“You’re a fine one, ain’t ye?” one woman said in a mincing voice.

“That dress won’t stay clean for long.”

“What’d ye do, missy?”

“What’d ye do?”

The matron stopped abruptly in front of a cell door. Wordlessly she handed Evangeline the candle again and unlocked the door. Murmuring and rustling from the women inside. “Make room,” the matron said.

“No room to make.”

“Somebody fell over in ’ere, ma’am. She was awful sick. Now she’s cold as a wagon tire.”

“She’s takin’ up space.”

The matron sighed. “Move her to a corner. I’ll send someone in the morning.”

“I’m hungry!”

“Slop jar’s full.”

“Take the girl someplace else!”

“She’s coming in.” The matron turned to Evangeline. “Lift your skirts and I’ll remove your leg irons.” Before she knelt, she touched Evangeline’s trembling hand and said, in a quiet voice, “They’re more bark than bite. Try to get some sleep.”

As Evangeline entered the dark cell, she stumbled blindly over the stone lip and sprawled headlong into a huddle of women, hitting her shoulder on the floor.

Voices rose in a chorus of insult.

“What’s wrong with ye?”

“Clumsy oaf.”

“Get up, ye foozler.”

She felt a kick in the ribs.

Struggling to her feet, rubbing her unshackled wrists, Evangeline stood at the cell door and watched the faint glow from the matron’s candle retreat down the long hallway. When the door at the end clanged shut, she flinched. She was the only one who did.

One small window, high and grated, let in dull sooty moonlight. As her eyes adjusted, she surveyed the scene. Dozens of women filled the cell, which was about the size of the Whitstones’ small front parlor. The stone floor was covered with matted straw.

She sank against the wall. The smell near the floor—the metallic scent of blood, the fermented tang of vomit, the foulness of human waste—turned her stomach, and when bile rose in her throat, she doubled over and retched onto the straw.

The women near her stepped back, grumbling and exclaiming.

“Nasty wench, she shite through ’er teeth!”

“Ugh, disgustin’.”

Wiping her mouth with her sleeve, Evangeline mumbled, “I’m sor—” before heaving up what little remained in her stomach. At this, the women around her turned their backs. Evangeline shut her eyes and fell to her knees, dizzy and tired beyond sense, slicking her dress with her own bile.

After some time, she roused herself. She untied the bundle the matron had given her and tucked the tin cup and wooden spoon into the pocket of her apron. She spread one of the sackcloths above the muck-slick straw, wadded her petticoats beneath her knees, and sank to the floor, where she lay carefully on the too-small rectangle of cloth. Only this morning she had lain in her own bed, in her own room, dreaming about a future that seemed well within her grasp. Now all of that was gone. Listening to the women around her wheezing and snoring, grunting and sighing, she drifted into a peculiar half-sleeping, half-waking state—aware, even while dreaming, that few nightmares could compare to the misery she’d face when she opened her eyes.