Sisters of Sorrow

by Axel Blackwell

“Yes, he was here, he fought with Joseph. I don’t think he lived.”

  “Very good, and this person?” Matilda flipped the photo again, this time it showed a picture of a man Anna had not seen.

  “I don’t recognize him, but I didn’t see everybody’s face.”

  “Hmm,” Matilda flipped the photo again, “and this person?”

  The card now showed a picture of Sister Eustace. Anna’s world shifted slightly. Eustace’s face from the previous night, rising out of the fog behind Donny, flashed through her head. The echo of the ax handle cracking across Donny’s skull reverberated in her mind. Anna stood stunned for a moment. At the edges of her vision, the world drifted, rotated.

  “Well, yes or no?” Matilda demanded.

  Anna blinked. They had been walking as Matilda showed her the photographs, Anna hadn’t noticed until just now. They now stood where the main entrance had been. Before them, only a few yards away, the Pacific gently lapped the shore. Behind them, the forest stood as a green line over a black shadow. On the sand-washed lawn, Jane walked toward them.

  “Yes,” Anna said quickly, not wanting Matilda to see Jane’s approach. “Yes, she was here. And yes, she is dead. A six year old shot her in the back with a silver bullet.”

  “Really! Well, that is fitting I suppose,” Matilda said. “Speaking of silver bullets, what about this person?” The photo now showed Hattie.

  “Ax in the head,” Anna said. “Dolores did it.”

  “Wonderful. And Dolores has the pistols, then?”

  “She…what? Who? I mean, Maybelle got it from Donny…”

  “No, Hattie’s pistols,” Matilda said. “Dolores would have taken them when she killed Hattie. Where are they now?”

  Why do you care about the pistols?

  Anna said, “I don’t know where they are. Dolores was captured after she killed Hattie. McCain probably took them back.”

  “Hmm.” Matilda looked at Anna the way a snake watches a bird. “I do not think you are being entirely honest with me.”

  “I don’t think you are being entirely honest with me, either,” Anna said. The coppery taste bubbled up in her throat as she said it. “Why do you care what happened to those pistols? This isn’t about Joseph and Dolores at all, is it?”

  Before Matilda could answer, Sarah stepped out of the shell that had been The Saint Frances de Chantal Orphan Asylum. She carried a long, thin blade. As she approached, she sheathed the blade inside her parasol. Small droplets of blood stained the right sleeve of her dress. She spoke, in a voice identical to Matilda’s. “There are no survivors.”

  “Hmm, very well,” said Matilda.

  Anna noticed a hole in Sarah’s dress, just below the left breast. It had not been there a moment ago. The edges of the hole were darkened, and tiny black specks surrounded it, burn marks.

  Matilda saw where Anna was looking and said, “Sarah, you seem to have torn a small hole in your bodice.”

  Sarah again glared at Matilda, cool death in her eyes. “It shall be no trouble to mend,” she said. “It looks like our friend is back.” Sarah walked past Matilda, blocking Jane.

  Another hole had appeared in Sarah’s dress, this one in the back, a bloodless exit wound.

  “Anna, pay attention now,” Matilda said, ignoring Jane. “We still have several photographs for you to identify, and a few objects to locate. I need Hattie’s pistols and…a key? Yes, I believe Dolores gave you a key. We will be needing that, as well. If we can finish up in a timely manner, I can leave you in peace. Do you recognize this man?”

  Anna didn’t look at the picture. She was forming her own picture in her mind. It was a dark and ugly picture, with these two women standing at the forefront.

  “You didn’t send Dolores to free Joseph. That wasn’t the real reason.” Anna said.” You sent her here to fight McCain.”

  “I did not send her at all,” Matilda said, “the coven did – to right her wrongs, and to repay her debts. But that is none of your business. Did you see this man or not?”

  The strawberry-copper syrup burned in her brain, but Anna still did not look at the picture. “What ‘wrongs’ and ‘debts’? She was orphaned and tortured for your coven. She watched her brother die rather than give you up.”

  “Her brother did not die. And that is the problem,” said Matilda. “We have been very careful, for centuries, to hide our existence. Our enemies had begun to believe they had wiped us out, or that we had never been real at all.

  “Before Joseph, McCain had only a handful of nutty fanatics in her order. Once his existence became known, well, McCain had no trouble recruiting an army of witch-hunters. What Dolores did ruined hundreds of years of careful work and planning, and cost several lives.”

  “So you sent her here, all by herself, to do battle against your enemies?” Anna asked.

  “No. I told you, I did not send her, the coven did. Enough, already! Look at the picture and tell…”

  “You didn’t even tell her what she was getting into, did you?” Anna asked. She felt the key in her pocket, her anchor, and clutched it tightly, fighting through the copper-strawberry bubbles in her brain. “She had no idea she would have to fight this army.”

  “No more questions!” Matilda nearly yelled. “I told you it is not your business, and you would not understand it, anyway. You have seen that we have power, to do good or to harm. I did not want to harm you, or your friends, but you will cooperate with my investigation.”

  “I will not,” Anna said. “I will answer no more questions until we come to terms. And you will not take Dolores from us. She is our sister, not yours.”

  “What? What terms? What are you babbling about? Of course she is not your sister…”

  “Before I answer another question, you will fix Donny, unswell his brain,” Anna said.

  “That is quite impossible…”

  “You will do it,” Anna said again. “You are lying. Somebody just shot your doppelganger, through the heart, and it didn’t hurt her. She stitched up my back and she didn’t even have a needle. I know you have the ability to fix him.”

  “No,” said Matilda. “I will not waste my strength or time on an orphan boy.”

  “That orphan boy is the only reason Dolores didn’t burn,” Anna said. “But that isn’t what you care about, so let me tell you something else, if not for that orphan boy, McCain would have killed Dolores long before all of her order arrived. None of them would have been killed. The only reason your sadistic little plan worked is because of that orphan boy.”

  “Be that as it may,” Matilda said, “his fate is not my concern.”

  “Then you may leave now,” Anna said, pointing to the silvery dinghy, “Because you will get nothing else from me. And you will not go anywhere near my girls.”

  “You do not want to make me your enemy, Anna,” Matilda said.

  “Lady!” Jane interrupted, in a voice that made Anna want to hide under a cot, “are you blind as well as stupid? Look around you. There used to be a fortress here. It stood here for a hundred years. It’s gone now. You know why? Because it made Anna its enemy. If anyone ought to be scared, lady, it’s you. There used to be a factory there, now it’s just a hole full of sand and seaweed, because it tried to keep Anna on this island.

  “Anna fought off an entire order of evil nuns, an army of mercenary witch-hunters, a pack of wolves and a—a—a Joseph-Thing, to rescue her girls and get us off this island. And now, you are going to just saunter up in your silly white dress and threaten her? I’ve seen a lot of moronic behavior since I’ve lived here, lady, but you take the cake. You are one dumb witch!”

  Sarah’s blade made the distinctive snict of steel on steel as she drew it. Matilda stayed her with a wave of her hand.

  “McCain’s order,” Anna said, speaking as the thoughts came to her, “they didn’t all die here. That’s what you want to know, right? McCain was waiting for reinforcements. She was trying to hold off Joseph’s attack until they arrived. It sounded like that
was the larger part of her army. Do you think that rumors of Joseph stirred up trouble for your coven? Just think what this will do. You’ve made a martyr of McCain.”

  Matilda and Sarah exchanged troubled glances.

  “In fact, the reinforcements are probably on their way as we speak.” Anna made a show of shielding her eyes and looking out to sea. “I’m surprised they haven’t arrived already. It seems to me that you would want to know which of McCain’s order remains alive, to know who is still hunting you. Also, I don’t think you would want them to find us, me and my girls. If you leave us behind, we could provide them with details you may not want them to have.”

  “You will tell them nothing,” Sarah hissed.

  “No, I won’t,” Anna said, “because you are going to help Donny, and then you are going to take us away from here.”

  Matilda studied Anna, then surveyed the horizon. Finally she said, “You are telling the truth.”

  Anna nodded.

  “Sarah, see to the boy,”

  “Matilda!” Sarah said.

  “Do it,” Matilda said. “Time is short.”

  Sarah whipped her blade from its parasol sheath. White-hot sunlight flared of its steel. She raised it above her left shoulder, then cross body slung it into the sand a Matilda’s feet. “Do not think that I will forget this,” she said. Her voice was ice and needles.

  Matilda raised one eyebrow.

  Sarah turned and marched toward the woods.

  When she had gone, Matilda said, “I am counting this as a debt you owe me, child. I do not give favors. You will tell me everything you know about who was here, about who died and how, and about who was coming to assist McCain. And when you have told me everything, you will still be in my debt. When I come to collect, you had better be ready to pay.”

  “You help Donny, and take my girls somewhere safe,” Anna said, her hand clutched the key in her pocket so tightly that her nails dug into her palm, but the strawberry copper taste was gone. “That is your end of the deal. My end of the deal is I saved Dolores from the army of witch-hunters that you set on her. That makes us even. I will give you the information I have as a favor to you. I owe you nothing.”

  “That is not the way I see it,” said Matilda. “But we must go, now. Collect your girls. We’ll hash out terms on the ship.” She stooped and retrieved Sarah’s blade from the sand. It glinted in the late morning sun.

  Anna nodded, as solemnly as she could, but inside she felt a glowing, radiant hope. “You get nothing from me until Donny has recovered.”

  “Then we shall speak this evening,” Matilda said in a cold, cold voice.

  Anna turned toward the wood line and was surprised to see Jane standing there, had forgotten her completely. Anna rushed to her and threw her arms around the older girl.

  “We’re leaving, Jane!” Anna whispered, trying not to let Matilda see her excitement. “We are sailing away from here forever. On that clipper ship. We’re finally free!”

  “I know!” Jane whispered back. She and Anna started jogging toward their little camp.

  “And Donny’s going to be okay!” Anna gasped as she ran, “They’re going to make him all better!”

  “Anna, slow down,” Jane said, still holding her hand. “You shouldn’t be running.”

  “Donny’s going to be okay!” The wood line moved away from her faster than she could run to it, but the ground came closer by the second.

  “Anna!” Jane shouted. It was the last thing Anna heard before pitching forward onto the beach. She plunged through the sand into swirling darkness. It was a very familiar feeling, one she was becoming accustom to, like swimming in the ocean.

  Chapter 28

  Anna awoke to the gentle side-to-side rocking of the clipper ship skimming across the sea. Sunlight streamed in through portholes, painting radiant oblongs on the floor. Reflections of saltwater scintillated on the ceiling.

  Donny rocked in a hammock beside hers. He looked almost exactly as he had the last time she had seen him, his eyes and mouth hanging partly open. A slow buzzing sound hummed out from between his lips. Anna had the horrible idea that a fly was trapped in there. Then the buzz drew out to a rattle and Anna realized that Donny was snoring.

  “Donny?” she said.

  The snore abruptly changed to a snort. Donny’s eyes popped open, bright and green, fully alive. “Anna!” he exclaimed, swinging his feet down from his hammock and rushing to her side. “We’re on a boat, Anna, a tall sailing ship! You’ve gotta see this thing! It’s amazing, flyin’ across the waves…”

  Anna threw her arms around him and hugged him so hard one of the stitches in her back nearly ripped out. “Shut up, Donny,” she choked through her tears. It was all she could manage before a sob clenched her throat. She wept into Donny’s shoulder until she wet his shirt with her tears. A clean white shirt, Anna realized, after she had soaked it. She clung to him while the clipper sliced through peaks and glided across valleys, rolling gently.

  Finally, she let him go, not all the way, just to arm’s length. “You’re not going to get sick are you?” she asked, trying to smile, only a hint of mischief in her voice.

  “Not this time,” he said. “One of those funny ladies gave me something to help with sea sickness. Uh, and um, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell…anybody about me being sick before.”

  “You mean you don’t want me to tell Lizzy,” Anna said.

  “Nah, that girl would probably follow me around no matter what you told her.” Donny paused then asked, “Anna, how’d we get on a boat? Last thing I remember, I was standing next to a bonfire, up to my knees in water, talking to you. Then, all of a’sudden I’m here. Jane says nobody’s allowed to say nothing to nobody about nothing until you wake up.”

  “Donny,” Anna tried to laugh, but it came out as a dry sob. She wiped at fresh tears running down her cheeks. “Donny, you got killed, by one of those crazy nuns. Then a witch brought you back to life.”

  Donny raised an eyebrow at her and whistled through his teeth, nodding. “Yeah, figured it was something like that.”

  This time Anna managed a real laugh. “No, you didn’t,” she said, bopping him on the shoulder. She let her feet drop from the hammock, wrapping her arm in his. “Can you take me to see my girls?”

  Donny led her up a narrow flight of stairs onto the deck of the clipper. The ocean spread out before her, a brilliant blue, all the way to the horizon on every side. It sparkled in the near blinding sunlight. Salt water sprayed as the sea slipped by below them. The wind played with Anna’s hair and cooled her damp cheeks.

  As her eyes adjusted to the light, Anna took in the ship. Three tall masts, with all sails full of wind, rose from its deck. The deck itself was probably a hundred feet from stem to stern. One of the witches, Anna could not tell if it was Matilda or Sarah, stood at the helm, wheel in her hands. She still wore the white silk gown. No other crew was visible.

  Anna turned and looked to the front of the ship. Below the fore mast, her girls sat in a little circle – Jane, Lizzy, Joan, Mary One, Norma, Lilly, Maybelle. They each wore a clean white dress, without a trace of grime on their faces. Jane stood as soon as she saw Anna, but made no move to approach. Maybelle jumped up at the sight of Donny, but Jane took her by the arm and gently sat her back down.

  Between Anna and her girls, another figure in white lounged, her feet resting on the railing and a broad brimmed hat covering her face. Anna guessed who it was by the bandages on her feet.

  As Anna approached, Dolores raised the brim of her hat and smiled. She extended her hand to Anna, and when Anna took it, Dolores pulled her in and wrapped her arms around her.

  “You came back for me,” Dolores said.

  “I had to…”

  “No. Anna, you didn’t,” Dolores said. “No one has ever come for me. I have always been alone. Do not discount what you have done. It is something no one has ever done before.”

  “Dolores, you’re one of us, you are one of my girls. How
could I have left you?”

  Dolores was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, she said, “I made sure that your girls were properly fed. They’ve also been bathed and clothed, as you can see. There’s a washtub below, and clean clothes for you as well, when you’re ready for them.”

  “Thank you, Dolores.”

  “Please,” she said in a voice that sounded angry but wasn’t. “Please don’t thank me. It was the least I could do. I’m sorry, Anna, I – I have been alone for a long time, and I wasn’t planning on being alive today. I’m having a difficult time…knowing how to behave. It may take me some time to remember how to be a friend.”

  Anna knelt beside her, trying to know what to say. She stared out at the sparkling waves. “Not a friend, Dolores, a sister. You are a fine sister. And we saved each other, I never would have made it out of there without you, nor would my girls.” After a pause she added, “I think I like you better when you don’t behave.”

  “You never did, did you?” Dolores smiled.

  “No,” Anna said, “I suppose not.”

  “Jane said you wanted to see the ocean,” Dolores said after another pause. “I hope it is as wonderful as you imagined.”

  “It is,” Anna said. “It’s almost hard to look at. It just goes on and on forever, like it’s not real. I keep thinking I’m going to wake up back in Saint Frances, or in the cistern.”

  “It’s real enough, Anna,” Dolores said, squeezing her hand. “You’ll have plenty of time to adjust. Don’t expect to see anything but ocean for several weeks.”

  “Weeks?” Anna said. “Where are we going?”

  “What did you tell Matilda?” Dolores turned to her with a teasing grin and a little wickedness in her teary eyes. “She seems to think she needs you, seems to think you are too important to trifle with.”

  “All I said was that some of McCain’s army was still…” Anna paused, then said, “I think maybe Jane might have over stated my role in McCain’s demise.”

  Dolores smiled out at the ocean. “We’re sailing to Australia, Anna. There’s a school for young ladies in Perth. Matilda says you and your girls can stay there. ‘Until you’ve grown’ is how she put it.”