smoke signals [emily]

london

Jean Chisholm: she had recently written an article, published in The Prophet about the history of the Ministry and their cover-ups. It was specifically about cover-ups of muggleborns in the positive direction, but it was still pretty vague; Edith wanted to know more. But she had hesitated reaching out, and it was only after her editor had handed her the other woman’s address that she had done any further investigating. Get the personal spin. She did need something to write about for the week after next, but for the most part, her editor had been pretty hands off. Going after a story that her editor actually wanted seemed much more nerve-wracking than anything else she had done thus far, just setting herself up to disappoint.

But the letter had been sent and replied to; Edith had mainly just introduced herself and expressed interest to set up a time to talk. She usually preferred to do things in person, but after noting that the address was in Scotland, she had suggested a phone call; communicating like a muggle was more fitting, anyway.

It was the afternoon of the last Thursday in May, and the writer had spent the better part of the last hour making sure her phone booth was unoccupied. She had provided the phone number to Jean, so she didn’t feel obligated to give out her own personal number if she didn’t want to; she had brought a large to-go cup of tea for her wait, though now that she had made her way through half the liquid she was more concerned with if she had any time to sneak in a quick trip to the toilet before she called.

The phone started ringing before she had the chance to make up her mind, and Edith slipped into the phone booth and pulled the door shut behind her. She was used to the routine by now -- she had used this booth a few blocks from her apartment when she had first started collecting anonymous stories -- and her (sober) social anxiety took a backseat to wanting to make sure the person on the other end of the line felt comfortable talking to them. For the most part, that just meant Edith had to be nice.

She picked up the receiver and cradled it between her ear and shoulder as she tried to get her pen and paper ready for notetaking -- there was just enough of a ledge for her to have some sort of surface to write on. “Jean?” Edith uncapped her pen and placed the cap on the other end with her mouth. “Hi, yeah. This is Marth-Ann.” She was still using her pen name, self-assigned during the war, though by this point, most of the people she had written about knew who she was; she usually knew them before talking to them, though, or they knew of her, so it was more of a formality for being published -- or for talking to strangers in Scotland, she supposed.

“I hope you’re well?” She flipped through her notepad until she found the questions she had jotted down for this call, though she hardly ever remembered to consult them once they actually got started talking.

Writing for the Prophet under a penname was beginning to tire her, really. Emily wasn't certain what kept her from shedding that image and putting her real name out into the world -- her royalties would significantly increase, that was for sure. People would be calling her and asking her to attend conventions, more digs, wanting to publish more columns. Yes, it would be political suicide releasing her true identity to the public, especially considering the nature of some of her pieces, but when had she ever truly cared for politics? She was a Muggleborn witch, but now even more than ever there were protections in place that would keep her from getting too heavily harassed. It all seemed a no-brainer, but something was hindering her. Asking Ashley about it seemed the next viable option, but it also felt like one of those decisions that needed to be made coming from her. If she didn't ultimately decide herself, she'd wonder if the influence of another person had caused her to deviate from her actual desires, and then it would spiral into a certain mess, she was sure.

Today she'd be accepting a call--or, rather, calling and then accepting a conversation from another woman who evidently wrote for the Prophet. She had read some of her things, in fact, and as far as Emily could tell, Martha-Ann was also a Muggleborn witch. Aside from that, a great many people published stories for the Prophet. It wasn't exactly the most scrupulous news source on the market, and maybe that was another reason she was reluctant to be herself instead of Jean Chisholm and still write for them, but it was hands-down the most popular. Emily was entirely unsure how the Prophet had managed to remain relatively untarnished following Rita Skeeter's schemes, but she was among the first of witches to admit freely that people were easily herded and easily scammed. She had enough life experience now to understand that writing for the Prophet did not necessarily mean one's ideals coincided with theirs.

With that, she sat down in her armchair with her skinny legs crossed and bounced one knee for a moment, rehearsing her greeting in her head. Unlikely scenario that the woman she'd be calling would be someone she knew, going back to the volume of people who wrote for the Prophet, but the possibility was there. A slim one, but a possibility nonetheless. She knew a lot of writers who could potentially also be using false names. Emily's spindly fingers retrieved the phone from the receiver and she pressed the numbers in she'd written down on a slip of paper next to it. "This is Jean," Emily nodded even though the other party couldn't see her and frowned at how strange her own voice sounded. What was wrong with her? God, just be normal. You're an academic genius. You know plenty about Muggleborns and how they were covered for -- you were -- are? one.

"Hello, Martha-Ann. I'm doing very well, thank you." Emily frowned again, but this time, not at her own voice. She pondered a moment and wondered why the speaker on the other end of the line was invoking such... fond memories for her. She was positive she'd never spoken to Martha-Ann before in her life, even though she'd read her articles and had been impressed with her candid voice and comfortable interaction with her interviewees, when she had them. "You wanted to speak with me about the article I wrote on Muggleborns and the Ministry? I'm happy to elaborate. What were some of your questions?"

“Right, good, glad to hear it.” Edith figured that it must have been her very first phone call, to be handling a conversation like this. Why did she have to be so awkward? Talking on the phone was so much worse than talking in person -- but again, she wasn’t about to send herself to Scotland anytime soon. She swallowed, glancing down at her notes as Jean posed her question. “I did, yeah. Lloyd--” the editor-in-chief of The Prophet “--thought you’d be good for my next column? I dunno if you’re familiar or anything.” It was always just easier to assume that no one was interested in Edith’s work. “The Department of Miseries,” Edith clarified with a laugh, forever proud of her column’s name, but getting sidetracked far to soon into the conversation.

She paused and cleared her throat scanning her notes fairly quickly. “I guess the first thing is -- and I’m not asking you to reveal sources or anything, mind --” she quickly congratulated herself for almost sounding like an honest to god journalist before continuing, “If you had experience with that particular coverup?” Edith chewed on the cap of her pen for a few seconds as she replayed how the question sounded. It had taken so much motivation to be even be able to ask people things so candidly, to dive right in about things, but she was still a tad uncomfortable with the whole thing. Why should people feel the need to open up to her?

“I had this general idea,” she added, “Y’know, for the next column, that not everyone in the Ministry had some personal vendetta against us.” She knew it wasn’t everyone of course, but it had certainly felt that way at the time. There were exceptions now, but it was almost reassuring to be able to have this facts that some parts of the Ministry had even tried to help. And even though the facts had already been published, there was no harm in reiterating them. By now, Edith was sure that the only way her column would ever achieve anything is by her constant repetitions, until they got sick of reading it and decided to do something about it.

She glanced out of the phonebooth and watched a mother and child walk down the street, hand in hand, and she furrowed her brow as they grew smaller. “Just that my Ministry experiences weren’t quite as positive. Figured it’d be nice to.. I dunno. You know what I mean?” Edith hadn’t explained herself at all, didn’t expect Jean to have followed along, but she was ready to go deeper into the story. She had before; parts of it, anyway.