Aftertime

by Sophie Littlefield

  “Right here is fine.”

  “Isn’t there… I thought-I mean, in the dorm, we use the changing rooms.”

  “It’s all right. I’m ordained. Besides-” Hannah’s smile turned predatory “-it’s just us girls here, right?”

  Cass swallowed hard. She stood and backed away from the chair, and skimmed off her pants, keeping her back to the wall. She folded them and set them on the chair, keeping her eyes lowered. She could feel Hannah’s gaze on her, and the blood rushed to her face in both embarrassment and fear. She pulled on the white skirt; it was baggy on her despite the elasticized waist and came down past her knees.

  Cass drew her shirt over her head, and then she was standing in front of Hannah in only her bra, the same plain white one the women had given her at the school.

  “You act like you’ve never undressed in front of anyone before,” Hannah murmured hoarsely and Cass hesitated in the middle of unbuttoning the folded blouse. Hannah was regarding her with frank appraisal, her gaze traveling across Cass’s breasts, the expanse of smooth, taut skin of her torso, her hipbones visible above the sagging waistband of the skirt. “But I bet you have. A girl like you…I bet you have, plenty.”

  It wasn’t the first time Cass had been the subject of a suggestive appraisal. It wasn’t even the first time from a woman. But it was so unexpected, here in the Convent. Her heart thudded a panicked rhythm, terror of discovery making a metallic taste in her mouth. Her fingers remained frozen on the buttons of the white blouse.

  “Turn around so I can see you,” Hannah continued in a silky tone. Her hand played at the V-neckline of her shirt. All of you.”

  “I…I can’t,” Cass whispered, her lips numb with fear. She had to keep Hannah from seeing her back.

  “Yes, you can,” Hannah encouraged, but with an edge. Because I say you can. And what I say goes in here.”

  And there it was, the relationship that Cass had been foolish enough not to consider. The powerful and the powerless. The hungry and the helpless. Why should it be any different here, where schemes masqueraded as faith, where trades made in the shadows fueled devotions pledged in the light?

  How many bosses had tried something like this with Cass, grabbing her ass in the break room, asking her out for a drink to discuss a promotion or a raise? And how many times, Cass remembered, her face burning with shame as she twisted the fabric of the blouse in her hands-how many times had she simply gone along, because going along was easier than resisting?

  “No,” she said, frantically trying to figure out a plan. “I mean I…if you just let me get dressed I can…we can…”

  A knock at the door silenced her. Hannah’s eyes went wide and startled. “Get dressed,” she hissed. “Now. You’re not supposed to-”

  But it was too late. There was the sound of a key turning in the lock and then the door swung open.

  Mother Cora stood in the doorway holding a sheet of paper and a ring of keys. Her gaze took in the scene, and her eyes narrowed.

  “Oh, Hannah, again?” She sighed heavily. “I thought after the last time-”

  “It’s not what it looks like. Not this time.” Hannah’s tone had turned from domineering to supplication. “I was onlyhaving her change in here because there was, there was someone using the common room-”

  Mother Cora raised an eyebrow and frowned as Cass scrambled to jam her arms into the sleeves of the blouse, but it was buttoned shut. Frantically she worked at the buttons with shaking fingers.

  “Here, dear,” Mother Cora said, taking several steps into the room and reaching for the blouse. “Let me.”

  Cass backed away, and her foot struck something and she tripped. She tried to right herself but when her hand came down on the back of a chair it rolled, taking her with it, and she fell, hitting the trash can she’d stumbled over, and landed on her knees.

  She scrambled to her feet, but it was too late.

  “Oh good Lord,” Mother Cora exclaimed. “Let me see you, child.”

  She put a hand on Cass’s shoulder, her fingertips cool and her touch light. Cass flinched, but there was nowhere to go. Hannah, do you see?”

  Silence. Then, tentatively: “See what?”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Mother Cora said. “You’re the new girl, aren’t you?”

  Cass nodded.

  Very gently, Cora took Cass’s arm and turned her so that Hannah had an unobstructed view of her back.

  Hannah gasped.

  “She was attacked,” Mother Cora said. “By the fallen. You were attacked, weren’t you, dear? And yet here you are. You found your way here. The Lord brought you to us.”

  Cass said nothing. There was something chilling in the contrast between Mother Cora’s soft, gentle voice and the sparking intensity in her eyes. Despite the kindness of her words, Cass now felt more afraid of her than she did of Hannah.

  “You were healed. Weren’t you.”

  Cass didn’t dare speak.

  “Healed through prayer?”

  “I, um, don’t know…” What answer would serve her best?

  “Were others praying over you? When you were bitten? Did they save you?”

  “I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything after I was attacked, until I…woke up.”

  Mother Cora put out a finger, and touched it to the edge of one of Cass’s wounds. The touch felt strange and uncomfortable, but not painful. She traced the shape of the wound, the skimmed-over layers of healing skin sensitive to her touch.

  “You woke up,” Mother Cora repeated. “And were people praying, then?”

  “I…” An idea occurred to her. “Yes.” It was a reckless idea, but if it worked, maybe it would let her see Ruthie one more time. “I was in and out of consciousness for a while, and when I was awake, there were children praying over me. Young ones. They were saying… They were chanting something and then I slept and when I woke up again they were gone. And-and I was healed.”

  Cora sucked in her breath. “Where?” she demanded, excitement making her voice shrill. “Where did this happen? Where were the children?”

  “Outside of town. In a field,” Cass said, desperately hoping she wasn’t making a terrible mistake. If this worked, she would get to see Ruthie. And then-Dear God, I promise-then she would leave the Convent, leave Ruthie in the hands of women who could at least keep her safe.

  “She’s lying,” Hannah snapped. “Let me get Brenda, she’ll get the truth out of her-”

  “You’ll do no such thing!” Mother Cora scolded. “Come here, Hannah. I want you to see this. Here. And here…the flesh is rebuilding itself.”

  She bent close to Cass’s back. Cass stood very still. The women’s scrutiny was a unique and burning mortification, but one she would endure.

  “She could be contagious,” Hannah protested.

  “Nonsense. She’s been prayed back to health, isn’t it obvious? It’s what I’ve said since the start. We just didn’t know about the children. We didn’t know it had to be children. It’s as it says in Psalms-Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children.”

  “She’s making that up-she’s-”

  “Oh, dear Lord, this is a day I’ve been waiting for, a day I’ve prayed for.” Mother Cora clasped her hands together and pressed them under her chin, beaming.

  Cass looked from one woman to the other, their disparate expressions magnified by the shadows cast by the lantern light. Mother Cora’s rapt excitement. Fear and disbelief on Hannah’s face. Reluctantly, Hannah joined Mother Cora in examining the wounds. Cass tried to stay calm despite their proximity, barely breathing.

  “I need to decide how best to share this news,” Mother Cora mused. “There is so much to do. Oh, Cassandra, you are such a gift to us. A reward for our faith.”

  She turned to Hannah. “For tonight, I think it’s best we keep her away from the others. I want to make the most of this. We’ll convene later, and figure out what to do, but for now let’s keep her in one of the reflection rooms. But make her comfortabl
e. Do you understand me, Hannah? Comfortable.”

  “Yes,” Hannah said reluctantly, casting a malevolent glare at Cass.

  “I’m sorry,” Mother Cora said, taking Cass’s hand in hers and squeezing it. “I don’t want you to feel like a prisoner here-when you are so much more. Oh, Cassandra…you are going to bring such a great gift to all of us. Do you know what that is?”

  Cass shook her head, afraid to speak, afraid to make the wrong guess.

  “Faith,” Mother Cora whispered, and that single word was like a coin tossed, its bright-burning and dark sides flashing in the air, and Cass knew that no matter which side the coin landed on, something terrible would follow.

  40

  ONCE MOTHER CORA LEFT, CASS FINISHED dressing. Hannah stared stonily out the window into the night, arms crossed, biting her lip in barely masked fury.

  When Cass was ready, Hannah opened a desk drawer and took out a gun. “I know how to use this, so don’t get any ideas,” she said, slipping it into a pocket of her skirt.

  They walked through the echoing corridor, now silent, nearly all the women having gone to their rooms for the night. They followed the corridor past the entrances onto the field and descended a ramp to the level below the field. They passed locker rooms and physical therapy facilities and, finally, a series of storage rooms and small offices.

  “Here we are,” Hannah said with fake cheer. “I’m sure Cora would like me to give you the honeymoon suite, seeing as how she thinks you’re the second coming and all. But she never comes down here, so I wouldn’t plan on submitting any complaints if you don’t like the accommodations.”

  She stopped in front of a steel door.

  “Don’t worry,” Hannah said. “It’s perfectly adequate. At least, we don’t hear many complaints.”

  She pulled the chain from her neck, a half-dozen keys jangling. But instead of opening the door she balled the keys in her fist and stepped closer to Cass. “Look. I don’t know what happened to you, who made those marks on your back, and I’m sure it would be awfully convenient for everyone if you really were miraculously healed. But guess what-I don’t believe you.”

  She leaned in so only inches separated them, her hot breath on Cass’s face.

  “I. Don’t. Believe. You,” she repeated, pausing for emphasis on each word. “I don’t know what your angle is and I don’t know how you figure you’re going to work it. But there’s no such thing as healing. Don’t you think that if there was, we would have found it?”

  “I don’t know,” Cass shrugged, trying to project indifference. “If all you’re doing is standing around praying all day, I’m not sure you would have. From what I’ve seen-”

  “What you’ve seen was a whole lot of shit,” Hannah said, her face darkening with rage. “Which I guess we both know now. But you have no right to judge me. No right.”

  “I didn’t-”

  “Shut up,” Hannah said, stabbing the bunch of keys into Cass’s sternum, sending her stumbling backward. “Shut up. Unlike you, I came here because I’m a believer. And you know what I believe in? The future. I will do whatever I have to do to build the Order into something that works. A community. A life. Even if I have to put up with Cora’s insane little Beater project.”

  “But what about me?” Cass demanded, figuring she had nothing to lose. “That part’s true-I really was healed.”

  Hannah shook her head, lips pressed tight together in fury. “You don’t have any proof. So you’ve got some marks on your back-that could have been anything. An accident. I don’t know, some form of mumps or something you caught from your gutter-trash boyfriend. You didn’t get better from prayer, you just…got better.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Cass said. “You saw me. There’s no way I could have done that to myself. I would have-Anyone would be dead from what happened to me. Unless something changed me. Unless I was healed.”

  But Hannah was shaking her head. “You could have had someone do that to you. And it’s not as bad as it looks, as bad as Cora wants to think it is, it’s just scratches and scabs, it’s just-”

  “Would you stake your life on that?” Cass demanded, her frustration making her belligerent. “If I bit you, would you be willing to bet that I wasn’t infected then? What if I’m a carrier? What if-”

  The blow surprised her, coming hard above her left ear, sharp enough to stun. Suddenly she was on the floor, warm blood dripping into her ear, her head ringing with pain. Hannah stood above her with her gun in hand; she’d slammed the butt into her skull.

  “That’s right, I wouldn’t get too close to me if I was you,” Cass grunted, pulling herself up off the floor. She was gratified to see Hannah edge backward. “Maybe you ought to start praying after all, for insurance.”

  “You think you’re so smart. You think you can come here and…and suddenly you’re the great hope. You’re Cora’s pet. Well, you might want to think again. I’ve got plans. I’ve got plans for you.”

  “Look, I never asked for any of this. All I wanted-”

  “Save it. I don’t really care what you want. It’s about time I start worrying more about what I want. After everything I’ve done, for the Order, for her…” Hannah shook her head with disgust. She sorted through the keys, then unlocked the door and shoved Cass inside. “Nothing’s going to happen until morning anyway, so you’ll have lots of time to think. Maybe you can come up with your own little theory so we can all get together and talk about healing.”

  Cass caught only a brief glimpse of her prison in the second before the door slammed shut, enough to know she was in an old weight room with a cot set up in the middle. She fumbled her way to the cot in the dark and lay down, wondering if Monica was locked up somewhere like this nearby. After what seemed like hours, she fell into a fitful sleep.

  She woke to Hannah shining a flashlight in her eyes.

  “So Cora’s really going to do it. You’re the princess, I guess.”

  Last night’s fury was gone, replaced by a craftiness that was almost worse. As they walked back up the stairs to the main level, bright morning sun streamed through the walkway, and Cass smelled food cooking.

  The women were gathered for the morning meal. Little had changed since the night before except for a wooden pole that now rose from the center of the platform up front, and a low table that held a tray covered with a white cloth. A drifting feather was lodged near the top of the pole; it quivered for a moment in the breeze and then broke free and floated away.

  It was blue, a bluebird or blue jay feather, Cass didn’t know. She had never bothered to learn anything about birds, and now whole species had been lost. Some sort of small, brown, undistinguished bird had survived and even flourished, and a flock of them chattered from the stands, watching and waiting to swoop down for crumbs.

  The birds’ chatter and the clink of cutlery vied with quiet conversation, but both fell silent as she and Hannah passed. As they neared the platform Cass noticed another feature: an iron ring, bolted to the wood floor. The pole was maybe four feet tall, with some sort of clamp attached slightly above knee level. Two metal plates opposed each other; they were padded with leather or vinyl and there was about a foot of space between them. Cass had no idea what the clamp’s purpose was, but it looked ominous. She swallowed hard-what exactly was Cora planning?

  Hannah directed Cass to a chair placed a few feet to the side of the platform. Two women, one in pale pink and the other in red, silently stepped away from a nearby table and arrayed themselves behind her. Cass guessed they were there in case she tried to bolt.

  A murmur started in the back of the assembly and spread forward. Cass looked out over the crowd, shading her eyes from the sun, and saw two figures approaching from the field. Her heart quickened to see that one of them was Monica.

  She looked exhausted, as though she hadn’t slept at all. Her clothes were wrinkled and soiled. Her hair was tangled and knotted. A woman wearing a gray shirt and white pants-the only pants Cass had seen in the Convent ot
her than the ones she wore when she arrived-and a long black braid down her back walked next to her, hand on her belt, where Cass was certain she had a weapon.

  Monica passed directly in front of Cass without seeming to notice her. There were deep purple circles under her eyes, and she dragged her feet as she trudged to the platform.

  Cass understood now why Hannah had been smug. Whatever Cora had planned for Cass, there was also to be a public punishment-the reckoning they’d been talking about. But what were they going to do to Monica? The pole that loomed over the platform-was she to be tied to it, perhaps beaten? The things she’d done-challenging the doctrine, even refusing to drink the blood-did they really merit a public whipping?

  Mother Cora appeared from the opening in the stands that led to her quarters, elegant in a wine-colored tunic and skirt. She said a few private words to the deacons gathered at the front table and gave Cass a warm smile as she passed.

  The guard was binding Monica’s hands behind her back, and Monica shivered, frightened and forlorn, in the morning chill.

  Hannah followed Cora to the steps, bowing low before going to stand next to the guard behind the low table. Mother Cora regarded Monica with an expression that contained more sadness than anger, like a teacher whose favorite pupil had disappointed her.

  “Sister Brenda, you may begin,” she said into the microphone, and then she bowed her head and went unhurriedly back down the steps to her place at the head of the front table. The guard lifted the cloth and fussed with the contents of the tray while Hannah seized Monica by her dark hair and forced her to her knees, bending her head back forcefully so she could see what was coming, tears of pain streaming from her eyes.

  Sister Brenda moved with studied grace, lining up objects Cass couldn’t identify from a distance. When she was satisfied, she picked up a bowl and a sponge from the tray. She dipped the sponge into the bowl, drops of water sparkling in the morning sun.

  She crouched in front of Monica and dabbed the sponge almost tenderly at her face, then squeezed it so that rivulets of water ran down her neck. Monica sputtered and coughed, and Brenda returned the bowl and sponge to the table, and waited with her hands folded in front of her.