Page 26

“Coccico, I believe.”

The energy of the room changed. Sister Joanne’s mouth tightened. Sister Marina turned her head slightly, as though hearing a bell only she had expected.

“Close the shutters,” she commanded.

One of the younger sisters obeyed immediately. Wooden shutters slammed into place over the windows as Sister Joanne began working.

“Blankets. Warm water. Scissors. I need light.”

The sisters moved quickly.

I stepped back to give them space as Sister Joanne took a pair of scissors to the woman’s torn sweater. The blades slid through the ruined fabric in neat, efficient cuts.

I looked away. Then I took another step back. Then another, until the door was at my shoulder and the cold iron handle pressed into my palm. There were things a priest could not allow himself to witness. There were things a man had no right to see. So I stood in the corridor outside the room and let the sisters do what mercy required.

Sister Joanne finished wrapping the woman’s wrists and pulled the blanket higher.

“She needs rest. If she vomits, wakes confused, or loses consciousness again after waking, we will have to risk a doctor. I can do much, but I cannot perform miracles.”

Sister Marina nodded toward the crucifix. “That is his department.”

Sister Joanne snorted. “He has been selective lately.”

The woman stirred. Her fingers twitched against the blanket. Her lips parted. A rough breath slipped out, thin and broken. Then nothing.

Sister Joanne checked her pulse again.

“She is exhausted. Let her sleep.”

I nodded. There was nothing more I could do here. That should have relieved me. Instead, it left me standing in a room with blood on my cassock and an unfamiliar pressure behind my sternum. “I should return to the church.”

Sister Marina’s head snapped toward me. I looked at her.

“Sister—”

“No!” she hissed.

“She’ll be safe here.”

The old woman stared at me as though I had said something embarrassingly stupid. “Safe? Here?”

“In the convent, yes.”

“Do not insult me, Father. There is no place that is safe if the Coccico are involved.”

Sister Joanne glanced between us, then gathered the bloody cloths and instruments, taking her leave. “I will check on the other patients,” which was her way of saying she would give us privacy while pretending not to.

She left with the younger sisters. The infirmary became very quiet.

Sister Marina stood between me and the door. She barely reached my shoulder, but she might as well have been made of iron.

“This is not a frightened wife running from a violent husband,” she declared.

“We don’t know that.” I kept my voice low. “She came into the church bleeding, with three men close behind her. I know nothing about who she is or what she’s running from.”

“Which is precisely what makes this situation dangerous.”

Marina held my gaze with the hard, unflinching calm of a woman who had spent too many years watching suffering arrive at her door.