Page 75 of Twisting Beauty

Transfer of medical guardianship.

These were guardianship transfers, formal signatures on heavy cream paper, notarized and filed in neat manila folders.

Attached were more legal documents.

Release of a portion of their associated inheritance trusts in full satisfaction of outstanding fees.

All the files. All those case numbers.

I fingered through the files just to make sure.

Oh my God. All those girls had been signed away, part of their inheritances stripped out and logged as fees. Christ, so many girls.

My blood froze in my veins at a familiar name on one of the documents.

I pulled it out, my trembling fingers cold and numb.

Dervla’s full name was printed across the top of the document.

Dervla, who was still in that ward right now. Who’d pressed her palm to mine and made it a promise.

Her uncle’s signature sat at the bottom of the transfer form. Her uncle had signed her name onto a document and a percentage of her inheritance had been listed alongside it as outstanding medical fees.

Could they do this? My throat closed around the question. Could they sign her away and take her money like this?

I kept scanning the document. Two solicitors had acted as witnesses, and the document was printed on the letterhead of a prominent Irish firm, O’Callaghan & Partners, established 1974, head offices on Merrion Square.

Legal, under law, witnessed and stamped and fully, horrifyingly legitimate.

Another familiar name in another file made my throat tighten even further.

Maeve.

Maeve who hid behind a large mug and had risked herself to slip me sugar for my tea.

There was a letter on top of her file, separate from her release. Maeve was named specifically, then referred to as the intern.

I’m a true Son and I invoke the Mis Protocol as is my right.

…she has become a liability.

The letter shook in my hand. Oh, Maeve. She’d seen something she wasn’t supposed to. That’s how she ended up in Magdalene.

I scanned down to the signature at the bottom.

Charles Bewley.

Dean Bewley.

We weren’t advised of your return. His voice rose in my memory, flat as a closed door, his back already turning while I was still standing there. He’d decided that Maeve was a liability and he had her sent away.

This ran through Ravenwood the same way it ran through Magdalene. One structure, stitched through every institution I’d been put inside. Somewhere at the center of it was a machine I couldn’t yet see the shape of. But I knew, this was bigger than just Alistair.

The file slipped from my numb fingers, the heavy cream paper scattering across Alistair’s pristine rug. A high, thin ringing started in my ears, drowning out the crackle of the fire in the adjoining bedroom. The room tilted violently as the true, suffocating weight of it crushed the air from my lungs.

Dervla. Maeve. Sold.

Bile rose, burning the back of my throat. I pressed a trembling fist to my mouth to stifle the sob clawing its way up, fighting the sudden, dizzying urge to dry heave right there on his floor.