The women of Blue Meadow Women’s Correctional could smell trouble a mile off.
They smelled it now.
‘All going to end in tears, isn’t it,’ said Anderson, popping her knuckles one by one. ‘Just a waste of everyone’s time, and Rainbow or Fairy, or whatever this one’s name is, won’t tell you. She’s just here to keep you all quiet. Keep you busy doing this shit so you don’t realise the truth.’
The chair creaked as she sat back, arms crossed over her broad chest, daring the room to ask her the obvious question.
The other women around the table kept their heads down, eyes fixed on the papier-mâché crafts in front of them.
The volunteer, whose name wasn’t Rainbow or Fairy but in fact Miriam, was lining up a diplomatic response, but before she could get past the second word she was already cut off.
‘This is all just a fucking scam,’ Anderson smiled, conspiratorially, as though the secret was just for the residents. ‘Like playgroup, isn’t it? Little pointless things to keep you quiet. So Judy here forgets about her man knocking her teeth out, and Ida lays off the buskies. You won’t say it, but this is all a fucking disaster. The Drama Club is going to hate these. And they can’t fucking act or sing, and everyone’s going to hate whatever fucking thing you’ve written.’ She dismissed Miriam with a wave of a hand. ‘Complete fucking disaster. And what the fuck you smiling at?’ She jabbed a finger at the woman opposite her, the only one with the nerve to look her in the eye. ‘You’re the worst fucking one. Walking around like you own the fucking place. Like no one hears you crying in your fucking cell like a little bitch. You act like you’re tough, and they might be scared of you, but I could wipe that smirk off your fucking face in a flat second.’
The quiet at the table clenched into a raised fist – the women collectively holding their breath. They’d all known it was coming the moment that Amanda and Anderson had been put in the room together.
Amanda set the papier-mâché hand she’d been making down on the table as Miriam began to babble, pointing to the decorated card on the noticeboard. ‘Ladies, I have to remind you of the Behaviour Charter. Amanda, you remember, don’t you? You’ve been doing so well the past couple of months. Let’s not break your clean streak.’
She could see the guard, Peterson, out of the corner of her eye, watching through the long, reinforced window along one wall. He’d stayed to watch after he’d dropped Anderson off. Catching Amanda’s eye as he’d left, he’d given her a smirk with all the malice of a boy who’d just thrown a firecracker into the room and was waiting for the bang.
For all the guard’s petty hatreds, it was a shrewd move, Amanda supposed. Put his two biggest problems in a room together and let them sort each other out.
‘Fuck you worried about her for?’ demanded Anderson. ‘You think she could take me? Know what I’m in for, bitch? Not half of what I’m going to do to you, you don’t look away. Everywhere I look, there’s you giving me the fucking stink eye.’
Their gazes locked, Amanda smiling and crossing her arms, showing she wasn’t scared, though her heart was thudding in her ears.
Miriam was talking again, a mixture of half-heard pleas and warnings as the women faced off. Stepping away, she turned to beckon Peterson into the room, the guard pretending to be too busy on his radio.
The other residents had given up all pretence of working on their sculptures. Their heads were bowed, hands anxious in their laps, very small and very still.
‘You have no idea how many people like you I’ve met,’ said Amanda, her chair scraping behind her as she stood. ‘You’re empty. You pretend like you’re not, but you’ve got nothing. And the only way you make yourself feel better is by making everyone around you feel worse. So every time you kick off, I’m going to be there slinging your own shit back at you. These women don’t deserve to take your shit, so why not try shutting the fuck up for a change.’
The door opened. In the moment Amanda’s eyes flicked to see Miriam sticking her head out of the room, begging for Peterson’s attention, Anderson attacked.
The larger woman had been growing pinker and pinker as Amanda had talked. Now she was bright red, as residents scattered, chairs tipping, to get out from under her heavy-footed charge.
Amanda grinned.
Moving just in time, Anderson’s first blow caught her hard in the ear, deflected off her forearm. The second came in tight after the first from the other direction, smacking Amanda on the ribs. Fists turning to claws, Anderson grabbed her, driving her back into the wall so all Amanda could do was tuck her head to her chin and try not to crack it into the brick.
They crashed into the Behaviour Charter, the collaged and signed paper ripping under her back.
The whole room was in an uproar, everyone shouting, as more residents rushed to get out of the way. Anderson was bellowing obscenities, flecking Amanda’s face with spit.
Amanda’s grin hadn’t budged. She didn’t say a word, just kept her eyes on Anderson’s, making sure the woman knew she was enjoying this.
Anderson pulled her close, only to slam Amanda back into the wall. It was a punishing, bruising blow, knocking the air out of her and making her cough. But not enough to stop her from smiling.
‘That it?’ Amanda demanded. ‘That it?’
The larger woman’s eyes bulged. Releasing her grip, she pulled back an arm to let fly with another punch. But she’d been so intent on Amanda’s grin she hadn’t noticed where the smaller woman’s hands had been.
Amanda raised her fist, opened it and blew.
The woman screeched and suddenly her weight was off Amanda as she fell away, cursing and spluttering, tears streaming as chilli powder burned at her eyes and nose.
Amanda had screwed up her face against the blowback. Letting the twist of paper drop to the floor, she followed up with a half-decent punch to the woman’s head.
Anderson backed away, in full retreat now, retching. Wiping at her face only made it worse, the powder caking in her tears, collecting on her fingertips and going straight back to her eyes again.
The ladies in the kitchen hadn’t asked questions when Amanda had asked for it, too scared to argue. They’d know why she’d wanted it by lunchtime, now.
Blinded, the larger woman swung a fist to keep Amanda at bay, but her opponent was already walking away.
Peterson was still in the doorway, Miriam wringing her hands out in the hall. The guard scowled as Amanda approached.
‘Sorry for the paperwork.’
‘Hello again, Amanda.’ Doctor Bowers greeted her with a sigh. ‘Another fight.’
Amanda shuffled on the infirmary bed, sitting at its foot. It had been a long wait for the doctor to see her, Bowers treating Anderson first. The pair were being kept in different rooms, but Amanda had been able to hear her opponent’s bellowed promises of retribution through the walls.
‘Not much of one. She was giving the other women a hard time.’
‘Let’s have a look at you then.’
Amanda allowed herself to be poked and prodded. The doctor shone a torch in her eyes, checking for concussion.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Fine. Ribs a bit sore.’
‘I thought we’d agreed I wouldn’t have to see you again.’
‘Not much of a choice. She’s been spoiling for a fight.’
‘And there you were to give her one.’
‘Peterson put us together on purpose. He’s always had it in for me because I stand up to him. He’s just as bad. If you saw how he—’
‘Amanda, just stop. We can’t keep pretending.’
‘There’s no pretending. This place is bad enough without people like them making it worse.’
‘That’s not what I’m talking about. And you…’ she sighed again. ‘Lift up your top, please. Let’s see.’
Amanda winced as she complied, her right side feeling tight from the blow Anderson had landed.
‘Did you think about what I said last time?’
‘Ugh,’ Amanda grunted in pain. ‘Careful.’
‘You can’t keep doing this. I see a lot of different kinds of pain in this place. You might pretend it’s not there, but I can see it. Just…’ she raised her voice before Amanda could retort. ‘Just hear me out. Every time there’s trouble, there you are. Peterson out there thinks you’re a troublemaker. But I know that’s not it. I’ve seen it before. You’re looking for trouble. As much as I’d like to believe you, you don’t care about those women out there. You barely talk to them. You attend the classes, you sit with them at meals, but I’ve never seen you be one of them. But when there’s trouble, all of a sudden there you are, putting yourself in front of it. You don’t care about what’s going on here. You just want to hurt someone and you want them to hurt you.’
‘I think I’m good now,’ said Amanda, pulling down her top.
‘I don’t know what you’re punishing yourself for,’ Bowers insisted. ‘But there are people you can talk to. I know you don’t get any visitors or make any phone calls, but if there are people you can reach out to—’
‘There’s no one. At least, no one who wants to hear from me.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘Yeah, well that’s what makes you a doctor, isn’t it? Always so sure of everything.’
Amanda hopped off the bed, forcing Bowers to step out of the way.
‘Just think about what I said. Whatever it is, you have to forgive yourself. It’s the only way to move on.’
‘If people wanted me to move on, I don’t think they’d have locked me up.’ Amanda headed to the door and turned, hand on the handle as she waited for permission to leave.
Bowers folded her arms. ‘And why is it, when you say that, I think the only reason you’re here is because it’s where you think you deserve to be?’
‘You must think you’re real fucking smart.’ Peterson was waiting for her outside, ready to escort her through the prison.
It seemed that everyone had an opinion on what was going on in her head these days. That was the thing about prison, even your thoughts were everyone’s business. How you behaved, where you looked, who you spoke to and how you said it, it was all there for others to pick over.
‘Couldn’t tell you,’ she replied, fixing on her smile. ‘I suppose when I’m comparing it to you thinking sticking Anderson in a room with me will solve your problems, I’m Albert Einstein.’
They began to walk, Peterson letting her go in front. It made Amanda press her tongue against her teeth. You wanted to keep men like Peterson where you could see them, but it wasn’t like she had much of a choice.
‘Keep laughing,’ he said. ‘It’ll just be more time on your sentence.’
‘More time for us to get to know each other, then. Maybe I can finish teaching you how to stop being a world-class arsehole. I mean, come on. It wasn’t exactly the most unexpected plan ever. She might be bigger than me, but have you ever really thought that mattered?’
The guard didn’t reply, nothing but the sound of his heavy shoes as they neared the next set of steel gates.
The smell of bleach stung at the nostrils. The maintenance vocation group had been by. The prison corridors were cleaned four times a day, sometimes. All those women learning a new trade for when they got out needed a lot of practice.
‘Not that way,’ said Peterson as she paused before the gates.
He nodded around the corner, where another long corridor led them towards the resident quarters.
‘We’re not heading to the canteen?’ Amanda couldn’t keep the nerves from her voice. ‘Almost lunchtime.’
Peterson smiled. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t like being on your own?’
‘No, it’s not that. It’s just—’
‘Get going then,’ the man nodded again, enjoying himself. ‘Go on.’
‘I’m just saying it’s almost mealtime. It’d just be easier if—’
‘You should have thought about that before you started blinding inmates. Something’ll get brung to you, don’t worry.’ His eyes glittered as he watched her squirm, daring her to protest.
‘Fine,’ she said, keeping her voice light. ‘Let’s go.’
She started off down the corridor, walking fast so he had to hurry to catch up.
‘Everyone knows you hate being on your own,’ Peterson started up again. ‘You act like you’re tough, but you aren’t fooling anyone.’
‘You want to get this gate or hand me the keys?’
He needled her all the way back to her cell. She did her best not to show her nerves until the door locked behind her.
Her cellmate was away at her own classes, leaving Amanda alone with the four walls, the distant shouts and clangs of prison life muffled.
There wasn’t much room to pace, but that’s what she started to do. The doctor’s words rattled around her head as she screwed up her fists, angry tears spilling down her cheeks. Bowers had called it right, but that had only made her feel worse. Like she’d been caught naked.
And why shouldn’t she be angry? At this place and the world that had put her here. And herself most of all. What business was it of anyone else’s? If they knew half of what she had done, they would hate her too.
They couldn’t know about the demon that had killed her family. They couldn’t know about the lengths she had gone to to get her revenge. How she had murdered her best friend with her bare hands. How he had let her do it. They couldn’t know about the young girl she had sacrificed, used for her skills in magic and then left for dead in a Russian hospital, her fingers shredded to the bone for taking on too powerful a spell. They couldn’t know about the months afterwards. Living with her one remaining daughter, who had known everything she’d done and had hated her for it.
Michaela had filled the air with silent recriminations every morning. And every night, they kept each other awake with the screams of their nightmares. Amanda had tossed and turned, sweated the sheets through. Her dead husband and murdered children accused her of failing them. Her friend Caleb choked out words of hurt betrayal as her hands tightened around his throat. ‘I didn’t mean to do it.’ She muttered the words over and over again, leaving her throat sore when she woke. Every day, she’d wanted to talk through her dreams, but Michaela had always made an excuse to leave, refusing to share her own. Until the day Amanda had come home to find her daughter’s room emptied.
Her friend Jamison had fallen ill soon after that. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to call and find out how he was, too afraid of what she might say when she heard his voice. What he might say when he found out where she was now. His disappointment.
Neither Michaela nor Jamison could know how she had tried to go back to work. To pull a few jobs, get her groove back, make some money. Instead, with so many of her old friends and contacts dead, all she had managed was a rocky tumble of bad decisions in the company of questionable people.
Arrest had been inevitable. The job had been half-baked, the crew unreliable. Once, she would have shaken her head and walked away. But she’d just kept her eyes down, her head filled with Caleb dead under her hands, the girl, Steph, with her ruined hands, her family sprawled on the stairwell, their blood soaking into the carpet, and Michaela out there somewhere, alone.
They’d have saved everyone a lot of time by just handing themselves in at the nearest police station. As it was, there had been a lot of running and shouting. Amanda had found herself face-down in the dirt with the rest of them, cold metal at her wrists.
There had been a court appearance. They hadn’t known who she was; Jamison had fixed her up with a new identity when she’d come back from Russia. If she’d told them who she really was, they’d have hanged her in an instant. The government was still sore that no one had been caught in connection with the murders of so many innocents perpetrated by the demon Reeves – they’d have leapt at the chance of a scapegoat. But something had stayed her tongue: the thought of her daughter, out in the world, alone.
But bars on the doors and windows hadn’t kept the nightmares at bay. Simon, Emily, Darren, Caleb, Steph, their eyes filled with as much sorrow as anger. ‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ she pleaded, knowing the words were false. She was right where she deserved to be, and she deserved everything that this place could throw at her.
Amanda paced until her legs ached, her self-recriminations bouncing off those four tight walls.
It was only when she sat in the room’s only chair, her ribs burning, that she saw the package tucked under her pillow.
It was a white Jiffy, nothing but her assumed name on it. On top there was a slip of folded paper: ‘Jonsey wants to see you.’
Jonsey? She had seen the woman around but had never spoken to her. Jonsey was part of the criminal infrastructure – the woman people went to for a bit of contraband. She had a line with the outside world too, could put a resident in touch with anyone they wanted, though Amanda hadn’t paid enough attention to know how she did it. A stash of burner phones most likely. But why did she want to see Amanda?
Flitting between curiosity and anger, turning the envelope over in her hands, she debated with herself whether she would go at all. Who would want to send her something?
The package was unopened.
The staff here were shits when it came to inspecting the mail, ripping and tearing through the contents in the pursuit of smuggled items, stuffing them back carelessly when they were done.
This package had found its way into the prison by other means.
Her name on the package was typed, no indication what it might be or where it had come from.
Amanda gave it a shake. Nothing shifted inside, the envelope packed tight but light. Whatever it was, it was nothing good. Every internal alarm bell was ringing.
Lips pinched, she ripped open the seal and peered in. She blinked, unable to make out what it was. It looked like a swatch of brown material, curled to look like fur.
Taking a hold with thumb and forefinger, she pulled, frustration giving way to surprise and then spiralling between confusion and anxiety as a toy slipped from the package, limbs unfolding and head lolling from its confines.
It was Bear, Michaela’s stuffed toy from when she was a toddler. Even now, in her late teens, when most stuffed toys had become a thing of the past, Bear had survived the cull, a lifeline to a time before.
Amanda’s hands were at the door before she even knew that she’d crossed the room, pushing and rattling the steel plate in its frame. She screamed with frustration as the door refused to budge, turning and pacing the too-small room again, hands up to her head as angry tears began to flow.
Her daughter was in danger. It was the only thing this could mean. Michaela wouldn’t send this to her of her own volition. She was in trouble and Amanda was stuck in here, unable to help or protect her.
‘Fuck!’ she shouted at the room. ‘Fuck!’
How had she let this happen? How had she been so stupid to let herself get locked up for some stupid half-planned robbery when she should have been out there watching over the only family she had left? What was wrong with her?
She collapsed onto her bed, wiping a forearm across her face to stem the tears. Reading the message again, she screwed it up in her fist and rolled onto her side, staring at the blank wall beside her. This morning, tomorrow had looked like any other day; now it couldn’t come soon enough.
The next day and the other shoe still hadn’t dropped on her actions in the art class. The gears in prison ground slow and, as Amanda was released back to her regular routine, word was that Anderson was still in the infirmary.
‘Can’t have hit her that hard,’ Amanda said to her cellmate, but they all knew the truth. Anderson was just being kept apart from Amanda. Word of what she’d vowed to do if she saw her again was already travelling through the prison grapevine.
But the morning came and went, and no guards came to collect her. Somewhere, reports were being filed, meetings had, decisions made. What to do about her? Twenty-four hours ago, she wouldn’t have cared – extra time, solitary confinement, whatever. Now she dreaded it. She couldn’t let anything stop her from talking to Jonsey.
She’d hugged Bear through the night, breathing in her daughter’s scent off it, squirming in bowel-wrenching terror, torturing herself with a dozen scenarios of what it could all mean. The envelope was in shreds, flushed down the toilet. She’d ripped it apart looking for a second message, any clue as to what this was all about.
Heart in her mouth, she’d left Bear hidden under her pillow. Wherever she was in the prison, going through the motions of breakfast, showering, anger management therapy, she could feel it there, those glass bead eyes staring out at her.
When the doors were unlocked for ‘community time’, she near sprinted for Jonsey’s cell, flexing her fingers around Bear and setting her jaw. By the time she got there, she’d worked herself up to a storm.
Jonsey looked well for a dead woman. She was small, white, in her late fifties, hair cut close to her head. Her aging skin did strange things to the fading tattoos that covered her neck, chest and arms. Her baggy hoodie only accentuated how skinny she was.
Cancer had been eating her from the inside out for a while now. Doctors were hopeful. She was always being taken away for chemo, but Jonsey herself seemed resigned to the fact that she had finally found out what was going to kill her, and to her surprise it hadn’t been her husband. A year had gone by, she told everyone who would listen, and all medical science had managed was fighting it to a near stalemate. ‘Near’ because, every once in a while, she’d return quiet and grey and report that the cancer had found somewhere new to nest inside her.
But, she’d declare happily to the canteen, it came with certain perks. There was her cellmate, Marnie, who had volunteered to help look after her when she was going through the increasingly common rough patches.
The pair were sitting when Amanda reached the doorway. They started at her sudden appearance, Jonsey thrusting out her wrinkled jaw in defiance.
‘Expected you yesterday,’ said Marnie in her heavy Yorkshire accent.
‘You had best start fucking talking because once I start hitting you, I am not going to stop.’
‘I’ll get the door, shall I?’ Marnie folded her magazine. Beckoning Amanda in, she closed the door, peering out the window for the guards.
‘Bad news was it?’ asked Jonsey. ‘I know what that’s like.’
‘Don’t think that because you’re ill, I won’t—’
‘I’m just the messenger,’ Jonsey lifted her hands. ‘I don’t know what was in that package and I didn’t want to know. We were told to deliver it and to expect a visit from you. Then I was to put you in touch with the sender, that’s all.’
‘That what was in the package?’ asked Marnie, eyeing Bear in Amanda’s fist.
The sight of the stuffed toy, neck crooked in the tight noose of Amanda’s thumb and forefinger, served to knock her anger back, sorrow and anxiety pushing their way to the front again. All of a sudden she was tired. So tired.
‘Have a sit-down, love.’ Amanda only half felt Marnie’s hand as she was nudged to a chair, still warm from the woman’s backside.
The cell was nicer than most. Jonsey took the cream off the top for her smuggling business. There were magazines and books on the bedside table, an old MP3 player on top of that with good-quality headphones. The small metal sink was awash in moisturisers and soaps. The room smelled of vanilla, a much more pleasant scent than the disinfectant and musk of hundreds of women crammed together that everywhere else had.
‘You had better explain yourself,’ Amanda demanded. ‘Right fucking now.’ She held up Bear in her fist.
‘I’m sorry it was bad news,’ said Jonsey, looking and sounding like she meant it. ‘We had a bad feeling, didn’t we? But we’re not responsible. A package was given, we delivered it and the message that came with it. Whoever sent it wants to talk to you. Now, I don’t know who is on the other end. And I don’t care, either. I make it clear to everyone: we provide a service, but that doesn’t mean we have to take shit from anyone. So, you give us any, you’ll be back out there with your teddy bear wondering what you would have learned if you’d just kept your temper. And you’ll have a lot of time to do that. Not like there’s all that much to do round here. Understand?’
Amanda swallowed, hard, grief a bitter ball stuck in her throat. ‘Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…’
‘Quite all right. Now, do you want to talk to them?’
‘I don’t have a choice. How did they contact you?’
‘A magician never reveals her secrets.’
‘Please—’
A hand grabbed her shoulder and eased her back into her chair. ‘Easy now,’ said Marnie.
‘I just want to know what this is. No one who knows me would contact me like this.’
Reaching under her pillow, Marnie took out a small henna kit.
Jonsey, meanwhile, was unzipping her hoodie. Twisting in her seat to expose her back, she began to roll up the tank top she wore underneath.
Amanda was taken aback. Though she’d been prepared for it, she was surprised at how skinny the woman was. She could count the ribs. Jonsey’s vertebrae looked like they were pushing their way through her skin, which was mottled with chemo rashes.
But what made Amanda’s skin crawl was the henna tattoo that covered the woman’s back, an intricate pattern of symbols and forms. Marnie began to add to it, a detail here, a swirl there. Small changes that turned a collection of shapes into a magical symbol.
‘This won’t take long,’ Jonsey explained. ‘We get it mostly done ahead of time so I don’t have to walk around with the whole thing on my back. Then, when someone’s ready, we just finish it.’
‘We offer an impeccable service,’ said Marnie, distantly.
‘You OK?’ asked Jonsey, catching Amanda’s expression.
‘I’m fine,’ said Amanda, folding her arms. ‘I just… don’t like magic.’
‘Wouldn’t know it, looking at you,’ said Marnie. ‘I’ve seen the scars.’
It was hard to keep secrets in a place like this. No doubt everyone had seen the scars up and down Amanda’s body. They were a souvenir of her past, when her father had used Amanda and her mother as mobile blood banks to sate his blood addiction, fuelling his powerful spells. Until Amanda had put a stop to it by killing him.
‘I thought it needed to be an actual tattoo to work,’ said Amanda, her curiosity getting the better of her. Tattoos were important to magic users, or Abras as they were called on the street, not only did tattoos help stave off the immediate, physical consequences of performing a spell but they protected from the long-term effects of magic use too.
‘Tattoos are for people who have something to lose,’ said Jonsey. ‘These do the trick but not quite so well. More importantly, they wipe off. Can you imagine if one of the guards caught me with this bloody great thing in the shower? I don’t think I have what it takes to be sent to Coldwater, they’d just take me round the back and hang me. Not that that doesn’t hold some appeal at this point.’
She mentioned execution casually, a woman unafraid of death. Mentioning it in the same sentence as Coldwater, though…
An island prison for Abras, Coldwater had been open for barely a year and was already notorious. It might as well have been a black hole. No one who went there was heard from again. Not that many were given the opportunity to go there in the first place.
It had been agreed upon as a compromise between the government and those lobbying for looser restrictions on magic use. Magic had been illegal since the 1940s, its use punishable by death, but now, in the age of the internet, anyone could get instruction on hexes, runes and charms beamed straight to their phones. Despite the reservations of the older generations, magic use was on the increase and the tide was starting to turn. Now, after years of protests, marches, and loud politicians on the television and social media railing against the barbarity and unsustainability of the death sentence, Coldwater had been opened.
For the Pro-Magics, it was a victory (though not the bold steps they had called for); for the conservatives, a magnanimous gesture (that had the staunch Anti-Magics frothing at the mouth). The prison was an experiment, they had been keen to point out, to see whether dangerous Abras could be incarcerated, safely, securely and be of no danger to others or themselves.
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ said Marnie, her voice thick with black humour, ‘none of us are going to be getting into that place. Unless one of you is hiding a fortune in your trakkies?’
Only a few caught practising unlicensed magic were sent to Coldwater instead of the noose, the selection process a new battleground in legislation. Many of those sent so far were political prisoners, those the government were happy to see disappear rather than be made martyrs for the Pro-Magic movement: the high-profile, the wealthy, the powerful. The rest were the dangerous, or the unstable. The kind that the Pro-Magics pointed to and decried that it was almost like the government wanted the prison to fail.
As much as it was a step away from the death sentence, Coldwater had been turned by the government into just another tool of suppression – a cage for their enemies and a Petri dish to prove to the country just how dangerous Abras in incarceration could be. The government had snuck around any major accountability by turning the running of the prison over to a private enterprise. Coldwater Justice Services were not obliged to share publicly any information they didn’t want to about the running of the prison, or the status of their inmates.
‘And you know whoever wants to speak to me is waiting on the other side?’ asked Amanda.
‘They said they’d wait twenty-four hours,’ replied Jonsey.
‘Why didn’t they just call? Who else comes to you for this?’
‘Would you have answered? Word is you don’t get visits from anyone and you don’t make hardly any calls. And there are plenty reasons people come to me over trying to trade for time on a call phone. Some of the older prisoners don’t trust the technology over good old traditional magic, and some of the foreign nationals here prefer it because it’s what they’re used to. Half of them didn’t even know about mobile phones until they came here.’
That was true. Since Europe and the US had turned away from magic after the Second World War, they had invested heavily in technology, making strides so as to almost have replaced the art entirely with science. It was something that both awed and shocked the rest of the world in equal measure. Technology had always been there, a helping hand for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t use magic, but the leap in its sophistication had been impressive.
‘Then there are the younger ones who want the novelty and the sense of rebellion. Good to know that there’s a growing market and the art won’t die out when my old customers do. Not that I’ll live to see it, of course. Right, are we ready?’
Marnie nodded, stepping away.
Jonsey swivelled back around to face Amanda, who had stiffened in her seat, fists resting on her knees.
Jonsey laughed at her discomfort. ‘Not done this before, have you, pet?’
‘Like I said, I don’t like magic.’
‘Well, this isn’t dangerous… for you. All the risk is mine.’
‘And I don’t need…’
‘No. No tattoos or anything. All you need to do is hold the other end of this.’ Marnie held out a rod of glass. It was maybe an inch thick, a foot long.
Amanda took it, holding it like a club.
‘And I,’ Jonsey winced as she stood so that she was looking down at Amanda, ‘take the other end.’ She took hold, stepping out of her slippers and working her toes on the cheap linoleum. Planting her feet, she twisted her neck from side to side, the left turn rewarding her with a very audible click. She nodded to Marnie, renewed her grip on the glass rod. It was already growing weighty in Amanda’s hand, the muscles in her upper arm beginning to ache.
‘This can’t last long,’ warned Marnie. ‘A minute or two only, otherwise the strain gets too much.’
Producing a small tuning fork, she gave it a quick tap against the bed frame, filling the room with a soft ring. Stepping forward, the fork held delicately, her hand under it like the note might drip, she placed the tip to a spot on Jonsey’s back.
The very air changed. It was as though the fork touching Jonsey’s bare flesh didn’t quieten it but sent its vibrations into her. The room filled with the scent of magic, a crisp, apple-like smell, champagne and oil, like a battery on the tongue. It was a feeling that Amanda despised. It made her stomach roll over, made the scars up and down her arms itch, her breath come in small sips. The air around her was ringing, a wine-glass hum that she felt in her bones. It made her blink, open her mouth and try to make her ears pop.
The cup on the sink was shivering, the water in it casting staticky reflections across the wall. The glass of the strip lighting above seemed to throb. The window hummed in its frame. Amanda could almost see it undulating, as though it was growing, flexing, melting.
‘Don’t fight it,’ advised Marnie. ‘Just let it happen. It won’t last long and it doesn’t travel far. Guards won’t know.’
She was right, a few more moments and the feeling began to fade, until Amanda’s flesh was ringing with the absence of the vibrations. With senses or a combination of senses she couldn’t define, she was aware of the tremors being sucked up by Jonsey’s body until the woman herself was humming like a tuning fork. The woman’s knuckles were blanched around the rod, her eyes rolling up into her head, revealing bloodshot whites. Her teeth were gritted and she held herself rigid, her neck straining and her bare toes splayed, every tendon taut to the point of snapping.
‘…you hear me?’
Amanda knew what to expect, but the voice still took her by surprise. It was as though the voice was speaking inside her head, like she was hearing it through headphones.
‘Who the fuck is this?’ she demanded.
‘Did you receive the package?’
‘Would I be here if I hadn’t? Where is my daughter?’
‘She’s safe, but if you don’t do what I say, then I can’t guarantee—’
‘Put her on.’
‘That’s not how this works, sweetie,’ said Marnie.
‘That’s not how this works,’ the person echoed. The voice was too strange in her head for her to identify the accent, even the gender, but she could hear the frustration. ‘Am I going to have to explain everything to everyone? You know what, it doesn’t matter. Just understand this: I have enough evidence of the crimes your daughter’s been committing to see her swinging at the end of a rope if you don’t do exactly as I say.’
‘Bullshit. Michaela wouldn’t—’
‘Glamoured IDs. Emotion theft. I have her equipment, fingerprints, photos with a known dealer. Just the files on her phone and laptop would be enough to make sure she never saw the sky again. The only thing keeping me from sending all this to the police is you, so shut the fuck up and listen. Is that clear?’
Amanda didn’t know how to respond, a hundred thoughts and feelings colliding. Her daughter doing magic wasn’t a shock. She’d caught her and her younger brother trying to glamour IDs before. But emotion theft? Doing it was bad enough, but the fact that she’d been caught was even worse.
‘If you so much as touch her—’
‘Touch her? Who said anything about…? I’m not…’ he sounded flustered. ‘Do as I say, or she goes to the hangman. Am I being clear?’
‘Sweetie,’ said Marnie from the doorway. ‘You’re going to want to hurry up. She’s not got much left in her.’
Jonsey, sick-looking before, now was even more pale and drawn. Her eyes were still rolled back, but the skin around them was darker. Her head lolled back, mouth open. Amanda could see inside her mouth; her gums were bleeding.
‘Fine,’ she said, quickly. ‘What do you want?’
There was a long pause that made Amanda grind her teeth. She looked to Marnie to tell her the connection was dead, when…
‘Get yourself sent to Coldwater Prison. Once you are there, you will kill one of the other prisoners.’
‘If you want a murderer then you’ve—’
‘Stop. Just stop. I know who you are. You killed the most powerful Abra the UK has ever known. They call you an Abra killer. You’re going to do that for me.’
Amanda was mashing her hand against her knee now, trying to work out the anger while keeping hold of the glass rod. Her reputation wasn’t just a matter of pride, it was a matter of protection. There were Abras out there who wanted to take revenge for the things she had done to them. A few wanted to get back at her for killing her father. For some, the only thing keeping them back was her reputation as a powerful magic user. That wasn’t going to last long if she told the truth. But this was her daughter’s life on the line.
Jonsey was looking worse than ever. The thrum in the air was starting to pick up again. Blood was starting to show around the woman’s fingernails, the vibrations shaking her whole body apart. There was even blood beginning to seep from the corners of her eyes. What the spell was doing to her insides…
‘I’m stopping this,’ said Marnie.
‘OK,’ burst Amanda. ‘Fine. I’ll do it. All right? I’ll do it. Who is it? Who do I… Just tell me who it is.’
‘Her name is Karina Khurana. Do it by the end of the month.’
The hum was building in the room again. Jonsey was beginning to convulse, blood sweating down her face, collecting in the corners of her eyes and mouth.
Marnie reached for the glass rod.
‘No, please,’ said Amanda, holding out a hand. ‘This is important.’
Marnie cringed. She’d heard enough from Amanda’s side of the conversation to understand what was going on, but the concern for her friend was growing by the second.
‘I’ll hear about you getting transferred,’ her blackmailer continued. ‘I had better hear about it soon.’
‘And if I need to get in touch?’
‘Inside the bear, you’ll find a ball bearing. It’s a Techne. Soak it in your blood and put it in your mouth. A glamour will help keep it hidden from anyone but yourself unless they’re looking for it. How you get it through Coldwater processing, I’ll leave to you. A secondary glamour will make sure that you can’t lose it. Once you’re on the island, I will contact you each sunset. Make sure you’re available.’
‘I’m stopping this,’ said Marnie, gripping the glass rod. Screwing up her eyes, she said, ‘This conversation’s gone on too long. It’s done.’ She pulled the instrument out from both women’s grips.
The voice shut off mid-sentence in Amanda’s head, leaving her whole body tingling.
Without a pause, Marnie had the henna again and in three, five, seven practised moves, she had negated the runes on Jonsey’s back.
The hum cut off as the sick woman slumped.
Marnie had her by the collar, a quick sidestep later had Jonsey in her arms and then onto the bed, the carer making gentle soothing noises all the way.
‘Is she OK?’ Amanda asked.
‘That conversation went on far too long,’ Marnie repeated, her tone accusatory. There was a bowl of water and a cloth ready by the bed, which she began to wring out. ‘That could have finished her.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Marnie turned from dabbing her patient’s head, her lips pursed, but when she saw Amanda’s face, she sighed. ‘It’s OK. That sounded like quite the conversation.’
Three weeks. Three weeks to get herself transferred (and not hanged) and to figure out a way to get to this woman and kill her.
Feeling pressed by her lack of options, Amanda told Marnie the full extent of what had been discussed, only just beginning to process it herself. ‘I’m going to need to do some magic. Something that gets me into Coldwater, rather than hanged.’ She turned to Jonsey, but the woman had passed out.
‘She’ll be out for the rest of the day,’ said Marnie. ‘Maybe even the week. Held it for too long. Who is it? This woman you’re meant to kill?’
‘I don’t know. Never heard of her. Karina Khurana.’
Marnie raised her eyebrows, surprised.
‘You’ve heard of her?’
‘I’d say. She’s a politician. Or she was. Or she still is. You don’t watch the news?’
Amanda sniffed. ‘Not recently.’ After getting back from Russia, she hadn’t been able to re-engage with the world, and since arriving at Blue Meadow, she’d had no reason to try.
‘Then maybe you need to start. She’s only Coldwater’s biggest irony. She’s the Pro-Magic politician who fought so hard to get it set up in the first place. She was all over the papers. She got the government to concede and build the place, made all these big speeches about justice and progress then, not a year later, there’s this big scandal. They raid her house and find all these illegal instruments and contraband. Practically a laboratory. And they find these plans, dangerous plans. The kind of things she said her movement wasn’t about. She cops to the lot of it, but, of course, the Prime Minster, he doesn’t want her dangling body all over the front pages…’
‘So they sent her to Coldwater.’
‘One of their first inmates,’ Marnie confirmed. ‘Papers almost broke their arms jerking off about it. The woman who practically invented Coldwater being the first on the boat there.’
‘Except someone doesn’t think that’s enough.’
‘Guess not. Could be anyone I suppose. Government. Whatever people she was working with to get all that equipment. They give you a clue?’
‘Doesn’t matter. If it keeps my little girl safe, I’ll do what it takes. Unless there’s a way you can trace the call, find out where the other end of the signal was coming from?’
Marnie was already shaking her head. ‘None, I’m afraid. The clients value discretion. Our conduit on the outside, she has to put a bag on her head. It’s a whole thing. Even if I could… this is a whole revenue stream. But that’s not to say I won’t help. Don’t think I’ve ever broken someone into a prison before, but I’m sure there are ways.’
‘Shouldn’t we be asking her?’ Jonsey was lying motionless on the bed, the only sign of life the rise and fall of her chest.
‘Like I said, you rode her pretty hard. She could be like that for a week, now.’
‘I can’t wait that long. If there’s – and I feel like a shit, believe me – but if there’s any way you can prop her up, give her something to help her recover…’
‘We won’t have to worry about her.’
‘But if she’s the one with the power…’ Amanda’s words died and she frowned, something in Marnie’s calm expression getting through to her. ‘You don’t work for Jonsey. She works for you.’
The woman smiled. ‘It’s easier this way. You’re not the only one who finds some security in appearing less than they are. There are always people like her in places like this. She provides me with a service and I make sure she’s more comfortable than she would have been otherwise. It’s not ideal, but tell me what is. At some point, she’ll be gone, but there’ll be another like her soon enough. I have a long sentence ahead of me. We all do what we can to survive.’
‘Why help me?’
‘I don’t know. Probably because I think I can. I don’t agree with killing. But I do agree with helping someone save their daughter. And you’re here and this Karina woman is…’ Marnie fluttered her fingers towards the window. ‘Come back tomorrow. Hopefully by then one of us will have a plan.’
‘I’ll have a plan,’ Amanda frowned. ‘You’d better believe I’ll have a plan.’