CHAPTER TWENTY #2
It was easy to be bold late at night, knowing your guardian was dead asleep outside your room. For that moment, before she went back to her own bed, Molly felt almost normal again, almost happy. She’d never had a sister, never even had a friend like Rebecca. They were in this together. Allies.
Rebecca had become a source of light in this dark, dismal place.
After a week of the same dull routine, Molly found herself waiting impatiently all day until nightfall when she could creep into Rebecca’s bed for their illicit chats.
Despite her terror and fear, her boredom and despair, she found herself daydreaming about her friend, about her shining auburn hair and milky skin, her quirky smile and the bright freckles scattered across her nose.
Rebecca was beautiful and kind and funny, and thinking about her brought a queer feeling into Molly’s belly that felt like longing.
But that was ridiculous. Rebecca was just a friend. Just a girl who was keeping her from losing her mind. Maybe even a girl willing to help her…
“Do we ever mix with the boys?” Molly dared to ask one night. She thought it might be her seventh night at Bright Renewal, but they had no calendars and there were no breaks in their routine. The days bled one into the other. “Like, do you think I could talk to one of them?”
Rebecca made a moue. “Do you fancy one of the boys?”
Her question prompted sputtered denials. Molly wanted to make it very clear she had no interest in a boy, any boy. “No, no, of course not. It’s not like that. I just… I know one of the boys here. I need to tell him something important.” She grew serious, grim. “I don’t think he knows yet.”
Evidently mollified by her vehement denial, Rebecca had snuggled closer. Her hair brushed Molly’s face. “Knows what?” she asked breathlessly, eager for gossip. Anything to break the boredom.
“That his sister is dead.”
“Oh, my, that’s awful. He should know. What a terrible thing to have to tell someone.” She sighed, stroking Molly’s arm in sympathy. Molly fought back tears, overwhelmed suddenly, and Rebecca murmured soothing noises, settling her.
“What’s his name?” she asked after a moment.
“Cole Graham.”
Rebecca was silent for a moment, and Molly sensed her brow furrowing in the darkness. “Cole Graham. I know him. Everyone does. He’s a troublemaker. Keeps getting tossed into solitary.”
Molly shuddered. Kids sent to solitary returned vacant-eyed and blindly obedient. It didn’t surprise her to learn that Cole was constantly in trouble. Had he managed to tell Cassie about the abuse here at Bright Renewal? Had Cassie gone to Sister Catarine for help?
Is that what had gotten them both killed?
But… why? None of the kids who had graduated from the Academy ever had a bad word to say.
Those who’d failed out or been expelled had all kinds of complaints, but of course no one ever listened to them, and then some ran away for good, too ashamed to face their failure.
It hardly seemed a reason to kill anyone, let alone a nun.
And yet Sister Catarine was dead and a mysterious they had shown Cassie the body as a warning.
A warning she’d ignored by speaking to Molly about it.
And look where it landed me.
“I need to talk to him,” she said more forcefully. “Or… or get him a message, at least.”
“A message?” Rebecca’s lips pursed. “Let me see what I can do.”
The only time the boys and girls of the Academy were allowed to interact was during Circle, a brutal session of reconditioning.
These took place every other day, wherein students were subjected to personal abuse and condemnation by their fellow classmates, listing all their flaws, sins and failures.
It accomplished little except to further break the wills and minds of Academy students, just in case anyone was developing self-confidence or self-esteem,.
Nevertheless, Rebecca insisted Circle would be her best opportunity to pass a note to Cole.
This would require her to pocket a strip of paper filched during their lessons, an act of brazen thievery that left Molly sick to her stomach and terrified it would be discovered.
But with Rebecca’s help – the girl had swift fingers and folded the paper into a tight square easily concealed in the seam of Molly’s shapeless skirt – the theft went unnoticed.
A stick pin and a bloody finger provided the ink.
The note was short by necessity and horribly to the point: I’m sorry. Cassie killed. A fall. Why?
She’d wanted to write more, to offer some explanation, but she lacked the ink, the paper and the will to do it. Maybe Cole would find a way to message her back, to tell her what he might have communicated to Cassie. Maybe he knew why Sister Catarine had been killed.
Maybe it was all his fault.
The Circle sessions were particularly disturbing events in a place rife with them.
Each student took their turn at the center, being called out on their faults, their sins, their failings.
The sessions started reasonably enough but always dissolved into chaos.
Everyone hated Circle, though some relished the chance to scream and curse at their classmates, enjoying some semblance of control, a little taste of power, no matter how bitter and grotesque.
On the day she planned to give Cole the note, a thin, pale-haired girl was the first in the Circle.
All her crimes were listed – for her own good, of course.
She was a slut. Wanton and despicable. The teachers and her fellow students screamed, “Whore!” into her face until she broke down sobbing and begged for absolution.
Next, a pimply faced boy, shaggy-haired and thick-limbed, was excoriated for his lack of hygiene, his former drug use, his violent tendencies.
Like many other subjects, he initially scowled back as he was subjected to a torrent of abuse, refusing to relent or beg for forgiveness, no doubt trying to maintain a sense of self, of dignity.
But eventually, like everyone else, he broke, weeping inconsolably as his own roommates turned on him and exposed his most intimate habits.
Molly waited impatiently for her turn in the center of Circle, her second.
Her first experience had broken her quite thoroughly – everyone knew she’d “stolen” sacramental wine – and she trembled at the prospect of undergoing another, but her ulterior motive kept her from giving into that dread and despair. This time, she had a mission.
The Circle was well and truly riled up, swaying and moaning in religious fervor, beseeching the Goddess and the Branch and rebuking Black Lilith, the queen of the Underworld.
The wooden floor of the fieldhouse rang with stamping feet.
Boys and girls intermingled, weaving back and forth, lunging at the victims at the center, then retreating.
Molly noticed not a few of the others managed to touch, to stroke arms and clasp hands quickly, furtively.
Fraternization was forbidden but impossible to quash entirely.
A hand on her back sent her stumbling forward. Thrust into the center of the writhing mass of excited children, Molly caught herself and stood up straight, clutching the illicit note in her fist. Her eyes darted to find Cole Graham in the throng.
Her peers turned on her immediately. The instructors had listed her crimes the first session, and now they were gleefully reiterated – drunkard, laggard, slut (of course), unnatural girl full of unnatural desires, damned–
“Demonkin!”
Molly spun at this new curse, searching for whoever had spat it at her.
Her mouth gaped and she felt her cheeks grow even hotter.
Why did it bother her so much? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t deny that it did.
You might think you’d grow immune to insults shrieked at you over and over, but you never did. You tried, oh yes, you tried…
“Who said that?” she cried, knowing she’d get a black mark for it but not caring in the least. Fury made her dig for a forbidden word, one she’d heard time and again from the mouths of tough PKs lounging in her father’s study. “Who fucking said that?”
Her profanity was met with howls of disbelief and approbation.
She wasn’t the first kid at Bright Renewal to curse back at her tormentors, but it was the first time she had shown any backbone.
Even the instructors looked startled, though her least favorite teacher, Miss Blume, wore an expression that was nothing short of pleasure.
The students had seen how the word had struck home.
“Demonkin! Demonkin!”
“Cursed one!”
“Repent, hellspawn! Beg the Goddess for mercy!”
The Circle closed on her, egged on by the instructors: “She must be saved! Do not let up, else she may be damned forever!”
Faces and bodies pressed in on her from every direction, suffocating, drowning under the onslaught of words, flung at her on a barrage of spittle and hot breath.
She shrank back, seeking someone familiar, someone safe.
She spotted Rebecca in the back and threw her a beseeching look.
Then another familiar face thrust into view, nose to nose, hissing words beneath the chaos.
“Give in, Franke,” Cole Graham said to her. He lifted fists, shaking them at her. “Cry, dummy, just cry!”
It was easy to let the tears spill. She reached out a hand, the note tucked between her thumb and forefinger. “Absolution! I seek absolution!”
He took her hand – the only time contact was allowed between boys and girls – and clasped it to his chest. “Our sister repents! Praise the Goddess!”
The tone shifted dramatically. The hateful screaming ceased, ecstatic moans and cries replacing the cruel frenzy. Hands touched Molly, some kind and gentle, others stinging and painful, the fingernails like claws.
“Praise! Praise!”
“Praise the Goddess,” Cole said. He slipped the note from her hand before melting back into the swarm, and for an eternity all Molly could do was stand and weep.