Chapter 2

I sighed and took a small bite of my dinner."Do you know what this is?" I asked.

"Not a clue." He said. I frowned at my food for the fourth time in an hour.

Sighing, I said, " I think it's potatoes.."

"And oatmeal." Charlie added. I gagged.

"Thanks for the most pleasant ideas." I managed to choke out.

"It was nothing." He said sarcastically." You musn't not eat. You need your strengths."

"Charlie, you are to be the reason I die in here." Yet I still took another shot at the lumpy mass in my bowl.

"Who are you quarreling with?" Sarah asked when she came back from the makeshift bathroom the women had set up.

"Charlie." I said automatically, not realizing she wouldn't know who he was.

"....Rosaline?" She hesitated. " Your staring at a wall."

"No, she is but staring at my wall." Charlie said through the hole. Sarah squealed and jumped back, almost repeating my actions from the night before.

" Who may this be?!" She almost shouted. I put my hand over her mouth to hush her.

"Charlie, like Rosaline said to you but a minute ago." He said calmly, unfazed by her actions. He probably reckoned that it was caused by his 'charm and good looks'.

"But.. That cannot be.. All that is here is but a wall!" I laughed and shook my head at her, and stuck my hand through the hole in the wall. I felt Charlie grab it and put a note into my palm before I pulled it back out and shoved Sarah's hand in.

"Rosaline Fuller!" She scolded me. " How dare you place my hand in such a filthy, diseased,--" She paused as Charlie shook hands with her.

" A pleasure, by far." He said, changing the tone of his voice. It must've been the one he used standing next to his father while he preached. " Yet I must say: I am quite more sanitary than Benjamin, my only cellmate."

" Yes, I could feel hardly any grime on your hands." Sarah said politely.

" I make sure to wash it in my mash when I am almost finished." He said, as if it was the most common thing you would say around here. Sarah choked the small bit of water she had left, as I burst out laughing.

"That is simply repulsive!" Sarah cried out, frantically wiping her hands on her skirts.

"God, you women these days! You are so gullible!" Charlie cried out, laughing with me.

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When I was alone, I opened up my palm to see the piece of damp parchment Charlie had put into my hand less than 20 minutes before. All that was written there was:

Waiting for them to sleep. I shall see you in your cell later. I wondered what he meant by that, yet I simply shrugged off his note and went back to trying to take care of Anne, who had become increasingly sick in the past couple days we'd been here.

"Are you feeling alright today?" I asked her quietly, feeling her burning forehead.

"I don't know, Rosaline." Anne said. "I don't feel much anything anymore." The flat tone of her voice startled me.

"Anne! You musn't be so negative! You must be strong, like you said the time i'd met you." I said with exasperation.

" I can't anymore, Rosaline. You know my time is short." She whispered, sounding defeated.

"We all feel that way right now. Yet you know you have to try to be strong, no matter what dangers cross your path. Soon we will all escape this hell."

"No.. I won't escape." Anne said. " I believe I will die here." And it was the truth, yet I was trying to avoid it. Everyone knew she was dying, either from lack of sanitation or from pneumonia.

"Such nonsense!" Sarah cried. She had been sitting next to her all day, keeping her warm with her body heat. Anne complains she is cold, yet she knew that the temperatures were only 40 degrees on a good day.

We were nearing winter. If we were still in jail by the first snowfall, we had an extremely low chance of surviving in here. We all had been struggling for warmth and sanitation, and the cleanest people in my cell were Sarah and I. When our clothes smelt terrible, we would soak them in our water for the day. We did it very rarely, but it was all worth it. On a good day, when we got more water than usual, we would pour the water over our hair and faces and try to clean the grease off as well as possible.

Anne, though, was refusing meals, handing her bowl to Sarah to give to the women who couldn't afford food. I don't think Grandfather paid for my food, either, but Sarah's mother probably did. We urged her to eat it, but when she tried one bite and threw it up with a large mass of blood, we agreed to just give it to some child who couldn't afford it.

People here were getting weaker and weaker as the days dragged on. 6 women in our cell alone had died last week, leaving a acrid smell of rotting corpses and dried blood hanging in the air. Anne had been coughing up blood almost every hour, and Sarah and I had been eating less and less every day. The mush was becoming more tastless, and I wondered if my tastebuds could handle anything stronger.

It was late at night now, and Sarah and I were huddled imbetween Anne, who was hacking uncontrollably. I ripped off a long strip of my skirt and handed it to her, so if she accidentally coughed up some blood she would have a way of covering it up. "Hush." I soothed her, rubbing her back gently and giving her slow sips of water. I ripped off yet another strip of my skirt, noticing it was becoming noticably shorter. Past my knees, you could see the crescent-shaped birthmark almost at my thigh.

I soaked the fabric in what I had left of my water, wrapping it on her forehead. "I'm afraid that this is all I can do to help you, Anne." I whispered.

" You shouldn't help me, Rosaline. You are but wasting your time on a girl that is hopeless." She said weakly, closing her eyes.

" You are not hopeless, just ill. Now get some rest. You will need your strength." I laid her down, making sure to put the last of her water next to her and pour mine in with her.

"Goodnight, Rosaline. Thank you for helping me through this difficult time." Anne whispered. I wrapped the blanket around her and Sarah, getting up and stretching for a moment.

" Goodnight, Anne. You have been like a sister to me for this time here. I shall see you in the morning." I said back, lying her and Sarah down.

I sat there for a while, thinking about Anne and how she might not survive. My thoughts were interrupted when I saw a head pop out of under my cot. An actual head. Just as I was about to scream, though, the head formed into shoulders and arms and put it's hands over my mouth.

"Shush." The voice said. Then I realized the head and shoulders belonged to Charlie.

"Are you mental?!" I hissed, pulling his hand off my mouth.

"Yes. It comes naturally, i'm afraid." He joked.

"This is not something to joke about! Why are you in here?" I asked.

He shrugged. " I got tired of Benji's company, so I came over here."

My eyes went wide. "You could get killed for that!" I said with exasperation.

" And if we stay in this cell for much longer, we could get killed too. I mean, look how many people are in here!" He said. " Come on, we're going to my cell."

"Are you crazy? I'm not taking that risk!" I said, putting my hands up in a sign of defeat.

"Yes, you are. It will be fun." Charlie said, pulling me off the bed and under it.

He had made a tunnel under my bed to under his. When we got to his cell, a boy was snoring heavily, which would easily cover up our voices if we were whispering.

" I cannot believe you." I said simply once i put my long black hair into a boyish bun and took Charlie's hat. Then if the guard decided to come down, he might not notice another member in a cell. After all, there were at least 50 people here. He wouldn't realize one person gone from the women's cell, anyways. There were a lot of people in mine.

"Cannot believe how good looking I am, you mean." He said.

I ignored his comment and went on. " How long did it take you to make that tunnel?"

" I started last night, when I got tired of talking to Benji and thought, 'how amazing would it be if I dug up a tunnel leading to Rosaline's cell?' So I did." He said patiently.

I sat down on his cot with my knees hugged to my chest, shaking my head. "What's wrong?" Charlie asked.

I laughed, my voice shaky. " I could get hung for this, you know."

"They can't hang you without a trial." Charlie said.

" Yes, they can." I said, taking deep breaths. " God, Charlie. When I said I thought you would be the cause of my death, I was just kidding."

He laughed. " Really? Why, I had no idea you were joking."

I sighed, still nervous. " Charlie.." I said.

"Yeah?" He asked, suddenly serious.

" You are the most insane person I have ever met."

"You think I don't know that?" Charlie sighed.