The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2015 Edition

by Paula Guran

  c. 3rd Class, Minimum: 1 8/16

  3. Collors Gents; 10 hr days.

  a. 1st Class, Maximum: 3

  b. 2nd Class, Medium: 2 4/16

  c. 3rd Class, Minimum: 1 8/16

  Running down the list—from caps, collors, cuffs, and drawers to flannels and trowsers, shifts, and waistcoats, petticoats to pinbefores, for ladies and gents, children and infants—Avice wondered if it was worth noting the division of labor, one more time, for Martin Rook’s sake. If she could simply hand the diaries directly to Principal Superintendent Skaille she needn’t bother, but Rook . . . Inevitably, he’d come knocking at her cottage door of an evening, enquiring about the First class output versus the Crime Class. Maintaining the pretense of control.

  Maximum, see? she’d tell him again and again, pointing at the journal. The First class women—she refused to call them ladies—spend the full length of their days with soft work. All ten hours. Embroidery and sewing, a little light housekeeping . . . She’d repress a sigh as Martin began kissing the nape of her neck, and insist he focus when he’d ramble about books going missing from his library and other nonsense. Miss Fiona doesn’t pamper the other lasses so; well before noon, the Third class girls are spinning and reeling and carding wool, churning laundry . . . Clenching her teeth, she’d try not to flinch as Martin’s beard bristled against her cheek. And they’re picking rope and oakum with the orphans . . .

  Aren’t they too old to be here still? he’d sometimes say, or, stupidly, Where are their mothers?

  They’re orphans, sir. And there’s no space for them at the Queen’s School.

  No room at the inn, eh?

  It didn’t matter what she said, Avice thought with a heavy heart. Night after night Martin would come to her door, play the buffoon with rough questions and rougher kisses, and wouldn’t leave until both were answered.

  Candlelight made Avice’s pale flesh glow, clean as soap. She admired her small, neat hands with their soft skin, grateful she did not have to work as the low women did, griming their digits black on nasty, tarred ropes. Their fingernails and prints cracking, no matter how much lanolin was massaged into them at day’s end, tips rough as saltbush, scratching if they happened to brush loose strands back from the children’s faces. Unconsciously, the Matron tucked a few wisps behind her ears. Her fingers were the finest cotton against her temple, and she was glad, so glad, they looked nothing like her mother’s.

  After dusting the page with pounce to dry the ink, she shook the fine cuttlefish powder from the volume then closed it with a thump. The clock on the narrow mantle told her it was fifteen minutes until half-five; fifteen minutes until muster. The timepiece was pretty, despite the thin crack in its glass; a discarded item once belonging to the Superintendent’s dead wife.

  Looking over her shoulder at the door, she made sure the key was still turned, then gave her sole window a quick glance—no lurking shadows. Her own journal, navy cover, gilt on the spine, lay in a secret drawer she’d had built in her desk long ago, when Martin was in Hobart for a fortnight and she’d been given sole charge of Bridewell, including its visiting carpenters.

  Avice took a deep breath and steadied her hands; they always shook when she made these notations. She regretted, yet again, that she had no measurements for her mother’s head, nothing precise, only the memory of a small skull with a slightly conical bent (selfishness, treachery, deceit), a snub nose, heavy brow, and tapering chin (ingratitude, criminal tendencies). She remembered, or was certain she did, how the area at the base of Hattie Welles’ ears had been indented—a ridge that clearly indicated she was an unfit mother . . . It all went some way to explaining how the woman wound up at the end of a hangman’s noose.

  Surely, Avice thought, these traits suggested an excess development of the Amativeness locus—entirely fitting, given Hattie’s chosen profession.

  Avice carefully inscribed the measurements she’d had Dr. Dalkeith take from the Pollitt woman last week, into a neat column that matched so many others in the book. Today there would be more, she thought, nodding with satisfaction. Ada Habel was sure to give up her secrets before the Surgeon had finished with her. Ada Habel. Yes, the jezebel would help Avice towards the understanding she so desperately craved—nay, needed. As her hand resumed its shaking, the swaying pen in her grip keeping time with the clock, the Matron knew it was time to stop. Before she was late to muster. Before her imagination got the better of her.

  Briskly she noted the number of excursions she’d sent the children on, what they’d retrieved. After blowing on the ink, she slipped the book back into its cache, then stood and smoothed her skirt, making sure her attire was as perfect as it could be. As her last preparation for the day she took a quick glance in the oval of beaten tin that served as a mirror. The flame guttering on the simple dresser cast weird shadows across her face; the features contorted, then blurred, and Avice couldn’t be sure if the grimace she saw was hers or that of an awful ghost. Mouth slightly agape, she blinked rapidly and brought the candle closer, then closer still, to chase away the demon of her vision. Heat threatened the carefully laid curls at her temples, but Avice would not move until she was sure, absolutely, that the fit of darkness had passed.

  The clock chimed half-five, its music ever off-tune.

  A moment, Avice thought, putting the candlestick down on the desk. Pinching color into her cheeks. Pulling the knot of hair loose and tugging a boar-bristle brush through its black waves.

  Hattie Welles never had the chance to go gray, and Avice wondered how long it would be before she outdid her mother in this. Unblinking, focused on the blur of her face, she ached to know if they looked alike. The spare minute passed and passed again while Avice inspected her reflection. Again, memory betrayed her.

  The brush clattered onto her dresser. The candle flickered. As the clock ticked and ticked, the Matron scraped her hair back severely, held it in place with pins that dug into her scalp.

  The female convicts were housed in Bridewell’s central building, divided into three dormitories, each one a little plainer than the last. Outside, the Overseer, William Henry waited, reeking of rum. The Matron gave him a curt nod before entering the women’s sleeping quarters, as always processing from First through to the Crime class. A pinch-faced Irish girl with far too many freckles greeted Avice respectfully; Maura, the trusty’s name might’ve been, or possibly Aislyn. Not that it mattered. A refined criminal like her would soon be sent out as maid or housemistress to the settlement, and would return to Bridewell only when they were through with her, or when she fell pregnant, whichever came first. There were merely two occasions for noting their names officially, Avice knew: right after the wagons wheeled them into the Factory, and right before the Porter ferried their limp bodies over to the Isle of the Dead.

  As she passed through the next dormitory, the Second class watchdog and inmates alike observed the Matron’s progress with ill-concealed nerves. She nodded with satisfaction to find no stains on either serge petticoats or jackets, that, to a woman, the hair was coiled neatly beneath calico caps. Aprons were clean and pressed, the thin cloth lying flat on the girls’ bellies.

  Good, she thought, allowing a smile. Yet when she stepped into the Third class block, she grew distinctly displeased. There was no sign of Miss Fiona, and without supervision, the criminal women were not waiting obediently, arranged in stiff rows. Instead, some lounged on cots, some slouched in high-backed chairs, others laughed loudly with no thought for how they were perceived.

  Too late, the Taskmistress’s stout form stumbled, puffing, into the room.

  “Up, up!” she shouted, flustered, at the rabble. “Up and present yourselves, slatterns!”

  The women climbed slowly to their feet and drifted into a disorderly parade for Avice’s inspection. Fiona tried desperately to catch her breath. “My apologies, Matron, I was delayed by . . . by . . . ”

  Avice did not chastise, but gave a sidelong look that silenced her. “That will do, Miss Fiona. S
end them all to Labor. I will see you shortly.’

  In a little shed by the washhouse, Avice found the children still asleep, worn out from their evening’s endeavors. Curled like puppies, they cocooned against each other, the biggest on the outside, the littlies in the middle. One of the girls—a Mary? a Sarah?—was shuddering something fierce. Sweat coated her face; her lips were tinged blue. Hearing the rattle of phlegm in her lungs, Avice hoped it wasn’t consumption. It had taken years to cultivate this group’s obedience, and their silence. She didn’t want to have to purge them all now, simply to avoid the spread of disease.

  On the floor she spied trails of dried mud and sand, dragged in from last night’s trip to the Isle. Avice pursed her lips. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all, getting rid of this lot and raising a newer, more conscientious bunch in their stead. The largest clumps of muck led her straight to Bert, his long body small as he could make it, leaving less surface for the cold to find. Matron Welles leaned forward, careful not to let her skirts touch the fetid straw, and slapped the boy’s face as hard as she could.

  “Up, up!” she hissed, unconsciously echoing Miss Fiona. She gave a kick for good measure, aimed another at Ned, and yet another at Victoria, catching her in the thigh as she tried to rise. Millie was fastest on her feet and scrambled around in the hay, digging desperately until she located a filthy sack.

  “Matron Welles! Look, here are her things.” The girl held it up and away from herself, as if by doing so she might avoid violence.

  Avice snatched the bag, but could tell by the weight that it held little. “Did you take anything? Was there something good in here?”

  Millie shook her head, licked her lips. “No, Matron. That was all. I knew you’d be unhappy. But Bert has the coin.”

  Avice nodded as the dark-haired boy took Dr. Dalkeith’s golds and silvers from his trouser pocket. He diligently placed them, one at a time, into her faintly lined palm.

  “Five sovereigns for you, Matron, plus all the money he gave each of us.”

  “Any more? Don’t lie to me, for I’ll know.”

  “No, Matron Welles, nothing more. Where would we hide anything from you?” asked Bert, innocently.

  With narrowed eyes, she held his gaze until the boy squirmed, then she turned away, surveying the others. The smallest still lay atop the makeshift bed, her narrow chest fluttering up and down.

  “Please, Matron . . . ” began one of the older girls. Big Sarah, thought Avice. Or possibly a Mary. “Please let her rest, she’s ever so sick.”

  Another curt nod, and the children breathed a sigh of relief. Make your farewells while you can, she thought, resisting the urge to say it aloud. The child wouldn’t last until dinner, but the others needed to maintain their focus. Lessons would be most interesting today.

  The benches were arranged in a horseshoe around a narrow table in the center of Dr. Dalkeith’s workshop. Motes of old feed glinted in the pale yellow filtering down from the skylight, stirred by the children’s passing as they’d dragged themselves to the seats. Avice stood beside the Surgeon, holding a handkerchief to her nose. The space was large and cold, yet the smell of cattle bubbled up as if heated, even though it had been years since the building had been used as a barn. Avice was grateful for the chill; it helped her to concentrate, to memorize all the measurements, the alignment, and presentation of the deceased’s features so she could transcribe them in her journal later. The children were fidgeting, producing noises like mice in the walls, scratchings and scritchings, but the Matron blocked them out, attention pinned to the unfortunate on the table in front of her. Trying to recall what her mother had really looked like, if she and this woman bore any resemblance, any inherent essence of criminality.

  Dr. Dalkeith leaned forward, long fingers hovering over his selection of sharp-edged tools. He lit upon a scalpel, but the Liston knife waited patiently for when joints and bones needed to be separated.

  “Measurements, Nelson,” murmured Avice. The anatomist met her gaze, his own unfocused, elsewhere. A few blinks later he nodded, let the scalpel go and began the task of gauging all the component parts of Ada Habel’s skull, speaking so the Matron might mentally record them. When he’d done, at last, he gave her the kind of look a dog gives its owner, seeking permission to feed, to fetch, to do. At her brief nod, he grasped the scalpel once again, placed it at the point beneath Ada Habel’s sternum, and began to cut.

  Skin, flesh, and fat parted, a layer cake of white, red, and yellow. The Matron was enlisted to sponge any seepage while Dr. Dalkeith snipped and sliced and sawed, though what liquids Miss Habel once had inside her were now thickened, sludges in varying shades of expiration. The notes he took in his own scruffy journal, mid-dissection, were of little interest to Avice, but she watched avidly as he created the accompanying sketches. Unless she was mistaken, the good doctor would soon submit another article to The Lancet, since the Royal Society in London had, thus far, consistently rejected his treatises on the theory and practice of surgery. But a paper detailing the physiognomy of transported criminals? That, surely, would one day see his name printed in the Society’s Philosophical Transactions.

  For nearly two hours, Matron and Surgeon were bent at their labor while the children, having seen this many times before, were bored. Most perched on the edge of the benches, feigning interest as they listened out for the breakfast bell’s ringing. Alf bit his fingernails and collected them in a small pile on the seat beside him. Millie, elbows on knees and chin propped on hands, held her eyelids open by the lashes. The Marys took turns picking nits from each other’s braids, while Big Sarah looked on, forlorn, her mind in the infirmary where Avice had consigned Little Sarah. When the Matron had her back turned, Victoria slid an arm through Sarah’s and gave her a quick peck on the cheek; the older girl smiled, but it just wasn’t the same. Only Bert kept his eyes fixed upon the trio on the low platform. He was sizing up the dug-up’s hands as Dr. Dal sawed them through at the wrists. They were strong, the palms square, fingers short and broad. Hardy. Workman-like.

  Yes, he thought. They would do nicely.

  Once the inmates had had their share of bread and gruel, and they’d all heard Reverend Tanner preach the Good Word, William Henry once more rang the bell, sending the women and children off to their next shift. The Porter wheeled trolleys into the mess hall for the Crime class to load up with dirty dishes. As cutlery clattered on Bridewell’s sturdy crocks, Avice retreated to her private quarters, step a little unsteady with excitement. Hands clasped in front of stiff skirts, she had to remind herself to not fidget, not fiddle.

  She rounded the corner of the cottage just in time to see Miss Fiona by the door, bent over the lock. Startled, the Taskmistress came up like a jack-in-the-box.

  “Matron,” she near-shrieked, pushing her hands behind her back. “I came . . . as . . . as you requested.”

  Fiona’s misdemeanor this morning had slipped Avice’s mind. That act of forgetting annoyed her almost as much as finding the woman blocking her way when all she wanted was to record Ada Habel’s details. It was not like her, to let a sin go unpunished, unmemorialized. She knew she would take her irritation out on Fiona twofold; but not now. Not yet. Writing was the most important thing at that moment, transferring the images from her mind onto paper.

  Her palm met Fiona’s pockmarked skin, once, twice in quick succession. Sharp and stinging, the slaps left afterimages of the Matron’s long fingers on the other woman’s cheek, splayed like seagull wings. Fiona clutched her face, expression flushed and wild, as if knowing this small reprimand couldn’t possibly be her full punishment. Avice didn’t disillusion her.

  “Go,” she said, elbowing past, then poised to slide the key in. “Ensure the laundry is well under way, the irons heated for pressing. Double loads this morning—if the girls complain, whip them before you join them. I want to see your knuckles red and raw when you come to Superintendent Rook’s office at noon.”

  Unconsciously, Miss Fiona worrie
d at her fists before plunging them into her apron pocket. “Noon, Matron? But the midday meal?”

  Avice’s back stiffened. This, she thought. This is how the Third class learns its idleness. Half-turned, she let the silence stretch as Fiona inched backwards.

  “Never fear,” she said finally, “the children will make short work of your portion.”

  Full bellies made Millie and the Marys extra-chatty; the winter cold kept them all alert. Sitting crossed-legged in the yard picking oakum, backs pressed against the north wall, the girls whispered endlessly about Little Sarah. How they’d heard her crying, mewling like the kittens Miss Fiona had found under the kitchen-house last summer. How she’d started coughing and couldn’t seem to stop. How it had sounded like drowning cats in a barrel.

  “She needs proper treatment,” said Victoria softly, prissy as her name.

  “She needs attention,” agreed Big Sarah. “Not to be stuck in a stuffy room until she suffocates.”

  “She needs someone other than us to care,” said Dark Mary.

  Down the line, Bert unraveled tarred ropes with his cracked nails, the shredded cordage spooling into a great nest on the gravel. From the speed with which his blistered fingers moved, it was hard to tell how little attention he was paying his work. He’d get through two pounds today, easy, still manage to eavesdrop on the girls, and further his plans. Like his mother, Albert Edward Ross was a listener. He picked up pieces of information and stored them away, regarded them as his very own treasure house, put all those resources to good use. It was three years since Mary Ann had died in childbed, but she’d managed to pass on all her bits and bobs of gleanings—including what she’d excavated beneath the isolation cell.

  As the girls described Sarah’s condition in more and more gruesome detail, Bert surveyed the yard. Miss Fiona was nowhere to be seen and neither was Matron Welles. William Henry was off supervising the Second class women—which everyone knew meant he was out behind the old barn siphoning booze from Dr. Dal’s stores—and the two Constables had been called to the main house to keep watch on a Third classer who’d tried stabbing Cook with a butter knife for skimping on soup. There were women elbow-deep in laundry vats, women beating the Superintendent’s wool rugs, women cording wood, women making trips to and from the well—but they were all too busy, too tired, to care what the orphans were doing.