Arkham Home was an old convent repurposed as an orphanage, a gloomy prison whose sturdiness was its sole virtue. The building boasted high ceilings and imposing walls that shuttered the place in twilight at all times of day. At night, ominous shadows gave shape to the darkness. In summer, the air was moist; in winter, a merciless cold chilled us to our bones. The place was a fortress, and according to rumor it had been an internment camp at one point. The rumors were likely true; with a cliff behind the building and a surrounding ditch making it impregnable, escape and infiltration were both difficult.
A small well inside the compound provided more than enough water to sustain the place. That meant the orphanage had very little actual plumbing. Our lives were extremely dependent on the water we could pump up from that well. The well water was heavy, cold, and so hard that it made soap lather poorly. According to Sister Abigail Williams, the orphanage’s manager and dorm mother, all of these things were “trials from God.” Therefore, there could be no improvements or alterations of any kind.
Twice a day, at dawn and dusk, the younger children pumped the water we needed. The water was clear and freezing cold all year round. It destroyed the children’s fingers. It split their puffy red skin, removed their fingerprints, stiffened their joints so that they refused to bend. Kids often went to bed moistening their fingers with lips and tongue, warming them, enduring the itching and pain. But they lacked the skills to do anything more than work the field and look after livestock, under the supervision of the nuns and the older children. Those kids who had learned reading, writing, and math were given more complex tasks, sent to work “outside.” It was their job to bring money into the orphanage beyond charitable donations or financial aid.
My first year, I, too, was sent to pump water. Until we reached the quota for drinking, food prep, laundry, baths, and other uses, I would silently work the manual pump handle until the bucket was full. Then I would carry it, pour it out, pump it full, and carry it again. Once that was done, I had the rest of the day’s work to look forward to. Working the fields with cold-ravaged fingers was brutal even for me, who’d grown up on a farm. The brief period of classes before bed was no trouble; that involved sitting in a chair, doing nothing but listening to the instructor talk after all. I learned less out of interest and more from a desire to see how much I could retain. It took me only six months to master the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. As a reward, I was given work that required my newfound skills and freed from the terrors of the pump.
The children’s literacy rate wasn’t very high. The orphanage was structured so that the better you were at reading, writing, and math, the more opportunities you had to enter the outside world. Because of that, the number of properly educated children never went above a certain threshold. Naturally, an orphanage wasn’t a place of permanent residence. Once we became too old, we were told we were “independent” and shipped out before they’d arranged proper homes for us. Talented and attractive kids would, of course, be adopted in the end, while those of us who were neither would be left to languish. Apparently, the orphanage had purchased me to maintain a certain head count to qualify for government funding.
Sister Abigail insisted that suffering wasn’t a punishment, and the righteous path would bring us closer to God. This was the orphanage’s primary creed. As an approach to life there are worse mantras, but it provided no comfort whatsoever for orphaned children. Sister Abigail seemed convinced that these trials polished our souls and would lead us to the gates of heaven. But these weren’t trials from God; rather, they were trials she’d invented. We needed something akin to warmth, something that would help us to endure and overcome life’s hardships.
Instead of warmth, we got Julian. Julian was a saint who had lived here in Norwich, fond of a whip commonly known as the cat o’ nine tails. Sister Abigail called it a “tool of learning,” but each of the nine leather straps ended in a hard nub that could easily break the skin when applied with enough rigor. For example, when eight-year-old Cathy spilled her milk at the breakfast table, she was given one whack. When six-year-old Georgie wet the bed, he was given one whack. Yolanda, thirteen, made a mistake at work and received a particularly strong whack. Use dirty words, one whack. Take the name of the Lord in vain, one whack. At night, unable to sleep from the cold and the pain on their backs, Georgie and Cathy crawled into my bed where I held them, their warmth reminding me of life in the barn. I sang softly to comfort them. We could find no blessings in Julian’s trials.
Life in the orphanage was simple and hard, likely not all that different from the lives of the nuns who’d once lived here. We rose before five. The older children went to work in town, delivering newspapers and milk. The younger children fed and cleaned up after the livestock and pumped water, and we all gathered for breakfast at seven. After breakfast came prayers. Then we’d do laundry and care for the chickens and cows we kept while the older kids went to work in town. After lunch, we had the occasional lessons. At six, everyone returned home for the evening meal. Then came more prayers, lessons, and a very small amount of free time before bed at nine o’clock. At five the next morning, the same routine began anew, over and over and over again. Only the seasons provided any variety.