The two girls walked together down the wooded path. The older, more commanding one held the other by her wrist, almost dragging her. They stopped suddenly in a small clearing, the older wheeling around to face the younger and grasping her shoulders tightly.
“If you wrong us, I’ll name you. I swear I will!”
“Alice!” the younger girl shrieked, terrified at her sister’s fierceness and rage.
“You will not tell! You will not, Clara, or God will strike you down! It’s His work we’re doing, and you are no one to get in our way! I will name you if you threaten to end it,” Alice said in a deathly quiet voice to the small girl.
“It’s not, Alice! It’s not God’s work! Why would God have you sentencing all these innocent people?” Clara cried, her voice shaking with emotion.
“Would you break charity with us – with your own sister? Think of all we have now. We have power in this town; power none of us could have imagined. And you would give all that up?”
“So you admit to it then? That it were for power?” Clara asked slowly.
Alice’s hand came down across Clara’s cheek with a loud crack. Clara looked straight at her sister, her eyes wide with fear or possibly shock.
“We do it for God. You’ve had the visions too! Or are you saying that it were pretense with you? Is that it, Clara? It were pretense? Last night when I slept I saw a young girl with the Devil, but I could not see her face…I believe I understand now….” Alice whispered, bringing her face very close to Clara’s.
“Y-You wouldn’t!” Clara said, but even as she declared it, her voice shook. This strange and frightening Alice was capable of anything.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Clara pulled her shawl a little tighter around her shoulders. Alice was striding a few paces ahead of her, seeming not to notice the cold at all.
“Alice, must we go?” Clara asked, running a few steps to get closer to Alice.
Alice stopped suddenly, nearly causing a collision with Clara, and turned to face her sister.
“Yes, Clara, we must go. Would you like to know why we must go? I shall tell you. Peter’s wife is not at home this morning, but she will be soon. Now Clara, Peter’s wife must not know I am there. It is your job to watch for Mrs. Gray and, when you see her getting close to the house, knock exactly three times on the door. Then you must get away as fast as you can. Do you understand?” Alice explained in a sweet voice, as though she was talking to a dumb child or a dog.
“Yes,” Clara replied sullenly, wishing her sister (who was only two years her senior) would treat her more like a friend and less like a servant.
“Good. And you must not enter the house,” Alice commanded, adding in a cold whisper, “If I should see your face while I am inside I’ll strike you without mercy.”
“Very well,” Clara said dully, not anticipating that she would feel the urge to put herself at risk of becoming the victim of one of Alice’s rages.
Clara stood in silence as she watched Alice enter the house stealthily, without even so much as a knock. Before completely disappearing inside, she turned slightly and gave a devious, almost maniacal smile to Clara.
Clara shivered. Ever since Alice had gathered her friends together to dance on the Sabbath just weeks previously, she had changed. Alice was ill, Clara had decided beyond a shadow of doubt. These fits she had were nothing. She did not actually see Satan as she claimed to – she could not.
“I’ve told you, Alice! I’ll not see you!”
Clara was startled out of her thoughts by a shout from inside the house. She recognized the voice as Peter Gray’s.
“I’ll not have you in my house! Out!” he bellowed and seconds later Alice stumbled out of the door she had entered
“Peter! Have you forgotten all that we’ve had?” Alice cried, trying to force her way back inside.
“If only I could,” Peter said, his voice pained and strangled.
Clara tried to steal away quietly as Peter gave Alice a shove.
“Clara! Clara, you’ll not leave here without me!” Alice shrieked from the doorway, casting a contemptuous glance at Peter as she rushed to catch up to Clara.
They walked together silently for what felt like an eternity to Clara.
“Alice?” Clara asked softly, breaking the silence only as they reached their own home.
“Not a word, ever,” Alice replied sharply, hurrying ahead of Clara and slamming the door.
Clara waited a few moments, making certain that Alice would have ample time to busy herself with something or other, before entering the house.
(That's all I have so far!)
-Ailam
