He leaves them alone together.
Juniper perches back on the encyclopedia stack to wait and doesn’t say anything. Neither does Bella. For a few hours the office is quiet except for the scritch of Bella’s pen and the kick of Juniper’s heels against book-spines.
At noon Bella screws the cap back onto her ink bottle and stands. “Well. Are you ready to join the women’s movement, Juniper?” She gives her a small, not very good smile that Juniper guesses is supposed to be an apology, which Juniper neither accepts nor denies. Instead she shrugs to her feet, toppling the encyclopedias behind her.
Bella looks her up and down—muddy hem to briar-scratched arms—and sighs a little. “There’s a washroom down the hall. At least brush your hair. You look like an escaped convict.” Juniper barely suppresses a cackle.
It turns out brushing her hair isn’t enough. Bella produces a stiff woolen dress from her office closet. It’s one of those respectable, pocketless affairs that obliges ladies to carry stupid little handbags, so Juniper can’t take so much as a melted candle-stub or a single snake tooth with her. Bella informs her that this is the precise reason why women’s dresses no longer have pockets, to show they bear no witch-ways or ill intentions, and Juniper responds that she has both, thank you very damn much.
In the end Juniper goes to see the suffragists entirely disarmed, except for her cedar staff.
She doesn’t know what she was expecting the headquarters of the New Salem Women’s Association to look like—an embattled army camp, perhaps, or a black-stone castle guarded by lady-knights—but it turns out to be a respectable-looking office with plate-glass windows and oak paneling and a pretty secretary who says “oh!” when the bell rings.
The secretary is Juniper’s age, with hair the color of cornsilk and a crookedy nose that looks like it was broken at least once. Her eyes slide between Bella and Juniper and return to Bella, apparently deciding she’s the more civilized of the two. “May I . . . help you?” Her eyes flick back to Juniper during the pause, lingering on the sawed-off edges of her hair.
Bella offers a polite smile. “Hello. I’m Miss Beatrice Eastwood and this is my sister, Miss Jame—”
It is at that moment that Juniper recalls the wanted posters currently spelling out her name in all capital letters across half the city, and intercedes. “June. Miss June . . . West.” She glances at her sister, who looks like a taller, skinnier version of her. “We’re just half-sisters, see.” She can feel Bella giving her a what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you look and ignores it. She sticks her hand out to the secretary. “Pleased to meet you.”
Bella clears her throat pointedly. “Anyway, we—well, my sister—half-sister, I suppose—is interested in joining the Women’s Association.”
The secretary beams at them in a way that makes Juniper think they don’t get fresh blood all that often, says, “Oh, of course! I’ll fetch Miss Stone,” and skitters into the back rooms. Juniper catches an angled glimpse of desks and stacks of paper, hears the businesslike chatter of working-women, and feels a familiar lonesomeness well up in her throat, a sisterless hunger to be on the other side of that door.
“Please do make yourselves comfortable,” the secretary calls as the door shuts.
The two spindly chairs in the office don’t look like they can hold anything heavier than a canary, so Juniper stays on her feet, weight hitched away from her bad leg. Bella stands statue-still, hands politely clasped. When did she get all proper, all ladylike? Juniper remembers her as a creature of sighs and slouches and soft-tangled hair.
She watches the clatter of the street through the window, the carriages and trolleys and iron-shod horses. Sober black letters hover over the scene, painted backwards on the inside of the window: HEADQUARTERS OF THE NEW SALEM WOMEN’S ASS’N. A thrill sizzles through her.
A day ago she was lost and reeling, spinning through the world like a puppet with its strings cut. And now she’s here, with the smell of witching on the wind and the promise of power painted on the window above her. And a whole pack of brand-new sisters waiting just on the other side of the door.
Juniper shoots a sideways look at Bella, all prim and nervous, and hopes politicking proves thicker than blood.
The secretary comes bustling back into the room accompanied by the white-wigged lady who made the speech in the square the day before. She looks older and tireder up close, all cheekbones and worry lines. Her eyes are a pair of brass scales, weighing them.
“Miss Lind tells me you’re interested in joining our Association.”
Juniper ducks her head, feeling suddenly very young. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Why?”
“Oh. Well, I was there yesterday at the rally. I liked what you said about e-equality.” The word feels silly in her mouth, four syllables of make-believe and rainbows. She tries again. “And what you said about the way things are. How it’s not fair and never has been, how the bastards take and they take from us until there’s nothing left, until we don’t have any choices except bad ones—”
Miss Stone raises two delicate fingers. “No need to do yourself a harm, child. I quite understand.” Her eyes harden from brass to beaten iron. “But you ought to understand—whatever your personal troubles—the Women’s Association is no place for bloody-mindedness or vengeance. There are no Pankhursts here.” Juniper doesn’t know what a Pankhurst is. Miss Stone must intuit this from the blankness of her expression, because she clarifies, “This is a respectable, peaceable organization.”
“. . . Yes, ma’am.”
Miss Stone pivots to Bella. “And you?”
“Me?”
“Why are you joining us today?”
“Oh, I’m not—that is, you certainly have my sympathies. But I’m awfully busy at work, and I just don’t have time—”
Miss Stone has already turned away from her. She addresses Juniper again. “Miss Lind will add your name to our member list and discuss upcoming committee meetings you might join.” Juniper tries to look eager, though she finds the word committee unpromising.
“And will you be making a contribution to our Association fund?”
“A what now?”
Miss Stone exchanges a look with her secretary as Bella hisses, “Money, June.”
“Oh. I don’t have any of that.” Never has, really. What work Juniper did back in Crow County was paid in kind—jarred honey or fried apples or cat-mint picked on the half-moon—and Daddy never let them see a cent of his money. “I’m between jobs, see.”
“Between—?” Miss Stone sounds puzzled, as if she is unfamiliar with the concept of jobs, as if money is just a thing a person finds whenever they reach into their handbags. “Oh. Well. No woman is barred from our cause by poverty.” She says it all lofty and generous, but her tone hooks under Juniper’s skin like a summer briar.
Miss Lind launches into a lecture about all their various letter-writing campaigns and subcommittees and allied organizations. Juniper listens with her temper simmering, bubbling like a pot left too long over the fire.
“And then the Centennial Fair is coming up in May, of course, and we feel it’s an excellent opportunity for another demonstration. Get people’s minds off th-the equinox.” Miss Lind’s throat bobs in a dry little swallow. “Anyway. What projects interest you? The campaign for the vote is paramount, naturally, but we also promote temperance, divorce rights, property ownership, and various charitable—”