Sisters of Sorrow

by Axel Blackwell

  On the balcony again, Anna looked down at the circus. It had changed. Its tone no longer frantic preparation but foreboding anticipation, like the moment between the spark of the fuse and the roar of the cannon. Anna held her breath.

  The pounding at the door had stopped. In its absence, despite the storm’s rage, the room felt still. The men who had been barricading the door now stood back, weapons drawn. Joseph’s seagulls perched on the balcony’s railing near the top of the stairs. The broom man stared at the door, having forgotten them.

  The chanting priests and their harpy had silenced. They huddled together, looking from Dolores to the door, then back to Dolores. All three held revolvers. The harpy couldn’t seem to stop playing with hers, thumbing the hammer and spinning the cylinder.

  Sister Eustace stood silent on her chair, her bullhorn at her side. The hounds were gone, perhaps they knew enough to hide. The pillar of rain still fell from the bell tower and the bell continued to sing. In the office next to McCain’s, where the lightning had struck, fire crackled. A hole gaped where its glass doors had been. Wind howled through the office, stirring the rotunda’s already restless air.

  Hurry up, Joseph, Anna thought, looking across to the other door. She would need to move fast when he arrived. He would either charge down the staircase closest to that door – or just jump over the railing and attack from above. Anna would race down the other stairs at that moment and free Dolores.

  How long could Joseph last against McCain’s goons? Anna had counted about twenty of them. She guessed it depended on which body Joseph chose to wear. When she had blown out his eyes with the magic key, he had been angry, and hurt, but it hadn’t stopped him from throwing a screaming fit. It really hadn’t slowed him down much at all, come to think of it. If Joseph could keep McCain busy for just a couple minutes, Anna knew she could get Dolores free and back up the stairs.

  What if she won’t go with you? that other voice asked. She’s here to kill Joey, remember? She has to die to do that.”

  Then I’ll let her kill him, if that’s what she wants, but I won’t let her burn. Even still, Anna wondered. Dolores had planned a one-on-one confrontation with Joseph. She had intended to trick Joseph into attacking her. Now, no trick was needed. McCain was here. His hand was here. Dolores’s storm had to be wreaking havoc with Joseph’s mind. Maybe, just maybe she could break Joseph’s curse and get Dolores out alive.

  Anna looked to Dolores. The woman sat motionless, but rigid. All her muscles strained against the ropes. The only movement Anna detected was Dolores’s nostrils flaring. A black blindfold covered her eyes and the belt gag cut into the corners of her mouth, dripping blood-tinged foam.

  Across from her sat the abbess. Having been still in the chaos, McCain now stirred in the stillness. She rose to her feet and surveyed the room. One by one, her minions noticed her movement and fixed their eyes on her, awaiting commands.

  Having captured everyone’s attention, McCain took a long, meaningful look around the rotunda, taking measure of their preparations. Her eyes lingered longest on the fortified entrance, then finally fell upon the post of the broken crucifix and the heap of straw and furniture surrounding it.

  She cocked her head to Sister Eustace and said, in a voice that sounded like a whisper but carried to every ear in the room, “Roast the witch.”

  Chapter 20

  Eustace leapt onto her chair and bellowed through the bullhorn, “Roast the witch!”

  The circus sprang to life. The chanting chorus stowed their revolvers and took up a new mantra. Some of the men who had been guarding the door rushed over and lifted Dolores, with her chair, and carried her to the pyre. Several women from the furniture brigade scurried off out of view.

  Anna held Joseph’s hand up and yelled at it, “You have to hurry!” It continued to wriggle and twitch. But, if it was trying to communicate in that manner, Anna could make no sense of it.

  The wind whipped through the office to Anna’s left, more violently with every passing minute. It flapped the witch-hunters’ clothing and whipped up tiny waves on the growing puddles of rainwater. Even the heavy wall tapestries swayed and rippled.

  The men struggled to hoist Dolores to the top of the pyre. The heap settled and shifted under them as they climbed it. A burly, red-faced man’s foot broke through the woven cane seat of an old chair. As he fell, the chair’s arm punched him in the crotch. He dropped his corner of Dolores’s chair, curled up in a ball and, after a moment, vomited. Dolores and her chair lurched to the side and rolled on top of the stricken martyr.

  More goons rushed over to rescue their wounded brother and finish tying Dolores to the stake. The furniture brigade women who had run off returned, rolling two steel drums. The drums were white with red letters, “kerosene.”

  Anna squeezed Joseph’s hand in both of her own. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! He was no longer pounding on the main door. He had stopped as soon as Anna had spoken to his hand. He has to have heard me, she repeated over and over to herself, between bouts of Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

  McCain spoke low. Eustace echoed her words through the bullhorn, “Get him out of there! Secure her to the stake! Do it now! Stop dawdling! I want her lit before that beast comes back.”

  Dolores had not moved, she sat perfectly rigid, her mouth pulled into a toothy sneer by the belt. Her legs and feet were not tied, but they did not move either. Blood dripped steadily from the toe of her left shoe.

  Anna fixated on the blood. In her mind, she saw the crimson beads rising on Sally’s hand from the needle monster’s bite, saw the bright blood running from the stump of Jeffery’s leg after its trip through the pulverizer, saw the red pools spreading under the stamping machine while it cut Samuel Upton to shoe leather. She felt the crisp skin of Joseph’s hand, exactly as the skin of her own finger had felt. She saw the blood that had poured from Rebecca’s finger, imagined the blood that had gushed from Joseph’s wrist. She felt her own blood coursing through her veins, felt it begin to boil.

  Commotion below called her attention. The furniture brigade tipped the kerosene barrels up on end and worked at peeling open the lids. Another from that squad ran up with four metal pails.

  “I want her lit before the beast returns!” Eustace repeated.

  Fire flared inside Anna’s brain. Her cheeks burned, her teeth clenched. “I’ll light you, you nasty, horrible wench!” Anna hissed through grinding teeth. Joseph’s hand clamped hard around hers as she said it, but she barely noticed. The nub of her pinky knuckle throbbed. The week old welts on her face and forearms stung as if they had just been applied. And all the other wounds, to her body and to her soul, revived, cried out, demanded she do something to stop the pain. “I’ll light you up real good. You just see if I don’t!”

  She eased away from the rail and scuttled back into McCain’s office. The kerosene lamp still burned on the desk. Its reservoir was nearly full, plenty of fuel to light Eustace and McCain, if her aim was good. She snatched up the lamp.

  Don’t you dare! the other Anna said. You’ve been through too much to end it like this. If you throw that lamp, you’ll only get one or two of them. The rest will find you and kill you. The voice was authoritative, the head girl voice, but not nearly as self-assured as it usually sounded. You know they will!

  I won’t let them burn Dolores, Anna replied. I’ll wait as long as I can for Joseph, but I won’t let them burn Dolores.

  You don’t owe her anything! You are even!

  She is one of us, one of the sisters of sorrow. I will not let her burn!

  Before the other Anna could answer, McCain’s office began to rumble. It was a sound below the torrential pounding of the storm. Not even quite a sound, but a vibration in the very stones of the old orphanage. It was rising in volume and intensity, like a freight train barreling through a tunnel, straight toward her.

  She stood stock still, listening. The rumble began from the direction of her old dormitory hall. It rolled toward the center of Saint Frances, toward the mai
n entrance. At first, the storm’s rage buried it, but within a few seconds, the new rumble was the loudest sound in the sonic menagerie.

  With the oil lamp in her left hand and Joseph in her right, Anna ran out onto the balcony. Not until she stood at the rail looking down did she think about stealth. It would have been a wasted worry. No one looked her way. All eyes were on the door.

  The rumble had a rolling quality to it, like the kerosene drum being rolled across the stone floor, only much, much louder – maybe the way the drum would have sounded to a bug about to be flattened by it. Anna felt it through the soles of her feet, the whole structure resounded with it, swayed with it, even. She had to place her hands on the rail so as not to lose her balance.

  Then it crescendoed, a horrific, thunderous smashing against the main entrance. The huge oak doors buckled inward. Water exploded between the threshold and the bottom of the door, gushed through the crack between the two doors. The crashing wave would probably have torn the doors from their hinges if they had not been reinforced. After a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, the wave receded.

  “Secure that door!” Eustace boomed. “Get this bitch burnt!”

  Salt water washed across the floor, swirling with the rainwater. Tufts of foam floated atop the rising pools, driven by the wind like tiny clipper ships. Two of Sister Elizabeth’s women rushed up the heap to help secure Dolores in place. The rest joined the men at the door, replacing braces that the wave had dislodged and hammering new braces and beams in place. Sister Elizabeth finished prying the lids off the kerosene drums and drew out a bucket of the oil.

  Before the others had even finished tying Dolores to the post, Sister Elizabeth sloshed the bucket of kerosene onto the base of the pile. She scooped up another bucket full and splashed it onto the pyre as well, soaking one man’s leg in the process. The other witch-hunters scattered off the pile.

  McCain, who had moved to stand facing Dolores, grabbed a severe, scrawny woman and said something to her. The scrawny woman climbed back up the pyre, dodging Elizabeth’s third bucket of kerosene, and swiped off Dolores’s blindfold. Only the whites of her eyes showed.

  The scrawny woman and Evelyn, who had been with Eustace in the basement earlier that day, joined Elizabeth. They each grabbed a bucket and went to work dousing Dolores and the pyre. The yellow fuel oil ran over Dolores’s head and body, dripped from her hands, mingled with the blood from her leg. Dolores did not react. She may be suffering some sort of apoplexy, Anna thought, Which may be a mercy, if I’m not able to rescue her.

  “I will not let her burn,” Anna reproved herself.

  The water now stood nearly ankle deep, despite the crazed efforts of the two men running the bilge pump. It was whipped foamy by the wind and the splashing about of McCain’s witch-hunters. A greasy, shimmery oil slick spread away from Dolores’s kerosene drenched pile.

  “Hurrrrrry Joseph!” Anna said out loud, bouncing, almost hopping up and down. “I can’t wait any longer!” She lifted the glass lamp, preparing to throw, then paused, no longer confident in her plan. With the wind, the water, and Dolores already soaked in kerosene, Anna realized it could go very wrong.

  The rolling rumble began again. Another wave raced toward the door, crashing against the dormitory wing on its way to them. With Dolores now staked and oiled, most of the goons turned their attention to barricading the door.

  Anna turned the lamp’s wick all the way down until the light blinked out. She raised it over her head, Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! A flame flashed orange below as Elizabeth ran a flaming torch to McCain. The fire flapped and sputtered in the gale, sending up complex black smoke signals. Somewhere nearby, another lightning bolt struck the building. Anna felt the electricity in her teeth. In the cataclysm of sound, she thought her ears had begun to bleed.

  McCain, standing ankle deep in storm surge at the base of the pyre, stared into Dolores’s vacant white eyes. She took the torch from Elizabeth and thrust it skyward. “In the name of His Holiness Pope Innocent the…” The rolling wave crashed into the main door, spraying the room with seawater, drowning out the rest of McCain’s speech.

  Anna looked to the door, praying to see Joseph. The door had withstood this second wave. One of the oak beams that lay across it had splintered, and the top right hinge had broken free, but the doors stood.

  She looked back to the torch. It still burned. McCain continued bellowing her benediction through the cacophony. Her voice ringing with hatred and disgust as she reached her concluding climax, “…and send you to your lover, the devil, in a manner worthy of your wickedness!”

  McCain marched forward, aiming to thrust her torch directly under Dolores’s chair. Anna squeezed Joseph’s hand and shot a glance, in hope beyond hope, at the kitchen door. It remained closed. I will not let her burn. Anna hurled the kerosene lamp.

  The lamp’s hurricane chimney detached from the base as it tumbled through the air. As soon as it left her fingers, Anna knew she had missed, had thrown it too far in front of McCain. Both of her voices screamed at her to run for the kitchen. She might still have a chance. But, she was unable to tear her eyes away from McCain and the lamp. Her feet felt welded to the floor.

  The glass chimney entered McCain’s peripheral vision. She snapped her head up, catching Anna with her eyes – eyes that burned with hatred, determination, and fear. McCain dove forward with her torch, intent on her purpose.

  Her sudden forward motion put her in the path of the lamp’s heavy base. It slammed into McCain’s outstretched right arm, just above the wrist. The torch splashed into the water and hissed out in a puff of steam. The glass chimney splashed down beside it.

  McCain spun around, the fire in her eyes hotter than the torch had ever been. She hugged her injured arm to her body, but flung her left arm toward the balcony. “Up there!” she screamed. “It’s Anna! Kill her!”

  Chapter 21

  Anna stumbled backward, away from the rail. Thunder rang out, this time from inside the rotunda. Bullets slammed into the rail and the wall behind her. Ricochets whined. Splinters and plaster dust filled the air.

  She dove to the floor.

  Her head reeled.

  The kitchen!

  Anna bounced up and sprinted in a crouch toward her exit, hugging the wall. Bullets riddled the wall above her head. Bright red droplets flew from her fingertips as she pumped her arms, and a hot tingly sensation spread somewhere along her right side.

  Anna rounded the last stretch of balcony approaching her door. A third wave rolled along the wall, on its collision course with the main entrance. It can’t take much more of that. I can draw them away, maybe long enough for the sea to break through. Long enough for Joseph to…

  Two men topped the stairs just ahead of her, the sword-wielding giant and a very plain looking man with a club. The service door stood halfway between her and the men. The plain man yelled down to the others, “Hold fire! Hold Fire! She’s just a little girl for Christ’s sake.”

  The guns silenced.

  “I bring her down.” The giant’s voice was higher than Anna would have expected. In his native tongue, he probably would be pleasant to listen to, but speaking English, his thick German accent sounded like fingernails on slate. “We burn her with other one.”

  Anna saw caution below their bravado. They believed her to be dangerous, maybe not as dangerous as Dolores or Joseph, but a threat nonetheless. Anna had no intention of disabusing them of that notion. She drew the key out of her pocket, hoping it would glow, even just a little.

  The giant grinned. He held his claymore before him in a two handed grip and said—something, his accent too thick to decipher. His intent was clear enough, though. He was up for a showdown.

  The plain man put his hand on the giant’s arm, staying him. His other hand extended his club toward Anna, defensively. He favored her with a gentle smile, and wicked eyes.

  “Now Anna,” he said, almost cooing. “Let’s not do anything rash…”

  Below, in the ro
tunda, McCain bellowed, “Get me another torch!”

  Anna shot a glance over the rail. Elizabeth ran out of one of the lower offices with a blazing torch in one hand and a long wooden stake in the other.

  The plain man edged closer. Anna snapped her eyes back at him, and waved the key in a figure eight. “Stand where you are!” she said in the best adventure-hero voice she could muster.

  He stopped moving, but continued talking. “Let’s keep a cool head, shall we, little one?”

  Magic words, Anna thought.

  I don’t know any, she answered herself.

  They don’t know that, make some up!

  “Maybe we can help each other out a little bit, hmm?” Plain Man said.

  “Ominous glominortious…” Anna intoned. That stopped him long enough for her to steal a quick look back the way she had come. The balcony was clear all the way back to McCain’s office, but two more of McCain’s goons stood at the top of the other stairs.

  “EASY NOW!” Plain Man shouted. He covered his fear with anger, but somehow managed to maintain his gentle smile. “There’s nowhere for you to go, little one, but you don’t have to burn. Maybe we can – can cut a deal, as they say…”

  Anna looked down. McCain met Elizabeth by the barrel of kerosene. Elizabeth handed her the torch, then dipped her stake into the oil. She withdrew it and touched it to McCain’s fire, creating a second torch. Anna saw McCain nod toward Dolores. Elizabeth beamed.

  “Malleus metus mortios…” Anna chanted, tiptoeing backward.

  “She is liar,” the giant chuckled, lowering his sword and stepping forward.

  “Let’s give her one last chance,” Plain Man said. He again held the giant’s arm. “Anna, we really need to find the demon…”

  “No demon,” the giant said. “We take girl.” He sheathed his sword. His muscles flexed, preparing to lunge.