Chapter 1
Just Dreaming
It's odd where you find yourself sometimes, where dreams can take you. Most of the time I don't even realize I'm dreaming which is why I was so terrified in the first place. I'm not one to be terrified, in fact I 'm usually the terrifying one. But everything seemed so real, it was if I knew where I was and what was happening, but really I didn't.
People were panicking, shrieking in terror, scrambling like rats on a platform in the middle of a dark abyss. My calves ached from standing at an angle and the biting cold cut through my clothes. Someone took my hand and pulled me along with him as if he knew me.
I couldn't tell who it was. I beckoned for him to turn around but he kept moving, swiftly upwards which gave me a knowing feeling in my gut that something was more amiss than I realized. I wanted to let go and run the other way. I didn't like being led around, putting my fate in someone else's hands. I wanted to run and hide from the darkness that threatened to swallow each person. But just as I started to pull away, the lights flickered and went out. People screamed even louder and I covered my ears in protest. I had never felt the need to scream in my life. There are better ways of expressing discontent.
The sound of splintering wood cut through the anguished cries, I grabbed onto the white railing just in time before the tilted floor fell with a thundering crash, forcing people to their knees. The stranger grabbed me around the waist and helped me to my feet.
"Come on!" He said. His voice was urgent, but sweet. "We need to get to the back of the ship." A ship? Is that were we were, in the middle of the sea? The back railing was crowded with people, groaning and sobbing, latched onto it like leaches.
"Come on, Rose." He said placing my hand on the rail that separated matter from complete blackness. I recoiled removing his hands from mine. I looked at him, his face in complete shadow, his eyes caught the light from the stars above and sparkled green, like mine.
"My name isn't Rose." I whimpered softly, rebuking anymore of his help. The name though, the name sounded so familiar, the way he said it. Like I might have known that person. Maybe in another life.
The ship advanced upward so slowly, yet so swiftly I barely had time to tighten my grip on the rail before the floor slipped from under my feet and they were dangling above a far away darkness, bodies tumbling like rocks toward it, hitting it with subtle splashes. My strength was waning and I could feel my biceps giving out, I was going to fall.
"Give me your hand!" The stranger insisted, extending his hand for me to grab. But I couldn't take it, it wasn't meant for me. I slacked my grip on the slick metal, preparing myself for the long fall ahead of me. My heart thudded violently in anticipation of my impending death. I looked up at the stranger one last time trying to find any familiarity in his face but the only feature I could make out were his glimmering eyes.
"Don't let go." He said. He wasn't beseeching, his voice was sad, almost wistful. It crossed my mind to listen to him, but before the message could reach my hands, I let go, plunging hundreds of feet into nothing.
I finally forced myself to open my eyes. The florescent light was searing. I was wet and freezing cold, but not because I had drowned in the ocean. The Matron was standing over me an empty bucket in her hands. She was scowling ominously at me. Her beak-like nose dangerously close to my face as if she planned on pecking me to death.
"Get up!" She shrilled, grabbing me by my soggy mop of tangled hair and pulling me out of my cot. "Get up, you lazy dog."
"Wassamatter." I said groggily, massaging the back of my throbbing head. I surveyed the dormitory, the squalor of it would have sickened anyone, but I had spent my whole life here. I knew nothing else. The lumpy cots were all made, thin dirty sheets stretched tightly over them. No pillows, of course. There were never any pillows.
I groaned. I had overslept again. No doubt because of those reoccurring nightmares of a stupid effing sinking ship. I can't count how many times I'd lost sleep over those dreams and the next night lost even more sleep due to the raw back I'd received from the matron's heavy belt. Then again I can't count the times I wished those dreams were reality and I actually had drowned. Death was better than any life here, in this wretched place.
"Get dressed and get yourself downstairs to the sewing machines, quickly now!" She bellowed, hurrying me along with her cane. I pulled my ratty night gown over my head. I fumbled for my dress and pinafore that hung loosely on the metal bed post. My hands trembled. Somehow, the frigid December air that plagued the city of New York found its way through the thick stone walls of the girls' 7-12 dormitory and seemed to linger there. I didn't mind the matron being there as I got dressed. She did for intimidation but from a very young age I had been determined to not let the matron cruel attempts at humiliation ruin my life.
I hastily pulled on my peeling leather shoes and tried to scamper out the doors before she could say it. I was quick for a runty ten year old, but not that quick.
"After your work, come to my office, or Ill come in and whip you raw in front of everyone, you hear me." She snapped still standing in the same place as she had been when I had woken up. I just nodded, not even looking back at her. The skin on my back was already scarred beyond healing from years of heavy floggings. I wasn't a bad child, but according to the Matron I had too much spirit for a girl of my circumstance, too much will. I felt the contrary, a was an empty husk, a meaningless creature, doomed to forever toil in the dusty rooms of a factory until my dying day. I only wondered just how many more days I'd have to endure before I could leave this place forever. Earth, I mean.
The machine room was a long, narrow cellar like room with rows and rows of machinery each at which a small child stood hemming and sewing pieces of fabric together. It was a hot, smoky room, dimly lit by the candles hanging in the low rafters. An almost unbearably claustrophobic place to be for a minute or two, let alone eight hours a day, every day, except Sunday, when all the wards of St. Catherine's went to mass in a small chapel connected to the main building, before resuming their work for another five hours each night.
I surveyed the rows of sullen children, searching for a particular face and I found it at row three machine C9. A freckle faced boy with mouse brown hair that stuck up in the back was waiting for me, he too was surveying the crowd of children with sorrowfully dark eyes. I pushed passed more dirty faced children to reach the empty machine next to Oliver. He flashed me a lopsided smile. He was quite small for ten, at least half a foot shorter and 10 pounds thinner than I which was saying something because I wasn't exactly a heavy weight.
"I waited for you." He stammered. "A long time too. That dream make you oversleep again?" The lights flickered. Mr. Slank, the owner of the textile mill that supposedly uses these pitiful scraps of fiber, gave the signal for the children to turn the machines on. The sewing machines roared on as I tried to shout my answer back to Oliver.
"Yes, it was the dream! I've been thinking, Oliver. What if these dreams mean something? What if they're telling me something! Oliver laughed.
"Yeah, right Jo! What are they tellin ya! That you shouldn't take a bath any time soon!" He sniggered. His fingers guided a piece of white fabric through the machine simultaneously, getting dangerously close to being pierced by the plunging needle. They scathed his fingers narrowly and he jumped and started to focus on his work once more.
"I think the dream is about my parents, about what happened to them!" I said scowling. "The boy in my dream... he had my exact eyes... and the name he called me...Rose, it sounded so familiar, not the name exactly but the way he said it, like I knew the girl he was talking about, like I should know! Are you even listening?"
Oliver was staring into space, and this time the needle jabbed his nimble fingers, he let out a scream and clutched his bloody hand as if trying to cut off the pain. One of the matrons looked over but made no movement to come and help. Oliver shook his hand, wincing and stuffed it into his pocket, using his right hand to guide the fabric.
He looked at her again, the bemused smile wiped from his face. "It's just a dream, Josephine. We orphans need them to keep us from realizing how hopeless our lives our and hanging ourselves with our stockings." He smiled weakly.
"But it was all so real, like it actually happened, that night. What if that how they died. My face must have lit up with my sudden epiphany because Oliver's face lit up too. "I have an idea! Tonight, while Ms. Stritch is at dinner with the other matrons, we could sneak into her office and have a look at our files. We must have come from somewhere, been brought here by someone. I want to know, I need to know and so do you right?"
I half expected Oliver reject my idea, to tell me to let it go, but that just wasn't Oliver. A wide grin spread across his grimy face. Oliver was never one to turn down mischief. "Where do I meet you?"