Pamela Isley was not upset by the noise. No more so than usual when in the presence of these non-autotrophic drains on the environment, anyway. And besides, she shared Harley's frustration, if not her reasons. Arkham was too dark, too cold. The sun lay on her, curled up on the stone floor, for only the briefest time, a feebly lit rectangle that faded quickly with the coming of noon. She was growing weaker by the day (or, more precisely, by the night). Soon she would not be able to drag herself from her cell, even if, by some miracle, she gained her freedom. Already the colder weather had reduced her to using a slim metal walking stick, generously provided by an orderly whose eyes had been unashamedly on her for some time. She entertained churlish fantasies of seducing him, in the slim hope that he might provide a passage to Daylight.
Arkham's doctors were transparently perplexed. They had at first suspected Isley of starving herself, but after monitoring closely her limping journey to the mess hall and back, as well as a total absence of self-induced purging behaviour, they had to abandon that theory. They then speculated upon some kind of wasting illness, but their string of tests could not penetrate the anti-logic of her chlorophyll-producing haemoglobin. They resolved the situation by assigning her malady to a psychosomatic condition, a kind of cabin fever for the talking hot-house plant.
To hell with them. Let them puzzle over her death, over the mound of compost she felt certain she would become. Except –– a stab of guilt hit her gut, right where the largest part of her animal side remained –– Harley. Could she accept death and leave her friend to fend for herself? Her poor, delusional friend, doomed by her own obsession to return again and again to a psychopath who would sooner slay her than lay her? Poor, stupid Harley. Isley still held faint hopes of a feminist epiphany for the erstwhile Dr Quinzel. Could she really go away and leave it all in the hands of Fate? Fate had not exactly been coddling either of them in recent memory. Damn it.
Pulling herself up to the sunless window-ledge, Isley sought amongst the Victorian stones for some miniscule signs of life. There. In a crumbling corner, nestled in the dank crook, grew a spot of deep green moss. She stroked it with the barest glance of her little finger, whispered to it, encouraged it. After twenty minutes, her joints aching, she slipped away from the window, crawled into her bunk and wrapped herself in the rough government blanket. They were now friends, she and the moss. They understood each other. They would make new plans, together.