“Okay, everyone back inside!”
The nuns were trying to round up the wandering patients.
The stranger watched me closely.
“They’re calling you, little lost lamb,” he said quietly. His voice was deep, carved from stone... no, not just stone. Brimstone.
Devil.
As if he could hear my thoughts, his full, wicked lips turned up in a smirk.
Then, just when I thought he couldn’t be more disturbing, he brought the lit cherry of his cigarette to his mouth and extinguished it on his tongue, grinning the entire time.
I spun and ran.
3
KATARINA
That night, the dream returned. Maybe it was because of the devil I’d seen on the grounds of Hallow Hall, or because I’d missed two days of medication, but whatever caused it, it was nearly unbearable.
In the nightmare, there was always a baby crying. The crying sound seemed to be coming from the next room, but when I went there, it was gone, moving farther and farther away.
In the dream, I was locked in Hallow Hall, but none of the doors would open, and the windows were all nailed shut. The smell of smoke came from somewhere, but I didn’t know where. People rushed around, but no one stopped to tell me what was happening. I tried to find the fire or the baby, but I just went from empty room to empty room.
I’d been having the same dream for so long, I wasn’t expecting a deviation.
This time, I saw her.
My mother.
She kept leaving every room just as I entered it. I had to catchup to her. I needed to ask her something. It was always on the tip of my tongue, just out of reach.
I almost caught up with her. My fingers brushed her sleeve, but when she swiveled around, it wasn’t my mother.
“Mira?” I cried out, pain and grief crushing my heart in half.
My best friend stared at me with wide, bleeding eyes. I stumbled back from the sight of the long lines of blood falling down her face. Fire licked the walls behind her.
“Mira! Be careful of the fire,” I managed to pant out, reaching toward her. My fingers only just managed to touch the hard shape of her swollen belly. In her clinging, paper-thin white hospital gown, her nine-month-pregnant belly strained against the material. Her long hair streamed around her shoulders, and her eyes wept red.
“Prosti mi, zashtoto sugreshikh,” she whispered right in my ear, despite the distance between us.
Forgive me, for I have sinned.
Then she wheeled to the fiery doorway behind her, stepping toward it.
“No!” I pushed myself forward and reached for her, but a hard hand tugged me back. I stumbled into a bony chest and looked up to see who had grabbed me.
Ivan Markovic.
I woke with a start and tumbled out of bed, hitting the hard tile floor below. It was freezing and dusty, and I soon started to cough. Through my bleary eyes, I stared underneath the bed. I was just about to get up when I saw it. A slip of journal paper tucked under a loose spring on the underside of the mattress. I pulled at it.
I opened it slowly, a sense of déjà vu filling me.
Do not take the medication.Find a way.
The last line was underlined so hard, the paper had been pierced through. A pencil rolled of out the mattress, too, and I picked it up.