“Yeah, and it’s a good thing we did, too,” Lizzy said. “Y’all were hung up on that big pile of wood, but the water had almost covered it by the time we got there. Then, late last night, the whole place just fell over. Scared the pee out of me.”
“Lizzy!” Jane said.
“Well it did! Anyway, you would have been squished flat if you stayed in there.”
“What about Dolores?” Anna asked.
Jane let out a long, ragged sigh.
“Jane?” Anna asked again, trying to prop herself up on her elbows.
“No, no, Anna, lie down,” Jane said. “Dolores is right here. We brought her out, too.”
Anna relaxed, settling back into a bed of fir boughs. Then realized what she hadn’t asked. She turned her head, crackling her spine as she did, and looked Jane in the eyes. “Is she alive?”
“I don’t know. I think so…I guess,” Jane said. “She’s been catatonic since we found her. Stopped breathing for a while, we thought she died. Sometimes she goes a long time without taking a breath. She’s been shot in the leg. And her feet…” Jane sighed again. “I can’t bring myself to look at her feet, Anna. I almost would think it a mercy if she doesn’t wake up.”
“I tried, Jane,” Anna said, weakly, and closed her eyes.
“Oh, Anna!” Jane sobbed. “It was sheer lunacy for you to believe you could escape that place, let alone bring us all safely out. Never in life would I have believed it.”
Anna opened her eyes and looked at Jane. Tears streamed down the older girls cheeks. Clean pink lines through the grime on her face and her swollen red eyes told Anna Jane had been crying for some time.
Jane sobbed again, looking out toward the ocean. She took Anna’s hand in her own, squeezed it gently. “I promise I’ll never call you Pinky again,” she said, forcing a laugh through her tears.
“I like it when you call me Pinky.” Anna smiled. “I always have. Didn’t you know that?” She did her best to put a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
Jane sobbed a laugh. She looked as if she wanted to say more, hesitated, then brought Anna’s hand to her lips and kissed it.
A moment passed. Then Anna said, “I’d like to see Donny. Can you help me up?”
Jane inhaled sharply. “Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. Mmm. You need to rest.”
The cold blackness seeped back into Anna’s chest. “Jane, don’t lie to me. Is he here or not.”
“Yes, yes, Anna, he’s right here,” Jane sighed.
“Is he okay?”
Jane was silent long enough for Anna to know the answer. Really, Anna had known the answer already, from the moment Eustace brained him with the ax handle.
“No,” Jane said. “He’s not.”
Anna sat up, shoved Jane’s arm away when the older girl tried to stop her. Her head spun. Black spots clouded her vision. She waited, took three slow breaths. The dizziness passed.
Donny lay next to her on a bed of fir boughs. Maybelle slept snuggled up to his side. Two purple lumps stood out against the pale skin of his forehead. Anna didn’t want to think about the lump on the back of his head. His face had a deathly pallor, like it did on the morning of the sleet storm on the beach, was that two days ago? Anna couldn’t remember. It felt like forever. His mouth hung slightly open, as did his eyes. Dried crusts of blood ringed his nostrils and ears.
Jane wrapped her arm around Anna’s shoulder, being careful of the injury there. Anna allowed Jane to pull her close. The cold blackness in her chest was gone, but nothing took its place. She was just empty.
“Why’d you let him come back?” Anna mumbled. “Why couldn’t he have just…”
“Shh…” Jane said, laying her head against Anna’s.
“He’s not dead,” Lizzy said. “He might get better, you know, if we can get him to a doctor.”
“Lizzy,” Jane said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Go fetch more water.”
Lizzy stood slowly, watching Donny, then wandered off in the direction of the beach.
“You should have just left us there, Jane,” Anna said, slumping into her.
“Oh, Anna, please don’t say that.”
“Just help me over there, beside him.”
Anna rolled onto her hands and knees, then crawled the short distance to Donny. When she reached him, she lay down on the boughs and took his hand.
“I’m sorry, Donny,” she said. “Are you still glad you met me?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, dripped off the tip of her nose. Donny’s eyes did not blink, his lips did not twitch. His hand remained cold and lifeless in hers.
“I’m glad I met you, Donny,” she said, “very glad I met you.”
She lay there watching him as the dapple of sun and shadow moved across his pale face. Now and then, one of the girls would sneak up to check on her, then tiptoe away. Somebody brought her water once. She slipped in and out of sleep. In her dreams, Donny would wake up, stretch, and ask her why everyone was crying. Or, she would dream of water, constantly dripping somewhere dark and buried, sounds that would echo into eternity yet never be heard.
When the six-foot tall woman in a high-collared white silk dress poked her with a parasol, Anna thought it was just a new dream. Then she heard Jane yell, “Stop that!” in that good old Jane tone of voice that meant someone was about to get clobbered. “Get away from her!”
“What is your name, child?” the woman asked.
Anna’s face was hot and damp, her eyes had crusted over again. She blinked, trying to understand what she saw. The woman wore an ornate white hat. Her hair was black as crow feathers and her eyes were lavender.
“I…My name’s Anna, ma’am.”
The woman smiled, but only with her teeth. “And you are the girl who did that?” She thrust her parasol toward the beach.
Anna sat up and looked toward the beach. Agony in her shoulder confirmed that this was no dream. Ferns and low brush blocked most of her view. She saw only patches of sand and sky. After a moment of craning her head this way and that, she asked, in a sleep-groggy voice, “Did what?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, stand up,” the woman said.
“No.” Jane stepped between the woman and Anna. “She’s been shot. She needs a doctor. What is the matter with you?”
“Sarah,” said the woman.
A second woman, an exact twin of the first, stepped into Anna’s view. She took Jane by the shoulder and whispered something into her ear. Jane’s face went blank. She turned and walked a few paces away, then sat down hard on the forest floor.
The first woman offered Anna her hand. “Stand up, if you would please.”
Anna took her hand and rose. Her knee popped. The ground seemed to tilt under her feet, like a listing ship. The dizziness rushed back over her, filling her head with prickles and her eyes with black spots. Her stomach lurched. She realized that she was falling over, felt as if she sailed downward, like the plummeting bell.
Strong hands grabbed her by the arms and held her up. Whoever had grabbed her must be holding her in the air, she could not feel her feet touch the ground at all. After several breaths, feeling returned. The prickly sensation, like a sleeping leg waking, rushed through her head. The wobbly ground settled. Strength returned to her feet, at least enough to stand up by.
The woman looked at her impatiently, her hands clasped at her waist. It must be the other one, Sarah, who held her up.
“That!” the woman said, “Are you the Anna who did that?” She pointed through the trees, across an open field, to an enormous pile of old stones, the ruins of some ancient fortress.
Part of Anna knew immediately that it was the remains of The Saint Frances de Chantal Orphan Asylum. Yet, most of her mind didn’t recognize it at all. The waves had carried an entire coastline of sand up onto the plain upon which the orphanage had stood. Black stones jutted out of the sand like teeth from a discarded jawbone.
Half the rotunda still stood, where it connected to the dor
mitory wing. One side of the grand staircase swept up its concave wall, reaching into clear blue sky. Two triangular stubs of wall from the dormitory wing supported the curved wall like buttresses. Sand had completely filled the hole in the floor. Anna did not recognize any other feature of what had once been her home.
“Good Lord, child. I haven’t got all day,” the woman said.
“Uh, I blew up the factory,” Anna said. “I didn’t make the storm, though…”
“Of course not,” the woman said, “but you helped Dolores, yes? And you let Joseph into the fortress, yes?”
Anna nodded her head to both questions.
“Very well. I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Matilda. This is Sarah. We have come to collect our sister.” Matilda nodded toward Dolores. “We will be out of your hair shortly. But first, I need a little bit more information regarding last night’s events.”
“You are from Dolores’s coven?” Anna asked.
“No. We are from her mother’s coven. Dolores has never been one of us. She was disallowed for weaving magic she had no business knowing,” Matilda said. “However, she was given a second chance, an opportunity to right her wrongs, and it seems she may have done so. I told her we would come for her once Joseph’s soul had been released.”
Anna started to sag again, the dizziness returning. “Ma’am, I don’t think I can stand any longer.”
“Sarah,” Matilda said.
One of the hands holding her released. The other hand continued to support her without wavering. The woman holding her, Sarah, tugged at the flap of dress covering Anna’s shoulder. Then, she gave it a firm yank, ripping the dress all the way down Anna’s back.
Something sharp pricked into her skin, just under her shoulder blade, a bright, precise pain. As soon as she began to react, a bit of lead popped out of her back. The relief was so palpable that Anna couldn’t wait for Sarah to start on the next piece.
In a moment, Sarah had removed all the pellets. Again, the pinprick pain returned as she stitched little X’s over each wound, seven in all. The thread slid under her skin. It made her teeth grind, but was in no way as horrible as the mercenary’s calloused thumb digging in the punctures.
Sarah finished by sewing three stitches across the ripped dress so it hung, more or less, as it should. It wasn’t until she finished that Anna noted she had done it all one handed, and with no instruments.
Anna started to ask how she had managed it, but before she could, Matilda said, “Drink this,” handing her a small vile. Anna did, without question. It tasted like a mix of strawberries and copper.
“Now, that should keep you on your feet until our business is concluded,” Matilda said.
“Thank you,” Anna said. The copper strawberry syrup felt like lead in her stomach, but the dizziness faded and her energy was returning.
“You are welcome. Now I will need you to come back to the ruins with me, for just a moment, and explain how all this came about.”
“Okay,” Anna said, then, “No. Wait a minute.” Walking back to the ruins felt…easy, reasonable. But wasn’t there something important here. She tried to remember. Her thoughts in that direction oozed, like syrup. “Can you help…” What’s his name? “Donny. Can you help Donny?” then, “You need to help Donny. I can’t leave him.”
“The boy?” Matilda said, either shocked or amused, as if Anna was joking. Then she saw Anna’s reaction and said flatly, “No. We cannot help the boy.”
Something sick and sweet in her head said of course we can’t help the boy. It was neither of her voices. Anna shoved the thought aside. “There must be something that can be done for him.”
“Do you have a shovel?” Matilda asked, raising an eyebrow.
“What?”
“A shovel. The boy’s brain has been swelling ever since he was struck. If you start digging now, you should have a nice grave ready for him by the time he needs it.”
Anna groaned and slumped again, intending to lay back beside Donny, but Sarah held her fast. The new stitches in her back pulled, as if someone was using her back as a dartboard.
“Anna,” Matilda said, “I really do not have time for this. Come with us now and answer our questions. You will have plenty of time to mourn the boy once we have gone.”
“Okay,” the copper strawberry voice said, “but…” Why? Anna thought, Why should I help you? It seemed like too much trouble to ask. She looked around the little clearing, trying to remember something. The syrup was gumming up her mind. Lizzy, Mary, and Joan sat on a log watching. Maybelle lay beside Donny. Then she saw Jane, sitting blank-faced on the ground.
Forming the demand in her mind took a great deal of concentration, but once she had the words, they came easily enough. “Fix her,” Anna said. “Whatever you did, undo it.”
Matilda said, “Jane.”
Immediately, the girl stood. Her sense returned, and her anger. “Anna…”
“It’s okay, Jane, I have to go talk to these ladies,” Anna said. “I’m feeling better. I’ll be right back. Stay with Donny.”
“Anna,” Jane said, but as her cheeks flared, she changed her focus to Matilda, “You’re a witch? Good for you. But you don’t scare me…”
“Jane,” Anna said.
“Shut up, Anna,” Jane said, without looking at her, “I’m talking to the witch. I saw what they did to your sister last night. Tied her to a pole and lit her on fire. She would have died if Anna hadn’t gone back and saved her…”
“Yes, yes, we know all that,” Matilda snapped. “So what.”
“So, I know how to kill a witch, that’s what,” Jane said. “Keep that in mind, Matilda. You bring Anna back unharmed.”
Matilda raised an eyebrow and slowly lifted her chin, as if considering how to respond. Finally, she said, “I have no intention of harming her.” Then she turned and said to Anna, “But I have no time for any more delays. Shall we?”
Anna smiled at Jane, then followed Matilda and Sarah out of the forest.
Chapter 27
The stones of The Saint Frances de Chantal Orphan Asylum littered the beach, as if they had always been there. Beyond the scattered bits of the old fortress, the Pacific rose and fell in gentle swells, like the breathing of some giant sleeping beast. Sunlight flared off its surface, startlingly bright, its glare nearly hiding the ship bobbing at anchor. The clipper’s hull and sails were white, almost silver. It shimmered like a mirage, folding in and out of the sunlight.
A radiant white dinghy rested on the beach, bearing no insignia, no markings of any kind. It occurred to Anna, then, to look for the little steamer she had intended to hijack for their escape. As soon as she thought it, she knew the steamer was gone. Nothing remained of the dock where it had been moored. Not even a single piling jutted from the deceptively calm water. Maybe it had washed inland and was scuttled somewhere in the woods. But, judging by the ruins of the orphanage, it was much more likely that the boat had been torn to bits and buried at sea.
“Are you absolutely sure no one is left in there?” Matilda’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Who?” Anna asked. “The people that tried to burn Dolores?”
“Yes, to whom else could I possibly be referring?”
Anna thought of Noel and Mary Two. It hurt her brain to respond smartly, but she did anyway. “My girls. Two of them died before we left. Why do you care about McCain’s people? I thought this was about Joseph.”
“This is about a lot of things. And you will do well to mind your manners,” Matilda said. “Did any of the witch-hunters survive?”
“Some were still alive when I…” Died, is what she thought. “When I fainted.”
Matilda flashed a grave look at Sarah.
“They were hurt real bad, though.”
“Sarah, check for survivors,” Matilda said. Sarah glared at her and stood where she was – just long enough for Anna to wonder whether she would obey – then she turned and headed for what remained of the rotunda.
To Anna, Matilda said, “You would be amazed what one may recover from.”
“Will Dolores recover?” Anna asked.
“Oh, yes, I am sure she will be just fine. She put so much of herself into that storm. I am really quite impressed, but it will take several hours for her to return to herself.”
“Jane said she was shot in the leg.”
“Oh, that is nothing,” Matilda said. “The burns, though, the burns may give us some trouble. Fire can be…difficult for us.” Matilda paused just a tick, then continued. “Enough about Dolores. Tell me about Abbess McCain. Is she one who may have survived?”
“No,” Anna said. “She did not survive.”
Somewhere within the ruins, a pistol cracked. Anna whipped her head around, but saw nothing. Matilda pretended not to notice.
“There is a man named Theodor Stevens,” Matilda asked, “do you know if he was here? Do you know if he survived?”
Anna, still looking toward the ruins said, “Uh, there were a lot of people here, a lot of men, but I never saw them before last night…I never heard any names.”
“Look at me when I speak to you, Anna. This man, right here,” Matilda held out a large, sepia photograph, “Theodor Stevens, did you see him?”
Anna turned slowly back to Matilda, intending to ask about the gunshot, but when she saw the photo, she forgot all about Sarah and the ruins. “Yeah, I saw that man. I, uh…I mean, he tried to grab me. I kicked him in the teeth.”
Matilda smiled, “You kicked Theodor Stevens in the teeth. You are sure it was him?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So he was alive the last time you saw him? Can you tell me where that was?”
“There used to be a balcony there.” Anna pointed into space, past the end of the hanging staircase. “That’s where he was.”
“Hmm,” Matilda nodded. “And what about this person?” She flipped the photo over. Its back was the same as its front, except the photo now showed one of the men who had been working the pump.
Sisters of Sorrow Page 28