REAPERS - Book Two: The Hunger and the Sickness

33

The old building complained in the howling wind as Dimia crept through its halls like a Reaper. It did indeed feel like the house itself had a soul. As it were like the golem, with a thinking mind. The Sisters spoke as if Mother Blacklove did. They called the home a 'she.' "She needs a new roof." "My, her halls are drafty today." Dimia had waited till she thought all the other children were sleeping and slipped from her sheets and sneaked past the beds. She tiptoed by the snoring kids and ducked the patrolling Sisters and went into a storage room and up a ladder through a hatch above. The girl climbed through the opening and entered a secret corner of the sprawling house's attic that was itself a cathedral of sloping walls and dust-peppered shafts of dim light through smudged and cracked skylights. Stacks of crates and trunks were scattered among the sheet-draped furniture and random junk that had accumulated over decades and perhaps even longer a time.

This is where Dimia had hidden Scratch away after she had spotted the feline digging around in the kitchen trash behind the building. With great risk, the girl smuggled the cat back inside one quiet night. It took her many trips to first find a suitable place to hide Scratch and to learn the best path through the halls and to test which windows would open and close. Dimia did not know how long the cat would be safe here in the upper reaches of the orphanage before someone discovered the animal—or caught her trespassing in the halls as she went to and fro.

Scratch purred as he lapped up the minced meat Dimia had brought for him. The girl thought of how Bramble the piglet would nudge her with his snout at feeding time and snortle when she tickled his belly. Her mind went again to the friend she had more recently honored with that name. She penned a letter for Mulia and hoped the sisters had sent it to be delivered as they promised. Now all Dimia could do was wait for a reply of some kind.

Scratch's ears perked up and Dimia snapped back to the present. There was a noise at the hatch. Someone began to push it open from the storage room below. Dimia caught her breath and grabbed Scratch and ducked behind an old dusty trunk. She could hear someone huff up the ladder and into the room. A creaking step, then another. Had one of the nuns found her? What punishment would they deliver upon her if she was discovered?

A voice called out. "Hello?" It was a boy. Dimia recognized the speaker as one of her bunkmates Quint. "Dimia, I know you're up here. I watched you. What are you doin'?"

Dimia stepped from the shadows with Scratch still in her arms. "Don't tell the Sisters."

Quint stepped closer and held out his hand to pet Scratch's fur. "I don't know. Now if they find out, I'm all wrapped up in it. I'd have to fib and that could get me the switch. I should probably jus' come clean. A shame for the pussy cat, though. The Sisters'll probably just hang it. Maybe serve it to the foundlings."

Dimia stepped away and held Scratch tighter. "You say anything and I'll even the scales, boy. Watch me."

Quint's eyes narrowed and he took a step closer. He was just a kid, true, but he hailed from Camshire's hard streets. He rolled up a sleeve. Dimia readied herself. Was this really about to come to fists? Should she throw Scratch to the ground and put up her own? Throw the cat at Quint as a living and clawed weapon?

Rather than poise to fight, Quint turned to better reveal a jagged red welt on the skin of his am. "See this? My brother and I was Rune Kings initiates. Had the brand to prove it, but these cunt nuns stripped it right off when I got here. Or how about this?" Quint turned and lifted his shirt. His back and flanks were criss-crossed with ugly scars. "Look like a right gob, eh?" He dropped his shirt and turned back to face her. "I can take what these hags dish, I can take you." Quint let that linger. "You want me to keep my lips stitched... what do I get in return?"

Dimia's mind worked. What did she have to offer? What was Quint insinuating? "I'll say your nightly prayers to the stars," she suggested.

Quint cocked his head. "You'll do what?"