They picked her up and laid her on it, but didn’t tie her. They leaned down and spoke in her ear and even though I couldn’t make out a word, it seemed to calm her down. She stopped shaking and moving and fighting. Soon, more monks stepped forward. The Chancellor stepped forward. The monks began chanting something.
“Is that Latin?” Will whispered.
“Yes,” Wolf responded.
“Are they going to sacrifice a human being?” Mae asked behind me. “Like kill her? Because you know if they kill someone in front of us and we do nothing we’re all complicit.”
“And it’s fucking murder, Mae.” That was Nora. “It’s no wonder Nolan can’t get Scarlet to join The Eight. These are the things marring our reputations.”
“That’s not why she won’t join and you know it,” Nolan said, transfixed on the scene across from them. “Dude, should we do something now? If they kill her . . . ”
“They’re saying something about virtue and a trinity,” Will said.
“You understand them?” Marcus whispered.
“A little. I studied Latin. Don’t ask.” Will frowned. “Now they’re praying. I’ve never heard this prayer before though.”
“What trinity? Like the holy trinity?” Mae whispered. “I don’t understand.”
I understood though. They were planning to sacrifice one of the three sisters. Maybe all three. I looked all around me. I was surrounded by people who would support whatever move I decided to make, at least that was what I hoped as I stepped toward the fire.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Eva
Dr. Thompson and Debbie should have been here with the police by now. Wendy had given them little information to go on, but it was enough for them to run to the police while Wendy, Stella, and I ran to The Manor. Dr. Thompson wasn’t in agreement with our being here, but after we explained that our birth mother was also here and that we’d have back up from The Swords, he really couldn’t stop us from coming.
Stella, Wendy, and I were standing together a few feet from the fire. We didn’t know which one of us they’d pull in first, but I hadn’t expected it to be Wendy. She turned to look at us, squeezing Stella’s hand first and then placing both hands in mine. Even as the monk who was standing just steps away called her name again, she didn’t budge. Her brown eyes looking into mine as if she was trying to convey something, but what? All of the things we had to say couldn’t be said in the measly twenty-four hours we’d had together. The only thing I knew for sure was that Wendy didn’t deserve this. None of us did, but unlike Stella and I, Wendy was pure.
“I don’t want you to go,” I whispered. “Let me take your place.”
“This isn’t your choice to make.” She squeezed my hand again.
“I know what happens next, Wendy.” I shook my head. “I don’t want you to go.”
“The chosen ones survive.”
“What?”
“The chosen ones survive. Remember that.” She smiled sadly. “It was the honor of my life to meet you and to call you my sister.”
The monk closed the distance between us before I could ask her what she was talking about. She went willingly. I covered my mouth to keep from screaming as I watched her walk up to the bench and lay on it. The monks surrounded her quickly and chanted as they walked in a circle as if they were summoning God, or the devil himself to join us. My hands shook at either possibility. I’d spent so much of my life kneeling in a church pew, that you’d think I’d be excited, but all I felt was fear. I slipped a hand into the pocket of my robe and closed it over the covering of the small blade Wendy had provided.
She had tonight’s ceremony down to a science. She’d never been to one like this, but she said she knew how it would go. She wasn’t sure which one of us would be sacrificed, or how, whether we’d all be used for sex or actually murdered. The fact that we were talking about murder at all was enough to keep my knees shaking. That was what the knife was for though. Wendy told us that if the police still hadn’t intervened by the time we were called, we should use the knives. I’d never used a knife before, not for anything outside of the dinner table, but if necessary, I’d definitely make use of this one. I felt jittery as I looked around, my adrenaline spiking with each word the monks spoke, each movement they made.
I watched as the priest stepped forward, as he lifted himself onto the bench in the middle of the monks. I shut my eyes momentarily. I couldn’t stand by and just watch. Wendy’s plea rang in my head once more. As if sensing my discomfort, Stella reached over and grabbed my hand.
“She said not to intervene.”
“How can we not?” I looked at Stella beside me.
“She said not to. They outnumber us.”
I looked back at the spectacle. Stella was right. They did outnumber us, but not if the nuns were on our side. Not if they chose us over them. It was something even Stella said she wasn’t sure about. Maybe they’d follow, maybe they won’t, she’d said. We can’t save them all. We’re not God. Stella’s hand squeezed tighter when the priest disrobed and stood in yet another robe, this one brown like the one the monks wore. He spoke, said something about the trinity, about sacrifice again, turned his face to look at Stella and me. To seal our fates. Only the chosen ones survive. What did that even mean? I wondered where Debbie was, where Dr. Thompson was. They should have been here by now with the police. They should have been here five minutes ago.
“Tonight is a long-awaited night,” the priest announced, his voice floating throughout the forest. “Thirty years we’ve waited for this. Thirty years, and because we have a perfect trinity—three sisters, triplets—we are able to partake in this sacred ritual. Our sisters will raise their gowns tonight and let the men in. Our establishment . . . ”
He continued on, but I couldn’t make out his words past the ringing in my ears. I looked at Stella.
“Everyone?” I asked. “All of them, all of us, will be raped? Even the elders?”
“I’ve never . . . ” Stella’s tears trickled down her face.
“Had sex?” My heart stopped.
“Not like that.” She shook her head.
Not with a man. That was what she meant. I knew it and it killed me that she couldn’t say it aloud. She’d just left The Institute. They’d probably done another round of that stupid conversion therapy on her. It killed me that they’d made her think her feelings weren’t valid because they weren’t for the sex they preferred a woman to be with.
“I won’t let them touch you.” I squeezed her hand.
She’d just left The Institute. They’d probably done another round of that stupid conversion therapy on her and now this. Looking around, I wasn’t sure what to think about the monks. Were they happy about this? Horrified? Their expressions were blank, completely bare of emotion. It occurred to me that I’d spent the last few weeks vilifying all of them. I hadn’t realized how young they were or how coerced they must have felt. I kept saying the rape of that woman, the rape of all of these women today, but in a sense weren’t they being raped as well? The ones being forced to participate anyway.