The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [148]
It was not that she resisted them. She did not struggle or cry out when they came for her. She simply watched them. And they seemed not to like that. So she watched them harder. Then, one night a few months ago, the one who had come for her stepped back before he began. She couldn’t see his face—always they wore the masks—but his hands had been callused and strong. The hands of a workman.
Stop looking at me like that, you little Jezebel, he had snarled.
Like what, Mr. Murtaugh?
She hadn’t even said the words aloud, but all the same his eyes had widened behind the slits of the mask. He shook a fist at her, as if to strike her, but did not.
You’re not better than me, you little harlot. You think you can harm me with your spells, but you’re wrong. You’ll pay for this sin!
Only she hadn’t paid. She had run back to her bed, and they had not come for her again. Nor had they come for any of the other girls. Sometimes, even without looking, Grace could feel them watching her: Broud as they spoke their prayers at night, or Fulch in the cafetorium. She would look at them and smile. Grace was watching, too, in her way.
Sometimes, as she walked downstairs to the first floor, she would hear voices arguing, quickly stifled when she came into view. And a few times, one of them had stared at her with a funny, squinty look. It was only when she saw the same look on one of the smaller girls that Grace finally understood what it was.
Fear.
Somehow that look made Grace smile. Last week, she had smiled at Fulch in the cafetorium. Stop it, you horrible girl, Fulch had said, wheezing for breath. Then she had waddled out as fast as she could, hand pressed to her mouth, and Mr. Holiday came in to tell them Mrs. Fulch was ill, and he served them lunch himself that day.
Silence again. Mattie must have crawled back into her bed, and Lisbeth, too. Sarah snored, and Nela was quietly sobbing in her sleep. She always cried in her sleep, even though the next day she never remembered it.
Creaks from above again. Fulch was lumbering back to her room. Floorboards groaned. A door squeaked as it opened. A long moment of quiet.
Crash!
Grace sat up straight in bed. She saw Sarah and Nela rise up as well, faint ghosts in their white nightgowns.
“Shit,” Mattie spat. “What was that?”
Lisbeth squealed. “They’re coming for us!”
Mattie reached out to hit her. Lisbeth crumpled on her bed, stifling her sobs with a pillow.
Grace cocked her head, listening. There was another sound, duller than the first. Like something soft and terribly heavy falling to the floor.
“Fulch,” she whispered.
“What is it, Grace?” Nela said, her small, dark hands clutching the sheet to her chin.
Grace said nothing as she slipped from her bed. She put her hand on the doorknob.
“Grace!” Sarah whispered. “You can’t go out there!”
Silence again. No, that wasn’t true. There was a faint humming sound, like the vibration of the tuning fork Broud used before she sang carols in her dry voice at Christmas dinner.
“Grace!”
She turned the knob, the door swung open, light spilled through.
A battered Reader’s Digest sat on Broud’s chair. The old woman was nowhere in sight. Grace hesitated; leaving the dormitory at night broke so many Rules there weren’t enough spoons in Fulch’s kitchen. But something was out there. She drew in a breath and stepped into the corridor. There was no need to tell the others to stay. She could hear Lisbeth’s blubbering. None of them would follow her.
She walked a few steps down the hallway. There—a scraping sound. It came from above, like rats on wood. She thought she heard a voice speaking soft, foul words.
Grace moved down the corridor. Doors slipped by. None of them opened. A hush had fallen again over the orphanage. Except for the humming. Grace could feel it vibrating along her jaw.
An opening yawned before her. Steps led up into darkness. The staircase to the third floor.
Grace clutched the worn banister knob and stared upward. Her knees turned into rubber