Sisters of Sorrow Read Online Free PDF Page B

the children, or any of the newer sisters who have been sent to us?”
    The other voice didn’t respond immediately, and in the pause, a new noise put Anna’s heart in her throat. Sister Elizabeth’s keys jangled outside the drainage room door.
    Abbess McCain and the other voice may have continued speaking, but Anna heard none of it. Her muscles went as rigid and cold as icicles. She slapped the cover closed on her lamp. Thoughts blew through her mind like flakes in a blizzard.
    Will she notice the iron plate is lowered?
    No. I only moved it a few inches, and she is a dunce. All of my tools are at the bottom of the pipe. She will assume I’m there as well.
    What if she calls to me? Will the echoes fool her?
    Probably not.
    Anna heard the key turn and the lock click.
    If she calls to me, if I have to speak to her, she will know where I am.
    And then what?
    Only one answer came. And then she will kill me. That is all.
    I could lie. I could tell her I finished cleaning the pipe and decided to clean in here…
    But, that wouldn’t work. And then she will kill me.
    There would not be time for a single word of explanation, not with Sister Elizabeth.
    The moment she sees that I am not where she put me, she’ll beat me senseless and then drown me, right here in this room. She’ll hold my head under water until my eyes roll up and my lips turn blue .
    Anna knew exactly what a drowned child looked like. She had seen it before.
    She thought of the echoes in the pipe, the ghosts of voices wandering through the dark, lost in the lightless catacombs forever. In the deep pool, she saw – with dreadful clarity – Sister Elizabeth thrusting her head under that black water. She felt the sister’s sinewy fingers clutching her hair so she couldn’t get away.
    Will my ghost be trapped like those echoes?
    What a lonely place to haunt.
    The drainage chamber door screeched open.
    Unless you kill her.
    This new thought electrified Anna. I can’t… But she knew she could. She saw it as clearly as she had seen Sister Elizabeth drowning her. The sister would call for her. Anna would not answer. Sister Elizabeth would shout down the pipe at her, probably throw a pebble down as well. While she was thus engaged, Anna would slip out of the cistern and fully release the ratchet lever. The iron plate would drop to the floor, thousands of gallons of rain would crash into the drainage chamber. Sister Elizabeth, with her head already in the pipe, would be washed away in the deluge, crammed and contorted down the length of the pipe and finally crushed against the grate.
    Anna trembled all over with the vision. Adrenaline spiked as her terror gave way to a wild excitement she had never known. The welts on her face and forearms and thigh flared. The knuckle where her pinky should have been throbbed. The black void of grief inside her swelled, swallowing her heart and lungs and guts.
    Part of her brain still screamed I can’t kill her. But that was the little girl part, and Anna was done being a little girl. I won’t die like that. I can’t stay here anymore. It occurred to her that she might also be swept away, but that didn’t seem to be of much consequence just now.
    She crept to the edge of the gap, staying just out of view. Sister Elizabeth’s shoes clacked across the wet floor. Anna waited.
    And what will you do once you really are a murderer? The little girl voice asked.
    She thought of the warehouse, the dock, and the boat. She thought of the Pacific.
    You don’t know how to drive a boat. But that didn’t seem to be of much consequence, either.
    “Anna!” Sister Elizabeth finally called, “Anna, haven’t you finished yet?”
    Anna poised at the gap.
    Please don’t , the little girl voice begged.
    She visualized the sister bending down to peer into the pipe. The next sound would be the sister calling her name . I will be swift as an adder. She hoped the noise of her echoing name would cover any sound of her movement.
    “Sister