Unlocked

The stained velvet couch had uncomfortable springs poking her in the back. The drapes were satin and dusty. The once lush carpet was worn from the hundreds of dirty booted men that stomped through the parlour and off to their regular rooms to await their regular girl. Effie heard their grunts over the music and the clattering Nellie was making in the kitchen.

This was arguably one of the best poor houses in the country. Girls weren’t made to work until they were twelve, and Mistress was mostly kind for a speaker. She trudged past Effie in a hurry towards Eloise. Grabbing her by the hair, Mistress dragged the girl kicking, mouth open in a silent cry, into the room where the worst awaits.

Effie wasn’t opposed to making love. Making love with Nellie is one of the only ways she’d survived this place. Secret moments of joy that carried her forward and through room after room, man after man. She looked at Nellie’s burns with reverence wondering if pain could set her free as well.

Eloise dropped to the ground at her feet, her eyes hollow, as Mistress yanked her back up.

Effie no longer bothered to sign to Eloise anymore. After her third time in that room with that particular man, Eloise stopped signing back. The men that came here didn’t make love. They weren’t capable of it.

Suddenly Mistress cried out with a crash.

The man began to shout. Fabric was torn. Glass broke. Mistress purred her protests. A thud followed by the strangest sound.

Eloise screamed.

Loud and true, high pitched and panicked. The girl’s horror gave Effie chills as the sound reverberated through the walls.

Effie stood and moved towards the door in awe.

The house around her grew completely silent as everyone paused to listen to the foreign noise.

She’d never heard Eloise’s voice. She hadn’t heard her own voice since she was six and was sold to the poor house with all the other women God deemed of no value.

But it didn’t last long.

With a grunt and a loud crack, the scream suddenly came to a stop.

Effie was frozen outside the door. Paralyzed by the silence.

She heard the turn of the lock. The door creaked open and the man pushed past her as he grumbled his displeasure to Mistress.

Effie watched him leave feeling the cool draft. When she turned back around, she saw Eloise lying lifeless on the ground, her heart-shaped locket smashed on the floor.

Effie reached up to her own locked eyes widening in realization.

Could it be that simple?

Mistress grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her inside.

“Do you want to end up like Eloise?” She asked in a harsh whisper.

Dazed, Effie looked up and shook her head.

“Then forget what you saw.” Mistress reached forward and grabbed the locket that currently dangled around Effie’s neck.

A gift all girls get when they enter a poor house. Their shackles, Eloise’s noose.

Mistress put the locket around her own neck and pocketed the broken one on the floor.

“Take care of the body.” She commanded before brushing past Effie, swishing herself down the hall to deal with the next customer.

***

Effie scrubbed her hands raw in scalding water, trying to warm them up after digging in the nearly frozen ground. Nellie watched on with a knowing sadness as the dirt from under her nails flowed down the drain.

Effie’s eyes lingered on the locket around her neck.

She had the tools in this kitchen to free her voice if she knew it was locked away in the heart dangling upon her chest.

Slowly Nellie shook her head.

“It’s not worth it.” She signed.

“What?” Effie asked, her hands flinging droplets of water.

“It isn’t worth thinking about. You’d end up like Eloise. Besides, you could become a Mistress one day if you don’t make any mistakes…” The cook returned to chopping.

Effie nudged her. “I wouldn’t leave without you.”

Nellie squeezed her hand. Effie felt the warmth bloom in her gut. Then she paused.

“You know?!” Effie signed in a furry. Warmth turned to a boil.

“Know what?” Nellie avoided her gaze and picked her knife back up.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I need to get this done. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

Effie stiffened, her eyes welling with tears. She swallowed the lump in her throat and in a daze, floated towards the door. Tossed on the counter sat a meat tenderizer.

She hurried down the hallway, walking directly into Mistress. Effie’s heart paused and her lip twitched.

Mistress sighed. “Go bathe, I need you clean for tomorrow. You’ll be taking on Eloise’s client list.”

Effie’s eyes widened and began shaking her head.

Mistress grabbed her by the chin.

“If you want a voice, earn it. Make Mr. Phobus happy and you’ll be in line for Mistress.”

After tucking a hair behind Effie’s ear, she shoved her out of the way and carried on down the hall.

Effie hurried to her room, the room where tomorrow night Mr. Phobus would be waiting for her. She thought of the bruises she’d seen on Eloise’s body, old and new, layered over each other in an array of black to purple to yellow.

A knock at the door startled her and she jumped up from beneath the bed. She sat on the bed as she normally did to await her guests draping her skirts strategically to conceal.

Mistress unlocked the door and swung it open. A man with a moustache came in and grumbled hello. He slowly took off his boots and his heavy coat with a sigh before rubbing his eyes. Effie flinched as he sat down next to her.

“Don’t worry girlie, I’ll make sure you enjoy yourself. I’m not one of those men.”

Effie, puzzled, itched to sign, to ask a question. But men didn’t bother learning the hand signals. Fortunately, the question was plain on her face.

“Those men, the ones passing the bill. Trying to get all the poor houses to have their girls operated on, make sure they can’t, ya know…”

Effie was clearly still confused.

“Our lord doesn’t support women having pleasure, girlie. It’s ungodly. In most of the country, the surgeries are already being done on babies.”

Effie’s throat tightened.

“I’ve got to hurry, I need to prepare my speech for tomorrow’s hearing.”

She signed, though she doubted he’d understand. “I’m sure you’ll do well.”

He shoved her hands aside and pushed her chest down onto the bed.

She gazed down and the meat tenderizer peeked behind the bedpost.

***

She stood bare in the dim candlelight of the dressing room. Mistress held lace and satin against her skin, making various faces as she muttered to herself. What a gift, being able to talk oneself through a problem.

Effie glowered at the locket nestled between Mistress’s breasts, her corset pushing it up ready for the taking. Her hand twitched. She averted her eyes.

Mistress maneuvered her and her skirts into a chair and began curling her hair. Long ringlets began heating her back. She caught a glance of herself in the mirror, her teeth were bared and eyes tightened. She felt her pulse pick up as Mistress continued to chatter about pleasing Mr. Phobus.

Instruction after instruction. Reminding her to be tolerant, docile, subservient. To show no signs of enjoying herself. Mistress reached for the gilded hair pin on the dresser brushing Effie’s shoulder with her heavy breasts.

Out of the corner of her eye, the locket gleamed.

Effie did not want to go into that room, Effie did not want to be subjected to the horrors of men any longer.

But the locket swung back out of view, and within seconds her hair was nestled up and pinned. Her eyes once again became hollow in the mirror.

The hallway seemed to shrink around her as they approached the bedroom. The floral wallpaper seemed to reach for her, luring her to disappear into the red pattern. Mistress knocked on the door before turning the ornate knob and pushing it open.

She scanned the shadows, he hadn’t arrived.

Effie felt no relief.

Mistress gave her a nudge forward and Effie stumbled into the rickety bed. A thud. Mistress paused.

Effie sat on the edge of the bed hoping that her skirts would again conceal her precaution.

“Effie, please stand up.”

Effie shook her head.

“Get up.” Mistress reached forward and yanked Effie’s clammy hands.

Her legs tensed as she watched Mistress get on her knees. Hand shaking, Effie reached towards the back of her head and quietly unpinned her hair.

“What were you planning to do?! Killing him won’t—” Mistress began to shout.

Effie silenced her with a pin through her throat.

Blood ran down Mistress’s chest as she gurgled clutching her neck. Effie didn’t notice. She could only focus on the heavy footsteps working their way along to the worn-out carpet. She wrapped her hand around the locket and pulled, breaking the clasp as Mistress fell to her knees.

Effie reached behind her to the forgotten tenderizer and wielding it like a hammer smashed her locket to bits.

A tickle ran down her throat. There was a knock at the door, and without another option, she scurried against the wall just before it swung open.

Mr. Phobus rushed forward grabbing hold of Mistress as she fell, Effie didn’t bother staying to see if she’d live. She backed out the open door and ran barefoot down the hall. She passed her silent friends, the only family she knew on her way to the door. No one yelled for her to stop, they couldn’t, but even if they could she wouldn’t have heard them.

She rushed out into the street. The cobblestone was glassy as she ran. She looked back to see Nellie at the kitchen door, food waste in her hands.

“I’m sorry,” She choked out as she continued to run.

She didn’t bother looking back again. She ran towards the wealthier side of , towards the familiar building.

Townhall’s doors were open as men and wealthy women sat inside debating.

Effie tiptoed into the hall, and sat in a vacant row of seating at the back. He client stood at the front debating with another man. She listened as they discussed her body. Nellie’s body. Eloise’s body.

The judge stood and announced it was time to vote.

“Please, wait!” Effie called out.

The chatter of the room continued to grow in volume.

She cleared her throat and stood.

“Please! Don’t do this.”

Heads swivelled back towards her. Her client’s jaw dropped before searing back in place beneath his moustache.

Security began to approach her.

Effie became frantic.

“Please! They’re killing us! Love is all we have left, we’re human. Don’t start mutilating us! Cutting us apart is—”

The judge grumbled as the men in the first row began to laugh.

Effie’s jaw dropped.

Guards clasped cuffs to her wrists and began to drag her back.

“Please! Someone listen, we’re daughters! We’re mothers and sisters. Don’t touch me!”

Effie kicked and screamed. She wailed and cried as she was dragged out of the hall.

Effie continued to scream long after she lost her voice.

She screamed as she was dragged back to the poor house. She screamed as she was made Mistress. She screamed as she sent Mr. Phobus into another room, with another girl.

She screamed.

But no one listened.