Willow Locke - Anarchist Detective

Clara Lemlich

3:20. It was time to go. Zilpah had spent the whole day crafting her excuse as she worked. She finished her blouse, disengaged her machine and stood up. Charles Fulton was instantly next to her.

"Already time to quit, Zilpah?" he sneered. "Plenty of girls looking for a job."

She had to fight her fear. Appear cold, emotionless. Mama had given her a lifetime of practice. "Ah, no sir, was given a job from upstairs."

That morning she had discovered what would become the centerpiece of her plan: a blank work order. She had found it on the stairs as she carried blouses up to be packaged. She had carefully filled it out at one of the labelling tables, forging the signature of a designer she knew. She handed it to him.

"They want me to inventory the fabric on this floor, they're looking for a specific lace pattern for the new designs."

"That dress have pockets?" Fulton slid his hands over her hips. "No, huh?" Fulton was ever-vigilant against thievery.

He stroked his chin and looked at her for a moment. "Alright. Better get started," he said, turning briskly away.

She looked up at the big clock next to the Gibson Girl drawings. 3:27. She had to get to the pneumatic. She picked up her clipboard and pencil and walked to the large fabric storage room. She turned on the light and shut the door. She looked around at the fabric inventory. There was the pneumatic. She had done it.

Zilpah was worried. She hadn't seen either Ayala or Hannah in over a week. Another girl sat next to her now, red hair, silent and efficient. Where were they? None of the other girls seemed to know. Hannah was ill, she had heard over and over. And the skuttle among the seamstresses was that Ayala had eloped, had fled New York with one of her suitors. One of the girls had seen them kissing at the theatre, days ago—had she finally given in to Yaakov? And Hannah—what illness did she have that kept her away from work for a week? Tuberculosis? Something was deeply wrong. She knew how Hannah's family depended on her income. If she had had tuberculosis she probably would have come to work anyway.

Zilpah had been happy the past week living with Alva, maybe for the first time in her life. She had laughed as Alva played a roundel on the harpsichord and Joseph and Shek danced together. He had picked the little girl up and whirled her around the marble floor. She had been distracted, she realized, but at work her worries crashed over her head as she sewed. She wondered what had happened to her mother. Had she been hospitalized by her withdrawals? Was she dead? Had she been committed to Blackwell insane asylum? A decent person would have cared, but Zilpah did not, she was just glad that she and Shek were finally free. And really, the woman she knew as her mother was long dead, had been gone for a decade at least.

"God be with her," she whispered to no one, pressing her fingers to her eyes. The capsule shunked into the chamber, with a gasp of pneumatic pressure. She slid the panel open and retrieved it, unscrewed it and removed a note. An address and a time, "tonight" scrawled in blue ink, nothing more. She screwed the capsule closed and put it back in the chamber. Pressed send and heard the pop of pressure as the capsule rocketed back up to the upper floors. She would have to stay a couple of hours at least to make the job seem real. She tucked her pencil behind her ear and got out her clipboard. What kind of fabric would the new designs use?

* * *

Chambers street, the address was a red brick building with a basement stair. She heard machines at work, a rhythmic churning from underground, great gouts of steam spewing from the ventilation screen, rising like luminous ghosts into the dark. She slipped down the stairwell and peered through the tiny window inset into the heavy steel door. Another girl looked back at her. Another seamstress maybe? Zilpah saw her turn to look over her shoulder and wave to someone, and then the door creaked open.