Sisters of Sorrow (10 page)

Narrow shafts of sunlight streamed through rifts in the bramble canopy. Anna opened her eyes and, without sitting or even moving her head, surveyed the room. It had once been a basement. The walls were stone and mortar, as was the floor. Bits of staircase dangled from rotting floor joists overhead. Planks and the remainder of the staircase lay scattered around her. Shallow water covered the floor.

Above, the windmill continued to creak and clank, finches twittered, seagulls cackled and squalled. Down here, water dripped. She did not hear the sister’s whistles. It was morning. She was still alive.

Anna felt for her severed pinky. She was not surprised to find it gone. Something had taken it in the night.
Good riddance
. Whatever had taken her finger had also moved the plank off her chest. She inhaled deeply. Her ribs throbbed, but the pain was tolerable.

She sat up, grimacing. Her stiff joints ached.

“Gee whiz, miss,” a weak voice drifted out of the corner behind her. “I thought for sure you was dead.”

Anna startled and turned to the voice, wincing at the tightness in her neck. A boy, slightly younger than herself, sat slumped, palms up, against the far wall. He wore a heavy wool peacoat bearing the Saint Frances de Chantal emblem. It was identical to the one Anna had worn on her boat ride to the orphanage, all those years ago.
A travelling coat.

“You ain’t dead, right?” he asked.

It was a stupid question, she thought. But looking at the boy, Anna was more than half-surprised that
he
was not dead.
I guess I probably don’t look much bette
r.

“I’m not dead,” she said. It came out as a croak. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Yeah, me neither.” He spoke with a southern draw and twang, though his lethargy muted it.

“Did you lift that plank off of me last night?” Anna asked.

“Miss, I don’ know if I can even lift my own bottom off this floor.” The boy’s pale skin stretched tight over his sunken cheeks and hollow eyes.

“So, you are not Joseph?”

His eyes twitched with startled amusement, then he chuckled weakly. His laugh sounded like the creaking windmill. “No, ma’am, I ain’t Joseph, thank the Lord. Name’s Donald Lawson.” He lifted his hand to his head as if tipping a hat, then let it fall back into his lap. “But you can call me Donny. Pleased to meetcha.”

“Anna Dufresne,” she replied, smiling in spite of herself, “and the pleasure is mine.”

Donny laughed again, a little less horribly this time. “Well, ain’t we just the pair.”

Anna looked at him, trying to make sense of their predicament.

“You don’t happen to have any food, do ya?” Donny asked. “I’ve been down here almost a week.”

“I have a raw potato,” she said. “Would you like to share it?”

“That sounds mighty fine.”

Anna stood, cautiously. Her knees creaked, her ankles and feet ached, but they held her. She walked across the basement to Donny, stepping over the fallen debris, and sat beside him.

She pulled a large potato out of her coat pocket and handed it to him. “Eat slowly, little bites, and chew it completely before you swallow, otherwise it’ll make you sick.”

“Yes, mother,” Donny said, then nibbled through the skin.

Anna thought about her girls. Were the sisters still feeding them? The kitchen had been in shambles last time she had seen it. The bell had not rung since the explosion. How would they know when to wake for breakfast? The factory had been blown to bits. How would they earn their food?

“Don’t call me mother,” she said. “Let me have a bite of that.”

They passed the potato back and forth for several minutes, consuming half of it. Donny pointed to a rusty can on the opposite side of the basement. “It’s full of good water if you’re thirsty. I sure could use a drink.”

Anna retrieved the can. It was about twice the size of a quart jar. Between the two of them, they drank it all.

“Where does the water come from?” Anna asked, after stowing the remains of the spud (as Donny called it) in her pocket.

“That windmill,” he pointed up, some animation returning to his body and voice. “It draws water up from the well. But the pipes are all busted, so the water leaks back down and drips all day an’ night. Like to drive me mad when I first got here. I juss put the can under where it drips.”

“Not a well,” Anna said, “a cistern.”

“A what?”

“A cistern, it’s like a well, except it collects rain water instead of ground water.”

Thinking of the cistern at Saint Frances brought her mind back to Joseph. “Do you know a boy named Joseph? He was supposed to meet me here.”

“A
boy
named Joseph?” Donny said raising his eyebrows. “Anna, Joseph ain’t a boy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t know what he is, but he sure ain’t no boy. Some kind of ghoul, I reckon,” Donny said. “If he told you to come here, it’s just so he can eat you.”

“That’s ridiculous…” she said. The thing from the previous night’s dream-laced delirium, the seaweed thing that came for her finger, flashed into her mind. And Joseph’s words,
Come to me and I will keep you. Abbess McCain will never find you here.
“He said he wanted to help me. He gave me a key and told me how to escape,” but she was suddenly confused and a little frightened.

“He told you to come here?”

Anna nodded.

“An’ now you’re trapped in this hole, juss like me,” Donny said. “He checks on me when I’m sleeping, when
he thinks
I’m sleeping. He comes to see if I’m dead yet. I seen him a couple times. It was too dark to see much, but I was glad of that. I don’t wanna get a good look.”

“I saw something last night,” Anna said. “I thought it was a dream, you know, because things like that aren’t real.”

“He’s been real every time
I
seen him.”

“What makes you think that thing is Joseph?” Anna asked.

“Oh, he talks all the time. Always muttering and whispering. He says his name over and over, like he’s trying not to forget.”

“But he didn’t eat you.”

“Not yet, he has to wait until I’m dead.” Donny scrunched up his face. “He said he’s going to take my parts.”

Anna clasped her hand over the leather thong around her neck, the thong that had held her finger.

“Guess he’s gonna have to wait a bit longer, now that you showed up,” Donny said with forced cheer. “That spud sure hit the spot. I’m feeling better already.”

“I’m not,” Anna said, dismally. “You really think he wants to eat us?”

“What else is he gonna do with our parts?”

Anna thought of the seaweed thing that had taken her finger, thought of its rotten patchwork hand and the nun’s leg on which it stumped away.

She surveyed the basement again, four stone walls, a collapsed staircase, a leaking pipe running up to the windmill, a stone archway leading to an alcove that housed the opening to the cistern.

“He comes out of there?” She pointed to the alcove.

“Uh-huh.” Donny nodded. “He always makes this terrible screech juss before he shows up.”

“Have you ever gone down there?”

“It’s dark down there.” He looked at her as if she were insane. “And
he’s
down there. No, thank you, ma’am!”

“Did you try shimmying up the windmill pipe?”

“’Course I did. The floorboards up there are solid, can’t bust through ‘em.”

“That figures.”

They sat together on the wet floor for a long time, listening to the basement’s sounds and looking into the alcove. Anna may have dozed, but she wasn’t sure. When Donny spoke again, the dusty shafts of light slanted in a different direction.

“I’m sorry you ended up down here,” he said, “but it sure is nice to not be alone, an’ to have someone to talk to.”

“Believe it or not, this isn’t as bad as where I came from.”

“I don’t believe it,” he said with a wan smile. “Would it be okay if I held your hand?” When she didn’t answer, he added, “juss so I know you’re not afraid?”

She took his hand. It was dry and cold. “Why don’t you tell me how you got here?”

“Ha! Whew. Well, it’s quite a story,” he said. “Momma and papa got sent to prison and none of our kin wanted to take care of me an’ my little sis, Maybelle. So, the judge said that we would have to go to a home. Only, none of the homes would take us, on account of what our folks done. So…”

“What did they do?” Anna asked.

Donny ignored her. “So then, this priest comes and tells the judge about a place that will take kids that nobody else wants.”

“Saint Frances?” Anna asked.

“Yeah!” Donny’s eyes lit up. “You heard of it? I figured that priest just made it up.”

“No, it’s real, Donny. Why would he make that up?”

“I dunno. I guessed it was just a lie they made up so they could get rid of us. They hauled us all the way across America on a train, put us on a little boat an’ throwed us overboard into the ocean.”

“They threw you in?”

“Yeah, well,
she
threw me in. Some crazy nun on the boat hauled me up by my collar and britches and pitched me over the side. I figure she done the same to my little sis, too, but I don’t know, ‘cause I went under right away.” Donny looked at her with a strange mix of emotions playing in his eyes. “I’m a real good swimmer, honest, but the waves were so big and I…” he trailed off. It took a minute, but Anna realized he was struggling not to cry.

“You are still alive, Donny, you made it,” she said.

He looked at her with a startling fierceness in his eyes. “I got sick. On the boat, ‘cause of all the waves. That’s why she threw me over. I’d never been on the ocean before and I got sick, an’ I couldn’t swim with my coat an’ shoes on, an’ the water was so cold, an’ my stomach was all cramped up. An’ the waves were so big.”

He took a deep breath, hitching a little, then continued.

“I figured I was done for. I bobbed up an’ screamed for help once, but I couldn’t even see the boat no more. It must’a already been on the other side of one of them big waves. All I seen was the trail of black smoke it puffed out.” He looked up through the broken floorboards and bramble canopy. “I knew I was a goner, so I just closed my eyes an’ said a little prayer for me an’ my sis. A wave washed over me an’ pulled me under.” He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s all I really remember.”

“So, you woke up here?” Anna asked.

“Not exactly,” he said. He hesitated, studying her expression, then continued. “I think a great fish swallowed me, you know, like in the story of Jonah? But that part might’a just been a dream.”

“Probably,” Anna said, but she squeezed his hand.

“Well, something
did
grab ahold of me, some sea monster or something. It pulled me down so deep, I thought my head was gonna cave in. The water was all black, but there was these little glowing things floating around. I guess I fainted then.” He shot her a furtive glance. “I don’t like to say I fainted, but I think I had good right to faint at that point. I think anybody else would’a fainted by then.”

“I fainted when I fell through the floorboards,” Anna said.

“Yeah, but you’re a girl.”

Anna snatched her hand away. “So was the nun that tossed your skinny carcass off the boat.”

Donny stared at her wide-eyed, looking as if he really might burst into tears. “Oh, Anna, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. It’s just boys aren’t supposed to faint. It’s okay for girls.”

“Where I come from, girls who faint get eaten by machines with needle teeth.” She offered her hand to him again.

“Oh,” he said, cautiously accepting her hand.

“I think I probably would have fainted, too, if I’d been thrown into the sea and pulled down by a sea monster,” she said. “What happened next?”

“I woke up down there,” he pointed toward the cistern in the alcove at the far side of the basement. “Somebody was draggin’ me through a pipe or a tunnel. In the dark, I
thought
it was a somebody, later on I found out it was a some
thing –
that Joseph thing I told you about
.”
Donny shuddered. “At first, I thought he rescued me, an’ I was relieved. Then, when I caught a peek at him in the dim light, I knew I’d died an gone to hell. He looked just like the devil – if the devil was made out of dead animals and fish all stitched together.

“I’ll tell you another shameful thing,” Donny sighed, “when I saw that, I screamed.” He shot Anna a mischievous glance. “I screamed like a little girl.” Donny gripped her hand more tightly in case she tried to yank it away again.

Instead, she said, “That doesn’t offend me, Donald. I am not a little girl.”

“No, I suppose you ain’t, not if you come from a place where they feed little girls to machines with needle teeth. Where
did
you come from, anyway?”

“I was at the orphanage, at Saint Frances. But finish your story,” Anna said. “I need to know about Joseph. He rescued me from that place. He rescued you, too. I thought he was going to meet me here. And help me.” Her words trailed off at the end as she stared into the alcove.

“He didn’t rescue me, not on purpose, anyway. I don’t think he means to help anybody. When I screamed, he screamed back, an’ not a scared scream, an angry scream, cussin’ an’ swearin’ – juss like the devil, stompin’ up an down… only his feet weren’t feet. I don’t know what they were, seaweed or octopuses… something wet an’ sloppy. I just don’t know, but he sure was havin’ a fit.” Donny shook his head slowly and whistled. “He was madder’n that nun that tossed me out.

“When he finally settled a bit, he said I’s s’posed to be dead. Said the only reason he pulled me out was to get my parts before the crabs and dogfish nibbled ‘em down to nothin’.

“Then he pulled me up here, into this room an’ just plopped me up against the wall. I started sayin’, ‘please don’t kill me,’ and he got mad again, cussin’ an’ such. Then he said, ‘I can’t kill. I can’t kill you.’ Just like that, said it twice, then he said, ‘You’ll die here soon enough, then I’ll come get your parts, I’ll come get your parts.’ Then, he kinda oozed over the side of that well and dropped in. He kept on repeating ‘I’ll come get your parts,’ as he moved away down there.

“I been stuck here ever since. Probably would have died today or tomorrow if you hadn’t come along.”

“You said he didn’t have feet. Are you sure about that?” Anna asked.

Donny gave her a puzzled look. “Yeah, I’m sure. I didn’t see much of him, ‘cause I was layin’ down while he was draggin’ me, and it was dark, but I did get a good look at where his feet should have been. He didn’t have any. Why do you care about his feet?”

“When I saw him last night, he had a foot, a nun’s foot and leg. It was from one of the sister’s I k…one of the sisters that died in the explosion.”

“What explosion?” Donny asked.

“I don’t think he plans on eating us, Donny. I don’t think that’s what he wants with our parts.”

“What do you mean?”

“This was a trap,” Anna said, talking out loud but only to herself. “This was a trap, and I walked right into it.”

She surveyed the room again. The walls offered no exits, no doors, no windows, not even a wide crack. The rotten staircase never would have held her, even if she hadn’t dropped onto it headfirst. Now, two steps dangled from the underside of the decayed floor joists. The remainder of the staircase lay in broken ruin across the basement floor. Only the cistern offered hope of escape.

“What does he want with our parts, Anna?”

She looked back at Donny. “I don’t know for sure, but I think he – it, might need…parts, like arms and legs and fingers. He’s made out of pieces, lots of pieces of…pieces of
dead
things.”

“That’s why he wants us dead?” Donny asked.

“But why not just kill us?”

“He said he can’t,” Donny said.

“But why not?”

Donny shrugged, “Maybe he’s a pacifist, like them Amish?”

“I don’t think he’s Amish,” Anna said.

They sat together in the filtered, fractured shafts of light under a ceiling of dry rot and brambles. Anna wondered where her finger was and what exactly it might be doing. She wondered if Joseph laid this trap for her specifically because of her dead finger. She thought about the nun’s leg, attached to Joseph, and wondered how many parts she had scattered across the grounds of Saint Frances.
How did Joseph get that leg from the coyote? Did the coyote bring it to him?

“My sister isn’t here.” Donny interrupted her musings.

“What?”

“My little sister,” he repeated. “She was on the boat. I figured those crazy nuns woulda tossed her off, too. So she couldn’t tell what they done, you know? But, she ain’t here. Do you think, maybe, they didn’t drown her?” His face darkened, “Or, maybe Joseph was too busy with me an’ she just sunk.”

“Wait a minute, Donny,” Anna said. “What’d you say your last name was?”

“Lawson.”

“And your little sister, is she a tiny blond girl named Maybelle, who can’t speak?”

Donny’s eyes popped as big and shiny as brand new silver dollars. “Why yes! Have you seen her? Is she okay?”

“I saw her two days ago, I think it was two. She was fine then.”

“Now, hold on. You say she can’t speak? We never could get Maybelle to shut up. She ran her mouth as constant as that dripping windmill. Maybe it ain’t the same Maybelle.”

“No, it must be her. The Maybelle at Saint Frances had a brother named Donald. And you look just like her,” Anna said. “Saint Frances is a bad place, Donny. She thinks you’re dead. Maybe the shock made her mute.”

“Well, then, we gotta go find her,” Donny said, struggling to stand.

“Hey, take it easy. Sit down.” She restrained him with a hand on his shoulder.

“No, when they took momma away, she told me, come hell or high water, Maybelle and me gotta stick together. I can’t never leave her,” Donny said. “We gotta go get her.”

“We can’t just ‘go get her,’ Donny. Abbess McCain, she runs the place, she has every sister on the island looking for me. They are trying to kill me.”

“They already killed me,” Donny said with smug contempt, “didn’t do too good a job of it, did they?”

“You don’t understand. She said she was going to cut off my head and hang it on her wall! She already cut off my finger. Look!”

Donny startled when she thrust her diminished left hand in his face. He took hold of it in his own hand, gawking at the white stub of knuckle where her pinky should have been. After a minute, he looked up into her eyes and said, “My sister is in a place where they cut off little girls’ fingers, and you think I oughta leave her there?”

Anna opened her mouth to reply, but didn’t know what to say. She pulled her hand away.

“You can’t even stand up, Donald,” she muttered, after a pause. “You can’t get out of this basement, can you?”

Donny glared at her. “I can too stand up,” he said. ”You’re runnin’ away from that place, ain’t you? You’re scared to go back?”

“Of course I’m scared,” she said. “The only reason you’re not is because you don’t know anything about it.”

“I know enough,” he said, nodding at her left hand. “If your little sister was in a place like that, would you run off an’ leave her?” Anna’s other hand still rested on his shoulder. He brushed it off and tried to stand.

Anna watched him, letting his words sink in. She thought of Lizzy and Jane and the Marys. She thought of Ephraim.

Donny got his feet under him and pulled himself up the wall until he was standing. “‘Cause if you’re that kind of coward, I don’t need you.”

“I’m not a coward, Donny. I…” She thought of several examples of her courage, not the least of which was taking the blame for her brother’s murder. “I…” she began, but none of the examples were stories she wanted to tell. “I don’t think you should call someone a coward when you don’t know what they’ve done,” she said, “or what’s been done to them.”

“I’m not running out on my sister,” he said. The effort to stand took its toll. He trembled now, as if he were very cold. His bravado deflated to petulance. “I’m not leaving her in a place like that.”

I’m not a coward,
Anna thought,
not a murderer either.
She looked at Donny, shivering in the basement’s dusty light, and wondered about Ephraim,
If he was still alive would he have come to save me?

She remembered Little E, just a toddler, wrapping himself around her leg as she tried to leave for school every day. She remembered him stomping on a roach that had terrified her mother.

“My brother would have come for me,” she said.

“’Course he would. That’s what brothers do.”

“Sit down, Donny, save your strength.” She patted the floor beside her. “We need to talk about this.”