Page 12 of The Sinner and the Scholar
I clear my throat.
He jolts and faces me. Pity enters me at the fear in his eyes. He hears the worst from us and still has to find a way to sleep at night. I give him another week before he packs it in and returns to the local diocese for sanctuary.
“Dorothea,” he greets with a crack in his voice.
“Father.”
“You look troubled, child.” His complexion pales.
“You know what that means.”
Father gestures at the single one-person pew facing the wall.
Right. Assume the position.
He offers, “Perhaps a few extra hours in the kitchen will suffice for penance?”
“Not this time.” I pluck the scourge from a hook on the wall and place it in his shaking hands. “Thank you.”
He hesitates. This is where we lose most of them. They try to go easy on us, but easy is for the weak. It’s not enough. It’s never enough. He gives a resigned nod.
I could do it myself. Some of us do. But I need someone else to do it for me, or I’ll make up some excuse and procrastinate. I need him to witness my efforts, to make it real.
I take a deep breath and remove my clothes until I’m in a bra, panties, blood, vomit, and a crucifix around my neck. I kneel, clasp my hands together and close my eyes to pray.
A rasp sounds behind me as he runs his fingers along the whip.
“Forgive me, Father,” I murmur. “For I have sinned. It has been one day since my last confession. And these are my sins.”
* * *
Hot water sprays my face,numbing any feeling left after penance. I rest my forehead on the cool tiles, my lack of sleep catching up.
Disturbing images flicker behind my eyes. Sounds. Smells. The possessed man. The kingpin. The nightclub I’d found them in. The using myself as bait despite the bile rising in my gullet. His greasy hands ripping at my dress in the dark alley, and the hiss of rancid breath when he exposed my breasts… and the blessed crucifix I’d tucked there.
I’m still struggling to describe what happened next. It was a feeling. A vibration in the air… a knowing. Pure to the bone, evil stared at me from out of those soulless eyes. A flash of the demon himself before the unintelligible vitriol spewed forth. The weird, guttural voice sounded more like it came from a cloven-footed beast than a man. I can’t believe I froze in fear.
Two for flinching.Prudence’s voice floats from my memories. After arriving at the abbey, she spent a year following me around, jump-scaring me and then punching me twice in the arm—hard—if I flinched.
Sinnersneverfreeze in battle. We’re too hardened. Too seasoned. But I did. When that demon looked at me, I goddamn froze. I stabbed a sanctified dagger deep into his chest, and he exploded.
Father tried to tell me not to be so hard on myself, that the man I killed was possessed, but he was still a man. Someone loved him enough to answer the ad we put in the paper. There might have been a way to save him.
The shower goes cold. I turn off the faucet and step into the tiny bathroom—the only one we share on this level, which is hard enough with all the women living on this floor. Now we have to add five men. Perhaps four if the Monsignor sleeps downstairs where the Magpies and the Rev stay. Far away from the tainted chaos of us Sinners.
I wrap myself in a threadbare towel, put on my spectacles, and wipe condensation from the mirror. The reflection staring back at me is as foreign as she was this morning. Brown skin. Thick dark lashes. Brown, empty eyes. Dark long hair plastered to my face and shoulders. I often wonder if I’d look the same without the Sisterhood. Would those lines bracketing my lips be there? Would that hardness exist beyond the pretty smile? It’s impossible to be sure.
Who are my family? Would they want me if they saw me today? Would they care that I sacrifice my soul for a better world? Did they even care in the first place, or are they all dead?
I hate not knowing where I come from. It’s like I’m constantly floating, with nothing to ground me.
All I have are vague memories of playing between the legs of a family near a well-stocked party table. My family were giants to my small body. Other children played with me. We must have been doing something naughty because we ran outside after being scolded. I remember the smell of spicy, sweet, and salty food, and then there’s some sport on TV. I don’t know which sport, only that the drone of the commentator’s voice was so familiar it felt comforting. That’s all I have of my past—fleeting memories, feelings, and deja vu.
In my reflection, I glimpse welts on my back and wince as my raw skin pulls tight. No blood was drawn this time, but there is something else—a scratch. I frown and crane further. It’s more than a scratch. It looks like a strange symbol carved into me with a crude blade… but I never put it there, and Father McBride certainly didn’t. The carved circle has six lines dissecting, kind of like the symbol on the severed hand. Maybe it’s the same. I should take a picture.
A clatter at the window stops me. I look up and see a crow on the sill, pecking at the glass, its beady eyes watching me.
Tap. Tap. Caw.
