Chapter 11
THE THINGS I REMEMBER ABOUT COMING TO SANTA Teresa are
mostly just snippets of a long journey I thought would never
end. I remember an empty stomach and sore feet and
being impossibly tired most of the time. I remember
Adelina begging for change, for food; remember the
seasickness and the vomiting it caused. I remember
disgusted looks from passersby. I remember every time we
changed names. And I remember the Chest, as
cumbersome as it was, that Adelina refused to part ways
with no matter how dire our situation became. On the day
we finally knocked at the door Sister Lucia answered, I
remember it being on the ground tucked snug between
Adelina’s feet. I know she stowed it away in the shadows of
some obscure corner of the orphanage. My days of
searching have turned up nothing, but I still keep looking.
On Sunday, one week after Ella arrived, we sit together
in the back pew during Mass. It’s her first, and it holds her
attention about as well as it holds mine: not at all. Aside
from class, she’s pretty much been by my side since the
morning I helped her make her bed. We walk to and from
school together, eat breakfast and dinner together, say our
nightly prayers together. I’ve grown very attached to her,
and by the way she follows me around, I can tell she’s
grown attached to me as well.
Father Marco has droned on for a good forty-five
minutes, and finally I close my eyes, thinking of the cave
and debating whether I should bring Ella along with me
today. There are several problems with it. First, there’s zero
light inside, and there’s no way Ella will be able to see
through the dark in the way that I can. Second, the snow has
yet to melt, and I’m not sure she’d be able to make the trek
through it. But most of all, I worry that bringing her would be
putting her in harm’s way. The Mogadorians could arrive at
any moment, and Ella would be defenseless. But even with
these obstacles and concerns, I’m eager to take her along
anyway. I want to show her my paintings.
On Tuesday, minutes before we were to depart for
school, I had found Ella hunched over on her bed. Still
chewing on a breakfast biscuit, I looked over her shoulder
to see her furiously shading a perfect drawing of our
sleeping quarters. The details, the technical accuracy of
each crack in the wall, her ability to capture the faintest of
squares of sunrays that dropped through the windows in the
morning, was astounding. It was as if I was looking at a
black-and-white photograph.
“Ella!” I had blurted.
She had flipped the paper over, trapping it against her
schoolbook with her tiny smudged hands. She knew it was
me but didn’t turn around.
“Where did you learn how to do that?” I’d whispered.
“How did you learn to draw so well?”
“My father,” she whispered back, keeping the drawing
turned over. “He was an artist. So was my mother.”
I’d sat down on her bed. “And here I thought I was a pretty
good painter.”
“My father was an incredible painter,” she’d said plainly.
Before I could ask her more questions, we had been
interrupted and then ushered out of the room by Sister
Carmela. That night I’d found Ella’s drawing under my
pillow. It’s the best present I’ve ever received.
Sitting in Mass, I think that maybe she can help me with
my cave paintings. Surely I can find a flashlight or lantern
somewhere here to take with us. And then my thoughts are
interrupted by a fit of giggles beside me.
I open my eyes and look over. Ella’s found a red-andblack
furry caterpillar that’s in the process of crawling up
her arm. I bring my finger to my lips in a sign of silence. It
stops her for a brief moment, but then the caterpillar climbs
higher and she begins giggling again. Her face turns red
while trying not to laugh, but the fact that she’s trying to stifle
it only makes it that much harder. And then she can’t help
herself and a string of laughs escape. Every head snaps
around to see what’s happening, and Father Marco stops
his sermon in midsentence. I snatch the caterpillar from
Ella’s arm and sit upright, staring back at those staring at
us. Ella stops laughing. Slowly the heads turn back around
and Father Marco, clearly flustered at having lost his spot,
resumes his sermon.
I sit with my hand around the caterpillar. It tries wriggling
free. After a minute I open my fist, and the sudden
movement causes the furry little thing to curl into a ball. Ella
raises her eyebrows and cups her hands together, and I
place the caterpillar in them. She sits there smiling down at
it.
I scan the front row. I’m not at all surprised to see Sister
Dora glaring sternly in my direction. She shakes her head
before turning back to Father Marco.
I lean over to Ella.
“When prayer ends,” I whisper into her ear, “we have to
get out of here as fast as we can. And keep away from
Sister Dora.”
Before Mass I’d fixed Ella’s hair into a tight braid; and
now, gazing up at me with her big, brown eyes, it looks as
though the heavy braid is weighing her head back.
“Am I in trouble?”
“We should be okay,” I tell her. “But just in case, we’ll rush
out of here before Sister Dora can catch up to us. Got it?”
“Got it,” she says.
But we don’t get the chance. When there are just a few
minutes left, Sister Dora stands and casually strolls to the
back, and then stands waiting at the door a few steps
away. When my eyes reopen as the final prayer ends with
the sign of the cross, Sister Dora places a hand on my left
shoulder.
“Come with me, please,” she says to Ella, reaching
across me to grab her by the wrist.
“What are you doing?” I say.
Sister Dora pulls Ella past me. “It’s none of your
business, Marina.”
“Marina,” Ella pleads. As she’s being dragged away, Ella
looks back at me with scared eyes. I panic and rush to the
front of the church where Adelina is standing, talking with a
lady from town.
“Sister Dora just grabbed Ella and pulled her away,” I
quickly say, interrupting her. “You have to make her stop,
Adelina!”
She looks incredulously at me. “I will do no such thing.
And it’s Sister Adelina. If you’ll excuse me, Marina, I was in
the middle of a conversation,” she says.
I shake my head at her. Tears form in my eyes. Adelina
doesn’t remember what it feels like to ask for help and not
receive it.
I turn and run from the room and up the winding staircase
to the church offices. To the left, at the end of the hall, the
only door closed is the one leading to Sister Lucia’s office. I
race towards it, trying to decide what I should do. Should I
knock? Should I kick straight through it? But I don’t get the
chance to do either. When I’m within reaching distance of
the knob, I hear the crack of the paddle, followed instantly
by a scream. I’m frozen in shock. Ella cries on the other
side of the door and a second later the door is opened by
Sister Dora.
“What are you doing here?” she snaps at me.
“I came to see Sister Lucia,” I lie.
“She’s not here, and you’re due in the kitchen. Go on,”
she says, shooing me the way I came. “I’m headed there
myself.”
“Is she okay?”
“Marina, it’s none of your concern,” she says, and then
grabs me by the bicep, spins me around, and gives me a
shove.
“Go!” she orders.
I move away from the office, hating the fear that runs
through me every time confrontation stares me in the face.
It’s always been that way—with the Sisters, with Gabriela
Garcia, with Bonita on the dock—I get the same feeling, the
same nervousness that quickly segues to dread, that
always causes me to walk away.
“Walk faster!” Sister Dora barks, following me down the
staircase and towards the kitchen where El Festin duties
await.
“I have to use the restroom,” I say before we reach the
kitchen, which is a lie; I want to make sure Ella’s okay.
“Fine. But you better make it fast. I’m timing you.”
“I will.”
I duck around the corner and wait thirty seconds to make
sure she’s gone. Then I rush back the way we came, up the
staircase, down the hall. The office door is slightly ajar and I
walk through it. The interior is dark, somber. A layer of dust
covers the shelves that line the walls, upon which sit ancient
books. The only light enters through a dirty stained glass
window.
“Ella?” I say, for some reason thinking she might be
hiding. No answer. I walk away and poke my head in the
rooms situated off the main hallway, all of which are empty. I
call her name as I go. At the hall’s opposite end is the
Sisters’ sleeping quarters. There’s no sign of her in there
either. I go back down the stairs. The crowd has made its
way to the cafeteria. I walk to the nave looking around for
Ella. She’s not in there, nor is she in either of the two
sleeping rooms, nor the computer room, nor any of the
storage rooms. By the time I’ve looked in most places I can
think to check, a half hour has passed and I know I’ll be in
trouble if I go to the cafeteria.
Instead I hurry out of my Sunday clothes, pull my coat off
its hook, swipe the blanket from my bed, and dash outside.
I trudge through the snow away from town, unable to push
the sound of the paddle’s crack and Ella’s scream from my
mind. I’m also unable to forgive Adelina’s scorn towards
me. My whole body tense, I focus my energy on some of the
large rocks I pass, using telekinesis to lift and hurl them
against the mountainside. It’s a great way to blow off
steam. The snow’s surface has hardened, creating a thin
layer of ice that crunches underfoot, but it doesn’t keep the
rocks from skidding downhill. I’m so mad I could let them
go, careening towards town. But I stop them in their tracks.
My gripe isn’t with the town but rather its namesake, and
those who live within it.
I pass the camel’s back—half a kilometer to go. The sun
is warm on my face, situated high in the sky and slanted
towards the east, which means I have at least five hours
before I’m due back. I haven’t had this much free time in a
great while; and with the bright sun and crisp, fresh wind
pulling me from my dismal mood, I hardly care that I’ll be in
trouble when I get back. I turn to see how effective my
blanket cape is at hiding my prints in the hardened snow,
and I’m afraid to see that it hasn’t worked at all today.
Nevertheless, I push forward until I spot the rounded
shrub sticking up over the snow, then I race towards it, at
first not noticing the very thing my eyes should be attuned
to: that the snow at the base of the cave is tossed up and
pushed around. But as soon as I reach the cave’s entrance,
I know immediately that something is horribly off.
Approaching from the south, a single set of boot prints,
double the size of my own, dot the mountainside, a perfect
straight line cut into the snow leading from town to the cave.
They seem to tromp around its opening, as though circling
it. I’m flustered, certain there’s something else here I’m
missing. And then it dawns on me. The prints—they lead
into the cave, but they don’t lead back out.
Whoever they belong to is still inside.
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