Chapter 12 - The Mercy Cage

The twelfth chapter of our thriller novel, in which Charlotte discovers the hell she cannot escape in the House of Mercy.

Charlotte - New York City, 1900

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Prologue // Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 7 // Chapter 8 // Chapter 9 // Chapter 10 // Chapter 11

At any moment, I could double over from the death of this heat in the basement laundry. Never, even on the hottest days in Manhattan, had I felt life evaporate out of me from the heaviness and weight of the temperature. Within seconds upon entering the laundry, sweat begins to roll  down my back, soaking into my undergarments and dress. The scratchiest frock I’ve ever had the misfortune to robe my skin in. And a lingering odor that lives between mold and sickness, made more potent from the heat of the basement. No wonder these clothes reeked upon receiving them from the nun. The scent is everywhere, steaming off all of us, perpetual with permanence. With each inhale, my chest works overtime to expand, I feel faint. 

After the initial shock of the ungodly heat, my eyes adjust, and I can see a big fire at the back of the cobblestone room. I begin scanning the room to see if Eleanor could possibly be here. To my left, a small girl rips a sheet from the line, and the sheet consumes her, the girl disappearing for a moment. Is she even twelve or thirteen years old? How could she possibly be in this place? Some girls are carrying buckets of boiling water, others are cranking fabric through large rollers to wring water out, and closer to the hot fire, girls drenched with sweat are pressing metal on clothing. While I had never visited the servants quarters in our own home, I suppose this must be how they cleaned our petticoats and undergarments. Was it this hot? I hope not. I feel quite sorry for mistreating the servants if their conditions are half this horrid. I hope I have the chance to ask them. Is this what I am expected to do? I have never lifted a finger to do the laundry... My thoughts are interrupted when two girls carrying a bucket of boiling water stumble over their feet and fall. They burst into laughter until a no-nonsense looking girl, possibly a bit older than the rest, scowls and glares down at the two girls. They pull in their breath to stop laughing, swiftly spring up, and pick the bucket back up to get more water. Is she also a nun? Intrigued by this visceral response, I watch as this intimidating girl aggressively moves, and all the girls she nears clear a path, backing away from her. I have never met someone that sucks joy out of a room almost as quickly as my father. 

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The girl from lunch with the shaved head is working with another girl, a girl with thick pin-straight black hair that fights against the pins trying to hold it back. She must be an immigrant, if it wasn’t abundantly clear from her Chinese features, her painless attack of the grueling work made me certain. I’d never seen anyone that wasn’t an immigrant work that hard without complaint ever- certainly no one that looks like me.  She has focused sharp eyes and purses her lips while they both push and pull, working hard to crank levers, which move the rollers. Another girl, with mousy brown hair and equally mousy features, brings over a mound of clothes almost as large as her and lines them up to feed through the rollers. The Chinese girl halts a moment, holding her hand up to her mouth, and gestures to the girl with the shaved head to switch positions. I feel nauseous in this heat as well. Is that how you tell the girls new to this place between those that have been here for quite some time? Are they used to this excruciating heat? Even so, the girl cranks on the far end and manages to hold her lunch in. After some time they switch back, and the girl with the shaved head rubs her arm. 

Behind me, I sense a looming presence and step further into the laundry. It is not the nun I met upstairs, but the tall nun who completed my examination. I can feel her sour breath and distaste behind me, and my suspicion is confirmed when all the girls look my way, and then back down at their tasks, working more quickly.

Fannie looks my way from the corner of her eye, washing clothes on a board and scrubbing. The tall Sister approaches the girl closest to us, and says “Marie, explain how things run down here and then get to work.” The tall Sister shoves me closer to Marie, who glares at her until she turns and leaves with another, less intimidating Sister. Marie grabs my hand, pulling me with her, and says, “Come along. You have a quota to meet today, so you must learn fast.” Quota. My father would say that a lot about the workers at his banks. 

Thankful to learn a few names of the girls here, I introduce myself, “I’m Charlotte.” Marie presses on, hardly listening, “Everyone has different tasks here. We try to rotate, but some of the girls are too weak. Are you capable?” What does that even mean? “Capable?” I inquire. Marie rolls her eyes and responds as she takes me to bags of what must be laundry, “We have heavy irons and baskets. Washing and scrubbing. The cranks are heavy to turn, and tiring after some time. You will be liked more quickly if you take those.” We stop in front of the bags, and picking one up, she continues, “This is where all the laundry comes. Each morning, a few girls must bring all the bags down. Be careful to keep everything separated properly, otherwise you will receive a beating.”

I shudder at this word, remembering all the times my Father hit me for not liking a boy he brought for me to meet, or disrespecting one of his business colleagues who would speak as though I was not in the room. Sometime ago, I overheard my father beating my mother for not producing a male heir. My mother would sob for nights on end, and I soon learned that she was never able to conceive after a near-death experience having me. “A beating?” I can barely whisper. Marie rattles on, “The customers pay the church for us to do their laundry, and if they refuse to pay because their clothes are missing or they receive someone else’s, one of us is punished for the mistake.” I wonder if the girl with the shaved head was punished or why else would she have a shaved head? Possibly lice, I suppose, but I cannot imagine the sisters caring enough to prevent lice after hearing this. I shudder at the thought of someone shaving my hair, or lice crawling on my head, and how horrid I would look without my long blonde hair. “Ok,” I mutter. Marie continues through the laundry, “One task is grabbing the bags and bringing them over to the washers. Open the bags for them because it will take them a while to wash each piece. After each washer has their bag, make sure they have soap and refresh it when they run out.” How is she moving this briskly through the heat? I can hardly keep up with her pace. “Where is - ?” I start to ask, wondering where they keep the soap. Marie barely glances at me as she responds, “When they run out, grab another bag. You must work quickly. If you are slow-” The aggressive girl yells, “Hurry up you coot!” to a meeker girl nearby. Marie hardly notices this interaction as she finishes her sentence, “then everyone is slow.” I lean up against the pillar, bracing myself, when everyone turns blurry as sweat drops into my eyes. I gasp aloud. Burning! I rub my eyes, only to find that a worse mistake than leaving them alone. 

Marie ignores my gasp and swiftly moves along. How long has she been doing this? “-Now if you are not a washer, you are working on drying and ironing. The irons have the hardest -” Marie freezes when she is interrupted by a scream from across the room. I snap back and stand up straight, the sweat magically disappears from my eyes. A pugnacious, but much smaller girl with pigtails screams out, “You are stupid! How dare you?”, as she pulls the hot iron off the garment where the other girl had left it when she screamed. The other girl, holding her wrist, moves to grab back the iron as tears roll down her cheeks. The girl that everyone seems scared of pulls the hot iron back from the girl, tossing it aside, and backhands her across the face. A few girls rush over to tend to the red welts across her wrists, exchanging quick glances between one another and the aggressive girl. Another girl rushes over with a cloth from water that has yet to be boiled. The meek girl with the iron welt begins to tear up and moan in pain. “What’s wrong with her?” I ask Marie. Finally looking at me Marie whispers, “You’ve seen the depths of hell.” Fannie and I make eye contact, and the slow nod of her head tells me to stay far away from those two. 

Moments later, another sister who is shorter than the one that brought me into this place, but somehow more commanding and terrifying, runs into the laundry room and booms “How dare you interrupt our prayers screaming like heathens? What in God’s name is happening down here that you must carry on at the top of your lungs?” All the girls go silent. You could hear a needle drop other than the sound of the fire and boiling water. Everyone, including the aggressive girls, look down at their feet. The sister whips her head in my direction, and her eyes pierce into mine, so quickly I look down at my feet, feeling the size of a mouse. No one dares to speak. 

She carefully steps towards the washers, “Someone tell me what is going on. It will be far worse for you if I discover it myself.” After a crafted pause, “There will be no supper tonight.” At this, I feel a few heads lift up and look in the aggressive girls’ direction. The sister shifts her steps towards the aggressive girls, and when she comes to the iron and looks down at the garment, she gasps. Holding up the garment like soiled toilet cloth, she demands, “Who did this? Tell me at once?” The intimidating, aggressive girl points at the meek girl with the wound and rats her out with, “SHE did it. Helen did it!” Helen. Poor girl. Helen trembles, trying to hold in her tears, with the cloth still pressed to her cheek. The sister presses the garment in her face, “Did you do this?” She demands. Helen, through her tears, sputters, “But she - she…” but the sister interrupts her with, “I asked if you did this.” After Helen chokes out more tears but doesn’t speak, the sister says more sternly, “Answer me.” Helen cries hard, and the Sister slaps Helen crisply across the other cheek. “I did ma’am, but… but… she…” and Helen looks at the aggressive and intimidating girl. 

Not even acknowledging the smaller pugnacious girl, the Sister moves in, and in what seems to be an act of desperation, Helen thrusts out her iron burnt wrists to the Sister. With no sympathy, the Sister responds matter-of-factly, “Your arms will heal. This dress is ruined.” As her wrists drop back to her sides and more tears fall from her eyes, Helen meekly squeaks out, “It’s only a dress.” Stepping in closer, the Sister says, “So in everything, do to others you would have them do to you, for this sums up the laws and prophets? Is this doing unto others what you would have them do to you?” Helen lets out a big sob, defeated, hanging her head, and whispers, “No.” Taking a step back and glancing over at me, “I didn't think so. You will have lots of time to think about that in solitary contemplation.” The sobs turn to a plea as the Sister moves in towards her. Everyone looks up. Helen pleads with the Sister, “No please. I don’t need solitary, it won’t happen again.” The aggressive girl smirks. The sister responds, calmly and cruelly, “You are correct. It won’t happen again,” and grabs Helen, dragging her out of the laundry room as Helen’s pleas turn to kicking and screaming the whole way out. What is solitary? 

Everyone waits until the sister has gone before resuming laundry, a bit more somber and slower, as all the girls here seem to know that solitary is a place that you do not come back from. Where have I found myself? I cannot possibly wait three months here until Father returns. What is worse? Staying here? Or going back with him? Or do I -? No, that cannot be possible. I stare into the fire, watching my future burn, as the sweat burns my eyes. I look at Marie after a moment and say, “I can’t imagine hell being any worse.” She looks me dead in the eye for the first time since I have met her and responds, “When you’ve been here long enough. You would rather die.”