The Devil's Hand Read online

  “No kicks whatsoever?” I ask. “Really?”

  “Sorry, Sir.”

  “You seem pretty fit and healthy,” I tell her. “I'd like to see you next week at the same time, just to make sure that everything's progressing nicely. You look a little tired in the face, have you been sleeping properly?”

  “Yes, Sir. Well... Mostly, Sir. When I'm not having to get up and go outside in the middle of the night to -”

  She stops suddenly, but when I turn to her I can see that she almost let something slip.

  “Up in the middle of the night?” I ask. “Now that doesn't sound like it's in accordance with house rules.”

  “No, Sir,” she replies, looking down at her feet.

  “What were you doing?” I continue. “Come on, it's okay, I won't tell Mr. Kane.”

  “It's just... We all got up last night, Sir. Well, most of us. We were... We were hoping to maybe...” She pauses, and her breathing sounds a little more intense. “We were hoping to have a word with Abigail. Or her spirit, anyway.”

  “Abigail? You mean the dead girl?”

  “Yes, Sir. I know it's foolish n'all, but...”

  Her voice trails off, and I can tell she's scared of getting into trouble.

  “Stupid,” she mutters finally, under her breath. “You promised not to say anything.”

  “Now who could have been the ringleader of such an endeavor?” I ask, even though I think I already know the answer. “Let me guess, was Miss Ivy Jones involved in any way?”

  “Don't know, Sir,” she mumbles.

  I make my way over to her. She's clearly embarrassed by her admission, maybe even a little shy. I imagine she was told over and over to keep it to herself, but everyone should know by now that Sissy O'Neill's brain can't move fast enough to keep up with the rest of the world. She's not mentally disabled, not by a long chalk, but she's most certainly on the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to brainpower.

  “You mustn't let Mr. Kane find out about such things,” I tell her, “do you understand? I'm rather tolerant of childish tomfoolery, but he isn't so for God's sake, Sissy, be careful. Besides, you do realize that you could never hope to contact the dead, don't you? The whole idea is deeply unscientific and, if you ask me, rather backward. Worse than that, it's downright uncivilized! It's almost pagan!” I wait for her to answer, but it's clear from the look in her eyes that she not only believes in contacting the dead, but that she's tantalized by the prospect. Her head has obviously been filled with silly talk. “Was Abigail a friend of yours?” I ask.

  She pauses, before shrugging.

  “But she was a popular girl here, wasn't she? I'm sure everyone would like to get in touch with her.”

  Another shrug.

  “You know you can tell me anything, don't you?” I continue, placing a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to give her comfort. “I'm not like the other staff here. Mr. Kane and Mrs. Kilmartin, they can be rather strict on young girls, but I'm very keen to be a little softer. I won't rat you out and I won't take a dim view, I'll just listen and offer my advice. You can talk to me, Sissy.” Again I wait, but she simply looks down at her feet as if she's afraid to meet my gaze. These poor girls have had the fear of God driven into them during their time here, and it's horrible to see how their spirits have been crushed. “Well tell the other girls too,” I add, heading back over to my desk. “My door is always open. And tell...”

  I pause for a moment.

  “Never mind,” I say with a sigh, “I'll catch up with her myself. Off you go now, Sissy.” I start slipping my charts away, before turning and see that she's still in place. “That means we're done here. You can go back to the other girls now.”

  With an obvious sense of relief, she gets to her feet and hurries to the door.

  ***

  “Miss Jones, can I have a word? Miss Jones!”

  Slipping through the throng of wobbling, heavily-pregnant girls in the corridor, I have to take care not to knock any of them over as I hurry to reach Ivy Jones. She's heard me, I'm sure of that, but she probably doesn't want to admit anything so she's hurrying on ahead. In fact, I think she's actually picked up the pace a little, although that's not saying much since none of these girls can really move faster than a slow amble.

  “Miss Jones, please stop!”

  Now that I'm close enough, she has no choice but to glance at me. As the other girls file dutifully into the classroom, I reach Ivy and put a hand on her arm, steering her away from the door and over toward the far end of the corridor.

  “I won't keep you long,” I tell her.

  “Mrs. Kilmartin will be awfully angry if I'm late for class.”

  “I'll tell Mrs. Kilmartin that I'm the one who detained you.” Once we're alone, I stop next to the window and turn to her. “So am I to assume that you're the ringleader behind this foolishness concerning Abigail Cartwright?”

  “I...” She pauses, and it's immediately clear that I'm right. “I don't know what you mean, Sir.”

  “Cut it out,” I reply, keeping my voice low so that there's no chance of us being overhead. “You ought to be extremely glad that I'm the one who learned of it, rather than one of the other members of staff. Ivy, in the name of all that's holy, what are you thinking? I had Sissy O'Neill in my office earlier today looking white as a sheet. You can't go running around talking about ghosts, not when there are so many impressionable girls around you.”

  “No, Sir. Sorry, Sir.”

  “With a girl like Sissy,” I continue, “it's almost understandable. She's rather easily led. But you? I thought you were a more level-headed young lady, Ivy. I never had you pegged as someone who was into all this supernatural mumbo-jumbo.”

  “Sorry, Sir.”

  “Don't think I didn't see your escapades last night, either,” I tell her. “I'm quite capable of looking out my bedroom window after hours and spotting scores of pregnant young women waddling across the lawn in little batches. The only reason I didn't come out and stop the business at once was that I didn't want to draw Mr. Kane's attention. In the name of God, Ivy, can you imagine how he'd have reacted if he'd found out?”

  “Sorry, Sir.”

  “Abigail is dead,” I continue. “It's sad, but it's a fact and no amount of -”

  “Ivy Jones?” Mrs. Kilmartin calls out in her usual shrill voice as she emerges from the classroom. She stops as soon as she spots me. “Oh, there you are.”

  “I'm just speaking to her for a moment,” I reply. “She'll be in shortly.”

  The spindly old woman eyes me suspiciously for a moment, before retreating into her den and swinging the door shut. I'm sure she'll try to find out what we were talking about later.

  “I can almost smell the brandy from here,” I mutter.

  Ivy immediately bursts out laughing, although she catches herself quickly.

  “Ignore what I said,” I tell her, unable to stifle a faint smile. “Focus on this instead. You are not, under any circumstances, to repeat last night's shenanigans, is that understood?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “No more attempting to communicate with the dead.”

  “No, Sir.”

  “No more expeditions out onto the lawn after bedtime.”

  “No, Sir.”

  “And no more putting crazy ideas into the heads of girls like Sissy O'Neill. I think sometimes you forget, Ivy, that you're a little cleverer than average. Some of the others here, they can be awfully easy to lead astray, and sometimes I think you have more charisma than you realize. Be careful.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  I wait, wanting to make absolutely certain that she understands, but I don't suppose there's much more I can do right now. This isn't the first time I've had to take Ivy Jones aside since she arrived at Beacon's Ash, and it probably won't be the last. Honestly, she's one of the most incorrigible girls I've ever met.

  “Get back to class, then,” I tell her. “I'm sure Mrs. Kilmartin has some vitally important information to im
part about thistles or housework.”

  She turns to head to the classroom, but after a moment she hesitates, as if something else is on her mind. I can see she's biting her bottom lip, almost as if she's physically struggling to keep quiet, and then finally she looks up at me with those big, soulful eyes.

  “What happens to the babies, Sir?”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”

  “Do they really go to families after they're born?” she continues, with a hint of desperation in her voice. She places a hand on her swollen belly. “I mean, I know that's what Mr. Kane says, but none of us girls can check for sure so I just wanted to... Well, I wanted to ask you, seeing as how you're more...” There are tears in her eyes now, and she seems genuinely concerned. “It's just that when I can't sleep, Sir, I sometimes imagine what life will be like for my baby after he or she has been taken away. I know I can't be a mother in my situation, but are the babies really taken to a happy new life somewhere far from here?”

  I open my mouth to reply, but for a moment I can't help thinking back to the poor child I saw drowned just yesterday.

  “Absolutely,” I say finally, forcing a smile. “Mr. Kane... Mr. Kane sees to it personally.” I'm not lying. I mean, he does send most of them away, and I'm sure he arranges for them to go to decent homes. Good, strict, disciplined homes where they'll be raised by men such as himself. The thought is enough to send a shudder through my chest, and to make me feel deeply ashamed to play any part in the whole sordid endeavor. “Get to class,” I say firmly, “and stop worrying about things that are out of your control. That advice applies equally to ghosts and to babies!”

  As she waddles over to the door, I can't help feeling just a little sorry for poor Ivy. She's more alert than most of the other girls here, more aware of the world around her, and as I know from my own experience it can be a curse sometimes if one is unable to pull the wool over one's own eyes.

  Checking my fobwatch, I see that it's time for my daily appointment with Mr. Kane. How jolly.

  II

  “And you see no signs of recidivism in any of the girls?” Kane asks, brooding on the other side of his desk. “Nothing to indicate that any of them might slip back into their old, foul ways?”

  “Absolutely not,” I reply. “In fact, most of them -”

  “You're wrong,” he says suddenly.

  I adjust my spectacles. “Um... I beg your pardon?”

  “I can feel it in my bones,” he continues, leaning forward in his creaking chair. Placing a hand on his chest, he seems almost to be channeling some kind of inner sensation. “I feel the spirit of one who fights back. It's the same feeling I had in the days when Miss Cartwright was starting to cause trouble. I made the mistake of ignoring it before, and the situation became deeply unpleasant. This time, I fully intend to nip the whole thing in the bud. One of the girls here has an independent spirit that is going to cause trouble if it's not properly dealt with.”

  “I'm not -”

  “This can't be allowed to continue,” he adds, slowly closing his black-gloved hand to form a fist. The joints of his knuckles and fingers crack in the process. “If one girl gets away with such things, the others will think they can do the same. These girls are like wild animals, Doctor Ratcliffe, and they get into bad habits if they are not corrected. Mark my words, there is a girl here who is causing trouble.”

  I wait for him to continue, but he seems locked in thought. Shifting slightly in my seat, I look down at my notes, but I've already said everything that was necessary. As the seconds tick past, however, I start to wonder whether I'm free to leave or whether he means for me to stay a while.

  “Well -”

  “Ivy Jones,” Kane says firmly, interrupting me. “What of that particular girl? Have you spoken to her in the past few days?”

  “Ivy Jones?” I pause, trying to sound completely casual. “Well, yes, I think so. Briefly. She doesn't strike me as a trouble-maker, though. Far from it.”

  “She's a highly intelligent girl.”

  “Does that automatically mean that she's trouble?”

  “She's too intelligent for her station in life,” he adds.

  I'm not entirely sure what he means, but I choose not to ask.

  “I fear she is becoming a trouble-maker,” he explains. “I recall seeing her in conversation with Miss Cartwright on numerous occasions over the past few weeks, and I worry that perhaps some ideas were passed from one girl to the next. I thought that with Miss Cartwright out of the picture, such troubles were over, but now I wonder whether Miss Jones intends to carry on the threat.”

  I shift uncomfortably. “Miss Cartwright was openly rebellious on a number of occasions,” I point out. “Has Miss Jones given you reason to -”

  “Not yet,” he replies, interrupting me again, “but that is entirely my point. We cannot afford to wait so long.”

  “But Ivy is... I mean, Miss Jones is a good student. She attains high marks in all her classes, she attends every service in the chapel, even when she's a little under the weather, and I personally have never heard her once -”

  “It's in her eyes,” he says firmly, leaning back with a slow, weary sigh. Clearly he finds it tiresome, having to explain his divine perceptions to the likes of me. “You can't deny it. It's right there in her eyes.”

  “It is?”

  “Rebelliousness,” he adds, spitting the word out as if it burn his lips. “Whether it has fully developed in her soul or not, it has most assuredly taken root and and that fact troubles me greatly. These girls all come from such ungodly homes, they have been raised without discipline or respect for their betters. Trust me, if you had met Miss Jones' parents, you would despair at their ways. Not that I am excusing her behavior, of course. I merely mean to impress upon you the fact that the vast majority of these girls are lost causes.”

  I wait, but he's clearly contemplating ways to deal with this problem that he has managed to invent.

  “I hope you won't think me to be speaking out of turn,”I say finally, “but... What happened with Abigail Cartwright should not, in my humble opinion, happen to any of the other girls. I'm not challenging you or questioning you in any way, but I fear that her passing has inadvertently cause some of the girls to...” I pause, trying to work out how to phrase my concerns without angering him. “I detect a rather unfortunate morsel of superstition,” I add finally. “Some of the girls are contemplating... matters.”

  “What superstition?” he asks with a frown. “What matters? Come on, man, say what you mean.”

  “Some nonsense about the Devil's hand,” I continue. “It seems some of the girls have this rather fanciful fear that the Devil is trotting around the school, placing his hands on their shoulders and causing them to drop like flies. Or causing Abigail's death, at least.”

  “Where did they get such a foolish notion?” he asks with a frown.

  “They have been taught to fear the Devil,” I point out. “Perhaps, as young girls, their imagination simply took that idea and went a little overboard.”

  “And you did not bring this matter to my attention sooner?”

  “I thought -”

  “It is not your job to make decisions regarding the spiritual health of the girls,” he sneers. “It is your job to attend to their few, base physical needs. Speaking of which, I trust that the necessary arrangement have been made?”

  “Almost.”

  “Then get to it, and leave me to deal with the girls' other problems. After all, I'm sure you'll agree that their spiritual problems are my area of specialty?”

  “I can't argue with you there,” I reply, feeling a shiver pass through my chest. Of course I can't argue with him. Were I to so much as put a foot wrong in this school, I would be shown the door. And then my past crimes would come rushing to catch up and overwhelm me. Anything is better than facing a firing squad. Even working at this terrible place.

  ***

  Back in the storeroom behind my examination area, I stare down
at the body of poor Abigail Cartwright, laid out naked on the table with a little knot of black wire holding her belly together. I reach out and press a fingertip against the wire's end, almost hard enough to cut my own skin.

  Almost, but not quite.

  For a moment, I can't help thinking of the last time I saw Abigail alive, after Mr. Kane called for me and I entered his study to find... Closing my eyes, I realize I can still hear the girl's cries, and I can still feel my own shock at the sight of so much blood dribbling down her flayed skin. As I open my eyes again, I can't help taking hold of the dead girl's shoulders and tilting her slightly to one side, so that I might see one more time the half dozen thick wounds running through her flesh, left by Mr. Kane's cat-o-nine-tails.

  No wonder the poor thing had a heart attack. No wonder there was nothing I could do to save her.

  “I'm sorry,” I whisper, setting her body straight and then pausing for a moment. “You know I couldn't have saved you, don't you? Please, try to understand that. There's just nothing I can do about that man.”

  ***

  “I always think they should be buried properly,” I whisper to Mrs. Kilmartin, pulling my coat closed as a chill wind blows across the field. “Surely it's for God to judge them, not us.”

  A few feet away, Kane watches as Sykes drags a cloth bag containing Abigail's body and that of her baby. There's no dignity, no attempt to honor the dead; instead, Sykes simply pulls the poor girl through the mud and then lets out a grunt and a fart as he shoves her down into the crude, rough hole he dug earlier in the frozen ground. There's a faint thumping sound as the body hits the bottom, and then Sykes grabs his spade and immediately starts shoveling muddy, snow-mixed soil down to fill the hole again.