by Duncan, Lex
“St. Agatha's?” He wheezed, taking another sip of water to counteract the choking.
I looked between them, confused. As usual, I was the last one in on the joke. “Should I know this place?”
“You will soon,” Mother Arden said. “It's a wonderful institution. Very exclusive.”
“Institution?” My experiences with that word were less than stellar. School was an institution. The sanatorium was an institution. The orphanage was an institution. I didn't like institutions.
“It's a home for young women like yourself,” Mother Arden explained quickly, her smile wilting at the edges.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Think of it as a transition between the orphanage and independent living. St. Agatha's gives you room and board, hot meals, internships―”
“At where, a nunnery?”
Her smile vanished completely. “This isn't a cloister, Beatrice. It's run by the Church, yes, but it's meant to get you on your feet. Not convert you.”
Hallelujah. I still wasn't going. “I can't go. What about school?”
“You'll attend Sacred Crown,” she said.
Sacred Crown. What a joke. That place was for rich kids and parents too scared to send their precious offspring to the evil that was public school. “I'm not going there. They'd expel me for being poor.”
“What would you do, then?” Mother Arden asked, voice taught. “This was a temporary living situation. Mr. Arturo has been generous enough.”
I looked to Mr. Arturo for support. He reached for his water, took a sip, then put it back down.
“Beatrice is always welcome here,” he said.
I managed a weak smile.
“―But I don't think St. Agatha's is a bad idea.”
My smile disappeared. I felt like I'd been slapped with a dead fish. “What?”
“You need to make a life for yourself,” he said. “St. Agatha's will help.”
He missed a word. He wanted me to make a normal life for myself. I didn't want normal. I didn't want a shitty job at a diner. I didn't want St. Agatha's or an internship. I wanted to kill demons. I wanted to help people like Rosie and Mr. Zarcotti. I wanted to stay here.
“I have made a life for myself,” I said, tossing my fork down. It skittered across the table and clinked against Dante's plate. “It may not be what you want it to be, but it's a life.”
I went to school regularly. I got my homework done. I didn't go to bed hungry. I wasn't in any danger. I was good. I was stable. I didn't understand why Dante was so eager to mess all that up. Moving from my apartment was one thing, but this?
This was different than last time. I'd moved out of my apartment for my own safety. If I moved, I'd probably be putting myself in harm's way yet again. Someone―the mayor?―had it out for me. I thought we'd established that when my apartment was vandalized with the blood of a mutilated demon dog, when Mr. Zarcotti was murdered.
Once was coincidence. Twice was premeditated. I didn't want to know what would happen the third time.
Mother Arden reached for my hand. “If you're afraid to move after what happened, there are steps we can take―”
“You don't get it, do you?” I swiped my hand away, pushed my plate aside. I was too mad to be discreet. Too mad to keep secrets. “You think what happened at my apartment was a one-time thing, but it wasn't. I don't know if you've been watching the news lately, but Mr. Zarcotti was killed because of me!”
“Who wants dessert?” Aralia popped up from her chair like she'd been sitting on a spring. A stricken smile parted her lips. “I made cake!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Max raise his hand.
“Excellent!” She addressed the rest of us. “Anyone else? Beatrice? Mother Arden? Dante? Cake?”
“No, thank you,” Mother Arden couldn’t stop staring at me long enough to take a single bite of cake anyway. “Mr. Zarcotti?”
“My neighbor across the hall,” I replied, feeling my anger ebb in favor of grief. “The whole building was wrecked like my apartment was. Whoever did it killed my landlord, too.”
A long period of silence crept in, thick as fog. Aralia scurried off to the kitchen to get the cake. Dante got up to join her. Max drank some more of his water.
Mother Arden sighed. “Why didn't you tell me, Beatrice?”
“I didn't want you to freak out,” I said, compressing a month's worth of guilt into a single sentence. “I didn't want you to think that I'm not capable of handling myself, because I am. I'm different now. Stronger.”
“You've always been strong,” she replied with quiet conviction. “Always.”
Funny. Because prior to moving here, I never really felt strong. I told myself I was because that's what kept me going most days―the thought of my supposed strength―but mostly, I just felt lost. Incompetent. Helpless. Like a toddler stomping around in her parent's shoes, daydreaming about what it was to fill them. “Maybe, but now I actually feel like it. I can help people, Mother Arden. I want to help people.”
After a long moment of consideration, she sighed again. “There is nothing I can say that will change your mind, is there?”
I shrugged in lieu of a victory dance. She'd given in. For once, I won. Made her see things my way for a change. “It was a good effort on your part.”
“But I do think St. Agatha's will―”
“And you were doing so well, too.”
“You can't stay here forever, Beatrice.”
“I know, but I figured I could stay until I graduate and then I'll...”
Dante came in from the kitchen with Aralia trailing behind him, whispering fervent things in his ear. He shook her off. In turn, she blew out an aggravated breath and said, “fine, have it your way,” before storming back into the kitchen.
“I forgot the cake,” she said.
“What's going on?” I asked. Dante had his Serious Face on. The frown, the furrowed brow, the stiff posture. I knew it well. Could probably sketch it from memory at this point.
“I want you to leave, Beatrice,” he said. “Go to St. Agatha's.”
I was in the midst of learning an important lesson. Betrayal wasn't a knife in the back. It wasn't a kiss on the cheek. It was Dante, standing there and telling me to get out of his house when, not even two hours before, he claimed that I was the last person he wanted to hurt.
“You want me to leave,” I repeated dumbly.
“Yes,” he said coldly. I thought that, maybe, after what he said in the car...He was going to let me in. Open up. This was the exact opposite of opening up. “You need to leave. You need to make a life for yourself.”
“What about what you said in the car, huh?” Fury sparked in my chest. Burning in place of the ache. Fury, and a deep sense of pain. It was all I could do not to cry. Or throw my chair against the wall. Or both. “Do you even care about me at all or were you lying?”
“Beatrice―”
“You wouldn't have found the―” I paused, glancing at Mother Arden. I wasn't mad enough to mention the book in front of her. Yet. “―thing without me. You need me, Dante. I can help you, I want to help you, so for the love of God, just let me!”
I thought I saw a trace of indecision on his face. A genuine measure of something. A something which he stamped out as quickly as it came. “No.”
“No?”
“You're still a teenager, Beatrice.”
“Is that what this is about? Do you think I can't make my own decisions about what I want?”
“I never said that―”
“―I want to say here―”
“You can't,” he took a step toward my chair, the pained tremor in his voice startling me into silence. “You can't stay here. Not anymore. I'm sorry.”
I couldn't bear to look at him, so I looked at the table instead. My half eaten plate of food. My full glass of water. I wanted to throw it at him. “I get that this is your house and I get that you can kick me out whenever you want, but if you're going to do that, at leas
t have the decency to think of a good excuse.”
“I'm not kicking you out, Beatrice.”
“Oh, really? Because it sure seems that way.”
“I just want you to be safe.”
“Safe from what, Dante? You?”
He hesitated and I had my answer.
I didn’t know why he was acting like this. We were fine a few days ago and now he just—Ugh! I slapped my napkin down on the table and got to my feet. “Fine, Dante. Whatever. I'm done letting you jerk me around. If you want me out of your house, I'll leave, but don't pretend you're doing me a favor. You aren't protecting me. You aren’t caring about me, because when you care about someone, you don’t—you don’t do this!”
“Beatrice,” Mother Arden’s crooked fingers rested on my wrist. “Perhaps you should sit down.”
“No,” I replied, angrily wiping a stray tear away. “I can't. I have to go pack.”
***
I’d been on the move for eighteen years. I moved from my parents' house to the orphanage at the tender age of seven because they tried to kill me. Eleven years later, I got kicked out of the orphanage because some other poor kid needed my bed more than I did. Then I entered an uncertain state of limbo. For four weeks and three days, I had nowhere to go. I slept wherever I could and ate whatever I could get for free. I showered in the school's locker room. I got dressed in the stalls.
I did what I had to to get by.
And then I found an apartment. A slum near the Old Quarter. Marion took a chance on me, and though he threatened to multiple times, he never kicked me out.
Now he was dead. And I was on the move yet again.
I dragged my old tubs up from the basement. Stuffed my clothes and the rest of my possessions inside. Aralia helped. So did Max. Morgenstern even made an appearance, whining as I scratched behind his ears. Dante was the only absentee.
When we were finished, Aralia gave me a hug and made me promise that I'd call from time to time. Max assured me that he'd keep me updated on any demonic happenings, then tried to shake my hand. I gave him a hug instead. Morgenstern followed me to Mother Arden's van. We stacked the tubs in the back, and in a little under an hour, it was like I'd never even occupied that big room upstairs with the moth eaten blankets.
Dante got what he wanted. Again.
Twenty-Two
St. Agatha's Home for Girls was a castle fit for war. A behemoth of stone, it stood tall against the backdrop of the coast, its many turrets sticking out like spikes ready to impale any and every intruder. The lawn was impeccably trimmed and the fountain wasn't broken or choked with weeds. The trees didn't huddle protectively around the building and the roof was firmly intact. A pair of wrought iron gates guarded the driveway. They were mostly there for show.
Few people came through them. Even fewer came out.
Mother Arden dropped me off two weeks ago under the condition that I'd give it a trial run so long as I was still allowed to attend Stone Chapel High.
I was issued exactly five uniforms, a hefty rulebook, a copy of the Bible, and a key to my room. Third floor. Number 315. My roommate was an excessively quiet girl named Sadie Li who flinched every time I opened my mouth.
I think I scared her a little.
On the first night, all one hundred ten of us were herded into a small chapel connected to the main building for evening prayers. I bowed my head, closed my eyes, and went over hunting techniques for an hour. When prayers were finished, we ate dinner in the dining hall, a gaping space filled with heavy wooden tables and gobs of white candles. A crucifix bigger than any I'd ever seen watched over us from the apex of the room.
“Doesn't it creep you out?” I asked Sadie, waving my fork in Jesus's direction.
She stared at me like the blasphemer I was, looked at the crucifix to assess its creepiness, then went back to nibbling her bread. We didn't speak for the rest of the evening.
In the subsequent days, I went to school. Spent lunch in the library with Ms. Hayworth. She asked me about Dante. I told her not to bother. When I got back to St. Agatha's, a different chore list was tacked to the bulletin board on our door. Sadie and I were assigned to the chapel. We'd be polishing pews for the next month.
Now, two weeks later, after pew polishing and dinner eating, I sat in my little room on my little bed with my little stack of index cards, scribbling a demonology related question on one side of each card and the answer to said question on the other. I was determined to cram as much knowledge about demons as I could into my overcrowded brain, if only to prove a point.
Dante needed me. And I was going to make him see it.
Sadie, busy knitting a sweater or a scarf or something on the bunk below, was my silent companion. I'd hoped to goad her out of that silence tonight.
“Hey,” I said, leaning over the side of my bed. I thrust the stack of cards down to her. “Can you help me with these?”
She put her wooly creation aside, blinked up at me.
I slapped on my best smile, strands of hair falling into my eyes. “Pretty please?”
Hesitantly, she took the cards and awaited further instruction.
“You're the best, Sadie,” I said, and meant it. “All you have to do is read me the question and tell me if I got it right. Cool?”
She nodded.
Cool.
For the first time since I moved in, my roommate spoke. Her voice reminded me of Rosie's. Soft and warm. Like a favorite sweater. “What is transmutation?”
Transmutation. What Aralia said had happened to that dog in my apartment. Dante and I discussed this in one of our training sessions.
“The fusion of two organic beings by a demonic force. Lots of scary ritual involved. Doesn't usually turn out well. Outlawed by the government.”
“Er, correct,” Sadie said. “I think.”
I did a celebratory fist pump. “Awesome. Next question.”
“Beatrice, what are these―”
“Research for a project I'm doing. Don't worry, it's not sacrilegious or anything.”
Well, that depended on your definition of the word. But Sadie didn't need to know that.
A pause, then the next question. “What are the Five Sacraments? In Order.”
This was an easy one. “Creation, Destruction, Banishing, Summoning, and Exorcism.”
“Correct. Why is it recommended that we take iron supplements as part of a healthy diet?”
“Demons are allergic to it. Keeping your iron count high lowers the risk of possession.”
“Correct. How can you tell if someone or something is possessed?”
“The eyes. The deterioration of the body. The change in speech. Animals mutate over time. Grow horns. Extra legs. Stuff like that. They also smell. Badly.”
“Correct.”
We'd gotten through most of the stack by the time lights out was called. Sadie handed the cards back up to me and I wrapped a rubber band around them to keep from losing any, then tucked them underneath my pillow for safe keeping. I'd gotten every question right. Now if only that worked for math tests.
“Beatrice?” Sadie asked after a while.
I stared up into the dark, unsettled by quiet. In my apartment, I had someone's music or someone's kid or someone's sex life keeping me awake. At Dante's, I had the crickets. Here, I had nothing but Sadie. And she'd be going to sleep soon. “Yeah?”
“You aren't working on a project, are you?”
I was glad she couldn't see my face. My lie would've been obvious. “Uh. Kind of? Not really. I mean, sort of. It's complicated.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Yeah.” It was too quiet to let the conversation end there. I never thought I'd miss the crickets. “Sadie?”
“Yes?”
“How did you end up here?”
“My parents were killed by our neighbor when I was three.” She said. “He was possessed. I've lived in orphanages ever since. And now I live here.”
“That sucks,” I said. Three years was an awfully sh
ort time. At least I had some memory of my parents. I doubted Sadie had any. “Mine got possessed. Tried to kill me. The cops had to shoot them.”
Another bit of rustling. “I'm so sorry.”
I blinked. “It happens.” And it did. A lot. That St. Agatha’s even had to exist was proof enough.
The last thing I heard before I closed my eyes was a yawn and two quiet words:
“Goodnight, Beatrice.”
My eyes snapped open. The breath caught in my throat. A familiar ache blossomed in my chest. Goodnight, Beatrice. That was me and Dante’s thing. And then he ruined it.
I couldn't let him do that. I couldn't let him ruin a perfectly normal phrase. Sadie was trying to be nice. She deserved a response.
So, I sucked it up. Tossed my sadness aside like a broken toy I didn't need anymore. Responded. “Goodnight, Sadie.”
***
Ms. Hayworth held out a fruit cup as I walked through the door. “Peaches?”
I wrinkled my nose. “No, thanks.”
“Are you sure?” She peeled it open regardless and grabbed a plastic fork off her desk, ready to dig in as soon as I gave the word.
“I'm not a big peach fan,” I said, putting my backpack and tray down on my usual table. Lunch in the library was swiftly becoming a habit. With Rosie in the sanatorium, I didn't really have friends here. Eating alone was fine but eating with Ms. Hayworth was better. Mostly because we had TV. “Besides, I have all this delicious, uh, food to eat.”
“What is it today?” She dragged her chair up next to mine, peaches in hand. “I haven't checked.”
I appraised the hunk of meat on my plate. It was smothered in some grayish-brown substance and accompanied by a heap of plastic looking green beans. “Salisbury steak? I think.”
“It doesn't look bad,” Ms. Hayworth said. I always thought of her as being entirely too nice.
Myself, on the other hand...
“It looks like cat food.”
She laughed so hard that she snorted a bit of peach juice up her nose. “Beatrice!”
“What?” I unwrapped my utensils and stabbed my fork in the steak. The “gravy” seeped into the green beans, saturating them in processed gray. Gray beans. Somehow, way less appealing than their green counterparts. “You can't tell me this doesn't look like cat food.”
