Sisters of Sorrow (15 page)

“Papa taught me this,” Donny said, bubbling. “Said he’d skin me alive if he ever caught me doin’ it.”

Joseph’s voice drifted up from the cistern, muttering to himself. “…eyes, eyes, who has some pretty eyes for Joseph…” Other noises drifted up as well, the mermaid thing dragging itself around, parts being shuffled and tossed. “…fishy eyes, girly eyes…Irish eyes a’ smiling…too many spleens! Too many
spleens
!” A wet splatting noise. “…eye of deer, eye of dog, eye of…eye…of…Margaret!”

“I promise not to tell your papa,” Anna said. “Whatever you’re doing, please hurry.”

“Hold this,” he gave her the lamp. “Keep that light on the wolf, tell me if he moves. We’re going out there with him.”

Anna went through the door first, out of the alcove and into the basement. Donny slid through after her and pushed the door closed. The wolf stepped further down the crumbling wall, almost to the floor. A second wolf worked its way down as well, snarling and yapping. The second was bigger than the first, at least twice as large as Anna herself.

Donny fumbled around on the floor with a Mason jar and a splintered board. It looked like he was trying to build something.

“Donny?”

“Just hold ‘em back! Just for a minute!” He used a nail in the board to pop a hole through the lid of a jar. “You’re gonna love this!”

“Hold them back with what?” she nearly shrieked at him. Anna wound up and flung the rotten preserves at the closest wolf. The jar struck the wolf’s shoulder with a hollow thump. The wolf yelped and stepped back as the preserves bounced off and shattered across the floor. The second wolf leapt over him, roaring, landing squarely on the floor less than ten feet from Anna.

“Donny!”

Something flashed beside her. “Look!” Donny said. He stood, holding two Mason jars, each with a two-inch flame jetting through holes in the lids.

“We already have a lamp…” Anna said, groping for another weapon.

Donny flung the first jar at the giant wolf’s feet. It exploded like a flashbulb, bright as lightning, with the crack of a rifle shot. Tiny bits of glass peppered Anna and skittered across the basement. The wolves howled, bolting topside. The big wolf turned tail so fast his back legs skidded out behind him as he scampered out of the basement.

Beyond the alcove door, Joseph shrieked.

Donny threw his second bomb at the big wolf’s hindquarters just as it cleared the foundation. Anna turned away, covering her face with her arm. The second report was not as loud, probably because most of the blast was above ground, and less glass hit her. But the wolf howled and yelped as it fled into the night.

“Yeah!” Donny shouted, throwing his arms up in a V.

“Ha, ha!” Anna cried. She hugged Donny without intending to do so, and he hugged her back. They danced in a circle for about a second. Then, they heard Joseph.

Beyond the alcove door, Joseph bellowed in rage. He was coming for them. Whether he had replaced the eyes and returned to his other body or whether he still inhabited the six-armed mermaid, Anna didn’t know. And she didn’t want to find out. She crammed a broken piece of shelf under the alcove door like a doorstop.

“Let’s go, Donny! Quick this time.”

“Grab the lantern,” Donny said. He stuffed a jar into each of his two coat pockets. Then he leaped up and wrapped his fingers over the top of the tall oak hutch. He swung his legs out away from the cabinet.

“What are you doing?” Anna yelled.

“Just go, I’m right behind you!”

Joseph slammed into the door from the cistern side. It opened about two inches before catching on Anna’s doorstop.

Donny swung his feet away from the hutch. It rocked onto its front feet, balanced briefly, then slammed back into its upright position.

“Hurry!” Anna yelled, “The wolves are coming back!”

The smaller of the two wolves stood just outside the foundation, peering in at them. Anna hucked a jar at it. She missed by several feet, splattering the wall with rotten green beans, but the wolf bolted as soon as she began her throw.

Joseph hit the door again with a sick meaty thud. It shuddered, sliding open another inch. One rusted screw popped out of the hinge and bounced away. A black tentacle slithered through the gap, groping around the opening.

Anna leapt up beside Donny, latching onto the hutch’s top. “Together!”

As soon as they started to swing out, the hutch’s right front leg snapped off. The heavy cabinet lurched forward and sideways at the same time. It began to topple, but instead of falling against the door, it crashed into one of the support posts, resting against it at an angle.

Donny, surprised by the hutch’s diagonal motion, also slammed into the post. Anna missed it, backpedaled two steps, tripped over her feet, fell on her back, and rolled against the alcove door. The hutch had pinned the tail of Donny’s coat to the post. He dangled by it like a marionette.

Anna staggered to her feet. Joseph’s tentacle lashed out at her, but missed. Some other appendage slammed into Joseph’s side of the door. Anna ran to Donny. The hutch’s corner had snagged the post, but only by a few inches. If she and Donny could dislodge it, they could still trap Joseph in the cistern.

“Help me shove this!” she shouted.

Donny stood, dazed but conscious, and tugged at his coat. It started to rip. “I’m hung up.”

“Never mind that! Push!” Anna yelled.

Joseph slammed into the door. Donny startled and snapped to. He and Anna slammed into the hutch. It refused to budge, was wedged in place. A hand shot through the alcove door, fingers searching the gap, trying to pry it open. Anna and Donny slammed the hutch again. This time, though the hutch didn’t move, the post did. It gave out a creek, like an old rocking chair, and began to crackle.

Overhead, the ruined house groaned. The post tilted, slowly, like a falling tree. The crackling intensified as floor joists splintered, popping like pine knots in a bonfire. The other support post snapped in half.

Donny slammed the cabinet again, determined to topple it. Anna hooked her arm around his midsection and hauled him toward the broken foundation wall. She screamed at him, but the roar of the collapsing structure was so loud neither of them heard what she said.

Anna ripped him away as violently as her tired, battered body could. The back half of Donny’s coat, still snagged between the hutch and the post, finally ripped free. She half stumbled, half sprinted toward their escape.

One breath later, Anna no longer needed to pull Donny. Both ran as if the devil was on their tail. They bounded up and over the rocks, into the moonlit forest. The dilapidated house collapsed in on its self, crashing into the basement. A plume of dust belched out of the pit, chasing them into the woods.

Anna grabbed Donny’s hand and sprinted through the trees, not looking back. The lamp swung back and forth in her other hand, illuminating the next tree, the next blackberry patch, but nothing beyond. Branches thrashed their faces. Brambles tore at their ankles. Neither slowed them in the least.

Anna ran until her lungs burned and her throat felt chafed. Donny began to feel like an anchor she was dragging through the woods. But still, she ran on.

Donny’s legs eventually gave out. He fell while still trying to run, and Anna actually did drag him about four strides before she collapsed as well. Donny got up on hands and knees, wheezing, and pointed to a fallen tree. He and Anna crawled to it, resting their backs against its thick trunk. They sat for several minutes, panting, sucking in the night air.

When he could talk, Donny said, “The wolves…”

“I know,” Anna said.

“They’re followin’…” He pulled a jar from the pocket of his shredded coat.

“I know, Donny.” She laid her head back against the tree, looking up at the low-slung cedar branches.

He nudged her leg with the jar. Black orbs bobbed in thick brown liquid. “Take this,” he wheezed, “In case… they come…”

Anna laughed, coughed, and laughed again. She took Donny’s hand, instead of the jar, and squeezed it. “They won’t be coming close, Donny.” She laughed again. “I think those wolves will,”
cough
“…they’ll be telling their grand-babies about you, Donny.”

He coughed a single laugh, then asked, “Joseph?”

“I hope to heaven he’s…”
wheeze
“…squashed flat as a bug under that house.”

“You sure he didn’t get out?”

“I still can’t believe
we
got out,” she said. “Didn’t you see the whole thing was coming down on you?”

“Yeah, I saw it.” He flapped his hand in an
aw shucks
gesture. “I seen worse.”

Anna rolled her head to the side and looked at him, grinning. “In the mirror?”

Confusion flitted across his face for the briefest moment, then he got it. He turned to her, trying hard to look angry but unable to hide his smile. “You oughta see yourself! I don’t know which you got more, mud or blood, but there ain’t a clean patch of skin on ya!”

“Shh!” she giggled, and coughed.

“Shh, yourself,” he said, grinning. “When you say your prayers tonight, thank the Good Lord you ain’t got a mirror!”

If you mention my complexion one more time.
..Anna thought of Jane and sobered immediately. The weight of the night settled on her. She felt a chill and her skin prickled. They slumped together, shoulder to shoulder, head to head, backs to the fallen tree, looking up at the brightening sky.

“You know I have a nick name, Donny?” she asked.

Donny heard the change in her voice. The levity left him, “What is it?”

“My friends call me Pinky.” She held up her three-fingered hand.

“That’s awful,” Donny said.

“I know.” She quickly looked away and swiped a tear. “I miss them.” Her voice cracked.

Donny squeezed her hand, but said nothing.

“We just whipped a wolf pack and a…” She looked back to Donny, questioning. “We whipped a wolf pack and a lunatic’s nightmare. You and me.” She laughed again. To her ears, it sounded a little bit sad and a little bit savage. “We are going to get my girls and your Maybelle. If Abbess McCain and her crazy nuns try to stop us…”

“Lord have mercy on their souls?” Donny finished for her.

“Lord have mercy on their souls,” Anna repeated. She let her eyelids droop until they closed.

Overhead, night was the color of a purple bruise, except in the east, where a pink line cut the sea from the sky.

Return from Darkness

Anna slept until late morning, undisturbed. When she awoke, the sky hung low with soggy clouds. Forest birds twittered in the trees around her, but there was no rush of waves nor the squabble and chatter of ocean birds. Daylight felt funny on her eyes, almost hurt them. She was thankful for the cloud cover.

She took in a deep lungful of the cold, humid air. Donny startled awake. He looked anxiously side-to-side, saw Anna, and relaxed.

“G’ morning,” he said, settling back against the tree.

“Morning,” Anna said. “Or afternoon. The sun was coming up as we were falling asleep. I don’t know how long we’ve been here.”

Donny looked up at the sky. “Can’t tell where the sun is.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem,” Anna said. “I can’t tell what time it is and I can’t tell which way is north.”

“Well, it’s an island, right?” Donny said. “If we just walk in one direction, we’ll find the beach. The beach will take us to Maybelle.”

“It is an island, but I have no idea how big an island it is. It could take days to find the beach, even longer to get back to Saint Frances – and I don’t think we have that much time.”

“Will the sun come out later?”

“I don’t think so. We get these kind of clouds often. Usually, it’s overcast like this for days without a break.”

Donny sighed. “What are we gonna do?”

Anna took another deep breath – the air smelled absolutely wonderful – and smiled. She stretched her legs, then her arms, and stood up. “Come on, Donny.” She offered him her hand and pulled him to his feet.

As he stood, his eyes brightened. “I got an idea. What if you hide an’ I start makin’ a bunch of noise? Those sisters that are searchin’ for you will find me. Then you can juss follow our trail.”

“Donny,” Anna looked at the ground, chuckled, looked back at Donny and shook her head. “The last boy they found out here while looking for me, they killed him on the spot. That was him back there in Joseph’s cistern.”

“I don’t wanna end up down there again,” he said.

“Look, we’ll walk…that direction. It’s clear for a ways. As we go, we’ll adjust our course so that we’re always going downhill. I think that should be the quickest way to the beach.”

Donny smiled. “I like that plan better.” He retrieved the Mason jars from the ground, dumped their rotten contents and handed them to Anna. “Can you put these in your pockets? Mine are full.”

Anna slipped them into her coat, without asking why. The front of Donny’s coat bulged with the jam and a few other things he’d picked up. The back of his coat was gone, probably still snagged on the corner of the hutch. He held the lamp and an alder pole walking stick.

Anna looked at Donny’s face, for the first time seeing him in full daylight.
He’s only a child, for Pete’s sake!
And a battered child at that. The top of his ear was shredded and crusted-over where Joseph had bit him. A red-black scab topped the purple lump on his forehead. Dark half-moons cradled both eyes.

He caught her staring. “What are you smiling about?”

“I’m glad I met you, Donny Lawson,” she said.

“I’m glad I met you, too,” he looked at the ground, grinning, “Pinky.”

Anna saw him blush, even through the caked dirt on his face. She gave his shoulder a friendly shove and started walking. Donny followed.

They walked in silence for over an hour, listening to the forest, smelling the sweet air. The ancient cedar and fir trees eventually gave way to smaller alders and white-barked birches. As the trees thinned, the ground to their left fell away at a shallow angle. They turned downhill and walked on. Impassable blackberry patches and devil’s club swamps forced them to backtrack uphill a few times, but soon the smell of salt air mingled with the other forest scents.

As they walked, Anna ran her fingers through her hair, picking out leaves and twigs. She also dislodged several shards of glass. She picked more bits of glass from cuts on her hands and forearms. Donny had been right about her skin, not a clean patch on it.
I’m going to need some ointment
.

“Donny,” she said, “how’d you make those jars explode?”

“It’s the Union Carbide crystals, from the lamp. Mix ‘em with water an’ they make gas,” he said, smiling. “In the lamp, it burns real bright, a bit at a time. But, when it’s in a jar an you bust the jar, it burns all at once. Boom!”

“Wow. That’s really something,” she said. “Do you have any crystals left?”

“Yeah, I got a few. Are those wolves still followin’ us?”

“I’ve seen one. He pops his head out now and then, but I don’t think he’ll give us any more trouble.”

“He’s just keeping track of us, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Do you hear that?” Donny stopped in his tracks, cocking an ear. “I think I hear waves.”

Anna stood still, held her breath and listened. Ahead of them, in the distance, foamy surf rolled and crashed over a pebbly beach. She smiled, even as her heart raced and her chest tightened.

The trees thinned and the underbrush thickened as they drew nearer to the sea. Giant ferns, salmon berry bushes, stinging nettles, skunk cabbages choked access between the woods and the beach. Donny and Anna spent nearly an hour pushing through the final two hundred yards of brush.

When they reached the shore, the ocean spread out before them, restless and immense, the color of milky jade. Under a sagging gray sky, the sea undulated, whipped frothy by a steady wind. Vertigo overtook Anna. She grabbed Donny’s arm and sat them both down on a beached log. Donny sat with her in silence, watching the waves roll in. Mist and icy drizzle hid the horizon, but even so, the vista astounded Anna.

“I always wanted to see the ocean again,” she said, finally. “I’d like, just once, to see it on a clear day, when I’m not hunted, or starving.”

“That’s not too much to ask,” Donny said.

“It goes on forever, you know. Goes to every place in the world. If we had a boat, it would take us anywhere.”

“And without a boat,” Donny said, “it won’t let us go anywhere.”

“We could swim.”

Donny eyed her. “You’d freeze solid before you got past the breakers.”

“Not today, Donny,” Anna said. “Someday, though. When we leave here, someday I want to swim in the ocean.”

“The ocean is warm where I come from. Maybe you can come,” Donny said, “after we leave here.”

Anna stood, bracing against the chill wind. “I feel better now, just needed to catch my breath.”

“Yeah,” Donny said, “me too. Which way is it?”

”I think it’s that way.” Anna pointed to the right. “I’m guessing that both of the farm houses were on the same side of the island, since they both used the same drain for their cisterns.”

“Makes sense to me,” Donny said.

“Well, I ran down the beach and turned left into the forest, so if we leave the forest and turn right at the beach, it should take us back,” she said, “as long as we’re still on the same side.”

“Whether we’re on the same side or not, if it’s an island, either way will get us there.”

“True enough, but this way might get us there
today
,” Anna said.

Pebbles and sand crunched under their feet as they walked. The low clouds spit thin icy rain, which the wind drove at them sideways. Anna could not see more than a few hundred yards through the rain, but she knew this was not the beach she had ran across the night she escaped. That one had been smooth sand. Rocks and driftwood logs littered this one.

“Do you think we should walk in the woods,” Donny asked, “in case they are still searchin’ for you?”

“We’ll make better time out here. Just keep your ears open for their whistles.”

As the afternoon dragged on, they heard no whistles, only the relentless wind, the churning sea and lonesome seagulls’ cries. Constant spears of icy rain pelted Anna’s left side. Her head ached from the cold. The frigid wind drove the feeling from her left hand and the left side of her face. Her other hand, holding Donny’s, stayed warm. The back of Donny’s shredded coat fluttered and flapped. Beneath it, the rain plastered his white shirt to his back.

Anna began to believe that they had gone the wrong way. Her fatigue and hunger and apprehension, along with the element’s incessant lashing, made every hour feel like five. Then, she heard a new sound, a familiar chugging to her left.

Anna tugged Donny’s arm and dragged him, running, into the wood line. They hunkered behind the trunk of a gnarled pine, scanning the ocean. The icy rain stabbed at their cheeks and eyes. It acted as a gray curtain, obscuring the source of the chugging, but Donny recognized it at once.

“It’s the boat,” he said, “the one they threw me out of. Do you think they’re searchin’ for you?”

“No, they’re too far off shore,” she said. “Why would they be out in this weather?”

“You wanna flag ‘em down and ask?”

She flashed him a reproving glare. He looked as miserable as she felt. His lips trembled, a ghastly pale purple. The bruised knot against his wet white forehead looked like a green-purple yolk on a fried egg.

The chugging grew louder, passing their location, and continuing north. At its closest point, its green bow light and the faint outline of the little steamer’s cabin materialized out of the fog. Then it passed and the misty, brittle rain swallowed it once more.

“Guess that means we’re prob’ly headed the right way,” Donny said, trying to sound chipper.

“Guess so.”

“Does it seem darker to you?”

“It’s just because we’re in the woods,” she assured him.

The woods were very dark indeed. She had hoped to reach her girls before nightfall. But now, the rain had washed all the courage out of her.
What are you thinking? By the time you get there, you’ll both be dead of pneumonia. You don’t even have a plan, do you?

A scruffy black crow cawed at them from a branch above their heads, then launched, flying for shelter deeper in the woods. Fat, cold baubles of rain, released by the crow’s departure, splattered on and around the two orphans.

“Donny…” she started.

“I’m goin’, Anna. It’s the only thing to do.” He forced the words out, mumbling through numb lips.

She heard desperation in his voice. He was trying to persuade himself as much as he was trying to convince her. She might even be able to talk him out of this insane rescue mission. But if she did, he would hate her for the rest of his life. You
would hate you for the rest of your life
, her other voice said, as bitter as it had ever been,
not that the rest of your life will be very long.

“I’m going, too,” she said. “You can’t stop me.”

The corners of his purple lips twitched slightly up, gratitude filling his eyes.

“We’re both going.” She wrapped her arm around his shoulder. He relaxed into her embrace. “But we can’t go like this. This rain will kill us before we even get there. We are going to curl up in a dry spot, eat some jam, rest for a spell. Maybe the weather will dry up a bit.”

He resisted, at first, tried to pull away, but she held him tight and, a moment later, he complied. They trudged into the forest along a game trail, trembling and huddled together.
Don’t go too far in
, she warned herself,
keep the sea within earshot
…

And, suddenly she recognized the trail. Just ahead of them, a low cliff rose about four feet from the forest floor. The bluff created a slight overhang, a wall of dirt and roots and rocks shaped like a cresting wave. Over this cliff, a large fir tree had toppled, forming a perfect natural shelter.

“Come on, I know this place!” She pulled Donny faster.

He stumbled forward, startled by her sudden enthusiasm.

“This is where I hid on the night I escaped! This means we’re very, very close.” She pushed aside the boughs of the fallen fir and pulled Donny into the den beneath. “We’ll be dry and warm in here.”

“We shouldn’t leave Maybelle…” he trailed off, mumbling. Then, “Amma? I think I might have hydrophobia…or hyperthermia…the one where you get too cold to think.”

“Maybe it’s hypochondria. The doc said that’s what my mom had,” Anna said. “Actually, I have no idea what any of those words mean, but if there’s a condition where a body gets too cold to think, you probably got it.”

Anna squeezed into the crevice with Donny. Sheltered from the rain and the cutting wind, she felt warmer already. She also felt a guilty reprieve from the daunting task ahead.

“Open that jar of jam,” she said. “We’ll save some for your sister, I promise, but we need to eat.”

Donny fumbled around his pocket. His hand flopped like wet spaghetti. After what seemed like a ridiculously long time, and by using both hands, he managed to produce the jam.

“Yer gonna hava opennit,” he mumbled. He tried to hand her the jar but dropped it into her lap instead.

“Are you okay, Donny?” The crevice under the fir tree had grown very dark. She could barely see his face.

“I’m not cold anymore, just sleepy,” he said. Only, it came out
I’mot cole amymore jusssleepy

He
is
going to die,
the other Anna said.
Just like Madeline…and Erma…and Alice. No food and no blankets gets you dead little girls and boys
.

“Donny! No sleeping, not yet. You have to eat first.” She cranked on the lid of the Mason jar. It stuck tight, then slowly turned with a gritty grinding sound.

“Spud?” he mumbled.

Anna smelled the jam. Sweet, mouth-achingly tart blackberries, a hundred summers old but still wonderful. Her belly cramped at the aroma. “No, Donny, this is better. Just eat a bit. Then you can sleep.”