Chase the Wind (30 page)

“Run, go find Sister Mary Frances.” She shoved Mary towards
the back door and was kneeling among the broken plates when the door from the dining hall came crashing open. She looked up to find Father Clarence peering down at her over his glasses.

“What happened?” His voice was calm and flat.

“It was an accident. I tripped and crashed into the cart,” Jenny
said with a trembling voice.

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I swear it was an accident.”

The priest came over and grabbed her arm, pulling her to her
feet. “Look at what you’ve done,” his voice hissed in her ear.

“I’ll clean it up.” Jenny couldn’t help it, she sobbed on the words.

“Yes, you will, and then you will be punished.” He pushed her
down so hard that she lost her balance and fell, the shards from
the dishes piercing her palms and knees when she landed. She
caught a sob in her throat and gathered her feet beneath her, getting
ready to run when the opportunity presented itself. “You need to be punished. I should have taken care of that long ago instead of
letting the evil grow and fester inside of you.”

He stepped away from the cart, and Jenny measured the distance
to the door with a sideways glance. She saw that he was going for
the broom in the comer and she slowly stood, thinking he was going to hand it to her to sweep up the mess. When he reached
for it, she turned for the door, hoping that Sister Mary Frances was
on the way and would calm the man.

She never saw the blow coming. She just felt the impact of the broom handle as it came down on her shoulder, sending her tumbling head first into the wall. She was dazed, but managed to turn and throw her arm up as another blow descended on her. She felt
the bone in her arm snap, but raised it again as the handle came
at her for the third time. The priest’s face was a mass of purple in
his rage, and Jenny felt as if the demons of hell must be standing
beside her from the look in his eyes. A blow landed on her temple,
and everything before her turned red before it all faded into black
ness.

The priest looked at the crumpled body at his feet and then up at the broom, which was raised for another blow. He flung the weapon across the kitchen and left, making sure he didn’t step in the trail of blood coming from the cuts on Jenny’s hands.

Sister Mary Frances found her a few minutes later when she
breathlessly followed Mary into the kitchen. She immediately sent
the little girl to the barn for Jamie and then knelt beside Jenny’s unconscious form. Jenny moaned when she touched the broken
arm, and the sister sent a prayer of thanksgiving heavenward that
the girl wasn’t dead. She wrapped towels around her bleeding hands and knees and was wiping the trickle of blood from her
temple when Jamie came bursting through the door. Marcus was
right behind him.

“Jenny!” Jamie knelt beside Jenny. “Sister, what happened?”

“I don’t know. It looks as if someone beat her.”

Marcus gathered Mary up as she came in behind them. “Is she
dead?” Mary asked with a trembling voice.

“No. Mary, did you see who did this?” the nun asked.

“No, I knocked the dishes over and Jenny told me to get you to
help.” She was crying now and shaking her head. “There wasn’t
anyone else here but me and Jenny.”

The nun stood and scanned the kitchen to see if there was some clue as to the identity of the attacker. Jamie gently slid his arms under Jenny and lifted her up, bringing another moan from her as her left arm flopped down. Sister Mary Frances tucked the arm up
on Jenny’s chest and led the way to the infirmary with Marcus and
Mary bringing up the rear. Jamie placed her in the same bed that
he had occupied upon his arrival at the mission and left without a
word.

“You’d better go with him, Marcus, and see if you can keep him out of trouble until I find out what happened,” Sister Mary Frances
instructed him. “Mary, go see if you can find Sister Abigail.”

Sister Mary Frances had the still unconscious Jenny bandaged up
by the time the boys arrived back in the infirmary. Their search for
Jenny’s attacker had come to a dead end. Mary was perched on the other bed, sobbing occasionally as she sniffed back her tears and
runny nose. Marcus pulled her onto his lap as Jamie took a seat
on his sister’s bed. Her arm was wrapped with a splint again, and her hands were bandaged along with her knees. Her right temple was sporting a large goose egg, and the side of her face had begun
to turn black and blue. Her long golden braid was lying over her shoulder, and Jamie took the ends of it in his hands, stroking it
with his lean bronze fingers.

“Has she said anything yet?” he asked the nun.

“No, she’s still unconscious, poor thing. I hope she can tell us
who did this to her.”

“Me too.”

The nun felt a shiver at the cold, flat tone of his words. She looked over at Marcus, and saw that he had felt it too. His eyes were wide as he looked at Jamie, who continued to stroke his
sister’s hair.

“Why don’t you go on and eat,” the nun suggested. “I’ll let you
know when she wakes up.”

“No, I want to stay here.” Jamie never looked up, just held the
braid in his hand, rubbing the ends with his fingers.

“Marcus, you take Mary and go to dinner,” the nun instructed
the younger boy. He picked Mary up off the bed and left, giving both Jenny and Jamie a worried look on his way out. Sister Mary
Frances busied herself around the room, keeping an eye out for any stirring from Jenny. She saw her chest rise and fall steadily,
but there was no other sign of life. “It could be a while before she
wakes up,” she informed Jamie.

“I know. I’ll wait.”

The nun saw that there was no reasoning with him at this point,
so she just prayed that he would soon give in to exhaustion.

Jamie stayed by Jenny’s bed throughout the night, finally moving
to the chair and taking up a book. He fell asleep sometime after
midnight, and Sister Mary Frances covered him with a blanket. She
lay down on the other bed, hoping that if Jenny stirred, she would
hear her before Jamie did. Sometime in the wee hours of the morn
ing she heard a faint sound and looked over to see Jenny moving
restlessly about in bed. She touched the girl gently on the shoulder and waited patiently as the deep blue eyes focused in the soft light
of the lamp. .

“What happened?” Jenny asked as she put a bandaged hand up
to her throbbing temple. She examined the hand, then raised the other one, looking at the splint as if trying to figure out where it
had come from.

“Don’t you remember?” the nun asked quietly.

Jenny closed her eyes as if to help summon the incident from behind the wall of pain inside her head. “I was hit from behind,”
she finally said, her voice croaking on the words. Jamie began to
stir in the chair.

“Jenny, I want you to think very carefully. Do you know who did this?” The nun touched Jenny’s cheek, causing Jenny to look into her eyes. Jenny then looked beyond her at Jamie, who was
now wide awake, sitting on the edge of the chair, his eyes shining
silver in the dim light of the room. Something about the look in
his eyes made Jenny hesitate as the attack began to play over in her
mind.

“No,” she said, the pain in her head making her nauseous. “I
didn’t see them.”

“Them?” Jamie asked.

Jenny waved her bandaged hand in the air. “Them, they, he, she,
whoever, struck me from behind while I was cleaning up the
dishes.” She turned her face towards the wall. “My head is killing
me.”

“Jen, are you sure?” Jamie was standing next to the bed.

“Yes, I’m sure. Now go away, it hurts to talk.” She didn’t turn to look at him. He stood there a minute, shoving his hair back as he waited for her to remember something, but she didn’t speak,
just closed her eyes as if his very presence pained her. He left with
a promise to return first thing in the morning.

Sister Mary Frances sat down in the chair and waited for Jenny
to say what was on her mind.

“You know who did this to me, don’t you?” Jenny was still facing
the wall.

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you lie to your brother?”

“Because he would kill him, and then they would hang him.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because it would be my word against his, and no one would
believe me.”

“I believe you, Jenny.”

Jenny rolled over to look at the nun. “Sister, what am I going to
do?” The nun sat on the bed and gathered the girl in her arms.

“I’m going to write a letter to the archbishop in Boston and ask for an investigation. Something is not right about Father Clarence.
I know he was sent here as some sort of punishment, but I really
don’t know what happened. Until we find out, I’ll keep you in here
with me. I’ll tell everyone your injuries are so bad that you can’t
be with the others.”

“Why are you helping me?”

The nun smiled at Jenny and went back to the chair. She ar
ranged her habit around herself and gathered her rosary beads into
her hand. She counted down the beads, then placed them in her lap as if they were a string of precious pearls. “I had a brother at one time. He was the most beautiful boy, just a few years older
than I adored him. When I was eighteen, I was being courted by
one of his acquaintances, but my brother didn’t like it, I finally
figured out why when this boy took advantage of me. My brother
found out and challenged him.”

“What happened?”

“My brother was killed.”

Jenny closed her eyes and let the impact of the words roll over
her. She could only begin to imagine the devastating effect such a
thing would have.

“It didn’t solve anything. Not only was my reputation ruined, but I was also responsible for my brother’s death. That was when I decided to devote my life to the church. I thought perhaps I could find some meaning in his death.”

“Have you?”

“No. There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think about it and pray for his soul. But now I hope that I can keep the same thing from happening to you and Jamie. I know you’re right about what his response would be if he knew who attacked you.”

“What about Father Clarence? What do you think he’s going to do?”

“As far as I know, he’s been locked in his office all evening. Let’s just wait and see what he does tomorrow. No one knows what’s happened except for a handful of people, and I’d like to keep it that way.” Jenny nodded her head in ascent. “I’ll give you something for the pain in your head. Then you try to get some sleep.” Jenny knew that wouldn’t be difficult. She felt as if she could sleep forever.

The next day dawned without a mention of Jenny’s attack. Father Clarence acted as if he didn’t know she existed. He accepted without argument Sister Mary Frances’s plea that Jenny be released from school and chores because of an accident. In fact, he seemed relieved that the girl would be out of his sight for a time.

Jamie was livid when he found out that there was to be no investigation, but he silenced his ravings after Jenny came close to hysterics in the infirmary. He left the room with his mouth drawn in a tight line, the scar on his face a brilliant white against the angry flush of his sun-bronzed skin. He returned that afternoon with a new book, settled in the chair and began to read aloud from
The Arabian Nights.
Jenny closed her eyes and let the words carry her to a faraway place that had never existed for her before, not even in her imagination. Sister Mary Frances seemed caught up in the story also, and when the light of day faded, she went to place the lamp on the table next to the bed so Jamie could see to continue reading. Jenny caught Jamie shifting his chair away from the lamp as if the flame annoyed him. The days were by this time getting much shorter and lamps were now required for people to function in the dark confines of the mission. So far Jamie had been able to avoid being around them.

“My voice is getting tired. I think I’ll stop for tonight,” he finally
said after struggling to see the pages in the dim light.