Moira, they’ll think you’re crazy! It’s hard to wag your finger at yourself.
The nuns called her Moira because the man who may have brought her to church was found dead at the bottom of the steps. Also, her baby rags were black with dirt and soot.
At twenty-five she loved the tremulous flesh of the delivery boy. Men were so scarce, she had to make do.
She can still feel his teeny frozen hand in hers. Her little one. That’s why she had to do it. They are all angels now, like her Johnny. All seventeen of them. She’s happy she didn’t falter. She has to disappear. She understands that much. The field is humid and cooling, the corn touches her skin and it feels good. She looks up at the moon, did the moon wink at her? So little joy. But tonight is the night of freed tiny souls, the most special night in her life. She lets herself run wild, white hair danced by the wind, feet bare and wet. She clutches the locket tighter and tighter until her flesh rejoices the pain her pointy long nails inflict. She feels Johnny floating next to her, his crystalline baby voice calling her: ‘Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy’
**
‘Is this the lunatic who murdered all the children at the orphanage?’
‘This is Moira.’ Sister Evangeline’s trembling hands arrange Moira’s fingers around the locket.
‘They had to break them to remove that thing. It’s evidence, how did you get it?’
Ageless eyes glance up at the man who tightens his coat around his body.
‘You people are scary.’ He spits and turns around, his quickened pace diminishing him to a black dot.
‘God works in mysterious ways.’ Sister Evangeline makes the sign of the cross above the body lying in the coffin. Decades of sorrow have crevassed Moira’s face so it no longer looks human.
Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash
Copyright © 2011–2018 by Georgiana Petec. All rights reserved.
first published in https://medium.com/the-junction