So far, Teagan and Nora’s plan hadn’t progressed too far. Storing old bits of sheets and tablecloths under her bed in the hope of making a “rope” to lower themselves to the ground was harder than they’d thought. They had only gathered a few pieces longer than arm’s length, and she wasn’t sure those would hold their weight. She chuckled inwardly. And her friends thought she was daft!
Lea slipped from under her covers and stood at the window. None of the other Magdalens would suspect a thing. Many of them had seen her standing in the same spot, looking out on the grounds. The cold air penetrated the glass and her nightgown, causing her to break out in chills. Now was the time.
She lifted the sash, undid the latch, crawled out, and lowered the window, a process that only took a few seconds. The cold shocked her, but she breathed in deeply, relishing the icy air that plunged into her lungs. She held on to the frame and lowered herself to the tiles. The cold burned her skin and her feet skidded on a slick coating of frost. Teagan had told her how she had crawled to the north face of the convent to scout out the planned escape route. That was where she was headed, too.
The going was slow and slippery, but she managed to get to the far end by forcing her fingers and toes into the ridges between the tiles. She looked over the roof. The ground did slope up toward the end of the chapel, just as Teagan had told her. The spiked iron fence was a problem. The girls would have to swing over it by rappelling like a mountain climber on a descent. If they could manage that, it would only be a short drop to the ground. Even if they cleared the fence, they might swing back into it. If so, they could simply climb down by positioning their feet against the bars. But there was the problem of attaching the makeshift rope.
Lea looked across the sloping roof to the cross positioned above her. It looked sturdy enough, attached to the apex. More material than they had currently gathered would be required to run a rope from the cross to the ground—she estimated at least ten yards.
A sound, like an animal scratching, rose from below. She held on to the roof’s edge and looked over her shoulder. Something was in the yard. She couldn’t quite see it, but an aura, bright and white, lit the corner where the chapel connected with the low building that stretched west. The light crept up the walls, rising from the ground.
Sister Mary-Elizabeth’s voice came to mind. “No wonder you’re an artist. You make things up in your head.”
The air seemed colder as the nun’s voice grew louder: “There’s a large divide between reality and blasphemy. I’ve seen the Virgin, too, many times, in the Bible, in paintings, in my dreams, but I would never say I saw her in person.”
Lea clutched the tiles and tried to turn around. Her fingers slipped and she slid a bit from her perch. Was it Mr. Roche with an electric torch? Did he know she was on the roof? If he did, she was in serious trouble.
She studied the light. Its brightness had spread. It wasn’t confined to the corner; the grounds seemed to be lit by some kind of preternatural glow. Lumps of white, globules of powdery light, were bouncing from the earth, getting higher and higher up the convent walls until they nearly reached the three stories to the roof.
Then she saw the fingers, arching, with dirty nails, grasping at the tiles. Then a head—a little boy with no eyes at all, dark sockets in a glowing white face, leering at her. Another blob appeared, a child too young to tell if it was a boy or a girl, as it drifted in the light toward her. It was crying, its tiny arms thrashing in the air. More and more of them came up the side of the building. Children covered in tattered blankets with bodies blackened by dirt.
She uttered a prayer. She had seen these children buried and done nothing about it. Now they were out to get her. They cried out silently, admonishing her to reveal their secret to the world.
“No!” Her legs slipped on the tiles.
They were coming closer.
“I can’t tell. They’ll hate me! They won’t believe me, they’ll send me away!”
The boy with no eyes touched her foot. Her leg turned to ice under his touch.
They were rising from the grave because she knew their secret. Their faces were all around her.
She stiffened as they closed in. The cold swallowed her. Her fingers and toes went numb.
The white faces leered at her as she fell.
* * *
Teagan shot up in bed at the sound of the scream. She turned toward Lea’s bed and her stomach knotted.
The Magdalens rustled in their beds.
“What was that?” Patricia asked in a groggy voice.
The overhead lights snapped on, and Sister Mary-Elizabeth stood in the doorway, her face twisted in a look of horror. “That was the most bloodcurdling shriek I’ve ever heard, loud enough to wake the dead. What’s going on?”
Teagan said nothing as the Sister ambled toward the end of the room. The nun covered her mouth with her hands when she saw Lea’s empty bed. “Oh my God.” She peered out the window into the night.
CHAPTER 13
The shrill cry entered the Penitent’s Room. Nora shook, thinking she’d had a nightmare, but it didn’t take long for her to realize that the sound was real. The voice seemed alien, unearthly, and the scream had set her shivering. Her back ached from sleeping against the rough stones. She dragged herself off the stool, fumbled in the dark, and found the door. She put her ear to it. There was commotion above. Odd, she thought, considering it must be the middle of the night.
Shouts. Women screaming.
Oh my God. What if there’s a fire? I’d be burned alive and nobody would remember until I was a pile of ashes.
Sister Anne’s muffled voice yelled instructions. “She needs medical treatment! Carry her inside!” Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
When she realized she might be left in the Penitent’s Room as a catastrophe unfolded outside, she panicked. She pounded on the door, yelling for help. No one seemed to hear. The commotion in the hall continued unabated.
Nora screamed and kicked the door, trying desperately to get someone’s attention.
Finally, the key scratched against the latch. She blinked as Sister Mary-Elizabeth’s harried face appeared in the light.
The nun shook her head. “I haven’t got time for you now. I’ll get to you in the morning.”
“I need to use the jacks,” Nora said. She didn’t really, but she was willing to use any excuse to get out of the room. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing to concern you. Can’t you hold it for a minute? We’re in trouble here.” The Sister started to close the door.
“I’ve seen the Virgin.” Nora blurted out the only response that she thought would get the nun’s attention.
The nun froze, her forehead crinkled in amazement. “You?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes. The lady in white carrying a white rose.”
The nun took a deep breath. “Oh, my Jesus. You and—” Sister Mary-Elizabeth pulled Nora out of the room, slammed the door and locked it.
Nora blinked in the light. She looked up and saw a line of Magdalens, including Teagan, peering down the staircase.
“Get back to bed—all of yeh,” the nun said and flicked her wrists to shoo them away. “This is too much.” She turned to Nora. “You get up to bed with them. Tomorrow we’re going to the Mother Superior and tell her what you saw.” She rushed off down the hall.
The girls backed off a bit, but still hovered near the landing.
The front doors were open. It was the first time Nora had seen them so since the good weather in the fall. A crumpled body, the clothing stained with blood, lay near the door. The Mother Superior and several nuns, including Sisters Mary-Elizabeth, Ruth, and Rose, were bent over it.
The nuns didn’t notice Nora creeping closer to the girl. Lea lay pale and limp on the cold marble, her eyes closed. Her nightgown was pulled up on her right leg, exposing a deep red cut. Blood oozed from her flesh to the floor.
The nuns were wrapping towels around Lea’s leg. Sister Rose knelt behind the g
irl and cradled her head in her lap. The old nun took a handkerchief from her gown and wiped it across Lea’s forehead. Sister Ruth folded her hands and prayed over the body.
Soon, a siren echoed in the hall, followed by lights arcing up the drive. Two men in white uniforms hurried into the convent with a stretcher. The nuns watched as the men bent over Lea, attending to the wound and checking her pulse. As they lifted Lea’s body onto the stretcher, Nora joined the other girls at the landing. She stood next to Teagan.
“What happened?” Nora asked.
Teagan walked away and motioned for Nora to follow. They walked up the stairs to the garret before Teagan spoke. “Quick, help me.” She pointed to Lea’s bed. “Find the loose planks underneath. I’ve got to get the nails and hammer out from under mine.”
Nora rushed to Lea’s bed, got down on her knees, and reached under it. She pounded the floor until the sound reverberated as a hollow thud. She tugged on one of the boards and it came up easily in her hands. “I’ve found it!”
Teagan was at her side, handing the nails and hammer to her. Nora had just replaced the board when the other girls appeared at the door. She and Teagan returned to their beds. They sat quietly as the others skulked into the garret.
“What was she doing out on the roof?” Patricia asked before plopping on her bed. “I thought the window was nailed shut.”
“I thought so, too,” Betty answered. “But she took a nasty fall, that’s for sure. Better her than me. Someone’s going to pay the piper for this.” The older woman turned to Teagan and looked at her with accusing eyes.
“I have no idea what she was doing out there,” Teagan said.
The Magdalens broke into chatter among themselves, but everyone hushed when the Mother Superior and Sister Mary-Elizabeth were spotted down the hall. The girls crawled under the covers and pretended to sleep. The nuns ignored the other Magdalens and walked straight to Nora.
“I want to talk to you after prayers and breakfast,” Sister Anne said. “Sister Mary-Elizabeth has reported a serious matter.” Her lips quivered. “I’ll get to the bottom of this—there will be no blasphemy in this convent.” Her eyes bored into Nora and then shifted to Teagan. “If I find that you two had anything to do with what happened tonight—I’d think you’d know better by now.” She turned to the window, lifted it, and shook her head. “Sister, as of tomorrow that window will be barred. I’m sorry it has come to this.” She closed it and walked away.
“All right, Magdalens, lights out,” Sister Mary-Elizabeth said. She stopped at the door and flipped the switch, then left the room. Once again, Nora was in darkness.
Nora crept out of bed and whispered to Teagan, “Lea fell off the roof?”
“We’re to blame,” Teagan said.
“We?”
“She was helping us plan our escape.” Teagan’s blanket rustled as she wrapped it around her body, and then asked Nora, “And why are you having a private meeting with Sister Anne?”
“I saw the Virgin in the Penitent’s Room.”
There was a long silence before Teagan whispered, “Now who’s crazy?”
* * *
Lea was absent from the convent for several days. True to her word, Sister Anne ordered bars placed across the window the day after the incident. Teagan continued her lace-mending while Nora worked the laundries. One evening after prayers Teagan was finally able to convince Nora to recount her “visitation” by the Virgin.
Sister Anne had met with her and Sister Mary-Elizabeth in her office. Both nuns kept a skeptical distance from any admission that Nora had seen the Holy Mother of God. Sister Anne was stern and demanding, asking Nora to renounce her vision; Sister Mary-Elizabeth sometimes chuckled at the “vivid imagination” of the penitent.
“The room does strange things to a person,” Sister Mary-Elizabeth said.
“We are not here to encourage hallucinations,” Sister Anne stated. “We are here for penitence and absolution.”
Teagan scratched her head and came to a realization about the sightings. “Did Sister Mary-Elizabeth mention that Lea saw the Virgin at the same time you did? You were in the Penitent’s Room and she was next door in the chapel.”
Nora gasped. “No. I guess that proves I’m not daft.”
“It proves nothing—an example of mass hallucination or, at least, a dual vision.” Teagan wanted to believe, yet she couldn’t force herself to accept what her two friends had reported.
“I can’t wait to talk to Lea,” Nora said. “Sister Mary-Elizabeth must have thought that something crazy was going on. I was by myself and Lea was in the chapel. We couldn’t talk through the walls.” She shivered. “It gives me the shakes.”
* * *
The next morning, the convent doors opened and voices echoed up the stairs. Teagan rushed to the library door in time to see Lea, aided by two nurses, hobbling up the stairs. Her friend looked frail, as if the fall had disabled her. Her hair shone almost silver in the light; her face sagged as she gingerly lifted her leg to walk. Lea looked even more like someone who was from another world, Teagan thought, a delicate crane-like creature with fragile sensibilities.
Lea was absent from work, dinner, tea, and prayers. Teagan had expected her friend to be in bed early that night, but was surprised to find Sister Mary-Elizabeth sitting in a chair at Lea’s bedside.
As she readied herself, Teagan watched the nun, who sat reading her Bible, glancing occasionally at Lea, who looked like a blanched corpse covered by a blanket. She marveled at how quickly plans, and life, could change. Now that Sister Anne had barred the window, there was no chance of escaping from the roof. Without Lea’s help there would be no collection of scraps for their rope. Something else would have to be done.
Teagan approached Sister Mary-Elizabeth, walking tiptoe to the chair. “Pardon me, Sister, I wanted to ask a question before lights-out. . . .”
The nun closed her Bible and looked at her with dull eyes. “Yes?” She sounded defeated.
“Is Lea going to be all right?”
The nun placed her hands over the book. “It was touch and go. She hasn’t spoken since she fell. The nurses managed to get some soup down her.” She looked at Lea, whose chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. “The doctor told us she got an infection—blood poisoning. She nearly lost her leg. But they told Sister Anne they got the nasty business cleaned out.” The nun looked as if she was about to cry. The Sister took a handkerchief from her pocket and wadded it in her fist. “And to think that she saw the—” She stopped, unable to continue until she had composed herself. “That’s the Lord’s business. Anyway, I and the other Sisters are on duty—twenty-four hours a day. We’re praying our little Lea gets better.”
“I can help, Sister, if you’d like.” Teagan moved closer to the nun.
The nun’s face brightened. “That’s very kind of you, Teresa. I’ll bring it up to the Mother Superior.”
“I imagine Monica wouldn’t mind watching, too, if you need the help.”
The nun’s smile faded. “Sister Anne will have her own say about who should watch over Lea, but thanks for the offer. Now, I suppose we should all get to bed.”
“Where are you going to sleep?”
“In this chair.” She patted her Bible. “I’ll be fine.”
Lea suddenly rose up on her elbows. “I see the lady in white! I see her!” Sister Mary-Elizabeth reached for her and Lea recoiled, her eyes stony and fixed in delirium. “I’ll come back to the Sisters and live out my life. Come back—my life!” Lea shut her eyes and collapsed onto the pillow.
The nun dabbed Lea’s forehead with her handkerchief. “Poor thing. Think what she’s going through. It’s madness.”
Teagan nodded and walked back to her bed. Sister Mary-Elizabeth turned out the lights, and Teagan heard the nun trundle back to Lea’s side.
When Sister Ruth turned on the lights the next morning, Sister Mary-Elizabeth was fitted tightly against Lea’s side. She got out of bed with the rest of the Magdalens a
s Sister Ruth took her shift in the chair.
* * *
The bedside vigil continued for Lea over the next several weeks. The nuns never asked Teagan to watch over her friend, although she volunteered to sit when the Sisters had to be somewhere else for a short time. Work continued unabated, as her routine shifted from the laundries to lace-mending depending on what jobs needed to be done. Even Nora held Lea’s hand sometimes at night before going to bed.
Sister Rose, the nun who cut their hair, now had laundry duty most of the time. That was the only benefit to come from Lea’s illness that Teagan could see. The old nun wasn’t as strict as Sister Ruth. Nora continued to work, although her belly bulged like an inflated football. It was no secret anymore to the Magdalens that she was pregnant. Sister Anne continued to make her disdain known by singling out “Monica” in evening prayers. The Mother Superior had cut back Nora’s extended work hours, however. It was as if she knew Nora wouldn’t try to escape. She would risk injuring herself or her baby if something went wrong.
One day in the laundry, under the lesser supervision of Sister Rose, Teagan detected a change in Nora’s attitude. Her friend, who usually had a sarcastic remark for the nuns and most of the Magdalens, was humming as she worked at the sorting bins. Teagan slipped away from the washbasin and walked toward Nora, who was digging through a soiled pile of laundry. Her friend looked thin except for her stomach, but there was color in her cheeks and a good amount of energy in her efforts.
Teagan stopped beside her and sorted clothing to allay any suspicion on the part of Sister Rose. The smells here were different from the washbasins where detergent and bleach permeated the air. The sorting bins were a stomach-churning feast for the nostrils. The odors of rotten food, feces, stale cologne and perfumes wafted from the piles. Despite that, Nora hummed happily.
“Why the good mood?” Teagan asked.
Nora glanced at her and then went back to her work. “I know it sounds strange, but something’s changed. I’m not as sick as I used to be in the mornings.” She patted her stomach. “I’m getting used to this child inside me.”
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