Sisters of Sorrow

by Axel Blackwell

  “I don’t want to see.”

  “Yes you do,” said the clean Anna in the mirror.

  The bathtub moved toward the Annas, walking on its claw feet.

  She couldn’t run. She couldn’t turn away.

  The tub stopped when its rim rested against her thighs. The water lay flat and smooth, undisturbed. Beneath its glassy surface, on the bottom, lay her brother – eyes open, lips parted, pale hair adrift, still dressed in his nightshirt. A slab of concrete lay across his body, holding him under.

  “Did you do that?” the other Anna asked.

  “I don’t…”

  “You can’t lie to me, Anna.” The other Anna’s eyes did the Sister Dolores thing, shifting black to violet to blue again.

  “You’re not a witch,” Anna said.

  “How do you know?”

  Anna said nothing.

  “Don’t lie anymore, Anna. Look.”

  The tub took another step, shoving her back.

  Anna looked at her little brother. He looked back at her. He was talking, under there, talking in his inquisitive, content little voice, though no sounds came forth.

  “Did you do that?” the other Anna demanded.

  “No,” she admitted.

  “Then who did?”

  Anna whipped her head around and stared wide eyed at the other her. “I… I can’t say.”

  “Where are you supposed to be right now, Anna?”

  “I’m supposed to be at school, but I got sent home for punching Harry Resnick.”

  “You punched Harry because he said your mother was crazy. Is your mother home right now?”

  Anna eyed the other Anna warily. In the tub, little Ephraim reached playful fingers up at her.

  “If I say momma did it, they’ll take her away and lock her up forever,” she whispered.

  “Did she do it?”

  Anna looked into the bathtub. Ephraim was gone. It now cradled her mother’s body. The water had turned nearly black with blood.

  “She did it, didn’t she, Anna?”

  Tears streamed over her cheeks. She looked at her other self and nodded.

  The dreams flowed on, the way dreams do, but the bathtub, and what she saw there, were what she remembered when she opened her eyes.

  Her first thought upon waking was that she was in the bathtub, under the slab of concrete. She lay in a few inches of water. Something heavy had fallen across her. Water dripped nearby. She moved a little, but found it was much more comfortable to remain still.

  She thought about Ephraim and her mother. She thought about the house where they had lived. How different all that had been, how naïve she had been about the world.

  “I didn’t kill him,” she whispered into the darkness. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill my little brother.” Then, when the darkness failed to answer, she said, “My mother killed him.”

  Overhead, flecks of moonlight winked through small openings in the canopy. Anna could see nothing of her surroundings. The pit smelled like mold and rotten seaweed and dead things.

  I don’t want to be down another dark hole. I want to see the sun and the ocean. I want to smell the forest.

  The night dragged on. Irritable sea birds called now and then. The coyotes yipped and howled nearby. The windmill screeeeee clank’d relentlessly. Rabbits scurried through the brambles, marveling at the hole Anna had made in their warren. Somewhere close, water dripped. And dripped. And dripped.

  Anna drifted in and out of troubled sleep. Dreams faded into reality faded into dreamless oblivion. She didn’t know or care which was which. Her mind and her two voices murmured inarticulate arguments about innocence and guilt and the ramifications thereof.

  Had I told the truth, maybe my mother wouldn’t have died.

  But they would have locked her up.

  Maybe papa wouldn’t have run off if she was still alive.

  And maybe they would have hanged her.

  The debate dribbled on and on like the slow, insistent trickle of water, weaving through her dreams and waking.

  Then, a new voice, “You have something for me?” It was the dream whisper she had heard in the drainage tunnel.

  “I have a potato,” Anna murmured, “but it’s raw.”

  “Your finger,” the Joseph voice said. “You brought me your finger.”

  “It’s here,” she murmured, “but it’s too heavy.” She lifted her hand out of the water and brought it to her chest. A sloshing sound echoed through the pit, like a wet mop slopping onto a floor. The splashing sounds drew nearer. She could see a form moving toward her. It was either kneeling or very short.

  A snake-like appendage slid out of the black, wrapping around the object on Anna’s chest. She realized that a wooden beam – not the concrete slab from the bathtub, not her severed finger - had been pinning her to the floor. The snake, or tentacle or whatever it was, hoisted the beam off her chest and dropped it into the shallow water just beyond her. She realized how hard it had been to breathe, how much easier it had become to fill her lungs with its weight gone.

  “Let me have it.” The voice alternated between a whisper and a child’s voice. A hand reached toward her out of the darkness.

  She drew the finger from under her dress. It twitched against her palm. She held it out to the dark form. “I don’t want it anymore,” she said.

  The hand plucked the pinky from her, snatching it from its leather thong. She saw the hand clearly now, either by dreamtime magic or a trick of moonlight. The hand was more bone than flesh. The flesh still clinging to it was mottled and sagging. Three of the fingers were missing entirely, having been replaced by two octopus tentacles and a crab leg. The arm which extended the patchwork hand was not a human arm, but in the intense gloom, Anna couldn’t make out any details.

  Its eyes floated above the other end of the inhuman arm, like twin yellow moons veiled by a scrim of coal smoke. The form behind the eyes appeared shapeless, just a huddled mass, dark and wet, as if it were wrapped in shiny brown seaweed. It loomed over her, watching, contemplating her for several minutes. Anna wished to either wake up or fall asleep, whichever would banish the creature.

  The thing turned away from her, slosh-clomping into the further recesses of the pit. A sickly, wan light rose out of a hole in the floor. The thing with her finger hobbled to the hole and crawled headfirst over its edge, disappearing into whatever lay below. As it went, Anna saw its leg, a pale leg wearing bite marks from a coyote, and a nun’s black shoe.

  Chapter 15

  Narrow shafts of sunlight streamed through rifts in the bramble canopy. Anna opened her eyes and, without sitting or even moving her head, surveyed the room. It had once been a basement. The walls were stone and mortar, as was the floor. Bits of staircase dangled from rotting floor joists overhead. Planks and the remainder of the staircase lay scattered around her. Shallow water covered the floor.

  Above, the windmill continued to creak and clank, finches twittered, seagulls cackled and squalled. Down here, water dripped. She did not hear the sister’s whistles. It was morning. She was still alive.

  Anna felt for her severed pinky. She was not surprised to find it gone. Something had taken it in the night. Good riddance. Whatever had taken her finger had also moved the plank off her chest. She inhaled deeply. Her ribs throbbed, but the pain was tolerable.

  She sat up, grimacing. Her stiff joints ached.

  “Gee whiz, miss,” a weak voice drifted out of the corner behind her. “I thought for sure you was dead.”

  Anna startled and turned to the voice, wincing at the tightness in her neck. A boy, slightly younger than herself, sat slumped, palms up, against the far wall. He wore a heavy wool peacoat bearing the Saint Frances de Chantal emblem. It was identical to the one Anna had worn on her boat ride to the orphanage, all those years ago. A travelling coat.

  “You ain’t dead, right?” he asked.

  It was a stupid question, she thought. But looking at the boy, Anna was more than half-surprised that he
was not dead. I guess I probably don’t look much better.

  “I’m not dead,” she said. It came out as a croak. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Yeah, me neither.” He spoke with a southern draw and twang, though his lethargy muted it.

  “Did you lift that plank off of me last night?” Anna asked.

  “Miss, I don’ know if I can even lift my own bottom off this floor.” The boy’s pale skin stretched tight over his sunken cheeks and hollow eyes.

  “So, you are not Joseph?”

  His eyes twitched with startled amusement, then he chuckled weakly. His laugh sounded like the creaking windmill. “No, ma’am, I ain’t Joseph, thank the Lord. Name’s Donald Lawson.” He lifted his hand to his head as if tipping a hat, then let it fall back into his lap. “But you can call me Donny. Pleased to meetcha.”

  “Anna Dufresne,” she replied, smiling in spite of herself, “and the pleasure is mine.”

  Donny laughed again, a little less horribly this time. “Well, ain’t we just the pair.”

  Anna looked at him, trying to make sense of their predicament.

  “You don’t happen to have any food, do ya?” Donny asked. “I’ve been down here almost a week.”

  “I have a raw potato,” she said. “Would you like to share it?”

  “That sounds mighty fine.”

  Anna stood, cautiously. Her knees creaked, her ankles and feet ached, but they held her. She walked across the basement to Donny, stepping over the fallen debris, and sat beside him.

  She pulled a large potato out of her coat pocket and handed it to him. “Eat slowly, little bites, and chew it completely before you swallow, otherwise it’ll make you sick.”

  “Yes, mother,” Donny said, then nibbled through the skin.

  Anna thought about her girls. Were the sisters still feeding them? The kitchen had been in shambles last time she had seen it. The bell had not rung since the explosion. How would they know when to wake for breakfast? The factory had been blown to bits. How would they earn their food?

  “Don’t call me mother,” she said. “Let me have a bite of that.”

  They passed the potato back and forth for several minutes, consuming half of it. Donny pointed to a rusty can on the opposite side of the basement. “It’s full of good water if you’re thirsty. I sure could use a drink.”

  Anna retrieved the can. It was about twice the size of a quart jar. Between the two of them, they drank it all.

  “Where does the water come from?” Anna asked, after stowing the remains of the spud (as Donny called it) in her pocket.

  “That windmill,” he pointed up, some animation returning to his body and voice. “It draws water up from the well. But the pipes are all busted, so the water leaks back down and drips all day an’ night. Like to drive me mad when I first got here. I juss put the can under where it drips.”

  “Not a well,” Anna said, “a cistern.”

  “A what?”

  “A cistern, it’s like a well, except it collects rain water instead of ground water.”

  Thinking of the cistern at Saint Frances brought her mind back to Joseph. “Do you know a boy named Joseph? He was supposed to meet me here.”

  “A boy named Joseph?” Donny said raising his eyebrows. “Anna, Joseph ain’t a boy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t know what he is, but he sure ain’t no boy. Some kind of ghoul, I reckon,” Donny said. “If he told you to come here, it’s just so he can eat you.”

  “That’s ridiculous…” she said. The thing from the previous night’s dream-laced delirium, the seaweed thing that came for her finger, flashed into her mind. And Joseph’s words, Come to me and I will keep you. Abbess McCain will never find you here. “He said he wanted to help me. He gave me a key and told me how to escape,” but she was suddenly confused and a little frightened.

  “He told you to come here?”

  Anna nodded.

  “An’ now you’re trapped in this hole, juss like me,” Donny said. “He checks on me when I’m sleeping, when he thinks I’m sleeping. He comes to see if I’m dead yet. I seen him a couple times. It was too dark to see much, but I was glad of that. I don’t wanna get a good look.”

  “I saw something last night,” Anna said. “I thought it was a dream, you know, because things like that aren’t real.”

  “He’s been real every time I seen him.”

  “What makes you think that thing is Joseph?” Anna asked.

  “Oh, he talks all the time. Always muttering and whispering. He says his name over and over, like he’s trying not to forget.”

  “But he didn’t eat you.”

  “Not yet, he has to wait until I’m dead.” Donny scrunched up his face. “He said he’s going to take my parts.”

  Anna clasped her hand over the leather thong around her neck, the thong that had held her finger.

  “Guess he’s gonna have to wait a bit longer, now that you showed up,” Donny said with forced cheer. “That spud sure hit the spot. I’m feeling better already.”

  “I’m not,” Anna said, dismally. “You really think he wants to eat us?”

  “What else is he gonna do with our parts?”

  Anna thought of the seaweed thing that had taken her finger, thought of its rotten patchwork hand and the nun’s leg on which it stumped away.

  She surveyed the basement again, four stone walls, a collapsed staircase, a leaking pipe running up to the windmill, a stone archway leading to an alcove that housed the opening to the cistern.

  “He comes out of there?” She pointed to the alcove.

  “Uh-huh.” Donny nodded. “He always makes this terrible screech juss before he shows up.”

  “Have you ever gone down there?”

  “It’s dark down there.” He looked at her as if she were insane. “And he’s down there. No, thank you, ma’am!”

  “Did you try shimmying up the windmill pipe?”

  “’Course I did. The floorboards up there are solid, can’t bust through ‘em.”

  “That figures.”

  They sat together on the wet floor for a long time, listening to the basement’s sounds and looking into the alcove. Anna may have dozed, but she wasn’t sure. When Donny spoke again, the dusty shafts of light slanted in a different direction.

  “I’m sorry you ended up down here,” he said, “but it sure is nice to not be alone, an’ to have someone to talk to.”

  “Believe it or not, this isn’t as bad as where I came from.”

  “I don’t believe it,” he said with a wan smile. “Would it be okay if I held your hand?” When she didn’t answer, he added, “juss so I know you’re not afraid?”

  She took his hand. It was dry and cold. “Why don’t you tell me how you got here?”

  Chapter 16

  “Ha! Whew. Well, it’s quite a story,” he said. “Momma and papa got sent to prison and none of our kin wanted to take care of me an’ my little sis, Maybelle. So, the judge said that we would have to go to a home. Only, none of the homes would take us, on account of what our folks done. So…”

  “What did they do?” Anna asked.

  Donny ignored her. “So then, this priest comes and tells the judge about a place that will take kids that nobody else wants.”

  “Saint Frances?” Anna asked.

  “Yeah!” Donny’s eyes lit up. “You heard of it? I figured that priest just made it up.”

  “No, it’s real, Donny. Why would he make that up?”

  “I dunno. I guessed it was just a lie they made up so they could get rid of us. They hauled us all the way across America on a train, put us on a little boat an’ throwed us overboard into the ocean.”

  “They threw you in?”

  “Yeah, well, she threw me in. Some crazy nun on the boat hauled me up by my collar and britches and pitched me over the side. I figure she done the same to my little sis, too, but I don’t know, ‘cause I went under right away.” Donny looked at her with a strange mix of emotions
playing in his eyes. “I’m a real good swimmer, honest, but the waves were so big and I…” he trailed off. It took a minute, but Anna realized he was struggling not to cry.

  “You are still alive, Donny, you made it,” she said.

  He looked at her with a startling fierceness in his eyes. “I got sick. On the boat, ‘cause of all the waves. That’s why she threw me over. I’d never been on the ocean before and I got sick, an’ I couldn’t swim with my coat an’ shoes on, an’ the water was so cold, an’ my stomach was all cramped up. An’ the waves were so big.”

  He took a deep breath, hitching a little, then continued.

  “I figured I was done for. I bobbed up an’ screamed for help once, but I couldn’t even see the boat no more. It must’a already been on the other side of one of them big waves. All I seen was the trail of black smoke it puffed out.” He looked up through the broken floorboards and bramble canopy. “I knew I was a goner, so I just closed my eyes an’ said a little prayer for me an’ my sis. A wave washed over me an’ pulled me under.” He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s all I really remember.”

  “So, you woke up here?” Anna asked.

  “Not exactly,” he said. He hesitated, studying her expression, then continued. “I think a great fish swallowed me, you know, like in the story of Jonah? But that part might’a just been a dream.”

  “Probably,” Anna said, but she squeezed his hand.

  “Well, something did grab ahold of me, some sea monster or something. It pulled me down so deep, I thought my head was gonna cave in. The water was all black, but there was these little glowing things floating around. I guess I fainted then.” He shot her a furtive glance. “I don’t like to say I fainted, but I think I had good right to faint at that point. I think anybody else would’a fainted by then.”

  “I fainted when I fell through the floorboards,” Anna said.

  “Yeah, but you’re a girl.”

  Anna snatched her hand away. “So was the nun that tossed your skinny carcass off the boat.”

  Donny stared at her wide-eyed, looking as if he really might burst into tears. “Oh, Anna, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. It’s just boys aren’t supposed to faint. It’s okay for girls.”