The Devil's Hand Read online

  “Sissy's too simple for that,” I reply. “She's my best friend, I love her dearly, but everyone knows she's not all there in the head.”

  “You mustn't talk like that, Ivy.”

  “But it's true! She told me about the man who got her pregnant, he took advantage of her awfully. The world is too complicated and cruel for a girl like Sissy, she can't hope to make it through. Something like this will only -”

  Suddenly a scream fills the air, and when I look at the door I immediately realize that it's coming from Doctor Ratcliffe's surgery. The scream ends as abruptly as it began, but I already know that it must have been Sissy. I close my eyes just as another tear rolls down my cheek, and or a moment I can't help thinking about Sissy in stirrups with Doctor Ratcliffe plucking out the remains of her baby. I just want to run through and hold her hand and tell her that everything's going to be okay, but I know I'd never be allowed to go in while a medical procedure is being performed. Besides, everything isn't going to be okay, not for her.

  Poor Sissy...

  ***

  “I heard pieces started falling out of her,” Clara says excitedly, “like a broken doll!”

  “I heard there were maggots,” Catherine adds, “wriggling around like -”

  She stops as soon as she sees me in the doorway, and her face lights up.

  “Ivy!” she calls out, waving at me. “Come and tell us all about it! What's really happening with Sissy? Have you seen her? Have you seen it?”

  “We all heard that awful cry earlier,” Mabel adds eagerly. “Oh, to think of how much pain one must be in, to call out so dreadfully.”

  “I haven't been in to see her yet,” I explain, taking a seat at their table. “Doctor Ratcliffe says she's too weak for visitors.”

  “Was there much blood?” Clara asks. “I bet there was!”

  “You're so gruesome!” Maud hisses with a smile.

  “Not so much,” I reply, “although...” My voice trails off as I realize that I feel positively sick to my stomach and almost as if I might faint. “Doctor Ratcliffe says she won't die,” I continue finally. “She just needs lots and lots of rest.”

  “And then I suppose she'll be sent home,” Mabel points out.

  I turn to her, momentarily shocked by the suggestion although, after a moment, it makes a horrible kind of sense.

  “Well there's no point in her staying here,” she adds, “not if she's... Well, if there's no baby, there's no problem. She can go home. She's lucky, in a way. She'll get out of here just in time for Christmas Day.”

  “Shocking, really,” Catherine mutters. “To think, in the space of a week we shall have lost both Abigail and Sissy. In very different circumstances, obviously, but right before Christmas.”

  “Blimey,” Clara says suddenly, grabbing my hands and pulling them across the table for everyone to see the sore red patches on my palms. “What happened there?”

  “Nothing,” I mutter, slipping free of her grasp and shoving my hands under the table so they can't be seen.

  “Did you touch a bad plant?” she continues. “Some of them can give an awful rash if you're not careful. Or perhaps you're simply allergic to something rather normal?”

  “I think...” Feeling a wave of nausea, I get to my feet, although I immediately realize that the whole room seems to be turning all around me. No matter where I look, the walls and even the other girls start drifting away from my line of vision and I stumble back a little, bumping against the window. I try to pull myself together, but the sensation is becoming stronger with every breath.

  “I say, Ivy,” Clara mutters, “you look awfully pale all of a sudden. Are you sure you don't want to have a sit down again?”

  “I'm fine,” I stammer, turning and making my way toward the door. After just a couple of steps, however, I feel as if the floor is tilting up to one side and threatening to spin over my head. I try to compensate by leaning the other way, but I only succeed in tripping and slamming down hard against the floorboards.

  As I pass out, the last thing I hear is the other girls shouting for help.

  III

  “Honestly,” I reply, sitting up on the bed in the corner of the medical exam room, “I feel fine now. I must've just become a little light-headed.”

  “Doctor Ratcliffe says you're to rest for the remainder of the day,” she replies. “Mr. Kane has been informed and he has no option but to abide by the doctor's recommendations, so you won't get in trouble. Then hopefully you'll be fighting fit to get going tomorrow morning with your normal classes.”

  “I'm supposed to go to Mr. Kane's room at five,” I tell her, “for special instruction. Am I excused from that, as well?”

  “Why...” She pauses. Clearly this is news to her. “I'm not sure. I'll double-check, but Doctor Ratcliffe did say all classes, so don't fret.” She takes a small jar of white paste and wipes some onto her fingers. “Here. You must take this for the blisters on your hands, and you mustn't go touching Old Fellow's Wort if you find it in the garden again.”

  “Old Fellow's what?” I ask.

  She sighs as she takes my blistered palms and wipes the paste into the reddest parts. “It gives a very distinctive pattern,” she explains. “I thought I'd got rid of it all last spring, but I should have known a girl like you would find some.”

  “A plant?” I whisper, already feeling that the paste is relieving the burning sensation.

  “It's probably what caused you to faint as well. You clearly touched quite a lot of it, but don't worry, there'll be no lasting effects so long as you didn't eat any of it. You didn't, did you? It was just skin contact?”

  “Of course,” I reply, as I start to realize that old Kane must have smeared his Bible with some kind of plant extract that caused my hands to burn. In fact, I think I even saw a bottle of green powder on his desk. I was right all along, he really is a charlatan. A good one, though, I'll grant him back. As Mrs. Kilmartin finishes up and sets the bottle of paste back onto the shelf, I tell myself that there's no point explaining to her what really happened. She'd just side with Kane.

  Heading to the door, she glances back at me. “I hope you'll be a good patient, Ivy Jones. We don't want any unnecessary malarkey with you, now do we?”

  “And you're sure my baby's okay?” I ask, reaching down to put a hand on my belly. I wait for a kick, but nothing comes.

  “Your baby's fine,” she continues. “Now rest, and try not to fret.”

  Once she's left the room, I sit up a little more and take a series of slow, deep breaths. I felt so wretched when I collapsed earlier, but I feel right as rain now and I'm rather frustrated by the thought that I have to sit around in here for the rest of the afternoon. Easing myself up, I put a hand on my waist as I feel a flicker of pain in my back. It's nothing too bad, though, so I half limp and half hobble across the room until I reach the window. Outside, the other girls are sitting around in the playground, and a few of the ones who aren't far gone are even playing a mild, laid-back form of hopscotch. How I long to be out there with them again.

  Most of all, though, I want to go to Kane and tell him that I see through his deceit. I can't possibly be so blunt, though. The man surely has an answer for everything, and at least now I have an advantage in that I know how one of his tricks works.

  After a moment, however, I hear a faint moan from the next room. Heading to the connecting door, I peer through and see that a bed has been blocked off with screens. I pull the door open and slip through, and as soon as I see a pair of feet poking out from behind one of the screens I realize that I've found Sissy. I should turn back and let her have some rest, I know I should, but at the same time I'm frightfully worried and I can't help myself.

  “Sissy!” I call out, hurrying around to see her face. “Are you -”

  I stop as soon as I see how pale and clammy she looks, almost yellow. She's flat on her back with her eyes just slightly open, and her hands are resting on her flat belly.

  “Hey,” I continue, tryi
ng not to sound too shocked, “are you... How are you feeling there, old thing?”

  Making my way over to the side of her bed, I realize there's probably nothing I can say that'll make her feel better. She's staring at the ceiling, and I can see from the puffiness of her eyes that she's been crying recently. Her sweaty forehead glistens in the low light of the room, and I can't help feel moved almost to tears when I see her hands, still resting on the spot where just twenty-four hours earlier she had her lovely baby bump. I want to tell her that everything will be okay, of course, but I know there's no point. I've calmed her fears so many times over the past few weeks, and now I see that I was utterly wrong.

  “It's cold,” she says finally.

  “What is?”

  She still hasn't got her eyes full open, but at least her darkened pupils are looking directly at me now.

  “Inside,” she continues, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “He used all these metal things to get the pieces out of me, and they were so horrible, and I still feel cold now. It's as if...”

  Her voice trails off, and it's clear she doesn't have much energy.

  “You're going to be just fine,” I tell her, stepping closer and giving her a kiss on the cheek, in the hope that I might perk her up a little. “I'm so sorry, Sissy. This is terrible news, I wish there had been some way to stop it.”

  “I saw the bits,” she replies. “Doctor Ratcliffe tried to hide them, but I saw them in a metal pin. It came out in four or five little chunks, like -”

  “Not now,” I say softly, with tears in my eyes. “You simply mustn't torture yourself.”

  “I saw the other hand,” she continues. “I didn't see the face, though. I suppose he got it out, or maybe it didn't have one yet. I think I saw -”

  Suddenly she starts coughing, but her throat sounds awfully dry and her whole body shudders for a moment before she lets out a gasp of pain and tilts her head back. A rattled gasp emerges from her throat, quite unlike anything I've ever heard from her before.

  “You need to rest,” I tell her. “I'm sure you have stitches and so on down there.”

  I wait for her to reply, but I can see tears welling in her eyes now and after a moment one of them rolls down the side of her face to her ear.

  “Oh Sissy!” I continue, leaning over the bed and giving her a jolly good hug. “Sissy, dear Sissy, please don't. This isn't the end of the world, you know. There's so much time left for you to have another, and you'll be able to keep it next time, provided you do it all properly.”

  She's sobbing uncontrollably now, and all I can do is hug her tighter as tears rolls down my own face too.

  “Sissy -”

  “I can't,” she blurts out breathlessly, her voice shuddering with the force of her continued sobs. “He said I can't have another one! He said I'm too damaged in there now!”

  A shudder of pure horror passes through my body as she presses her face against the nook of my neck. I can feel her tears against my skin as I hold her tight, and I'm momentarily overwhelmed by a sense of utter powerlessness. At times like this, I truly wonder if there's a God and, if He is up there, why he lets such awful things happen to girls like Sissy. She doesn't deserve any of this.

  “Do you want to sing Christmas carols?” I ask, suggesting the one thing that I know usually cheers her up. She can't hold a tune for toffee, of course, but I always find her voice rather funny. “It's a few days early, but who cares? Come on, we'll sing any one you like.”

  “I can't have a baby!” she weeps. “That was all I ever wanted! I can't do anything else in life, I know that, but I could have been a Mummy and now I can't!”

  “You can still -” I start to say, before realizing I can't finish that sentence. “There's still a lot you can do,” I add finally. “Sissy, the future is so bright!”

  “No it's not,” she cries. “I'm too simple-minded and stupid to get a job, but I could have been a good Mummy. You know I'd have been good at it, Ivy, don't you?”

  “Of course,” I tell her, “but you're not simple-minded, you mustn't think like that.”

  “I know I am,” she continues, pulling away from me and wiping her eyes as she sniffs back tears. “I've heard what people say about me, and it's true. Every single day I sit in class and I feel how dumb I am. I just can't think as well as other people, I've always known that.”

  “Sissy -”

  “It's true!” she says firmly. “Don't tell me it isn't, Ivy. Be a friend and be honest with me.” Her trembling fingers are fiddling with the fabric on the front of her night-shirt. “I know I'm not clever. I know I'm simple. I didn't mind any of that, honest I didn't, because I told myself there was one thing I would be good at, and that was going to be raising a baby. I'd accepted long ago that it wouldn't be this baby, but I still thought I'd get another chance some day. And now...”

  She pauses, before breaking into sobs again.

  Pulling her close again, I hug her even tighter than before.

  “Maybe you can work with children somehow,” I tell her. “I know it's not the same as having your own, but it might be half as good. The one thing you mustn't do, though, is give up hope. Your father's coming to pick you up on Monday, isn't he? I overheard Mrs. Kilmartin saying that. You can go home just in time for Christmas, and then you can get back to your normal life, and I promise it'll all feel okay in the end, Sissy. You just have to promise me that you'll stay hopeful.”

  I wait for her to reply, but she's too busy sobbing and I don't know what else to say to her.

  “You can sing carols in church,” I remind her. “You always told me how much you enjoyed that.”

  Again I wait, but again she just continues to weep.

  “And we'll always stay in touch,” I add finally, “I promise. We'll exchange letters. Just because you're leaving, it doesn't mean we'll stop being friends.” I hug her tighter still. “I swear on my life,” I whisper. “You don't get rid of me that easy, Sissy O'Neill. And I'll miss you so very much.”

  IV

  “Are we trying tonight?” a voice whispers in the darkness.

  Turning, I look over at Catherine's bed and see her face staring back at me in the gloom.

  “Are we going to try to contact Abigail again?” she continues, with a hint of excitement. “Only, Mary and some of the other girls are going to try something and they invited us. If we're not doing our thing, maybe we could go and sit with them for a while? You know, just to see how it goes and lend our support. And it's always possible that they might actually conjure poor Abigail up, isn't it?”

  “I'm too tired,” I reply.

  “That's rotten. You don't mind if I go, do you?”

  “Of course not,” I tell her, and she immediately shoots up out of bed and hurries to the far end of the dormitory. I doubt Mary will have much luck contacting the fairy gods or whatever she's up to, but I suppose it can't hurt for them to try. After all, it doesn't matter how Abigail comes back to us, only that she does and that she's able to tell us how she really died.

  Turning back to look over at the other side of the room, I spot Sissy's empty bed. I hate to think of her all alone in the infirmary, probably sobbing and in pain, but Doctor Ratcliffe wouldn't let me sleep in there with her and apparently she's too sick to come back in with the rest of us. I suppose her bed will be empty permanently from Monday, and I still haven't quite accepted that she'll be going home.

  I'll miss old Sissy.

  A short while later, less than an hour, I hear the door creaking open and I turn to see Catherine and a few others sneaking back into the dormitory.

  “Any luck?” I ask, although I'm pretty sure I already know the answer.

  “It was stupid,” Catherine mutters as she gets into bed. “Mary was just going on and on about someone named Oberon, asking him if he and the other fairies could get Abigail to come and talk to us. I mean, you'd have to be pretty stupid to believe in something like that, wouldn't you?”

  “I suppose so,” I mutter.


  “The whole thing was utterly childish,” she adds in that slightly haughty tone she affects from time to time. “So are we going to try your method again tomorrow night?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What's wrong?” she asks. “You're not losing interest, are you? We need to conjure Abigail's ghost somehow, or we won't ever find out what killed her.”

  “Absolutely,” I reply, “I just... We've been trying for a while now and nothing has worked. I think maybe we should take some time to come up with a few new ideas. Study the whole thing first before diving in again, take a more academic approach to the whole thing. There's obviously something we're not doing right, and only a fool keeps banging her head against the wall like this.”

  “So what do you have in mind?”

  “I'm not sure yet,” I continue, “but I'll let you know when I have something. I'm still sure we can pull it off eventually, it's just a matter of buckling down to some good old-fashioned thinking. I'm pretty sure we're smart enough.”

  “Clara suggested trying to summon the Devil,” she replies, “but I told her that was an awful idea. I pointed out that it'd rather defeat the purpose of the whole thing.”

  “Don't listen to Clara,” I mutter, closing my eyes. “I need to get some sleep. I'm sure I'll come up with something in the morning.”

  ***

  “Come on, slow coach!” Beryl giggles, patting my shoulder as she hurries past along the corridor. “Last one to the showers is a wet blanket!”

  I watch as she runs on ahead, but I don't have the energy to catch up. Even though I managed to sleep fairly well last night, I had rotten nightmares about the war and about bombs falling from the sky, and about horrible old Mr. Kane wiping Old Fellow's Wort on his Bible, and I woke up feeling more wretched than when I'd gone to bed. As I get to the bathroom door, I look through and see that the showers are already full, with a queue having formed, while a couple of girls can be heard vomiting into the toilets. God, I remember when I used to be sick every morning, it was an utterly awful time. Turning with a sigh, I start making my way to the other bathroom at the other end of the house. Hopefully there won't be quite so many people there.