Free The Innocent by Evelyn Piper

My body knows. Yes, I am stir-crazy because there is a simple solution to my problem. I will not tell Edna the truth until Charles returns with the cigarettes. I will not disillusion her until I am safe. I can even ask her to come in and help me undress. Since my accident Charles hasn’t really liked touching me, and I don’t like him to, either. I don’t want him to see me except at my best. Even though I dread Edna’s hands on me—I suspect they’ll be like ice on my skin—it will be perfectly safe to ask her to help me undress. Then when I hear Charles, I will speak to her; then she can’t hurt me. I think, though, that after I make her give back the syringe, I will send her packing. I’ll have to. Even with the syringe out of her hands, I won’t want her around.
    I can hardly wait for Charles to return. My palms are cold. There is a muscle in my cheek which I never knew existed and it twitches. I hope Charles hurries. I can’t go on this way much longer. I think my heart which is banging against my ribs would be pierced. I feel ill with fright.
    Marjorie jumped up and walked to the window with the papers pressed against her breast. She wanted to cry, to laugh, to shout. There were bubbles of joy going up her legs that made them weak. She blinked rapidly, for her eyes were teared, and read the last paragraph again. “I cannot go on this way much longer. I think my heart, which is banging against my ribs, would be pierced. I feel ill with fright.” She wanted to frame those words and hang them on the wall. She wanted everybody who had known Claire to see those words.
    It is quite different, being afraid of being murdered, from being afraid of mice. It didn’t matter how cool Claire had always been in emergencies; here was something even she couldn’t cope with. “There is a muscle in my cheek which I never knew existed and it twitches.” Claire had been the coolest of them all the time they were caught up Brick Mountain cave and the rock had covered the entrance to the cave. That fat girl, Laura, had fainted, Eve had wept hysterically and prayed, Marjorie had been in a state of shock, but Claire had been cool as a cucumber. All right, Claire had been! Now Marjorie could remember that Claire had been cool while the rest of them went into shock. “I’ve had nightmares about the four of us in that cave,” Marjorie thought. “I wouldn’t let myself remember it in the daytime, so it came out in dreams. Now I can remember it. All right, so Claire didn’t succumb to shock during the worst incident I can remember, but she did before she died. She was afraid of Edna murdering her, that shocked her all right! Something had happened which got through to Claire Status thymicolymphaticus,” Marjorie said, triumphantly this time, easily this time. “Status thymicolymphaticus,” she repeated. It meant sudden, unexplained death in a hitherto healthy person from sudden stimuli. The stimulus, the shock, was the fear of being murdered.
    Marjorie felt as if a hundred pounds had been lifted from her shoulders, a hundred years. She did not tell herself why she felt this way. Marjorie went no further. She was happy. She did not tell herself that she was thankful she had never mentioned this to Charles. She did not tell herself that she would not mention it to Charles. Marjorie only knew that if anyone asked her what Claire had died of, that the Latin name would come easily, without that wild search for it. There had been a block on that word, but now there would be no block. If anyone asked her what it meant, she could tell them what it meant. She could shake her head in sorrow and tell them how Claire had died. She could be sorry for Claire.
    It was a waste of time to be sorry for Claire now. Claire had been dead for eight months. She better be sorry for this poor girl, this Edna. Edna must have been terrified, not knowing Claire was dead,