Sisters of Sorrow (2 page)

The Saint Frances de Chantal Orphan Asylum was a fortress-like structure consisting of two long wings joining at a center rotunda. The factory occupied the entire lower floor of the south wing. The top floor housed the dining hall, kitchen, and the nuns’ living quarters. The orphans slept in the dormitory halls of the north wing. The north wing stood as tall as the south but was only a single story, with high, vaulted ceilings. Anna had heard tell of a basement below the north wing, but she had never seen it.

All the offices were located in the rotunda, the Great Round Room. It served as the main entrance to Saint Frances de Chantal, featuring massive oak double doors, and a high domed ceiling and mosaic marble floor. A wide balcony wrapped around two-thirds of the rotunda’s mezzanine level, terminating on either end in broad staircases that swept down to the double doors. Sister Eustace’s office was on the mezzanine level.

Anna could have entered the Great Round Room directly from the factory, but the orphans were not allowed to use the formal staircases. Instead, she climbed the back stairs from the factory to the kitchen, then exited the kitchen onto the mezzanine’s balcony through a narrow service door.

Anna sat on the wooden bench outside Sister Eustace’s office, waiting to be summoned. She stared over the railing and out across the empty dome of the Great Round Room. Pairs of sisters hurried up and down the stairs, or back and forth over the balcony, carrying boxes or files or stacks of linen. They chattered in hushed tones, until they saw Anna, at which point they fell silent and hurried past.

Anna felt she had been sitting on the very hard bench for hours when the bell struck a single note, indicating the time was seven-thirty. The bell hung in its tower, sixty feet above the center of the rotunda. Anna liked to stand on the star at the middle of the Great Round Room and stare up at the bell, imagining the view from up there. She liked to watch the pigeons that occasionally flew in through the openings at the top of the tower.

What would it be like to be one of those pigeons? Anna wished she could flap noisily around the enormous dome until Abbess McCain herself came out to see what was causing all the commotion. Then her pigeon would fly up to the bell, plop a dropping on it just for spite, and soar out of the fortress to discover whatever may lie beyond its walls. She especially wished that right now. Her breakfast was not sitting easily in her stomach. Her underarms were damp, despite the morning’s chill, but her mouth was quite dry.

When the call finally came, Anna stood so quickly her head buzzed, and her vision clouded over briefly. One knee popped. She straightened her dress, opened the door and walked into the office.

She stood before Sister Eustace’s expansive desk, hands clasped behind her back. The sister fussed over a stack of papers, ignoring Anna. Beyond the old nun, double glass doors opened onto a white stone patio, providing a glimpse of the grounds around Saint Frances. Anna had arrived at the orphanage when she was nine and had not seen the outside since that day, five years ago.

Through the doors, she could see a luxurious grass lawn surrounded by a dense forest of fir trees and madronas. On the right edge of the view, the lawn dropped away over a steep hill. A thin ribbon of blue lined the edge of the horizon just beyond that drop, the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Strait connected the Puget Sound to the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean connected to every other place in the world. More than anything else, Anna wanted to see the ocean, maybe even swim in it someday – if she ever learned to swim.

“Anna!” Sister Eustace said.

“Yes, Ma’am.” Anna snapped her eyes back to the nun.

“Stop gawking.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why are you here?”

“You called for me, ma’am.”

“Of course, I called for you, child! But why? What have you done that has necessitated me calling for you?”

Anna wrung her hands behind her back. “Ma’am, I’m sure I don’t know, ma’am.”

“Come, now! You are at all times up to some wickedness!” Sister Eustace snatched up the leather crop and pointed it at Anna. “Have you been hoarding blankets again? Or trying to climb out the dormitory windows?”

“No, ma’am. I promise. The windows are much too narrow for me to squeeze through.”

“Ah! So you have tried it.”

“Just once, ma’am, and that was long ago.”

“Whatever for?” Sister Eustace nearly sprang out of her chair. “Don’t you know a fall from that height would kill you? The wolves would have eaten you right there on the lawn.” Blood drained from Sister Eustace’s face, and she settled back into her chair. “The wolves or something worse.”

Anna said nothing, trying to keep her eyes from wandering back to the glass doors.

“No matter,” Sister Eustace said, recomposing herself. “No matter. The Church has seen fit to entrust us with the care of the most incorrigible and deviant urchins, and I am sure we are up to the task. Whatever mischief you have sought out has certainly come back to you today, child.

“There is a decidedly nasty bit of work that needs doing, and Abbess McCain named you as the girl for the job. You will be cleaning the cistern overflow pipes today, Anna,” Sister Eustace concluded with a hint of triumph in her voice.

Anna looked at her with blank confusion, which clearly disappointed Sister Eustace.

The nun grunted, then elaborated, “The storm we had three weeks ago washed a great quantity of debris into the overflow pipes. With the constant rain, all our cisterns are nearly full. If the debris is not removed from the pipe, soon we will have rain-water flooding the factory.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t understand.”

“Of course not. But there’s not much
to
understand, and the job is simple enough. You do know that The Saint Frances de Chantal Orphan Asylum stands on an island, don’t you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Well, why else would we have brought you by boat?” Sister Eustace demanded.

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“That is right, you don’t know. There is much you don’t know. And you’d do well to keep that in mind.

“But as I was saying, because we are on an island, we have no fresh water but the rain which we collect in underground cisterns. It is our good fortune that it rains so frequently here. We seldom want for water, but sometimes the excess is a problem. As it is now. There are pipes that drain this surplus into the sea. But, as I said, these pipes have become blocked.

“The cisterns lie directly beneath the factory and the rotunda. If the blockage is not removed, the factory will flood, and you and your little charges will not be able to work.” Sister Eustace pointed her crop at a framed bit of needlework that hung on the wall behind her desk.
If a child will not work, neither shall he eat
, it proclaimed in dainty little cross-stitched X’s.

“You will need to crawl down the pipe and clear the blockage. I would have preferred to select one of the boys, but any that are competent to handle the task are also too broad in the shoulders to fit down the pipe.

“You, Miss Anna, have proven yourself quite capable of squeezing into tight spaces and operating under cover of darkness. Abbess McCain specifically requested you for this assignment. She thought it would be a natural match for your talents. She also thought it would serve as a reminder that she still has her eye on you.” Sister Eustace said this last piece sternly, pointing the crop at Anna.

“Yes, ma’am,” Anna said, looking at the floor.

“Very well, then. Sister Elizabeth will take you below and show you the cisterns. But first, this is Maybelle Lawson.” Sister Eustace motioned to a girl seated in the corner. She looked to be about six years old. Her eyes were red and swollen. She had apparently been seated there the entire time Anna had been in the room but had not made a sound.

“Maybelle is to be one of your charges. Her parents have been jailed for some depravity which was particularly embarrassing to their extended family, none of whom felt obliged to care for little Maybelle or her unfortunate brother. Her brother, Donald, was also to be housed here, but he passed away quite suddenly, leaving little Maybelle truly alone.”

Anna nodded at the girl. Maybelle stared back but did not acknowledge her in any way.

“She hasn’t spoken since her brother passed,” Sister Eustace said. “But she seems bright enough, not an idiot, anyway. We certainly do not lack for idle chatter around here, do we Anna?”

“No, ma’am.”

“So, if she does remain a mute, perhaps I will consider it a blessing. In any case, she will be in your care during her stay with us. I will have Jane situate her tonight, as you will likely still be working in the pipes, but after that, she will be your responsibility.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Sister Elizabeth!” Sister Eustace called. Sister Elizabeth appeared in the doorway, holding a burlap potato sack. “Would you be so kind as to show Miss Anna to the work I have assigned her?”

“I would be delighted, Sister Eustace,” Sister Elizabeth said with a sardonic grin.

Anna followed Sister Elizabeth out onto the mezzanine balcony and back to the narrow service door. The service door was a flat panel set flush into the walls around it. When closed, it blended with the surrounding walls and almost disappeared. Though everyone at the orphanage knew of it, Anna liked to imagine it was a secret door. In a structure as old and eccentric as The Saint Frances de Chantal Orphan Asylum, Anna imagined there must be many secrets.

After descending the back stairs into the factory, Sister Elizabeth led Anna out through a riveted iron door, into rooms forbidden to the orphans. A warehouse and loading area lay beyond. Wooden crates stood stacked to the ceiling on one side of the room. Ream after ream of shoe leather lined the other. At the far end, two carriage style doors opened to the outside.

Anna stood mesmerized. Out these doors, the bright blue sea stretched to the horizon, flashing in the early morning sun. A pier and dock dropped down the beach and into the water. A boat of some sort bobbed alongside it. Black smoke wafted out the top of the boat’s stack. Seagulls wheeled in the air above the boat and squabbled over prime perches on the dock’s pilings. The sea air smelled fresh. Waves splashed under the dock and lapped the shore.

Then,
SNAP!
and a fiery sting bloomed across the back of her thigh. Anna spun to face Sister Elizabeth. Before she could beg forgiveness, Sister Elizabeth struck her across the face with the crop. Anna staggered backward and fell into the wall. Blood filled her mouth. Her tongue found a gash on the inside of her cheek.

“Get up!” Sister Elizabeth bellowed. “What is the matter with you? Do you think you are on a tour? Sightseeing? Slothfulness is a sin. The worst sin there is here at Saint Frances.”

Anna got to her feet, cowering against the wall. “I’m sorry, Sister…”

“Lying is a sin, as well. You are not sorry for anything you have done. I tell you what, you little demon, if I was the one who caught you trying to climb out that window, I would not have pulled you back. I’d have shoved you right through!” Sister Elizabeth advanced on Anna, raising the crop. “And if I had been the one with the knife when we caught you and Rebecca, I wouldn’t have stopped with your little finger.”

She swung the crop in a quick forehand
SNAP
backhand
SNAP
at Anna’s face. Anna threw her hands up, catching both lashes on her forearms. She sank into a half squat.

Sister Elizabeth raised the crop again, then lowered it. “Stand up.”

Anna stood.

“I should beat you more, you deserve it, but there is work to do, and I am tired. If you give me any more trouble today, even the least bit, I give you my holy oath, I will drown you in that pipe.” She thrust the crop at Anna. “Do you doubt me? It is not the
righteous
nuns who get sent to Saint Frances de Chantal. Don’t you know that by now?”

“No, ma’am,” Anna said, her eyes wide, her back still pressed into the wall.

“Then you are a fool,” Sister Elizabeth sighed. “And I have no patience for fools. But, take me at my word, Anna, you wouldn’t be the first little rat to drown in that pipe… or to be eaten by whatever lives down there. You do as I tell you and give me no sass. Have I made myself clear?”

Anna nodded, slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on the sister, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Very well, then. Carry that.” She nodded at the potato sack she had dropped. “Walk in front of me. It’s not far now.”

They exited the warehouse through a low arched passage. Before closing the warehouse door, Sister Elizabeth opened a box on the wall and withdrew an odd contraption; a round, concave mirror – slightly larger than a baseball – attached to a brass cylinder. She shook what looked like gray pebbles out of a paper sleeve and dropped them into the cylinder, then poured a bit of water in as well.

“It’s a miner’s lamp, child. Watch carefully. This will be your only light down there.” She pointed to a small metal wheel on the inside of the concave mirror. “This is how you relight it, if it goes out.” Sister Elizabeth flicked the little wheel. It spat sparks and a yellow flame popped to life at the mirror’s center.

Anna nodded.

Sister Elizabeth grinned. “After you.”