Mona: I just stopped listening when I got my ipod last fall so I wouln't lose my mind completely.
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Elo: thanks, the dialogue between Mina and her dad is actually a conversation I have w/ my dad all the time...they call me Cindy at home!
A/N:Sorry for the delay...school/RL has been crazy. Chapter 2 is crazy long, so I'm cutting it in half and part two will be up, eventually.**********
Chapter 2, Part 1
Chapter 2
“They said they moved the Burns to Sanford mill,” said Ollie Jones, the town gossip. “Says they was getting transferred to a better position, but everyone knows old Mr. Ransom just don’t want no scandal.”
“Poor Nelly Burns,” said Hattie Phillips, shaking her head with a sad sigh. “Imagine losing your daughter in such a nasty way, then come to find out the poor girl was with child.”
“Well, everyone knew that was bound to happen,” said Ollie knowingly. “Her papa should have shot that young man the moment he first came to the door. Nothing but trouble that young Mr. Green. And there’s been rumor he the one that done poor Miss Rosie in.”
“Ollie!” gasped Hattie, “How could you say such a thing! Billy Green loved Rosie. He would never have hurt her like that."
“He might have if she told him she was carryin’ his child.”
Ollie Jones and Hattie Phillips were sitting on Hattie’s front porch in the Carr Mill Village, in Riley North Carolina. The two women were resting after a day’s labor at the mill by doing the family mending. Ollie lived across the street and up the hill with her husband and children. She was in her late forties and heavy. She kept her graying hair pulled back in a scarf and in the summer months was always seen with a church fan.
Hattie too was in her early forties and her hair was slowly creeping to gray as well. Unlike Ollie, Hattie was thin. Her life’s struggles had taken away her size, but she still maintained the pretty features of her youth, even if they were a bit faded. Hattie and her husband Silas were farm people, but they had been forced to sell when the money ran out and now worked in the mill with their two children. Hattie had experienced a difficult delivery with her second child and was unable to have any more. At the time she had mourned her broken womb, but now as she witnessed the large families at the mill who were forced to send their young children to work just to feed them, she was almost relieved not to have any more than two.
At the moment the two women were discussing the death of Rosemary Burns, who had been brutally murdered two weeks earlier. The mill owners had tried to call it an accident, but no one believed that, especially when someone had pieced the body back together. Immediately following the incident, as the mill owners and the superintendent kept insisting the murder be called, the Burns family packed up and left the village. Now, it appeared that they had been relocated to another mill nearby.
An additional bit of news had emerged in regards to the scandal; Rosie Burns had been pregnant. The eighteen year old's torso had been split apart by the machine to reveal a miniscule fetus. Bessie Phillips, Hattie’s sixteen year old daughter, had been Rosie’s friend and confidant and she confirmed Rosie’s pregnancy and the identity of the father; not that there was any doubt. Billy Green and Rosie Burns had been sweet on each other for over two years and if people suspected them of anything other than what was proper they kept it to themselves.
“I told Nelly, that Billy Green was nothing but trouble,” said Ollie, nodding her head in agreement with herself, “and Rosie was such a good girl until he came along.”
Hattie sighed again and looked to her sewing. She disliked discussing the matter, namely because as a mother she felt for Nelly Burns and what she was currently going through. Hattie also knew that her daughter Bessie was suffering after the loss of her friend.
“I just don’t think Billy would have hurt Rosie,” said Hattie at last. “My Silas told me Billy looked a right mess after they took her body away.”
“Guilt,” said Ollie, knowingly.
Hattie frowned and shook her head but refrained from saying anything else. It came as a relief when Ollie put away her sewing and stood up from her chair with a deep groan.
“I’d better be off, or that old man of mine will start his hollerin’ again,” she told Hattie as she waddled down the front porch steps.
“Night then,” said Hattie, glad to be rid of the gossiping woman and her poisonous view on the murder.
Hattie continued with her sewing and a few moments later her husband appeared back from a long day at the mill.
Silas Phillips was born a farmer just like many past generations of his family. Being forced to sell the farm and move to a compacted village to work a factory job under the thumb of another man was not an easy injury for him to cope with. But Silas was a strong, proud man, and though it wounded his pride to work in the mill, he refused to show any resentment or any other outward sign of his struggle.
“Evening mama,” he said to Hattie, giving her a soft, slightly sad smile that revealed both his love for her and their mutual resignation to a life of struggle.
“There’s supper on the stove for you after you wash up,” she told him after returning the smile.
Silas went into the house and returned a few moments later with a plate of food. He took a seat next to her on the porch and looked up and down the street at the men returning home from the mill.
“I saw Ollie going home,” he told his wife, after a few moments of eating in silence. “Was she visiting with you?”
Hattie nodded in the affirmative.
“She thinks Billy Green killed poor Rosie,” she told him, not looking up from Silas’s shirt that she was mending.
“That’s a damned lie,” he told her calmly, the swearing causing his wife to glance up at him in surprise.
“So you don’t think he would have done it either?” she asked. “Even in a fit of anger if she had told him she was pregnant?”
“They were going to get married,” Silas said quietly.
“What?”
“He told me last night,” Silas told her, “she had told him about the baby and they were going to see the pastor right after he saw her daddy. He was happy about the baby.”
“Oh dear,” said Hattie sadly, thinking of the happy young couple who could have been married by now if someone hadn’t pushed Rosie into the machines.
Husband and wife were silent for a time, he eating, she moving on to patch a hole in a dress belonging to their daughter. The sight of the dress seemed to give Hattie the ability to mention something that had been bothering her since the murder.
“Silas,” she said softly, not looking up from her work, “do you think it’s safe for Bessie to be working at the mill?”
He looked up from his food to glance at her. She continued.
“It’s just that Rosie was such a sweet, pretty young thing and our Bessie is too, don’t you think that the one who did this might try it again on another girl?”
Silas looked down at his almost empty plate.
“I’ve already thought of that,” he told her, “I went up to the Big House last week to ask about openings for a maid or cooks assistant of some kind, but they said they didn’t need anyone.”
Knowing that her husband had been thinking along the same lines and had already acted upon his fears made Hattie’s love for him swell within her, even as she felt her fear over the situation increase.
“What can we do?” she asked him, eyes wide with apprehension.
“I don’t know mama,” he said, looking up at her then, “I don’t know.”
Billy Green was a handsome young man standing six foot two inches tall and with bulging muscles that were visible even through a flannel shirt. He had thick brown hair and dark, brooding eyes. He didn’t say much, but he gave things a lot of thought, though at times he showed a quick, violent temper. Billy was a hard worker and kept mostly to himself; his father had been the town drunk until he went out late one night in his fishing boat, drunk as usual, and drowned. Billy was twelve at the age of his father’s accident and he felt the strong weight of shame that came as a result of Jim Green’s death and his legacy.
Billy was a boy heading for trouble when he met Rosie Burns. Sweet and gay, Rosie caught Billy’s eye and it was love at first sight for the both of them. He did thoughtful things for her and listened to her troubles, promising himself that he would get his Rosie a better life than the one she was living at the mill.
When news came that a young woman had been found in pieces up in the spinning room of the mill, Billy didn’t think for a minute that it could be his girl. But then word came around that Samuel Burns had been one to gather the body and that he had identified it as being his daughter’s. The first thing Billy did was to try and see the body, but he got no further than the bloody sheet that held the multiple pieces of the girl.
Now, weeks later, he still couldn’t believe that she was dead; and that she had died in such a brutal fashion. Billy was not an innocent young man, he knew something of the evils in the world, but he could not for one moment comprehend that someone could have done something to hurt Rosie Burns. He was convinced that the person who did it could not have known her, for anyone who knew Rosie loved her and would do anything to keep her happy and safe.
Another painful aspect of the murder was that Rosie was carrying his baby. She had told him two nights before her death and the news, though surprising at first, make him incredibly happy and proud. He and Rosie had made plans to ask her father’s permission, which he would no doubt grant once he learned that she was pregnant, then to find the reverend and have him perform a wedding as soon as possible.
Now people were beginning to wonder if he had had something to do with her murder. Inured as he usually was to slander, this latest gossip made him sick. The gossip was that he had pushed Rosie into the machines in a fit of passion after learning about the baby. The worst of it was, he did not have an airtight alibi.
The murder took place during the lunch break; a woman who worked at the machine with Rosie found the body as she resumed her place after her break. It was common for Billy and Rosie to meet during lunch to be alone since Billy had never received full approval from either of her parents to court her. Billy had not gone to see her during lunch that day, he had taken his sandwich to the riverside to sit and think about his plans for his new family. Billy kicked himself now for not planning a lunch date with her that day; he was sure that if they had been together, she would still be alive.
Her family had been transferred to another mill about an hour away, but no one had thought to move Billy Green and Billy was not sure he would have gone if they had. It was painful for him to hear the other people in the village discuss the murder in such grisly detail as if they had forgotten that the victim had once been a vibrant young woman who had grown up in that village, but he did not think he could bear to leave all the places that they had been together. To leave all the places where she had lived, walked, breathed, loved and laughed was something he could not bring himself to do.
He tried to think of her now as she had been the last time he saw her and not as the bloody corpse that he imagined in his nightmares. Rosie Burns was only about five feet three inches tall, with soft feminine curves and silky brown hair that Billy liked to see down around her shoulders. She had frank green eyes and a full red mouth that was almost always turned up in a smile. He missed that smile, how he had loved it.
He tried not to think about the baby she was carrying, the tiny result of their love. Rosie had been so excited about the prospect of a child of their own and while Billy had been a little more realistic about the challenges they would be facing as an unmarried couple, he too was thrilled. He had gone back and forth between wishing for a boy or girl. He wanted a strong son who would grow to be a hard worker like his father and do everything to make his parents proud but Billy also wanted a daughter. He imagined she would be a miniature version of her mother, perhaps with his quiet manner and Rosie’s sweet temper.
Billy tried his best not to think about the child now because it represented all the shattered dreams that he and Rosie had shared. They had planned to get enough money to leave the mill village and find work somewhere else. Billy knew he could find work as a laborer easily enough until he could be trained for some other vocation and Rosie hoped to find work as a seamstress; her sewing was known all over the village as being some of the finest. She had often made extra money for her family by doing special sewing work for the mill owner’s wife. What no one, not even Billy knew, was that she had been saving some of that money for when she and Billy were out on their own.
Billy continued to show up for work every day after the murder and did his best to ignore the stares, whispers, insinuations and pity that followed him everywhere. He lived with his mother in a house they shared with another widow. The two women were used to his silences but now they hardly knew when he was around. He had made it clear to his mother, Ruth, and the other widow, Martha Holly, that he did not wish to discuss the murder and that they were not so much as to mention Rosie’s name in his presence. The women agreed.
Billy and his mother Ruth had been left alone after his father’s death, but two years later a woman named Martha Holly had moved in with them. Martha’s husband had died of a fever and she was left with nothing. She had lived with the Greens for so long now she was like an aunt to Billy and was treated as such.
Ruth and Martha had loved Rosie Burns like the daughter-in-law and niece she had almost become. They grieved for her as well, but it was Billy they hurt for. They knew how much he had loved her and they feared for what was to become of the broken hearted young man after her death. Ruth was afraid that her son might turn to drinking the way his father had and that his end might be the same as that of her late husband. But Billy had made a vow to himself at the age of twelve as the public humiliation of his father’s demise landed upon him and his mother, that he would never touch a drop of liquor as long as he lived.
Ruth had heard the rumors that her son had had something to do with Rosie’s death, but she did not for a minute believe that they held any shred of truth. She knew that Billy would never have hurt his Rosie, especially knowing about the baby. Ruth felt the loss of her grandchild keenly, but she tried not to show Billy; he was suffering enough without seeing her grief as well.
Back at the Phillips home, Bessie and her mother were washing up for bed.
“Bessie,” said her mother, “I want you to be careful up at the mill. I want you to stay with someone else at all times. We don’t know if the person who did that to poor Rosie might try it again.”
Bessie Phillips was sixteen and tall, like both her parents. Her body was not soft and curvy like her late friend, Rosie, but she was not unattractive. She had large brown eyes that took in much and gave away little. Her hair was not silky, but it was soft brown in color and she took great pride in its long length. Her mother braided it every night and she wore it twisted back to work. Although she did not fancy herself to be pretty, Bessie had noticed several young men glance her way longer than necessary. The modest and shy Bessie took their admiring glances with good grace but did not give any of the young men any encouragement.
“I know, mama,” she said softly, looking down at her lap as Hattie began to brush her daughter’s hair.
Bessie had not said much about her friend’s death and her parents had not pushed her. Bessie was not one to fall into hysterics in public, but gentle tears slid down her face at night when she thought about Rosie and her baby and what the future might have held for them. Her generous heart went out to Billy Green who had loved her friend so faithfully. She hoped that Rosie had not felt too much pain when she died. Mostly, Bessie thought about the baby. She had been the first to hear of Rosie’s suspicions that she might be pregnant and the young mother had told Bessie all her hopes and fears about having the child.
Bessie was not afraid to work at the mill even though she told herself she should be. No one knew who the murderer was, though there were some who said it might have been Billy Green, and there was no way of knowing if he might strike again. But Bessie did not believe she was in danger, though she couldn’t have said why she knew this. Still, she promised to obey her mother and planned to stick to her promise until the murderer was found.
Bessie wondered how she would react when they discovered the murderer’s identity, if they ever did. If she would hate him or pity him, she did not know for certain. Bessie did not know who could have murdered a pretty young woman like Rosie Burns, who could have murdered anyone, especially in such a brutal manner. She thought perhaps there might be something wrong with his head, a sickness maybe that distorted his view of right and wrong or made him do crazy things. Things like pushing young women into the gears of a spinning and carding machine then laying the pieces next to each other as if trying to put her back together again.
Try as she might, Bessie could not get the images of the murder scene out of her mind. She had not actually seen the body or the place where it had been found before the black cleaning ladies had mopped up all the blood and wiped it from the machines, but she imagined it all. She imagined how the murderer might have crept up behind Rosie as she worked and grabbed her from behind, throwing her forward into the relentless churning of the machine; how Rosie must have screamed in pain and fear before the jaws of the machine severed her neck, silencing her forever.
Bessie tried not to think these horribly morbid thoughts, but she couldn’t help herself. Whenever she imagined Rosie’s death, it was if she was detached from her emotions and the sight of an arm, severed from the body it belonged to, did not make her think of that same arm sewing a pretty pattern on a skirt or picking apples.
She imagined a grotesque figure of a man standing before the machines, patiently pulling pieces of the body out of the machine even as it continued to move, being splattered with droplets of the woman’s blood as he stood there. Then, in her mind’s eye, Bessie saw him place Rosie’s arms and legs in the correct places, lovingly, as if arranging a bouquet of flowers. Then he would straighten up and look at his work a moment or two before turning to leave. Bessie did not know why she kept thinking about the murder in such detail, but she did almost every night as if she could ease her grief by thinking about her friend’s last moments.
Bessie did not tell anyone about her day dreams, if they could be called that. Her mother would worry about her and her brother, Stuart, would make fun of her and call her a loony; she never confided any thing to him. If there was anyone she might tell it would be her father, whom she loved. He would understand even if she did not and would comfort her, but Bessie knew of his struggles at the mill and she did not want to burden him with any of her own.
So Bessie continued to think about the murder every night before she went to bed and every day at the mill as she stood before her loom. She would look at the machines all around her and imagine what it would be like to be pushed in to one of them and if she would die at right away or maintain consciousness throughout the entire painful ordeal. The other girls around her often looked about skittishly as if the murder might be lurking nearby, ready to claim another victim.
It was not difficult for Bessie to follow through with her mother’s wishes, none of the other girls would go anywhere without at least three other girls.
What Bessie really wanted was to visit the room where Rosie had died, but none of the other girls would hear of it and Bessie would not go alone. Not just because her mother had asked her not to, but because the machines in that room were now all controlled by men. The reason for the change was that the mill owner wanted to appease the women who refused to work in that room and who were afraid to work at all unless there were some men nearby who could protect them. So, some of them men who worked in another section of the mill had been pulled from their usual work to operate the most important machines in the room where the murder had taken place.
Bessie wanted to visit that room because she thought that if she was actually at the place where Rosie had died, she might be able to stop all her imaginings about what might have happened. She wanted to be able to simply mourn the loss of her best friend and her friend’s baby without thinking about how she might have looked in five or six different pieces. She wanted to stop feeling like a monster.