Crows of a Feather

22. Fiona tells me a story

Father Sheahan called me a miracle of the Lord. He told everyone about me, every convent and church he could reach, tried to send a message to the Vatican about a child who had survived a house fire without as much as a blister. Of course, the pope never answered to his letters.

A friendly abbess did reach out to him, and got me a spot in an orphanage by the sea. It was a harsh Catholic institute on top of a black cliff. Sometimes, if the waves were tall enough, you could taste salt in the air. Being raised by nuns, although not as bad as being raised by my father alone, was not an easy life. They didn't like the abnormal, and the older I got, the more peculiar things started happening around me.

On the coldest days of winter, the other children would cram themselves into my room because it was the only one where their lips didn't turn blue. When older girls picked on me, they often found themselves in strange situations the next day — on one horrifying occasion, the ocean below.

In conclusion, the nuns didn't like me. They thought I was a troublemaker, and it didn't help when they caught me and one Rosie MacGorman under the stairs. She was sent somewhere else and I never saw her again and I had to do dishes for the remainder of the year, which was just over eight months.

Despite all the other nuns' complaints, the abbess refused to send me anywhere. She had made a promise to Father Sheahan, whom she apparently had some sort of history with. I never found out what they'd been through together, but I had to assume it was something life-changing to keep me there.

I was just past thirteen that summer, when a man and a woman came to visit. I say man, but he couldn't have been more than four years older than me. He was tall and black, possibly the most handsome person anyone in the orphanage had ever met. He wore a golden pendant around his neck; the head of a deer, and Gaelic lettering around it.

The woman was a head shorter than the man, but it was her presence that made the room dead silent. She had a black cane with the same deer head symbol carved into the handle. Her hair was red, like mine, but she had it in beautiful intricate braids that my untamed curls could never achieve. The best I could ever do was two frizzy braids barely held together.

She had terrifying grey eyes. The kind of eyes that could pierce through a person, cold as ice. Everyone else avoided them, but I felt drawn to them. They were challenging me.

"Fiona O'Beirne," she said, and her voice boomed in the entrance hall like she had a microphone.

I stepped forward. I could feel the the nuns' and children's stares on me, but I didn't look at them. I kept my eyes on the woman. "That's me," I told her.

"You will refer to me as Miss Dalton. Is that clear?" she said in a strict voice. Not strict like the nuns, but strict like she would kill me right there if I didn't comply.

"Yes, Miss Dalton," I said. I might've imagined it, but I thought she looked pleased.

"These children," Miss Dalton said, now referring to the abbess, who had appeared behind me and had a claw-like hand on my shoulder. "They are all orphans, yes?"

"That is correct, Miss," the abbess answered. Her grip on me tightened.

"We'll take that one, then," Miss Dalton said bluntly and nodded towards me. "Badru, would you please retrieve her belongings?"

"Now, wait one minute—" the abbess started frantically, but Badru was already gone. There were stifled gasps — no one had seen him leave. Miss Dalton was the only one who didn't look phased.

"Is there a problem?" she asked calmly.

"Yes! We've had one of your— your lot, come here before, and we made a promise, we would never again send a child with the likes of you!" the abbess fumed. "You are ones with the devil! To have her go with you would be to doom her to hell!"