Read Online Jacaranda by Cherie Priest - Free Book Online

all right? Did you open those doors? We ought to keep them secured, so the tempest stays out. I hate to lock them,” she nattered on in the face of this particular new strangeness. “Other guests might arrive, but I suppose they can always knock if they want to come inside that badly.”
    Constance Fields relented, and wrenched her eyes away from the doors—to fix them now upon Sarah. “We ought to lock them all, immediately. And the windows too. Keep the whole world out, for its own good…because it’s too late for ours.”
    “Now, Mrs. Fields,” she chided. “Come on, and I’ll see you back to your room. Are you feeling well? Can I get you anything to drink?”
    “No. To all of that.”
    Sister Eileen lifted her face, and her eyes flashed. Her nostril twitched. She whispered the word, “Blood.” Then she stepped forward, out of the rear entrance corridor where she and the padre had lingered. She approached Constance Fields. “You’re not all right, are you? No, you’re not all right at all .”
    Constance Fields gave a great sniffle, and a trickle of blood slipped out of her nose. It pooled briefly in the divot above her lip, then curled over it, and splashed down the front of her dress.
    Sarah’s eyes went wide, her pupils as big as coins. She stepped aside, and the nun tried to take Mrs. Fields by the shoulders. When the woman wouldn’t be turned, Sister Eileen walked around her, and paused.
    She looked over her shoulder at the padre, then again at Mrs. Fields’s back. She took a deep breath and said to Sarah, “My dear, I’ll need some rags and hot water.”
    But the steadfast Mrs. Fields said, “Don’t trouble yourselves.”
    Sister Eileen insisted calmly, “You need to sit down. You’re bleeding.”
    “I’m aware.”
    The padre joined them, and he saw how the rear of her dress was slashed, raked by claws or knives or something else that had cut her deeply. Gouges bubbled with every breath she took, and bits of bone showed through in bright white flecks. Shreds of fabric dangled down to trail the back of her legs, all of it wet and ruined.
    “ Señora ,” he urged. “Please, come take a seat.”
    If she felt any pain at all, she did not appear bothered by it. “I do not wish to take a seat. I wish to wait for my husband.”
    The nun persisted: “Please, lie down. You need medical attention and I…I have a little training. You can’t possibly have the strength to stand much longer.”
    With a rasp at the edge of her voice, she replied, “I have what strength it gives me. I lose what it takes, the same as everyone else.” One shoulder drooped, and a dribble of blood ran down the back of her arm, her hand, and off the tip of her longest finger. A puddle formed while they watched. More blood spilled out of Mrs. Fields’s nose, and onto her bosom.
    Sarah shook her head wildly and retreated, unwilling to touch the woman again—unwilling to touch any of them, or look at them either, if she could help it. Her hands were only just big enough to cover her mouth and her eyes at once. She stumbled back behind the counter, back into the office.
    “I can’t…oh God, I can’t. Not another one, not—”
    Whatever else she groaned was lost when she slammed the office door, and sealed when she turned the deadbolt to secure herself within.
    The hard line of Mrs. Fields’s mouth softened, and upturned into a faint smile. “Worthless child, directing the traffic of the damned. She’s not like the rest of us, though.”
    “How’s that?” the padre asked. He held out an arm, offering her strength to lean on or merely guidance toward the nearest wicker chaise.
    Like all other offers thus far, she refused it. “Sarah wasn’t called here, not like we were. She was only too weak to walk on past. Well…” she swayed, but did not fall. “She can stay here if she likes. Or if she thinks she has to.” Her eyes stayed transfixed upon the front doors. “Even hell needs its civil