Sara leaned back on her heels and stifled a cry at the pain that erupted in her back and shoulders, the burning sting of the blisters on her palms. She looked around, to the doorways to the back and front halls, and saw nothing but the empty spaces there. Part of her better mind tried to tell her there had been nothing there at all, never had been, but she knew now that wasn’t true.

She returned her attention to the sand and the red stain. Coarse to her touch, gritty beneath her fingernails as she dug at the surface. Too compacted to do more than scratch. She reached for the chisel, gripped the shaft in both stinging hands, and stabbed at the sand, dragged the blade through it, moving it away in clumps and drifts. Perhaps two inches of packed sand and pebbles, broken up by the chisel, then scooped away by her hands. The idea crossed her mind to go to the extension, see if she could find a spade or a shovel, but she knew if she got up off her knees now, she might not be able to get down again, so she kept digging until she found dark, damp earth. She stabbed at the ground, dragged the chisel across it, dislodging earth and stone, dug with her hands, clearing away a shallow crater, piling sand and dirt all around her.

As Sara’s fingers delved into the earth, they found something smooth and hard. She stopped, breathless, staring down into the small hollow, and she saw yellowy white through the deep brown. Her fingernails scrabbled through the dirt, pulling it aside, exposing more, an inch of it now, and something else, a ridge bordering a rounded hollow. She stopped, staring at what she’d unearthed, knowing what she saw, even as her mind fought against it.

An eye socket.

“My God,” she whispered.

Despite her every instinct not to, she reached down and touched it, the bony ridge, the smooth surface of the brow.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

A shadow fell across the bone, across her outstretched hand.

“What have you done?” Damien asked.

38: Joy

38: Joy

Joy got on with sweeping the floors, despite the pain. Every time she moved, the welts that had been left on her skin by the belt rubbed against the fabric of her clothing. But she had known worse pain, and she could tolerate this now that she had a scrap of hope to cling to. The logical part of her mind knew that Noreen was right, that this would not go the way she planned, but the hopeful part had grown bigger, brighter, louder, until it eclipsed all else. When she looked ahead, all she could see was walking out of this place, Mary’s hand in hers, George taking them away.

And then what?