour with sand — but it was sweet, and it was food.
“Delicious,” she said around her mouthful of cake.
Bernie snorted and took a bite herself. Denali’s eyes shifted hungrily from one to the other. When he realized they wouldn’t be sharing, he jumped off of Lark’s bed and squeezed out the door to look for scraps Kira might have dropped on her way to the compost pile.
It took less than two minutes for Bernie and Lark to polish off the tiny cake. Then Lark pulled on some clothes, and they made their way to morning mess through the rows of identical adobe buildings.
The sun had risen high enough to warm their faces, but there was still a bitter chill in the air that told Lark it was too cold to plant cabbage.
Most of the women were still bundled in heavy coats and homemade hats as they hauled water, weeds, and food scraps to the livestock pens, and even the skinny chickens pecking at the dirt looked chilly.
The last few stragglers were already heading out to the fields to work, but Lark had foraging duty, which meant she could eat a late breakfast with the repair crew and healers.
When they reached the square, Lark spotted Kira smoking in the doorway of the mess hall, taking a brief respite between meals. Her heavy smock was caked in grease and soot, but her hair still looked impeccable in the neat twists she wore under her colorful silk scarf. Like nearly all the inmates, at least a third of Kira’s visible skin was covered in tattoos, but they didn’t stand out the way they did on Lark’s pale skin.
Lark gave Kira a grateful nod, and she could have sworn she saw Kira crack the ghost of a smile.
Like her, Kira had been in San Judas a long time. Lark and Kira had both been there two years ago, when the sweet corn disintegrated before it could be harvested. They were there the season an herbicide turned everyone’s legs an alarming shade of orange and the year a certain pesticide had made everyone’s hair fall out in clumps.
Lark still had a spot on the left side of her head where hair wouldn’t grow, so she wore the top half in a braid that wound around to join a longer twist that rested over her right shoulder. It added to her somewhat severe appearance that caused minor offenders to avert their gaze whenever she passed, but Lark knew her weird hairdo wasn’t the reason the other inmates gave her a wide berth.
The rumors surrounding her sentence — while often more absurd than the truth — had earned Lark instant respect and a healthy amount of fear.
To get to San Judas, an inmate had to stand trial twice: once in front of a judge and jury and once in front of Mother Mercy. Mercy Peters knew everything each woman had done to land herself in prison, but she never shared that information with the other inmates.
Most women played up their crimes to advance their status, but Lark had stayed silent. She’d seen the looks the other women had given her at New Mexico Women’s Correctional Facility when she’d blurted out what she’d done, and she didn’t like it.
Only Bernie knew the truth about Lark’s conviction, but it didn’t matter. Somehow word had leaked out, and when Lark didn’t fill in the blanks, the rumor mill went to work churning out the ugly details.
The other inmates’ whispers grew deafening as they approached the mess line, but for once they didn’t seem to be talking about Lark. The snippets she heard were rumors about who was stealing from whom, which friends were fighting, and which inmate had recently fallen out of favor with Mercy and why.
Still, Bernie and Lark ate their bowls of morning mush under a juniper tree far away from the other inmates. Bernie had always said that she didn’t like gossip, but Lark knew the other women steered clear of Bernie because of her.
That morning, breakfast tasted like mashed turnips flavored with sage. There were little round pellets mixed in, which made Lark think that Kira had added some quinoa for protein.
When they finished, they dumped their bowls off w
ith the dishwashers and went their separate ways. Bernie headed straight across the square to the workshop she shared with Rita, the leader of their little family, and Lark headed west toward the river.
On the way, she had to pass Mother Mercy’s compound in the very center of the square. Mercy controlled several buildings behind the raised wooden platform where women gathered for meetings and public floggings.
When Lark passed, Mercy and her daughters were lounging under a pergola, fanning themselves as mess workers passed with teetering baskets of vegetables balanced on their heads. None of the so-called daughters were related to Mercy by blood; they were her servants, enforcers, and spies.
Sitting in the center of the group in her long, billowing skirts, Mother Mercy looked like royalty. It wasn’t far from the truth.
Before she’d become queen of San Judas, Mercy Peters had been the queen of smack. She and her three biological sons had made millions smuggling heroin up from Mexico, but Lark knew Mercy had to have a pretty long rap sheet to land herself seventy-five years in prison.
Hudson, Clarence, and Zachariah were all doing time over in the men’s colony, which meant that Mercy’s influence didn’t stop at the river. A staggeringly long sentence and a reputation for violence gave Mercy immeasurable clout within San Judas. And with such a large “family” behind her, few dared to challenge her orders.
Lark’s fingers balled into fists at the sight of Portia lurking under the pergola. Portia Wong had arrived at San Judas the very same day as Lark, but her crimes were much less severe. She had long, flowing black hair and eyes that could cut glass.
Ordinarily, her life as a smuggler’s bitch would have placed her near the bottom of the social ladder, but Portia had gained favor with Mother Mercy and clawed her way to the top. She detested the way the other inmates had revered Lark in those first few months, so she’d made it her mission to torment Lark and bully the others into shunning her.
