There is very little attention paid to a mixed-race child with no home and no family washed up at a convent on the eastern seaboard in those months. She is not the only girl who beaches on this shore, nor is she the one most in need of counsel. The sisters are glad to find a use for the empty bedrooms – they are living in a building too large for them, built almost one hundred years ago, when the Lord was still calling women by the fistful to His eternal marriage. By the time three months have passed, they have put in bunk beds and tacked up a schedule of classes and Sunday school and given out chores in exchange for meals and comforters and a roof over the head. There has been a great tide in the movement of people, and those old ways have taken precedence again. Girls thrown out on to the street – the nuns will take them in.
Allie likes to get the stories out of the other girls. She becomes a confidante, a pal, to several of them so she can match her tale up to theirs. There’s Savannah, who struck her stepbrother across the face so hard, she says, that ‘spider-webs grew on him, they grew right over his mouth and his nose and even his eyes.’ Savannah tells this story wide-eyed, chewing her gum enthusiastically. Allie digs her fork into the tough old stewing meat the nuns serve for dinner thrice weekly. She says, ‘What’re you gonna do now?’ And Savannah says, ‘I’m gonna find a doctor will take it out of me. Cut that thing right out.’ A clue. There are others. Some of the girls were prayed over by parents who thought a demon had possessed them. Some fought with other girls; some are still fighting here. One had done the thing to a boy because he asked her to: this story holds much interest for the girls. Could it be that boys like it? Is it possible they want it? Some of them have found internet forums that suggest that this is the case.
There’s one girl, Victoria, who showed her mother how to do the thing. Her mother, who, Victoria says as simply as if she were talking about the weather, had been beaten so hard and so often by Victoria’s stepdad that she hasn’t a tooth left in her head. Victoria woke the power up in her with a touch of her hand and showed her how to use it, and her mother threw her out into the street, calling her a witch. None of them needs an internet forum to understand that. They all nod, and someone passes Victoria the jug of gravy.
In a less chaotic time, there might have been police, or social services, or earnest folk from the school board asking what was going on with these girls. But the authorities are simply grateful that someone is helping them out.
Someone asks Allie what happened to her, and she knows she can’t give her real name. She calls herself Eve and the voice says: Good choice, the first of women; excellent choice.
Eve’s story is simple, not interesting enough to be remembered. Eve’s from Augusta, and her parents sent her to relatives for two weeks and when she came back they’d moved away, she doesn’t know where. She had two younger brothers; her parents were scared for them, she thinks, although she’d never hurt no one. The other girls nod and move on to someone else.
It’s not what I’ve done, Allie thinks to herself, it’s what I’m going to do.
And the voice says: It’s what Eve’s going to do.
And Allie says: Yes.
She likes it in the convent. The nuns, for the most part, are kind, and the company of women is pleasing to Allie. She’s not found the company of men has had much to recommend it. The girls have chores to complete, but when they’re done there’s the ocean for swimming and the beach for walking, there are swings out back and the singing in chapel is peaceful and quiets all the voices in Allie’s head. She finds herself thinking in those quiet times: maybe I could stay here for ever. To dwell in the House of God all the days of my life is my one request.
There is one nun, Sister Maria Ignacia, who particularly draws Allie’s attention. She has dark skin like Allie herself, and soft, brown eyes. Sister Maria Ignacia likes to tell stories of the childhood of Jesus and of how his mother, Mary, was always kind to him and taught him to love all living things.
‘See,’ Sister Maria Ignacia says to the girls who gather to listen to her before evensong, ‘our Lord learned from a woman how to love. And Mary is close to all children. She is close to you now and has brought you to our door.’
One evening, after the others have gone, Allie leans her head against Sister Maria Ignacia’s knee and says, ‘Can I live here all my life?’
Sister Maria Ignacia strokes her hair and says, ‘Oh, you would have to become a nun to stay here. And you might decide you want other things from your life. A husband and children, a job.’
Allie thinks, This is always the answer. They never want you to stay for ever. They always say they love you, but they never want you to stay.
And the voice says, very quietly: Daughter, if you want to stay, I can fix that for you.
Allie says to the voice: Are you Mary, the mother?
And the voice says: If you like, my dear. If that’s what floats your boat.
Allie says: They never want to keep me, though, do they? I never get to stay.
And the voice says: If you want to stay, you’ll have to make this place your own. Think about how to do that. Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.
The girls play at fighting, trying out their skills on each other. In the water, on the land, giving each other little jolts and thrills. Allie uses that time to practise, too, although she’s more subtle about it. She doesn’t want them to know what she’s doing, remembering the thing she read about the electric eels. She manages, after a long time, to send out a tiny jolt that will make one of the other girls’ arm or leg jump.
‘Oh!’ says Savannah, as her shoulder flies upward, ‘I felt someone walk over my grave!’
‘Huh,’ says Victoria, as Allie jangles her brain a little, ‘I have a headache. I can’t … I can’t think straight.’
‘Fuck!’ shouts Abigail, as her knee buckles. ‘Got a fucking cramp from the water.’
It doesn’t take much power to do it, and it doesn’t hurt them. They never know it was Allie, like the eels in the tank, her head just above the waterline, her eyes wide and steady.
After a few months, some of the other girls start to talk about moving on from the convent. It’s occurred to Allie – or Eve, as she is trying to think of herself, even in private – that some of the others might have secrets, too, might also be hiding here until the heat dies down.
One of the girls, they call her Gordy, because her surname’s Gordon, asks Allie to come with her. ‘We’re going to Baltimore,’ she says. ‘My mom’s family has people there, they’ll help us get set up.’ She shifts her shoulders. ‘I’d like your company along the way.’
Eve has made friends in a way Allie has always found difficult. Eve is kind and quiet and watchful, where Allie was spiky and complicated.
She cannot go back to where she came from and, what, indeed, would there be to return for? But there will be no great hunt for her. She looks different now, anyway, her face longer and leaner, her frame taller. It is that time in life when children start to wear their adult faces. She could walk north to Baltimore, or move on to some other nowhere town and take a job as a waitress. In three years’ time, no one back in Jacksonville would know her for certain. Or she could stay here. When Gordy says, ‘Come away,’ Allie knows she wants to stay. She is happier here than she has ever been.
She listens at doors and around corners. She has always had this habit. A child in danger must learn to pay more attention to the adults than a child loved and cherished.