could think, I heard a noise down below—a scuffling of shoes against the cold stone steps.
‘Hallo?’ A moment passed in complete silence before I heard the panicked traipse of footsteps retreating down the stairs. ‘Who’s there?’ The door closed below. ‘Hallo?’
8
I dunked the note into a pool of hot candle wax and ran downstairs. I fixed my hair moments before opening the door, tucking loose strands back into the bun at the base of my head. Victoria was still gazing at her freckly face in the mirror, humming a strange tune and shaking water from her comb. Her eyes shifted to mine when I paused in the doorway.
I flashed a quick smile. Mavis sat on her cot reading her Bible and Claire was still curled up on her bed. ‘Was that you I heard on the stairs?’ I said to Victoria, but she had gone back to combing her hair. ‘Victoria?’ I said, and she looked at me. ‘Was it you?’
‘What’s that, mademoiselle?’
Hearing Victoria’s voice, Mavis had looked up and so had Claire. Then another girl from across the room stood up.
‘Nothing,’ I said, my voice catching. ‘Never mind.’
After dinner, I ordered the girls to bed early if only because I was nervous about the late-night meeting. ‘Lights out,’ I said, clapping at them.
Victoria watched Claire from her cot, eating tree nuts she’d gathered from the garden the day before. Mavis watched Claire, and Claire looked at me, the crack and snap of nuts grinding between Victoria’s teeth.
‘Lights out means no eating,’ I said to her, and she stuffed her nuts away and flopped onto her pillow.
‘Finally!’ Claire said, and Victoria shot up, popping a nut in her mouth and chomping much louder than anyone ever should.
‘Enough!’ I said, ‘Mother will have both of you on toilet duty as it is. You want there to be more? Look at my hand, girls!’ I said, and that seemed to end it.
My mind was a flurry, lying in bed waiting for the girls to fall asleep, wondering what secret kind of meeting Marguerite had planned. Then somewhere in between the fantastical thoughts of Marguerite giving me a gun, and thinking about Mother’s gorgeous long, blonde hair, I fell asleep.
Marguerite pounced on me in the dark covering my mouth, and my heart leapt from my chest. ‘You fell asleep,’ she hissed. ‘Get up!’
I rolled out of bed, and we snuck down the corridors through the empty, dark convent, and all the way to the south stairs. She stopped at a door I thought was a closest. ‘What are we doing?’ I whispered, and she opened the door. Though instead of opening to a closet, the door opened to another staircase, one that went down and down and down. Flickering light shone at the bottom. Marguerite pointed, and I did what she asked.
The room was small and damp and smelled like the sewer. More like a prison nobody used, or had forgotten about, with two spindly chairs, a table with some metal instruments on it, and candles. Lots and lots of candles.
Marguerite followed me downstairs after locking the door behind her.
‘Smells awful in here,’ I said, plugging my noise. ‘Worse than the toilets.’
‘You failed,’ Marguerite said. She walked to the table and picked through the metal instruments. ‘I asked you to meet me at lights out, yet you didn’t show up.’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ I said.
‘Tell that to someone when it counts.’
The longer she stood at the table, picking through the instruments, the more I realized she had something serious planned, something other than seeing if I’d make the rendezvous on time. I held my hand, tightening the bandage. ‘What are you going to do to me?’
She looked over her shoulder, smiling. ‘Nothing.’
I laughed in jest. ‘I don’t believe you.’
I noticed black tally marks on the stone wall, flickering under some candlelight. ‘What are those for?’ I said, pointing to the wall.
‘What do you think they’re for?’ she said, and I walked closer.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, shrugging. ‘Numbers.’
‘Hmm.’ She went back to the metal instruments, but then picked up two pieces of paper and a pencil.
‘You’re not going to tell me?’ I said, and she shook her head. There was a bottle of liquor on the table too, which I hoped to God wasn’t for sterilizing. ‘What about the scotch?’
‘That’s for after,’ she said. ‘You’ll want a drink when this is over.’
I exhaled, very much relieved and she laughed.
‘Did you think—’ She smiled. ‘I’m not going to do anything permanent,’ she said, and