Chapter 8
Matt dragged me to the floor a moment before the cross smashed into the chair I'd been sitting on. The backrest splintered and the chair collapsed under the weight of the cross.
I lay on the floor, half beneath Matt's body, and stared at the spot where I'd sat moments ago. The cross was intact, but the chair was destroyed.
"Are you all right?" Matt asked, helping me to sit up.
My heart hammered but I was unharmed. I nodded, knowing I could not yet speak without my voice shaking. I'd never been an overly devout person, although I was a regular church goer, but the timing of the cross falling on me as I mentioned the word magic…it was too coincidental. As Matt often said, he didn't believe in coincidence. Nor did I.
"Do you see now?" Sister Bernadette said, her accent thick despite her trembling voice. "Magic is the devil's work, and God does not approve of you coming to his house and questioning his faithful daughters about it."
Sister Margaret clutched her friend's hand in both of hers. The two nuns held one another, clearly shaken by the incident.
As was I. My body trembled uncontrollably. Matt must have felt it as he helped me to stand. He eyed me closely and I offered him a smile that I knew wasn't convincing but it was all I could muster.
"You should go now," Sister Margaret said, rising. "The sign is clear—God doesn't want you here. He doesn't want us to talk to you about the devil's work."
"Magic is not the devil's work," Matt growled.
Both nuns looked to the cross now lying dormant where it had fallen.
"If God didn't want people to possess magic then why did he give it to some?" he went on. "Why are some born with it?"
"I don't have all the answers, Mr. Glass," Sister Margaret snapped. "But if Sister Francesca—Abigail—is a magician, then there is your evidence. She was not a good Catholic girl. One sin begets another and another."
I clasped Matt's arm, digging my fingers into him. There was no point in arguing with the nuns. He could not change their minds.
Even so, he continued to try. "She made a mistake," he said tightly. "And it wasn't entirely her fault. The baby's father had a role to play in her predicament."
"She seduced him! Father—" Sister Margaret bit her lip and glanced at Sister Bernadette.
But Sister Bernadette was still staring at the cross and didn't appear to have heard. She bent to pick it up and Matt let me go to help her. Together they righted it and leaned it against the wall. Matt inspected the wall and the nails that had held the cross in place. They were badly bent and one had snapped in half.
"Thank you," Sister Bernadette murmured. She was not the same fiery nun who'd scolded us at the church gate. Her face remained pale and her hands still shook.
Sister Margaret stood by the door, arms crossed, and scowled as we departed.
Matt and I crossed the courtyard, meeting the mother superior inspecting one of the window frames on the school building. If she'd been there a few minutes ago, she would have seen the person who'd come to the hall's doorway. She would also have heard the cross falling.
I planned on slipping past her, but Matt had other ideas. He greeted her with a tip of his hat.
"Does it need repair?" Matt asked, nodding at the window frame. "I can have my friends look at it."
"In exchange for information? No, thank you, Mr. Glass." She flaked off some paint with her finger and clicked her tongue.
"Sister Bernadette can't do it all on her own," he went on. "She's aging and this place is getting older too."
"She doesn't complain."
"I'm sure she doesn't, but that doesn't mean she's not struggling to keep up."
"I told you," the mother superior ground out through a hard jaw, "I will not pay the price you ask."
"Reverend Mother!" came a sing song voice from the convent side of the courtyard. "Reverend Mother, are you out here? Oh." Sister Clare, the mother superior's assistant and the one who first alerted us to the missing babies, stopped upon seeing us. She looked torn as to whether she ought to return inside or join us.
"What is it, Sister Clare?" the mother superior asked.
"There's a matter requiring your attention. It can wait until you're finished with Mr. Glass and Miss Steele."
"We are finished." The mother superior arched a severe brow at Matt, waiting for him to concede and depart. Clearly she had a lot to learn about him.
"We spoke with Abigail Pilcher, known as Sister Francesca when she lived here," he said.
Mother Frances showed a flicker of surprise but schooled it quickly. Sister Clare, however, gasped. "How is she?" the assistant asked.
"She's well, and so is her son," Matt said.
"She has a son? How marvelous."
The mother superior glared at her and Sister Clare bowed her head.
"Do you have a point, Mr. Glass?" Mother Frances asked.
"Abigail told us that she was forced to leave the convent," Matt said. "She claims you forced her to go soon after you took over the role of mother superior here."
"She was wholly unsuited to being a nun. I would have thought the condition she was in upon her departure was proof enough of how unsuitable. Mother Alfreda should have overseen Abigail's departure but she was too weak to do anything about it."
"So you didn't force her to leave because she was a magician?" Matt asked.
Sister Clare gasped again. She stared wide-eyed at Matt. "Magic," she whispered with reverence.
"Magic doesn't exist," the mother superior said in cold, clipped tones. "I would appreciate it if you didn't come here and say otherwise, sir. Magic is harmless fantasy for children but it's irresponsible for adults to perpetuate the myth of its existence. Believing in magic does more harm than good."
"But the newspapers," Sister Clare murmured. "At least one is saying magic is real."
"Journalists will say anything to sell more copies of their publications. You've been taken in, Sister Clare. You all have."
"Sister Clare," I said to the assistant, "were you aware that Abigail was a silk magician?"
"Silk?" she whispered.
"Stop this nonsense!" the mother superior spat. "Sister Clare, you ought to know better."
Sister Clare bowed her head. "Yes, Reverend Mother."
"We have work to do, Mr. Glass, Miss Steele. Good Christian work that requires our complete devotion."
Matt held up his hands. "We're going."