Salome: Episode 32.
A Friend In A Room Of Enemies.
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“Hmm?” Sister Therese asked, eyeing me curiously as she jangled the ring of keys clumsily, attaching it back onto her belt.
“That was—”
“Come, it is time for prayer and contemplation,” she said, taking a hand to my back, almost shoving me into the main seating area of the room. I clutched my stomach, checking to see if I still had the item. My fingers confirmed the existence of the hard edges, and I quickly returned my hand to my skirts, sitting down next to Sister Mary Pierce, whose shape I recognised above everyone else’s. A friend in a room of enemies.
I looked toward the stacks where I’d woken up in the darkness, and nothing was out of place. It was as though I’d never been there. The candles were new, the fire blazing.
“Do you remember being called to a meeting?” Mary Pierce whispered as she saw me kneel down beside her. Her skin was flushed, glistening in the light of the fire. She kept her head still as Sister Therese bumbled around the room like a lost soul looking for spectacles she’d misplaced, droplets of blood a startling contrast to her white collar. The glow of the room began to fade.
I didn’t remember a meeting. I also didn’t remember Sister Therese ever locking the library door.
“Am I dreaming?” I asked myself.
“What happened to Muldoon?” Celeste whispered behind me.
The library was full. Rows of nuns kneeled in front of us, and only when I looked further down my own row did I see that a miracle had taken place.
The dead had risen.
And not all of them had been able to hide the fact.
Purple hands clasped together, fingernails torn and broken from their pitiful attempts to escape. Blue lips forming words never meant to be uttered by their own mouths: prayers for the dead.
The few of us still alive, I needed to wake from this diversion.
I closed my eyes. Sister Scholastica, I need your prayers. I watched my words land like petals on a black lake, still for a moment, my hope as delicate as the drowning flowers. Then the breeze grew stronger, lifting them away with whipped waves.
The candles blew out, the fire the only light in the room.
My mentor answered my plea in raging winds that rattled the roof tiles, lightning that struck directly into the chimney, its bright, brilliant white energy turning the orange flames blue. The rain hammered down into the room, drenching us where we stood. Stacks toppled with the eruption, shelves shaking and thrusting books into a storm of paper wings, thrashing and tearing into the air around us.
I turned to face the wreckage, and walked to the library door, the light of the Holy Spirit penetrating the keyhole before the door flung open, almost coming off the hinges as it slammed against the wall of the corridor.
“Follow me!” I said to those who still lived.
They scrambled up behind me, covering their heads as they dodged the flying debris and collapsing structure of the building.
We descended the staircase, the third floor disappearing from all consciousness.
Muldoon! It’s a trap!
I scrambled to the corridor that led to the kitchen, the refectory and the chapel. I stopped for a moment, my breath the only sound, and not a comforting one. I faced the wall, beating my hands against the bricks. I did not care much for the psychological torment, and I was tired of it. There had been singing in the chapel. Now the door was closed, no sign of life on the other side, or through the keyhole. We had all been in the library, and then we hadn’t.
My mind rolled through every event since we dreamwalked in the library—and if I had to try and pinpoint when that happened—the day before. I surmised that I must have met Scholastica, because she came to my aid in the library moments before… But what if she hadn’t? What if I’d never met the Daughters of Cain, or seen Mother Hildegard, or contrived a plan with Muldoon?
I sank to the floor, holding my knees, the sword clanging against the brickwork.
“Celeste?” I asked the air. “Mary Frances? Mary Pierce?” I heard my own voice, so small, so insignificant in the void.
My body tired, I reluctantly returned to my feet and stretched, the sharp item on my person making me flinch. I’d forgotten about it. But there was no point trying to inspect it now.
I waited in the darkness, my anger replacing any apprehension I once had.
Just come out, you coward.
My tormentor did not respond to the taunt. He disappointed me. Perhaps the intention was to make me lose my mind once and for all.
I would not let that happen. I returned my focus to Muldoon.
He was out there somewhere, and I’d been unable to help him.
I stared into the abyss ahead of me, my hands feeling for the sword again. I took a step, then another, finding my courage once more.
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
My knees gave way when I heard it.
Muldoon. He was crying. I could hear him shouting.
“Daddy, please, no.”
Another man’s voice: “I’ll cast the Devil out of you!”
“Please!”
“Witchcraft!”
The crash of the whip on skin, the whimpering. My legs trembled. I couldn’t stand it. In spite of the weakness in my knees, I went further into the corridor, my hands scrambling against the black walls.
It’s not real. Muldoon. It’s not real. Please listen to me. I am with you.
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