Sisters of Sorrow

by Axel Blackwell

  “Yeah,” Jane said. “Let’s get, before the storm really hits. Dolores says McCain and her crew are battened down under the tower…”

  “No,” Anna said. “You wanted Dolores’s help? Well this is it. She told us to stay put until the storm really got going, so that’s what we’re going to do. McCain could have guards at the exits, I don’t know.”

  “And the Joseph-thing is out there,” Donny added.

  Lizzy, Mary One and Lilly gasped at the mention of the Joseph-thing. Jane’s attempt to look unaffected failed. Anna guessed Donny had remembered a few stories to tell after all. She felt a shiver run up her own spine at the thought of bumping into the Joseph-Thing in the woods after dark.

  “Right, Joseph,” Anna said. “Jane, you do not want to meet Joseph out there, not on a night like this. When the storm is at its peak, Dolores will be with Joseph. All the witch-hunters will be hiding in the rotunda. They’ll be too busy to worry about us. Until then, we wait.”

  Jane muttered an inarticulate grumble. The only word Anna made out was “Pinky.” Joan put a hand on her arm and whispered, but Jane shoved her away. She walked to the bare cot and sat, facing away from the others. Joan turned to Anna, shrugged, and mouthed “Sorry.”

  Anna joined the others in the circle. The candle flame quivered, trailing thin, oily smoke. Restless air sucked and tugged at their windows, sometimes whistling, sometimes rattling. Rain pattered in inconsistent spats. Something outside howled.

  “What’s the biggest storm y’all have had here?” Donny asked.

  “We get wind storms often,” Anna said.

  “But not a lot of lightning,” Lizzy said. “It’s really, really dark out there.” She paused, tugging on her bangs. “We got snow once.”

  “Never had a cyclone?” Donny asked.

  “What’s a cy-clone?” Lizzy asked, wide-eyed.

  “That’s God’s eraser!” Maybelle said. “Cyclone’ll wash a whole city right off the earth.”

  “I believe you mean ‘hurricane’,” Jane said, from her cot. “I’ve read about hurricanes, big storms they have over on the east coast. You don’t need to fret about hurricanes – or cyclones. We don’t have either here.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Donny said.

  “We saw a cyclone once,” Maybelle said. “We was in Texas! But not on the beach, and that’s good ‘cause all the water came up out of the ocean and it washed away a whole city. And all the people, too. And the dogs and horses and boats. And some cows. The sea just took ‘em…”

  A thump interrupted her. Something large and dark hit one of the windows, hard enough to crack it. The girls jumped. Shrill wind strained through the crack with a reedy whine.

  “What was that?” someone asked.

  Again, a howl rose from the grounds outside. Followed by another.

  “It’s the wolves,” Donny said. “Joseph’s wolves.”

  “Do you think they’ve come for you, Donny?” Lizzy whispered.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Lizzy!” Jane said.

  “How could a wolf hit the window?” Anna asked.

  A high-pitched yipping accompanied the howls. The keening hiss around the window rose and fell with the swelling gusts. As the orphans looked to the windows, lightening blazed, stamping the storm-rent sky, and all it contained, into their retinas. It took a couple of seconds for the image to register in the children’s minds. When it did, several girls spoke at once, but a simultaneous detonation of thunder drowned out their voices.

  Birds, Joseph’s birds.

  “That one was close,” Donny yelled.

  “What?” Anna said.

  “That lightning strike…”

  “Did you see the birds?” Anna asked. Another large bird struck a window.

  “‘Course I saw ‘em,” Donny said. “Think we ought to let ‘em in?”

  “Are you insane?” Jane shrieked. “Why would…”

  Another volley of thunder devoured her words. In its power, the windowpanes rattled.

  “They’re here to help Joseph,” Anna said.

  “They’ll be gettin’ in whether we let ‘em or not!” Donny yelled, as a third bird crashed into a narrow glass pane.

  “But Joseph is a monster,” yelled Jane.

  “Yeah, a monster who hates Abbess McCain,” Anna said. “The more help he gets, the less we need to worry about her.”

  Thunder rumbled in a constant drone, much of it came from distant arms of the storm, but closer blasts cracked with mounting frequency. The windows flickered as lightning dropped near and far. Another noise arose out of the storm, a tone, or a note, low but melodic, almost like singing. Anna couldn’t identify the sound, but it was familiar, something she knew on a subconscious level.

  “Any way to reach those windows?” Donny asked.

  “Yeah,” Anna said, “just have to stack the cots. Do you hear that hum?”

  “What hum…oh, yeah, what is it?”

  “Don’t know,” Anna said. “Lizzy, show Donny how to stack the cots, like when I tried to go out the window.”

  Lizzy nodded, not bothering to try to talk over the storm’s clamor. She jumped to the task, pointing and motioning instructions to Donny. They placed one cot directly under a window, then stood the other cot vertically on top of the first.

  “Jane,” Anna said, tossing her the key. “Get the door open.”

  Jane caught the key, and scowled at Anna. “Can we go now?” she yelled.

  “Soon,” Anna yelled back. “Just get that door open so the birds can get to McCain.”

  “You are crazy, Anna!” Jane yelled, but she ran across the hall to the door.

  Donny climbed onto the lower cot. “Hold it steady,” he said to Lizzy and Anna.

  “I’ll hold you,” Lizzy said.

  He climbed the slats of the upright cot as if it were a ladder. Rain battered the windows relentlessly, now accompanied by chunks of ice. The hail rapped against the panes like Gatling gun chatter. Banshee wind wailed through the cracked pane and around the frames of the other windows. The stones of Saint Frances vibrated with the past and present peals of thunder, and always below and among everything, that constant familiar hum.

  Donny reached the window and peered over its sill. He whistled through his teeth. “Ho-ly Geez! Anna, get up here, you gotta see this.”

  Anna grabbed Mary One and told her to steady the cot. Then she climbed up beside Donny. The cot’s iron slats creaked as she climbed, and it tottered, but didn’t topple. When she reached the sill and looked out, Anna gasped.

  A maelstrom of seagulls and hawks and crows churned above and around the window. Beyond them, the constant lightning illuminated the grounds of Saint Frances de Chantal in fluctuating blue and purple brilliance. Black figures, statuesque in their stillness, surrounded the orphanage. Wolves, coyotes, a large bear, and myriads of raccoons stood as expectant sentinels. Their shadows danced around them on the lawn as liquid fire dropped close and far and close again.

  “You wanna let them in, too?” Donny asked.

  “No.”

  As they watched, lightning lanced a tree at the edge of the wood line, blasting it to kindling and splinters. Its thunder drove a shockwave across the grounds and through the stone walls. Anna felt it in her chest and in her palms where they contacted the wall. The iron cot buzzed like a snare drum. The lightening branched out four more bolts, striking again and again and again while thunder continued to pound.

  As the detonations settled back into the baseline rumble, Anna heard the voices below, “Hurry back down!” “What do you see?” “Can we go now?”

  “Let’s get this open and get out of here,” Anna said.

  “Will the wolves let us pass?” Donny asked, “When we run for the woods?”

  “I don’t know…I don’t think they have any interest in us.”

  “I sure hope not.” Donny pried at the latch and for a moment, it held fast. A fourth bird slammed into the window just to Donny’s right. He startled, jer
king the latch, and it popped open. A hail-laden gust flung the window inward. It struck Donny across the forehead, knocking him off the cot, then slammed into the stone wall. Its glass shattered and cascaded down mixed with rain and hailstones. Donny dropped onto the springy slats of the lower cot.

  The upper cot, unbalanced by Donny’s fall, toppled sideways, dumping Anna into a thin bed of straw. The static air inside suddenly equalized with the torrent outside. Anna’s ears popped and her lungs seized up as if invisible spirits had sucked all the breath out of her.

  Wind screamed through the empty window frame, extinguishing the candles and whipping the loose straw into flurries and dervishes. Blue and silver and electric-purple shafts of light strobed through the bank of windows, replacing the candle’s warm glow. Through this frenetic light, borne on the wind, hundreds of birds poured into the room.

  Anna sat up, looking for the door. Flurries of loose straw flew away from her as Jane dragged the big door inward. The gale sucked the circling birds and swirling straw devils out into the corridor. Through the empty window, wind roared like a waterfall, competing for volume with the thunder. The stones and floorboards shuddered under the weight of the storm.

  Anna tried to call for Donny, but the storm ate her words. She scanned the room, finally finding him in a cluster of girls. Mary One and Lilly sat on either side, appearing to prop him up. Maybelle held his right hand and Lizzy knelt by his left side, dabbing blood off his forehead. A new knot rose above his right eye, to match the purple goose egg growing above his left.

  Looks like he’s growing a pair of horns, Anna thought.

  Horns will suit him nicely, the other Anna responded.

  Donny saw her looking at him, must have guessed she was worried, and flashed her a broad grin and an “A-Okay” hand sign. She rolled her eyes and rose unsteadily to her feet. Eyeball sized hailstones shot through the window, clanging off the iron cot and scattering across the floor.

  Anna heard screaming above the cacophony. She whirled this way and that, scanning the room. The girls around Donny had helped him to his feet. They were up and moving toward the door.

  Who is screaming, is someone screaming for me?

  She looked to the wall where Noel and Mary Two lay. The scrap of blanket that had served as their shroud was gone, taken by the wind. Little drifts of straw collected around them before swirling up in whirlwinds and blowing away. The jittery, stark light revealed their sunken eyes, their purple lips and the first hints of corruption marring their pale cheeks.

  “Were you screaming for me?” she asked.

  Mary Two turned her head toward Anna. Her eyelids opened, showing pits full of nothing but lightning and chaos. Her lips parted. She did not scream, but spoke a single word, clear over the tumult. “Run.”

  Anna staggered away from the wall and looked to the door. Jane, Joan and Donny strained against the wind, trying to hold the door open. She took two steps forward. A window at the far end of the hall exploded inward in a shower of glass, hail and rain. Anna’s ears popped again and her equilibrium wobbled. She sprinted toward Donny.

  By the time she reached him, four more windows had blown out. Lizzy and Donny grabbed her and dragged her through the door while Jane held it. A softball-sized chunk of ice skittered through the door with her.

  Anna stole a last glance back at Noel and Mary Two, just as the wind ripped the door from Jane’s fingers. The two dead waifs lay at perfect peace under the blaze and rumble of chaotic destruction. In that moment, Anna envied them.

  Chapter 13

  No exterior windows opened from the corridor. The storm continued to rage – wind whistled through the keyholes and hissed under the doors, hail hammered the roof, thunder continued its assault – but it was quieter here. And darker. Up and down the corridor, from under the doors, dim fans of filtered lightning washed across the floor, but these illuminated little.

  “You okay, Anna?” Donny asked, taking hold of her by her shoulders.

  “I think so, got a little dizzy there,” she said. “I think I might be seeing things.”

  “How’s your head?” Lizzy asked. “You took a pretty good knock when you fell off the cot.”

  Anna put her hand to the back of her skull. She had been unaware of the pain there until Lizzy mentioned it. Her hand came back bloody. “Let’s just get out of here. I can’t do this much longer.” She looked to Jane. “Where did the birds go?”

  “They went straight for Abbess McCain.” Jane pointed down the long corridor toward the rotunda. “Can we please go now, Anna?”

  “Is everyone here?” Anna asked.

  “We got everybody,” Lizzy said. “I counted heads while you were lollygagging.”

  “Donny, we’re going to need light in the basement,” Anna said. “Do you still have your lamp? Can you get it working?”

  “I think so,” Donny said. “Anna, it’s quieter out here. I hear that hum you was askin’ about. What is that?”

  Anna listened. “I know that sound, that voice…What is it?” Above and around and throughout the storm’s drumfire, a clear, constant note rang.

  “It’s the bell,” said Mary One. “Just ringing one long hour. It just keeps going and going.”

  “Yes, that’s it,” Anna said. “The bell, sounding out no time and every time…Maybe the end of time.”

  “No, Anna,” Donny said. He grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. “It’s ‘cause of the thunder and the hail, makin’ it ring like that. It don’t mean nothin’ – ‘cept that this storm’s a doozy. C’mon, Pinky, get yourself together an’ let’s get moving. Okay? Everybody’s counting on you.”

  Anna surveyed the half ring of girls standing around her, their eyes begging her for salvation. She thought of Noel and Mary Two sleeping so peacefully, no matter what McCain or Joseph or the storm threatened. She listened to the clear, ancient voice of the bell resonating through the stones and bones of The Saint Frances de Chantal Orphan Asylum.

  She leaned into Donny until he had to wrap an arm around her shoulders to hold her up. “It means something,” she said to him, then raised her voice so all the girls could hear. “It means everything. The bell tells us when to sleep, it tells us when to eat, when to pray, when to work, when to rest. What do you think it’s telling us now? How does it sound to you? Tired? Dead? Terrified?”

  The girls stared at Anna, wide-eyed. In the dim, uncertain light, Anna couldn’t know for sure what those expressions held, but she could guess.

  Donny whispered “Anna?” into her ear, his voice thick with worry.

  “This is its last song. You will never hear it again after today.” Anna leaned heavier on Donny. Her words seemed spoken through her rather than by her, perhaps the other Anna had taken over. “That’s what it’s telling us. It’s saying ‘good-bye,’ because in a very little while, that bell will cease to be, along with everything here.

  “We will be leaving, running outside through this storm. We must make it to the shelter of the forest. We must all stay together. Once we get outside, you will be terrified. Outside, the lightning is brighter. The thunder is louder. You will see shapes moving around you, they may look like animals or monsters, but it’s just the storm. If the hail hits you, it will hurt. The wind and rain will thrash you. But no matter what happens, we must stay together. We must reach the forest. Together.

  “Do not turn back to this place. There is no shelter here. There is only death here. That is what the bell is telling you.”

  The girls nodded their solemnest nods.

  “Get your lantern going, Donny. Let’s do this.”

  Anna took a deep breath and stood on her own again. She heard the pop and flash of the striker on Donny’s lantern. A pale yellow glow softened the glare and shadow of storm light. The little party crowded around the lantern – as if they had been moths rather than orphan girls – and together crept down the corridor toward their escape.

  Two doors down, Hattie’s blood spread out before them,
a red-carpet-welcome to the basement door.

  Chapter 14

  “This ain’t gonna work,” Donny said.

  Anna stood on the step beside him, watching the swirling mass of black water at their feet. Six steps above them, the girls huddled on the landing, inside the basement door. The twist of the spiral staircase put them just out of sight and earshot.

  “Can your girls swim?” Donny asked.

  “I don’t know,” Anna said. “I don’t think I can swim through that.”

  The water eddied and spun, thick with the smell of sea and decay. Rats floated among the crates and bundles that bobbed into view, then disappeared again into the dark basement. Anna calculated the depth by gauging the gap between the ceiling and the water’s surface.

  “Maybe we can wade through it…if we hold tight to the little ones,” she said.

  “It’s rising too fast. If it ain’t over your head already, it will be by the time you convince all them girls to jump in.”

  A rat fighting against the current hooked his claw on the step just below them. After a brief struggle, it dragged itself onto the stair and began to scamper up. Anna stomped on its head.

  “Anna!” Donny said.

  “It would have scared the girls,” she replied, without looking up. The rat’s hind leg jittered. Its tail coiled and uncoiled stupidly. Anna kicked it back into the flooding basement. “I’m taking them out of here, Donny. Every last one of them.”

  “I know, Anna. I know you will, but this ain’t the way. We gotta find another exit. How’d you get out the first time?”

  Rising water lapped over the edge of their stair step, rinsing a smear of rat blood off Anna’s shoe.

  “The kitchen,” she said. “But we’ll have to go straight through Abbess McCain to get there.”

  Below them, the rat’s crushed body pirouetted in a slow eddy before drifting into dark oblivion under Saint Frances de Chantal. Donny watched it disappear, then looked up at Anna. “Makes me real glad I’m not Abbess McCain.”

  Chapter 15

  “Basement’s flooded. We have to go out the kitchen,” Anna told the girls at the top of the stairs. She waited for objections. No one spoke, so she continued. “You all know how to get there, but Abbess McCain is camped out in the Great Round Room. We’ll have to get up on the balcony, creep around the back of the rotunda and drop down into the factory wing without being seen or heard. From there, it should be easy.”