Lucia
The alarm screamed, and I reached to silence it, but the movement sent a deep, throbbing ache radiating through my hips and my thighs—a soreness that felt too much like the memory of hands.
Something heavy and wrong anchored me to the bed when I tried to sit up.
I threw back the covers to see the massive bump before I clawed at my nightdress. My stomach swelled grotesquely. The skin stretched taut and mottled with angry veins. Not the gentle curve of a first-trimester bump, but this was the belly of a woman ready to give birth.
“No. No, no, no—”
I could already hear the accusations and backbiting. The thought of facing Mother Superior made me queasy. I stared at my belly, half-expecting to see something moving beneath the skin.
The ring.
I glanced at my finger, but it was gone. In its place, seared into my finger like a cattle brand. There was a downward-pointing triangle, and below it was an inverted cross.
My gaze flew to the wall. The crucifix still hung upside down, the Christ figure’s face twisted in what looked like mocking agony. I looked away from it, the shame and guilt eating me up, and that's when I saw the rosary beads beside my alarm clock.
They were darker, sitting in a pool of an oily substance.
Last night hadn’t been a dream.
I quickly shoved my loose black habit over my nightdress before I waddled—God, the word itself was a humiliation—to Margaret’s room, not waiting for permission before bursting in.
“I think I was attacked by a demon last night,” I blurted the words out so quickly they sounded garbled.
Margaret froze with her coif halfway to her head. “Did you sneak wine into your room?” She laughed, but it died when I lifted my habit.
Her wrinkled face paled in horror. “Holy shit. That wasn’t there yesterday.”
I paused for a second because I had never heard her use a curse word.
“I know,” I whispered, showing her the brand. “What will Mother Superior do to me?”
“The cross is upside down.” Her voice cracked. “You need to leave. They’ll accuse you of fornication—or worse, try to kill the child. Neither is something you could live with.”
She turned away, and for one heart-stopping moment, I thought she’d abandon me. But then she wrenched open a hidden compartment in her sewing tin, revealing folded wads of cash.
“Take this and go,” she hissed, shoving the money into my hands. “You don’t know what they’re capable of. I do.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “I saw things, Lucia. Things no one should.”
I crushed her in a hug, my swollen belly pressing between us. She held me back just as tightly—the first real touch I’d had in years that wasn’t aggressive or prayer.
“Thank you,” I sobbed into her shoulder.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she muttered. “Run. And don’t look back.”
◆◆◆
The sun hung low on the horizon, its orange glow bleeding into the dawn like a fresh wound. I stepped past the convent’s iron gates, brushing my fingertips on the cold metal. I paused to glance at the road beyond the gates.
Rain began to fall, soft at first and then heavier, as if the sky mourned what I carried. My suitcase dragged at my arm, and my swollen belly pulled at my spine, but neither burden compared to the weight in my chest.
Had I invited this? Was my faith so weak? What grew inside of me? Being a nun was all I knew.
The bus stop loomed in the distance. I focused on it, a mundane beacon, though every step made my insides cramp. Was that the child moving? I shuddered.
Sister Margaret’s face flashed in my mind—her papery hands shoving cash into mine, the tears she wouldn’t let fall.
She’d survived decades in that place and would know where the bodies were buried.
Literal bodies, if the news reports were correct about unmarked graves.
Even Mother Superior gave her a wide berth.
She never doubted me.
A car horn shattered the silence.
I looked up, rain stinging my eyes. A blood-red sports car slowed beside me, its windshield wipers thumping like a lazy pulse. The driver’s window rolled down.
“Need a ride, Sister?”
The voice was smooth. Familiar.
My breath caught.
Because I knew before I even saw his face who sat behind that wheel.
The brand on my finger burned hotter.
“You.” The word tore from my throat like a curse. “The audacity—”
He leaned over in that obscene red car, all pearly teeth and tailored arrogance, looking for all the world like some devil-may-care businessman, not the thing that had pinned me to a bed of nightmares.
I kicked the door.
Bad idea.
Pain shot up my leg.
“Ow, ow, ow—” I hopped on one foot, the other throbbing. The car didn’t even get dented.
“Stubborn woman,” he muttered, flicking his hazard lights on and climbing out of the car while I backed away. The glow bathed me in hellish amber.
Before I could react, he snatched my suitcase. We wrestled for it—a pathetic, two-second tug-of-war—before he yanked it free with infuriating ease and tossed it into the boot.
“Happy?”
“No,” I snapped back.
Then he loomed over me, all grace and calculated menace, and swung the passenger door open. Rain dripped off his hair, black as the veins in my belly, and slid down his cheek like tears he’d never shed.
I stared into his eyes.
They were wrong. Too dark. His pupils swallowed the irises whole, bottomless as the pit he crawled from.
“You can’t stand here all day, sweet Lucia,” he murmured.
I glared past his smug face to the rear of that ridiculous red car, where my stolen suitcase sat imprisoned in the trunk.
It held nearly everything I owned. The few possessions I'd managed to gather during my hasty escape, and more importantly, the life-saving cash Sister Margaret had pressed into my hands with such urgency.
The money that was supposed to be my freedom now locked away by this. ..this demon wearing a human suit.
“What's the worst that can happen?” he asked, flashing those perfect white teeth in a smile that didn't reach his unnatural eyes.
Rainwater streamed down my face as I clenched my fists, the brand on my finger pulsing with heat.
“You piece of—” I caught myself, biting back the curse that wanted to spill forth. Old habits died hard, especially with the demon who enjoyed tormenting me.
The heavens seemed to weep harder at my predicament, the rain transforming from gentle patter to punishing deluge that soaked through my habit and plastered my veil to my skull.
My swollen belly made every movement awkward, and standing here arguing was getting me nowhere.
With a defeated sigh that tasted bitter in my mouth, I turned toward the open car door.
The leather seat groaned as I lowered myself in, my belly making the movement ungainly.
The interior smelled faintly of sulphur and expensive cologne.
An unsettling combination that made my nose wrinkle.
Before I could reconsider, the door slammed shut with a finality that echoed in my bones, like a tomb sealing closed.
Through the rain-streaked window, I watched as he rounded the hood with predatory grace, his form blurring slightly in the downpour. The brand on my finger burned hotter still as if warning me.