The Prison

by Amy Cross

  “Huh,” he replied, clearly a little annoyed. “You know, a lot of people over the past few years have tried reassuring me, telling me that I'm not to blame for what happened to her. You're the first person who's ever gone the other way.”

  “I just think we all have to take responsibility,” she replied. “That's all.”

  “Sabrina Huntley was a troubled young woman,” he continued. “I don't know if anyone could ever have really saved her.”

  “Convenient,” Grace muttered under her breath.

  “You're really out to make me feel bad tonight, huh?”

  “I just think you washed your hands of the whole thing pretty easily,” she continued. “I'm not saying you should eat yourself up with guilt, but Jesus Christ, have you never even reflected on what happened? Have you never thought about things you could have done differently?”

  “Maybe I should,” he replied. “After all, if I hadn't left my last job, I never would have ended up at Hardstone. Would that have been better?”

  “We'll talk later,” she told him. “I still have a few things to finish up here before I can leave, and I need time to think. I'll call when I'm done.”

  “How long do you think you'll be?”

  He waited for an answer, but finally he realized that she'd hung up.

  “Nice,” he muttered, “way to -”

  Suddenly he spotted her. Up ahead, he saw that there was a little girl standing in the middle of the road, as if she was waiting for him to hit her. Instinctively he spun the wheel, sending the car screeching past her and bumping over the verge that separated the two lanes of traffic. Before the car had even come to a halt, he turned and saw the little girl standing nearby.

  Just as he opened his mouth to say something, he heard the horn of a speeding lorry as it plowed straight into the back of the car.

  Twenty-four hours ago

  “Can't we go any faster?” she called out from the back of the limousine. “It's getting dark!”

  “There appears to be a storm moving in, M'am,” Jefferies replied, as the limousine waited at a set of traffic lights. “The rain has intensified significantly since we set off.”

  “Maybe it's her way of trying to keep me away,” the old woman said, looking out the window and watching as Londoners tried to dodge as much of the downpour as possible. “I wouldn't put it past her to be able to do something like that. If she thinks I'm going to interfere, she might very well try to stop me.”

  “I can try to take an alternative route,” Jefferies told her, “but I would think that even with a strong wind behind us, we shall not reach the prison within the next hour.”

  “Then we must pray that an hour is not too late,” she replied, “and that when we get there, at least some of those poor souls are still alive.”

  Today

  Darkness had fallen and the rain was coming down with greater intensity than ever, as a black car pulled up to the main gate of Hardstone Prison. The front window was wound down, and a middle-aged man wearing a chauffeur's uniform leaned out and hit the intercom buzzer on the wall.

  “We're closed for visits,” a voice replied seconds later. “Visiting hours are -”

  “We're not here to visit an inmate,” the chauffeur replied. “We need to come inside. It's very important.”

  “Visiting hours are from -”

  “We're not here to visit!” the chauffeur said again. “We're here to -”

  “Tell them it has already started,” said a female voice from the back of the vehicle.

  “We really need to get inside,” the chauffeur continued. “Please, we need to speak to your governor as a matter of great urgency.”

  “The governor has gone home for the night,” the voice replied.

  “He's lying,” said the female voice.

  “The governor is still inside,” the chauffeur continued, “and we need to speak to him immediately. Can you at least ask him to hear us out?”

  “Hold please,” the voice replied.

  Sitting back, the chauffeur looked in his rear-view mirror and saw a pair of old, tired eyes staring back at him.

  “They must let us in,” the elderly woman continued, “they simply must. We're already running very late.”

  “I'm sure they'll see sense,” the chauffeur replied.

  “If not, I shall have to call the ministry myself,” she added. “Perhaps I should have done that from the very beginning, but I didn't want to...” She let out a faint gasp.

  “Are you okay, M'am?” he asked, turning to her.

  “I'm fine. Just press the button again and see if -”

  “Hello?” the voice called out from the intercom on the wall. “I'm very sorry, but the governor is away at the moment and the acting governor, Doctor Bell, is just about to leave for the evening. She asked if you would be so kind as to come back in the morning and she'll be happy to make some time for you. It would also help if you could leave a name and contact number.”

  “That'll be too late,” the elderly woman said, as the high black gate began to open.

  “Someone's coming out,” the chauffeur said, as the bright lights of a car came toward them.

  “Are we blocking the way?” the woman asked.

  “I suppose we are,” he replied, with a faint smile. “He did just say that the acting governor is on her way out.”

  “Open my door,” the woman said with a hint of urgency in her voice. “Open it immediately!”

  “M'am, the weather -”

  “Don't argue with me! Open it at once!”

  As the chauffeur climbed out and hurried around the car, he saw that a figure was getting out of the other vehicle.

  “Hey!” Doctor Bell shouted, holding an umbrella above her head in an attempt to stay at least somewhat dry. “You're blocking the way!”

  “One moment!” the chauffeur shouted as he slid open one of the car's rear doors and reached inside. Seconds later, he began to maneuver a wheelchair out onto into the rain.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Doctor Bell called out to them. “What the hell gives you the right to stop me getting out?”

  “Remember what I told you,” the old woman said, looking up at the chauffeur. “There must be no regrets, no doubts, no fear.” She reached up and took his hand in hers. “Things always had to go this way.”

  “I'm calling security!” Doctor Bell shouted. “This is absolutely ridiculous!”

  “Wait!” the chauffeur shouted, pushing the wheelchair-bound old woman toward her. “This is important!”

  “I'm sorry,” Doctor Bell continued, fishing her phone out of her pocket, “but I simply have to get out of here, you can't block the way like this.”

  “I'm so sorry to inconvenience you,” the old woman said as her wheelchair came to a halt, “but I had no other choice.”

  “You're getting soaked,” Doctor Bell replied, stepping toward her and using her umbrella to shield them both. “Listen, I don't know who you are, but whatever you want here tonight, you're going to have to leave it until tomorrow.”

  “I fear tomorrow will be too late.”

  “That's as may be, but -”

  “You need me here,” the old woman continued, “and you need me tonight.” Reaching up with a frail hand, she paused for a moment. “My name is Leonora Blake, and I've come to put right a mistake that was made many years ago.”

  Part Seven

  Today

  “You must understand,” Leonora Blake explained, as a rapidly-building storm battered the dark windows beyond the prison office, “that my mother was part of one of London's great families. The Blakes have been influential beyond measure in every walk of this city's life. Industry, politics, the arts... I don't think I'm overstating things when I saw that we and our various offshoots have been one of the most important families in London for almost two centuries, stretching back to the Regency period. With such privilege, however, there also comes a certain degree of responsibility, and inevitably – over time – a c
ertain degree of darkness sets in.”

  “It's getting late,” Doctor Bell replied, with a kind of distracted, dismissive politeness. “Ms. Blake, I think we're all fascinated by your family's history and we'd would love to hear more of your stories, or maybe read about it some time, but the weather is -”

  “Let her finish,” Grace said suddenly, interrupting with uncharacteristic boldness. “I mean... Sorry, I just... This seems important.”

  “You're perky tonight,” the doctor muttered under her breath.

  “My mother was the black sheep of the family,” Leonora continued. “When she was sent to Hardstone for theft, she was cut off by her parents, and her siblings were told to forget that she even existed. Shortly after her arrival in this prison, however, she was found to be pregnant, and when she died during childbirth a telegram was sent to her father, my grandfather, informing him of the news. After all, it's one thing to excommunicate a woman for her crimes, it's quite another to ignore the next generation, but Jeremiah Blake was a harsh man. It's said that no reply to that telegram was ever sent from his desk.”

  Her voice trailed off for a moment, as if some long-dormant memory was stirring.

  “There were two children,” she said finally. “Leonora -”

  “There was one child,” Doctor Bell replied, interrupting her. “We've all heard the story a thousand times. I've seen the records, too. One child.”

  “There were two children,” Leonora said again. “I should know, because I was one of them, and there was my twin sister Elenora, who arrived a few minutes after me. At first, our births were not even recorded. After a number of years, however, one of our uncles learned of our existence. He broke the party line and agreed to take one of us in, but just one. I don't know how the wardens chose between us, but in the end I was the one who was sent off to Uncle George's family estate. I remember being led away, holding my uncle's hand, and looking over my shoulder to see Elenora watching from a window. The look on her face was one of... hatred, I think. It must have been so difficult for her, remaining in this awful place once I had been rescued.”

  Grace looked over at Doctor Bell for a moment, and saw that she was finally listening.

  “I received a wonderful education,” Leonora continued, “and my life was turned around. I am fully aware that the opportunities I was given were rare gifts indeed. And now here I am, one hundred and thirteen years old and still, if I might say so, rather sharp in the head. I have lived a blessed life since I left this prison, and I have seized the chance to help push the Blake family forward, yet there is one matter that still demands my attention, one... tragedy that I think has spurred me to keep pushing along until this chance arrived to set things right.”

  She turned and looked across the room, as if she was expecting to see something else. Above, the lights flickered for a moment.

  “This place is falling apart,” Doctor Bell muttered.

  “You must understand,” Leonora continued, “that I had no choice but to leave my sister behind. I was just a child myself. Eventually my uncle, bless him, saw how much I had blossomed and decided to rescue Elenora too. Unfortunately, by that point my twin sister was... different, somehow. Her heart had become dark and twisted, and I'm sure you all know the story of how she emerged from the gate, alone and terrified. On the day of her supposed departure, my uncle had been delayed, so Elenora walked out alone from Hardstone into the market square beyond the gate. As it turned out, she had hidden a knife under her dress, so as to murder my uncle as punishment for having left her behind previously, but it seems that she panicked and instead she used the knife to slaughter the very first people she encountered. And then later, when she was back at Hardstone as an inmate, she carried out another terrible crime, killing everyone in the prison. The Blake family had friends in high places and ensured that the whole thing was hushed up as much as possible, but I always felt that more should have been done for Elenora, that I should have done more.”

  Outside, a strong gust of wind rattled the glass in the old windows.

  “There's not really much you could have done,” Grace suggested after a moment. “I mean, her body was never found, but...”

  “It must be here somewhere,” Leonora replied. “I imagine that after she'd killed everyone, she hid herself away where she knew she'd never be found. As you can imagine, after growing up here, we both knew nooks and crannies to which others were oblivious, since we'd explored Hardstone as children for many years. Elenora was always a rather timid girl, so I can only imagine that she crawled away somewhere and was too afraid to ever come out. Eventually, she must have simply wasted away. Meanwhile, because her birth had technically never been recorded, the legends about Hardstone tended to confuse some of the facts, merging us together and treating us as if we were just one child. Since those legends only existed on the fringes, and since I have long since gone by my middle name of Elizabeth rather than by my birth name, I have rather ignored the whole matter.”

  “Until now,” Doctor Bell said darkly. “Tell me, what brings a centenarian old woman out in a storm to visit a women's prison? Sentimentality? Nostalgia?”

  “I should have come sooner,” she replied, with tears in her eyes, “but I suppose I was... delaying things. I tried to put it out of my mind, and God forgive me but I managed for quite some time. I would think of Elenora regularly, but only as a passing memory, as a thought in the corner of my mind's eye, something to never be considered directly. Now, though, I realize that with the reopening of Hardstone, I can no longer ignore the truth. I always knew this day would come, and I learned some time ago that Elenora has been working hard to get what she wants.” She paused again. “There have been disturbances, have there not? My sister is still here, in a manner.”

  “Some of the -” Grace started to say.

  “There have been stories,” Doctor Bell said firmly, cutting in. “We have more than two hundred delinquent women in this prison, many of them of limited intelligence, so it's only natural for foolish gossip to spread. The place is like a giant campfire.”

  “Has anyone died yet?” Leonora asked.

  At this, Doctor Bell fell silent for a moment.

  “Then it is as I feared. She has been waiting all these years for the prison to fill up again. She wants...”

  Suddenly she turned, as if she'd heard something nearby. Her tired eyes watched the shadows for a moment.

  “She's close...” she whispered.

  “What does she want?” Grace asked.

  “The same thing that any little girl wants when she can't grow up,” Leonora replied sadly, turning to her. “She wants her family back, or at least her idea of what a family should be. You must understand that she lived a dark life that left her mind twisted and ruined. Her idea of family would seem abhorrent to most people, but the poor girl...” She paused again. “The only family she ever knew was the family she experienced here at Hardstone, but she was aware of the other Blakes out there in the world. When we were together, we used to talk about them, to imagine what it would be like if we ever got to take our place in high society. We imagined the wonderful dresses and the balls, the parties, the international travel... I was eventually able to live out that dream, but Elenora never got her chance. She hasn't given up, however, which is why I have come here tonight.” She turned to Doctor Bell. “I understand that Mr. Windsor is away. You are temporarily in charge of this place, I believe?”

  “I am.”

  “Then it falls to you. You must evacuate the prison at once.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “No-one is safe here.”

  “I see,” Doctor Bell replied cautiously. “Well, sure, I guess can get everybody out. There are loads of places where we can stick two hundred dangerous women without any warning while a storm rages across London. It should be child's play.”

  “You don't understand,” Leonora told her, with great urgency in her voice. “They will all die if they remain here.”

  “Becaus
e the scary little ghost wants to hurt them?”

  “Because she wants to keep them here forever, “Leonora replied. “To her, the world outside the prison gates is a terrifying place, so she wants to create a world in here, sealed off from everywhere else and filled with the family she never had when she was alive. She cares so much about -”

  “Hold up,” Doctor Bell said suddenly, interrupting her. “No offense, Ms. Blake, but if your sister is still here and if she's desperate to have a family, then why did she slaughter all those prisoners a century ago? I understand that you're biased, that you don't want to accept the truth, but... If this is all true, Elenora Blake sounds like a monster. She sounds evil.”

  “Have you seen her?” Leonora asked.

  “No-one can see her and live,” Grace interjected, inadvertently saving the doctor from having to answer. “Everyone knows that. If you look at her, you die.”

  “How so?”

  “Well...” Turning to Doctor Bell, Grace paused for a moment. “Different ways, I guess. One of the inmates, Emma Tate, suffered a heart attack.”

  “Caused by fear, I imagine,” Leonora continued. “Elenora probably didn't mean for that poor girl to die. She's testing to see the extent of her influence now that she's managed to get all these people here. She has grand plans, but she by no means has full control over every facet of the situation.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?” Doctor Bell asked. “She didn't get anyone here.”

  “You have no idea how hard she's worked in order to reach this point,” Leonora replied darkly. “What do you think Elenora has been doing for the past century, while Hardstone was empty? She hasn't just been haunting the abandoned rooms. She's been reaching out, manipulating events in an attempt to get exactly what she wants. It wasn't enough for her to simply wait for the prison to re-open. I already told you that she wants to belong, that she wants to be accepted by the Blake family after it rejected her all those years ago.”