It began the day the girl was dragged into the machinery.
Her shrieks took a moment to pierce through the clattering din of gears, the clanging song of shuttles. Mina lifted her head slowly, her fatigued mind taking time to register the new sound, to wonder what it might be. Then with a terrified oath, she grabbed the clutch to stop her looms, saw at least one shuttle snarl the cotton threads into a hopeless spider's weaving before she had even turned away.
The victim was on her knees, her arm between two massive drums turned by heavy belts. Blood from the crushed limb slicked the drums as they rumbled on, grinding her bones and seeking to drag more of her into their hungry maw. She was a new girl, perhaps not yet cautious enough around the machines, perhaps just unlucky enough to have a sleeve flutter where it shouldn't.
The overseer, Jacob, grabbed ineffectually at the drums and the belts driving them, only to have the skin stripped instantly from his palms. The belts hooked onto the huge drive shaft, which was turned by the gigantic water wheel that powered the mill. And there was no way to stop the wheel.
The girl's shrieks turned into a high, keening wail that sounded like nothing human. Other girls were screaming now, for the horror of it, or because they knew that the same thing could happen to them all too easily. The male mule spinners ran past, going to Jacob's aid, as if the combined strength of all their muscles might somehow cease the wheel's turning.
Mina's body shook, a sick feeling pooling in her gut. She wanted to turn away from the sight of the girl being devoured by the machines, from her horribly slow and agonizing death. She wanted the screams to go away, the blood to vanish, the smell of fear to dissipate. She wanted it to stop.
The belt connecting the drums to the drive shaft snapped.
Agony constricted around Mina's throat like a noose. Her legs went out from under her, and she crumpled to the hard wooden floor. Pain spiked through her neck, into her spine, down to her belly, and for a single instant of terror she thought that she had somehow gotten tangled in the machines herself.
Then Abby was there, bending over her, long curly hair hanging into her face. Hands the color of fine chocolate touched Mina worriedly. "Mina! What's wrong? Are you all right?"
The pain eased, receding to an angry burn encircling her throat. Mina nodded, sat up, and tried her voice. It scraped coming out. "I'm fine. I just ... got light-headed."
"Who wouldn't, seeing that?" Abby whispered, and fear crept into her rich voice. She turned to stare at the broken drive belt, pulling Mina's gaze involuntarily behind. "The belt snapped ... did you see it? It was a miracle. God must have been watching over us today."
Mina stood up carefully, forcing shaky legs to hold her. Jacob and the other men were carrying the injured girl out, and Mina caught a glimpse of the red ruin of her arm. God wasn't watching any of us today, she thought grimly. With a hurt like that, the girl would never work again. If she survived, she would find herself in debtors' prison for being unable to fulfill her Contract of Indenture.
Mina made her way back to the narrow aisle formed by the four looms she operated. The threads on two had become hopelessly snarled and would have to be untangled and knotted back together. The pieces they were in, by which Mina was paid, were probably ruined. The other girls went back to their own looms, even though it looked like there would be no more work today. They were already ten hours into the shift, and it wasn't likely that the belt would be fixed before the factory bells tolled.
Once the girls had passed by and left her in relative solitude, Mina slowly reached up to touch her throat. The iron collar around her neck had left a narrow band of burn-tender skin beneath.
She'd wanted the screams to stop. She'd focused on the drive belt. And something had gone out of her, like a bird flying free from her mouth, and the belt had snapped.
Mina closed her eyes and drove her fingernails into her palms in a futile attempt at denial. "Not again," she whispered. "God, not again."
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