Chapter 3
KATARINA
That night, the dream returned. Maybe it was because of the devil I’d seen on the grounds of Hallow Hall, or because I’d missed two days of medication, but whatever caused it, it was nearly unbearable.
In the nightmare, there was always a baby crying. The crying sound seemed to be coming from the next room, but when I went there, it was gone, moving farther and farther away.
In the dream, I was locked in Hallow Hall, but none of the doors would open, and the windows were all nailed shut.
The smell of smoke came from somewhere, but I didn’t know where.
People rushed around, but no one stopped to tell me what was happening.
I tried to find the fire or the baby, but I just went from empty room to empty room.
I’d been having the same dream for so long, I wasn’t expecting a deviation.
This time, I saw her.
My mother.
She kept leaving every room just as I entered it. I had to catch up to her. I needed to ask her something. It was always on the tip of my tongue, just out of reach.
I almost caught up with her. My fingers brushed her sleeve, but when she swiveled around, it wasn’t my mother.
“Mira?” I cried out, pain and grief crushing my heart in half.
My best friend stared at me with wide, bleeding eyes. I stumbled back from the sight of the long lines of blood falling down her face. Fire licked the walls behind her.
“Mira! Be careful of the fire,” I managed to pant out, reaching toward her.
My fingers only just managed to touch the hard shape of her swollen belly.
In her clinging, paper-thin white hospital gown, her nine-month-pregnant belly strained against the material.
Her long hair streamed around her shoulders, and her eyes wept red.
“Prosti mi, zashtoto s?greshikh,” she whispered right in my ear, despite the distance between us.
Forgive me, for I have sinned.
Then she wheeled to the fiery doorway behind her, stepping toward it.
“No!” I pushed myself forward and reached for her, but a hard hand tugged me back. I stumbled into a bony chest and looked up to see who had grabbed me.
Ivan Markovic.
I woke with a start and tumbled out of bed, hitting the hard tile floor below.
It was freezing and dusty, and I soon started to cough.
Through my bleary eyes, I stared underneath the bed.
I was just about to get up when I saw it.
A slip of journal paper tucked under a loose spring on the underside of the mattress. I pulled at it.
I opened it slowly, a sense of déjà vu filling me.
Do not take the medication. Find a way.
The last line was underlined so hard, the paper had been pierced through. A pencil rolled of out the mattress, too, and I picked it up.
This was my fail-safe note, just in case I ended up being on the medication for a long period without a chance to skip. A strategy to help me find my way out of the confusion again. It had saved me a few times.
I tucked the paper back under the mattress, hoping that somehow this would be the last time. That I’d never need it again, because I’d figure out how to leave this place, and Vargas would let me and my mother go. With every single day that passed, that dream felt more and more impossible.
I got back into bed. Usually I fell back asleep easily, but tonight I was restless, tossing and turning. I watched the moonlight move across the ceiling for hours.
Mira, I’m sorry. I still haven’t made them pay for what they did. I’m still failing at every turn.
But I’d try again tomorrow.
What else could I do?
“Katarina, time for your physical therapy.” The same nun as yesterday stood beside me.
It was after lunch, and I’d been staring out the window at the fat snowflakes falling for an hour, my mind going over the dream from last night again and again, looking for clues.
They made all the patients do physical therapy because they said it helped heal the mind.
But everyone knew they did it to feed their own twisted desires.
“Who with?” I asked woodenly.
“Father Pavol.”
I barely turned my head in time before my lunch rushed up my throat.
“What is happening!” the nun exclaimed, jumping back so as not to get splashed. “You dirty girl,” she snapped at me, shouting orders for cleaning supplies over her shoulder.
I heaved and heaved until nothing but bile came up.
The janitor arrived and dropped a bucket with soapy water, a sponge, and a bottle of vinegar beside me.
“Clean this up quickly; you’re keeping Father Pavol waiting. Don’t make him come down here for you.”
I rose, knowing that if Pavol had to come down, it would be much worse.
You know he’s just waiting for an excuse to play his perverted games with you. Stop giving him one, the voice in my head, evidence of my growing insanity, said.
“I know, but I’m not a robot,” I retorted. “I feel things, too, sometimes.”
“What?” the nun demanded.
I just shook my head and continued to clean.
Everything was all neat and tidy far too quickly, and I was being marched toward Pavol’s offices before I knew it.
My heartbeat felt irregular. My palms were sweating violently.
I couldn’t even really remember my last session with Pavol, so what was with this reaction?
But my body remembered even if my mind didn’t.
We arrived at his door. His office was on a lower floor, far away from the residential and rec floors. Underneath Hallow Hall was a network of basement rooms and tunnels. It was creepy down here. The air smelled fetid and old.
The nun knocked on the door and waited until she was bidden to enter before pushing me inside.
“Katarina Dmitrova. I apologize for her lateness; the fool girl was ill.” She grabbed me by the forearm, her nails digging into my skin. “Apologize to the father and his guest.”
His guest?
“I apologize,” I managed. I had to fight the urge to go for her eyes with the way she was bruising my arm. The woman didn’t have an ounce of gentleness in her.
“It’s fine, Sister Vera. She’s here now. Come in, Katarina.”
No. No. No. Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone here.
I watched Sister Vera leave, the door shutting heavily behind her.
“You were ill, Katarina? That’s not like you. You haven’t been skipping your medication, have you?”
Don’t tell.
I shook my head, my tongue feeling numb.
Pavol sat behind his desk, his pale eyes eerie, his attention fixed on me.
“Good. Must have been something you ate in that case. You’d never want to come off your medication too quickly, or you would feel quite terrible.”
“What’s she on?” a deep voice asked.
I flinched.
The voice had come from the other side of the room. I whirled in that direction, my heart all but jumping into my mouth.
A man sat on the velvet couch on the far side of Pavol’s office.
Not just any man.
Him. The man from yesterday.
The devil himself.
He’s here for us.
“That’s enough,” I snapped at myself.
His dark, wicked-looking eyes . . . His gaze latched onto mine, and the result was electrifying. I couldn’t look away. I was transfixed somehow.
“A mix of carbidopa and levodopa, as well as some sedatives to calm her other ailments.”
The names of the medicines went over my head. I couldn’t stop staring at the demon wearing a cassock.
The man raised an eyebrow, seeming surprised by the medicinal cocktail they gave me every day.
“Does she have Parkinson’s? She’s young.”
Pavol shrugged. “It’s a complicated diagnosis; I won’t bore you with it at present. Let me introduce you,” he said as he stood from his chair.
I know who he is. The voice in my head was confident.
“Father Lucciano,” Pavol said.
Lucciano. The light one. He’s not even hiding it. Light bringer.
“Lucifer,” I whispered.
The man on the couch stood, unfolding to a towering height.
“Not quite. That’s a little rude even for you, Katarina.” Pavol chuckled awkwardly. “Katarina suffers from delusions, occasional hallucinations, voices. It’s all quite mixed up in her head.”
The newcomer approached me, and I shrank back against the wall, jerking away from Pavol’s hand when he reached out for my shoulder.
“Call me Father Massimo. And your name, little lamb?” Father Massimo asked.
“He already gave you my name,” I found myself saying pedantically.
Massimo smirked. “But I’d rather have it from you.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t giving my name to the devil himself. I might be crazy, but I wasn’t dumb.
“Katarina, but she goes by Kat around here, don’t you? She’s a long-term resident of Hallow Hall,” Pavol said, and took my arm in his, clearly growing weary of our long introduction.
“Now, sit down, and let’s get your session started. Father Lucciano is here to observe my groundbreaking methods of exposure therapy. He will watch your session today.”
“What? No. I don’t want anyone to watch,” I said quickly.
Massimo had moved back to the couch, and I watched him like he was a snake about to strike.
“Why not?” Pavol suddenly seemed interested in my response. “Do you remember last week’s session?” He watched me intently.
“I—no, I don’t,” I confessed. When I tried to think of the reason I didn’t want anyone to watch, there was nothing there. Admitting that just the thought of his therapy made me ill didn’t seem smart. If he thought I was remembering, he’d shoot me up with something himself.
“Well then, don’t be churlish. And don’t be self-conscious. It’s all part of getting better. Sit down.”
I sank into the seat opposite him, all too aware of the gaze of the black-eyed devil behind me.
“Now, some background for Massimo about why you are here.”
Massimo. Father Massimo Lucciano. His name was powerful somehow, just like him.
“Katarina was checked in by her mother for dangerous behavior . . . attention-seeking and the like. Her mother felt that she was sliding down a dark path and needed an intervention to prevent her sinful nature from taking over.”
My face burned hot. I looked at the surface of the desk, fighting helpless tears stinging behind my eyes.
I would not cry for these men.