Sister, Sister

Finding Her

They found her somewhere in the woods, strung on a high branch like a puppet. It would be a nasty surprise, I suppose, if you went out for water and found a girl hanging dead from a tree. The four sisters who went out, Miriam, Harriet, Philomena and Eleanor, abandoned the journey to the well and instead went about getting the lady down from the tree.

Shouting broke out when the four blew in through the chapel door, each carrying her by a limb. Questions were dropped on them from every direction, from any sister, until Mother Georgina shouted above all of the voices.

"Silence!" she bellowed, and everyone stopped, some mid-sentence. We turned our attention from the girl to her. Nothing was heard, save the strong wind against the building and the rustling of our robes as we shifted nervously, waiting for her to continue.

"Clearly," she began, "We have discovered something quite worth discovering. As a sisterhood, we must come up with a way to deal with it--her."

"We could take her to town," suggested Sister Florence. Sister Eleanor sneered.

"And do what,  ring a bell and cart her around the square asking whose she is?" She laughed. Florence glared at her. The two had an odd loathing for each other. Eleanor turned away, her attention back on Mother Georgina.

"Sister Florence's idea was not a bad one. We'll take the girl to town in the morning and see what information we can find on her."

"Why us?" young Sister Violet asked tentatively. "Why do we need to find out what happened? Can't we take her to the sherif?"

"We found her. It is our duty as women of God to find her identity and her story." As much as we wanted to question her further, we all knew better than to pester her when her mind was made up. Mother Georgina was an ambitious woman. We were going into town the next morning.

"We'll be waking up at dawn to arrive. Hilda, Prudence, fetch water for our baths." I searched the faces for Sister Prudence and met with her at the door, both our knit shawls wrapped tightly around our shoulders. We swung the heavy oak doors open and stepped into the freezing winter night air.

"It's been quite an interesting evening, don't you think?" Prudence asked me when we were out of earshot of anyone in the chapel.

"Yes, I suppose." Sister Prudence had always seemed nosy to me.

"Do you think she killed herself or was murdered?" she blurted out, as if she'd been waiting for days to say it to someone. I recoiled like I'd been struck.

"What sort of question is that?" I said. She shrugged her shoulders.

"A question about what you speculate on her death." I considered my answer. Sister Prudence tended to be very straightforward.

"Now that you mention  the possibility of it being a killing, it seems very possible." Sister Prudence didn't reply. The wind cut straight through my shawl and my robes, chilling my bones.

"I do wonder what happened," she said after a few minutes of silence. "I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep tonight with all this excitement."

"Yes, but that's what you always say when something different happens around here."

"That's because nothing ever does happen around here. The last bit of excitement we had was the time a rock fell off the back of the chapel and Sister Charlotte thought it was an earthquake." This was true, and Charlotte was a very timid woman. She'd sent us all into a frenzy. At last, Sister Eleanor found the rock deep in a rut it had created in the ground when it fell from the steeple.

"So what do you think we'll find out in town tomorrow?" I asked. Prudence shook her head slowly.

"Only God can say." We said nothing on the rest of the way to the well, or on the way back. It was much too cold to spend our energy on speaking.

After we bathed in the water, which was only lukewarm, even after heating it over the stove, we went to bed. None of us were able to sleep, what with the massive amount of excitement of the evening. Everyone was still awake by the time we had to be up for midnight prayer.

Sister Martha, an old woman with wispy white hair and deep creases in her face, recited the scripture reading, not noticing the buzz of disconcerted whispers regarding the night's events.

"You may kneel and raise your own concerns and celebrations up to the Lord," finished Sister Martha, shutting her bible. Everyone fell silent, the only noises being soft breaths and the wind outside.

Dear Lord, I prayed, Please give us the strength and the ability to solve this mystery of the girl hanging in the tree.

I supposed that we all were praying the same thing.