“Or at least put on a good show of it,” Birdie said, pitching her cigarette into the street below. “But Teekler’s downstairs balancing the books and there ain’t no one to hear what I say but the robins and you two loons.”

Sarah laughed again, shaking her head at her friend’s cleverness.

“So you don’t think she drank herself to death?” Nell pressed.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that exactly,” Birdie said. “She wouldn’t be the first of us to make her way out, but Mellie wasn’t the type. And besides, she wasn’t entirely sure that it was the pox. Women in our line of work can get all kinds of things go wrong down there without it necessarily being the end of the line. She had a bit of money saved up and told me she was having a man come and take a look at her.”

Grace’s fingers tightened on her slate, the brittle edges cutting into her fingers.

“He must not’ve had good news for her,” Sarah said.

Birdie shrugged. “I can’t say for sure. All’s I know is that’s the last thing she said to me after Teekler took her off of shift.”

“So she wasn’t seeing any customers?” Nell asked.

“No,” Birdie said. “Once you’ve got a spot on you you’re not a working girl no more. Not here, anyway. Teekler even made her pay for her room the last few days she was here without earning money, as if she thinks she’s running a hotel or some kind of rot.” Birdie spit over the side of the railing. “The last bit of her money went to that doctor man, trying to prove she wasn’t going to spread the pox to every last john who paid good money for a go at her.”

“Do you know who the doctor was?” Nell asked, responding to the pressure on her elbow from Grace’s fingers.

Birdie looked at Sarah, who shook her head. “No. She would’ve brought him up the back stairs just like you are here, quiet like. Teekler don’t allow us to have a man here who she isn’t getting money from.”

“Why not go see him in his office, then?”

Grace silently thanked her friend for being so quick.

“Maybe the doctor don’t like it being known he treats whores, thinking it might hurt his more respectable business,” Sarah said.

“Or maybe he offered to take payment in something other than money,” Birdie added. “Some men don’t mind taking their chances, if they’re desperate enough.”

A shout from downstairs made all four women jump. “You’d best be going,” Sarah said, urging them toward the stairs. “I don’t know that Teekler would care for us talking to two girls from the street, but it’s hard to say and life’s tough enough as it is.”

Nell and Grace picked their way down the steps as Grace scratched at her slate, turning to face the prostitutes before they went back inside. Grace held it high so that they could see her two words, written large.

BE CAREFUL

“So me and Grace, we think it was some doctor that done ol’ Mellie Jacobs in,” Nell said, leaning closer to Lizzie to whisper. The three girls sprawled on Grace’s bed, one lantern shared conspiratorially between them, burning low.

Lizzie’s blue eyes were wide. “Is this true?”

Grace nodded, slate set aside when she was among friends.

“But why would he do such a thing? Mellie Jacobs never hurt a fly, I’m sure.”

“It’s easy enough to figure, isn’t it?” Nell said. “’E’s got a burning but the candle wax has gone soft.”

“Nell!” Lizzie objected.

“What? Oh, ’ere’s another one. ’E’d like to start a fire, but the wick won’t stand.”

“I’ll go back to my room, I will,” Lizzie said. “I’m not disobeying Janey just to listen to you make lewd remarks.”

Nell laughed. “I’m bein’ lewd, sure, but tha’ don’t make me wrong.”

“Do you think that’s what it is, Grace?” Lizzie asked. “He’s angry that he’s unable to . . . to . . .”

“Get a cockstand,” Nell put in, and Lizzie threw Grace’s pillow in Nell’s face.

Grace pulled the lantern off the bedside table in time to keep it from falling to the floor as Nell tweaked Lizzie’s long braid. “Ye go ahead and doubt wha’ I’m sayin’ if you like, me friend,” Nell said. “If you want a better reason, maybe String knows what drives a man to killin’.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Lizzie said. “String only hears what goes on in the people around me, and then only those that let their thoughts flow free. I couldn’t tell you what President Harrison had for dinner or anything like that.”

“And who cares, anyway? I’m more interested in wha’ I’m having,” Nell said. “I almost forgot to tell you lassies, wha’ with the excitin’ trip to the whorehouse—we been invited to Janey’s for Thanksgiving dinner.”

Lizzie clapped her hands together. “Have we really? What a treat! But, poor Grace, you look confused.”

Grace was indeed quite lost, as her eyes went back and forth between her friends.

“Sometimes for special occasions, certain staff members can take well-behaved patients off grounds,” Lizzie explained.

“An’ the rest of us go along illegally,” Nell interrupted.

“Nonsense.” Lizzie shushed her. “You’ve been to Janey’s before. We went last Halloween, remember? The girl from the third floor went too . . . what was her name?”

“Sophia,” Nell said. “She were a nice enough lassie till Janey’s mum brought the jack-o’-lantern out.”

“I never did understand it,” Lizzie said.

“I had seeds in me hair fer days,” Nell said. “And we near burned the ’ouse down. But Janey said she assured ’er mum that Grace won’t be throwin’ nothin’.”

“And it’s Thanksgiving anyway,” Lizzie said. “So there won’t be any jack-o’-lanterns.”

Nell narrowed her eyes at Grace. “Ye don’t ’ave anythin’ against turkeys, do ye?”

The three girls burst into laughter, heedless of the dark and the wind outside.

TWENTY-SIX

Sundays brought fewer people as the air found its teeth, the bite of cold chasing them away from the grounds and into the warmth of their homes. A few brave souls still traversed the paths, their desire for fresh air before winter bringing them out despite the colder temperatures. Mary and her mother were among them, though the baby was left behind to rest more comfortably with his father. By an unspoken agreement Grace had been under the willow every Sunday since they met, and when their paths crossed she would look to the mother for permission before holding out a hand to Mary.

The girl always flew to her, the weight of her little body bringing a bittersweet happiness. This was not her sister but a stand-in for Grace’s affections, the mother a walking reminder of what Grace’s life should have been. She looked to the little family for a glimmer of what life was like beyond the brick walls she now called home, and while she knew they offered her safety, they also denied her a life like theirs.

One Sunday they did not come, and Grace’s fingers curled around Alice’s most recent letter, the tips of them nearly blue with the cold. The pages had become fewer and far between, and though Grace continued to write to Falsteed and Alice, she often received no reply from her little sister. Reed weighed her pages with stones, but the fingers of the wind could reach into any crevice, and Grace knew that many of her well-intended letters were read by no one. She pored over the one in her hands as the wind whipped at the pages, until she heard someone coming along the path.

Grace came to her feet, a smile of greeting in place for Mary and her mother, but it soon disappeared when a fellow inmate rounded the corner, his loping gait stalling when he spotted her.

“Hello, hello,” he called. “Cold day. You must have the wandering bug, like me.” He left the path, his feet eating the distance between them as Grace tried to widen it by backing away. But the lake was behind her, and she could only retreat so far.