2
Alice Callaghan
Dust sparkled in the light slanting from the window blinds, to settle on an elder beauty. Like the passing of clouds, moods played across her noble features: Paled blue by the slow suffocation of life, her wrinkled hands lain soft upon her silk nightgown. A fog dwelled within the lenses of her eyes. Something about her captured the surreal, and the nuns of Providence Wayward admired her for it.
Two such nuns stood gossiping outside her simple room until a third nun drove a noisy metal cart between them, ending their conversation. She was not their Mother Superior, but she was their superior—a nun named “Alice Callaghan.” Fearing confrontation, they scampered.
Having knocked gently on the empty door frame but receiving no answer, Sister Callaghan cooed. “Mrs. Mason.” She returned her hands to the food cart and—as silent as could be—pushed its rickety frame inward. If Mrs. Mason could hear it, she gave no indication. Standing straight-backed over an upturned and lowly chair, she bathed like an angel in the meager light. She was immaculate. Among the twilight particulates which hung like stars around her, the blueness of her skin and eyes was exquisite. Though it may have been heretical, Sister Callaghan saw in her nothing less than the nocturne of God’s creation. “Divinity could be no less beautiful than…” she mused, righting the chair.
It was dirty—inescapably so. As if some unseen devils had about the entire facility with a sieve, sifting dust, the moment it was cleaned it would be dirty again. Such was life. Brothers and their Fathers; and Sisters and their Mothers, time had dirtied them all. “Even I.”
Lifting the blinds just to let them fall, an Autumn chill passed through the window, causing a clatter. Mrs. Mason moaned something incoherent and would have fallen if Sister Callaghan had not guided her expertly to her chair.
A bead of sweat cooled on Sister Callaghan’s brow. In her admiration, she had nearly forgotten. How, despite its many howling hallways, for all its unpaned windows and doorless frames, the facility air did swelter. “Is she okay?” Tucking the long cloth of her burlap skirt beneath her knees, she sat on both heels, kneeling. Having secured a tray on the arms of Mrs. Mason’s chair, she prayed, poured the tea and broke the bread. In truth, there was not enough; this was not Mrs. Mason’s lunch but both of theirs combined. Despite the obvious hunger in her sunken cheeks, Sister Callaghan had resolved to eat later. To give the impression that there was more than enough, she combined their portions and offered it to Mrs. Mason who was—doubtless—further starved than herself.
She still wore the same silk nightgown in which she had arrived—years ago, escorted by some nameless soldier—like a ghost in the still of night. Mrs. Mason’s haunting features had only compounded since then. The thinness of years spent fasting was, on her, preternatural. Silhouettes of bones and joints showed like islands emergent from the watery surface of her skin. Her nightgown flowed like the very curtain of life and death about her.
The Sister brought a careful spoon to her lips and blew. “Mrs. Mason, it’s tea. Open- open- open.” She mimed an open mouth, ready to receive a spoon, but Mrs. Mason would not open—even with a body so thin and a spoonful of fragrant tea pressed against her lips. She returned the spoon to the teacup and frumpled, but no display of frustration could save Mrs. Mason from starvation. If she did not eat soon, she would die; the Sisters were sure of it. “Bu’ wha’ more can we do?” She plucked a piece of bread and pressed it to Mrs. Mason’s lips. Hoping she would eat it, she held it there, as if suppressing a sneeze. A sourness developed on her face. Holding back tears, she began to tell a story.
She began slowly. With many empty partings of the lips—not really knowing what to say or where to start—she stuttered into beginning. “You can’t- ohh, this is silly. Sooner tha’ God would listen than you.” She bit her lips and frowned. The corners of her eyes peeled downward in pain. She sighed.
“I was a soldier once. O’ the front lines of pov’rty, I….” Vacant of face and mind, she stared out the window, just like Mrs. Mason. Her soul ached to know. “Was a child- ‘re only children, bu’ they had such a fight in them! Tha’, I never- didn’t see it again. Ss… remarkable. Quite so quiet- ‘s a child long deprived- or beaten- no’ alive yet livin’, like the Word. But by our collective mind, undying—as Lazarus—and innocent.” Through her throat, she squeezed a shuttered breath. In her hearth, she trapped it. “The bellowes blow fierce awaye the leade consumed of fyre yet; the founder melteth in vayne: for the euill are not purged.[1]” A buzzing swarm of heterogenous emotion assailed her thoughts. Memories, hard and inflexible, flew through her.
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“Mrs. Mason, are you there? Please tell me! Are you listening. You who’ve born the whips and….” Sweat born of an oppressive heat crowded her vision- stung her welling eyes. “To grunt and sweat’ beneath i- how could you. Like this. How could you?” She withdrew the bread-holding-hand to wipe her face. To sooth herself, she bathed in the memory of good deeds.
“I caugh’ ‘im stealing, once”—she sniffled, squeezing her fists closed. “Though I’m sure he’d stolen many times prio’—this time I caugh’ him!” She released the fingers of her hands to open slowly, as if to reveal something precious. “’Take before you give; but ask before you steal.’ I taugh’ ‘im that. Dunno if it’s ver’ Catholic or not, but…” her eyes flared with desire as she turned the lump over against her palm. “Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing… ?”
The blinds rose and fell. Chill air flowed.
“Ye would’e loved ‘im. I’ never seen s- a child so young manifes’ uh dead- uh famili’r spirit o’ th’ dead. Neve’. Ye ‘d ‘ve loved ‘is dog too. Fuzzy lit’le spiri’ pup ‘e was. ‘N lively. Wouldn’t ye know it- ye wouldn’t—th’ pup was dead! No’ long dead—I didn’t think, anyway—but dead, no’theless. “Ash” wa’ ‘is name—a lit’le salt an’ peppe’ thing.” At the dog’s mention, Mrs. Mason seemed to react, but it was nothing—just the chaos of dementia, or a trick of the light.
From the tea, heat rolled upwards like a high wave.
“’Tis hot Winter in the West and cold Summer in the East. Bu’ who am I t’ judge?” She concentrated her efforts. Cool thoughts carried on her breath into the cup: A layer of ice formed across the liquid’s surface. Frost gripped its porcelain handle. It was frozen. Nuns were not supposed to cast magic except to heal, but “who’s to say that a cup of ice on a hot day was not healing magic? Not this sister.” She reached out for Mrs. Mason’s hands, expecting that they should be warm, but they were cold. She studied Mrs. Mason’s eyes but could see no indication as to whether she was comfortable; only the eerie fog of cataracts and the crumple of old age met her gaze. Otherwise at a loss, she folded Mrs. Mason’s unsteady hands around the cup, hoping the cold would somehow invigorate her.
It did. With a voice that could not be called “audible,” Mrs. Mason shuttered a gasping breath, “O-o-oh.” Her eyes stretched open something terrible, but Sister Callaghan could not look away. She was helpless, but peer into them. They screamed.
* * *
A crowd gathered around her as she woke, gasping. At once, everybody thought “She’s alive!” Yet, while the crowd gasped for Sister Callaghan, she grasped singularly upon the grotesque memory of Mrs. Mason’s sight. “What was that?”—not the swirling miasma of cataract eyes, but the wisping darkness of abandoned wells too deep to peer down and see. Something terrible. “Mrs. Mason!” she screamed. Bolting upright, she forced the crowds to part. “Mrs. Mason—where is she!?” Sister Callaghan demanded with an anger that baffled those around her. “Why am I angry?”—she felt as though she had run away. Confused whispers fell below the din of her thoughts. Faced with the insurmountable, she had failed—fainted and paled. She was angry at herself—so angry that, at some point, she had grabbed a Sister by the cuff and barked a silly question. “Where is Mrs. Mason?”—the answer was obvious.
“She is in her room.”
“How unlike a Sister” her Sisters must have felt as Callaghan released her cuff. All it took was a glimpse. A mere glimpse had ruined her—corrupted her. Leaden, Callaghan’s soul was now mere weight upon her breast. “Do they know? That I am the lead immoulten?” She clapped her hands together in desperate prayer. The bewildered faces of those around stoked her impassioned thoughts. “Consummatem est[2]. The hour is come. Not darkness- desolation- nor dereliction but fulfillment: the Father’s will be accomplished in we whom offer nothing more. ‘Tis perfection. Salus animarum supremus lex esto[3].”
“Sister, why do you cry? Mother Mason is in her room; why do you cry!”
“… Numquid apartae tibi sunt portae mortis eet ostia tenebrosa vidisti? Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? Hast though seen the doors of the shadow of death?”
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[1] Jeremiah 6.29
[2] “It is finished.”
[3] Canon Law 1752: The salvation of souls must be the supreme law in the Church.