In A Dark Mirror

Nine

Heather pretended to concentrate putting the plates back in the kitchen-cupboard, while Aifric was washing the dishes. She tried not to think of her friend, and had even avoided looking at her all evening. She tried to ignore the feeling of guilt, that laid heavy on her heart.

Aifric, of course, had noticed that. She turned from the kitchen sink.

“Heather, what’s wrong?” She asked.

Heather felt caught.

“Nothing.” She said uncomfortably.

“Yes, something is wrong!” Aifric insisted. “You don’t even do as much as look at me!”

“Did I do something? Is it because of yesterday?”

There was so much desperation in Aifric’s voice, that Heather’s heart clenched painfully.

“No, no!” She said. “It’s not because of yesterday!”

That, Heather knew, was a lie. It was not the fact that she had slept with Aifric, that bothered her. That was, in fact, the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to her. But that was exactly the problem. It was not only sex. She had fallen in love with this girl. And this meant she presented an Achilles heel.

“I don’t think we should do this!” She said quietly.

“It’s a little late for that,” Aifric replied. “We already did this!”

“That’s not what I mean!” Heather retorted. “She knows!”

Aifric was shocked. “Do you think that? If Agatha knew what happened between us, she’d ripped us to shreds already!”

“Not the shower!” Heather returned. “She knows that there is something going between us.” Tears welled up in Heathers eyes. “Don’t you see? Why do you think she beats the crap out of you?”

“She knows that I like you. And she knows that I don’t care about whatever she throws at me!” Heather was crying now.

“She finally has found a way to hurt me.” Heather’s voice almost vanished between her sobs. “It’s my fault! All of it is because of me! I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry!”

As Heather sank to the floor Aifric rushed to her friend, sitting next to her and putting her arms around Heather’s neck.

“Shh. It’s OK. I’m here.” She tried to comfort the girl.

“You shouldn’t be. You mustn’t be!” Heather pulled herself out of Aifric’s embrace. “She will come after you, because she wants to hurt me!”

Aifric knew Heather was right. And she discovered a new feeling inside her. A feeling that she did hadn’t known for a long while. It took her a moment to realise that it was anger. She was angry. Angry with Mother Agatha, angry with the world, and she was angry with Heather, who thought she could steal away from her.

“You know what?”, she said firmly. “I am here, whether you like it or not. I am here, and I’m not going to leave anytime soon!”

Her voice was quivering a little, but she went on, although she felt tears welling up in her eyes too.

“You are about the only thing in this frikkin’ twisted world that makes any sense to me! I’m not going to give you up, just because you feel guilty about what you cannot control! You’re goddamn stuck with me here, so deal!”

Heather looked surprised. She had not expected such an outburst . “I don’t want you to get hurt-” she began.

“I am not finished!” Aifric interrupted. “I am not going to watch you winding in self-pity. You did not whip me, Agatha did! And she keeps on pushing us!”

“I am not going to step back anymore. You think you’re so tough, you can bear her whip? OK, so can I! I’m tougher than you think, and god knows I’ve been through hell and back! So don’t you ever dare to tell me what to do, or who to love!”

Aifric leaned against the wall and slumped to the floor, exhausted from her own outbreak.

Heather stared at her in disbelief. Her face was still wet from tears, but she seemed to have forgotten about that.

“Wow!” Was all she could say.

Aifric continued, almost whispering now. “You know, last night, when we where in the shower, I realised one thing!”

Heathers normal self suddenly flickered through sadness and self-pity. “You’re a dyke?”

Aifric couldn’t help, but chuckle.

“OK, two things!”

Then all humour faded from her voice.

“Heather, I want to live. Until last night, my mind was revolving around the question why I survived the crash. I thought I should have been buried alongside Mam and Daid. And Eoghan.”

She took a deep breath.

“When we where together, I realised it’s not over yet for me. I don’t want to die!”

Heather reached out for Aifric and touched her wet face, wiping the tears off with the back of her hand. There was a long pause between them, before Aifric spoke again.

“Someone has to stop her.”

It was clear, about whom she was talking. “Yes. And who might that be? Us?” Heather looked into Aifric’s eyes.

“Do you see anyone else?” Aifric stated. “No one will come for us, no knights in shining armour. Not the youth welfare and not the police. If we want to get out of here, we have to do it ourselves.”

“You wanna run?” Heather answered.

“I’m tired of running. I wanna take the fight to her. You have resisted her all this time, you must have thought about it yourself!”

“In my dreams, I snap her neck with my bare hands.” Heather admitted. “But I don’t think we can just beat her up, It’ll be even more trouble.”

“We need a strategy.” Aifric leaned her head on her girlfriends shoulder. “Are you in?”

“So we’re an army now.” Heather sighed. “A traumatised girl and a sociopath. We’re some frikkin’ army.”

And then, after a pause: “Yes. I’m in.”

Every night, after they said their evening prayer, the girl’s dorm was turned in to a war room. They had decided to let Mercedes in on their plans. The girl could keep her mouth shut, and she was resourceful and clever. And, as it turned out, underneath her cheerful nature, her hatred for Mother Agatha was no less than Heather’s or Aifric’s.

They knew they could not simply walk into the village, and talk to the local policeman. It was clear to all of them, that the villagers at least had a good idea what was going on behind those old, crumbling walls. Generations of troubled and orphaned girls had been suffering here silently, it was hard to believe, no one knew what was going on.

At least, that was Heather’s point of view.

“Maybe I’m being paranoid.” She said. “But I don’t want to bet on the help of people, who didn’t give a shit for the past fifty years.”

They talked for long about what they should do. In the end, they decided, that only the public could help them. So they would document the abuse, writing down meticulously every beating, arrest or forced rosary. Which presented them with problem number two: To credibly document the abuse, they needed to take pictures. And that meant they needed a camera.

“Where do we get a camera?” Mercedes asked.

“Heather could nick one at the grocery store.” Aifric suggested.

“They don’t have that sort of stuff. Plus they would notice.” Heather shook her head. “If I nick a package of fags every other month, no one notices. But an expensive camera? They’d be on our tails in a second!”

“But we don’t have a camera here!” Mercedes cried.

Aifric pondered for a second. “That’s not true. Agatha took my mobile. It should still be in the bottom drawer of her desk.”

“Yeah, great!” Heather cut in. “But there is no signal for miles around!”

“True. But is has a camera. And you can remove the memory card.”

Heather smiled at her girlfriend. “I didn’t think of that. You’re a genius. Problem is: How to get into the office unnoticed. That thing could be in Fort Knox for that matter.”

Mercedes looked confused. “What is Fort Knox?”

Heather couldn’t help, but grin. “It’s where the Americans used to keep their gold.”

“So,” Aifric brought them back on topic. “How do we get in?”

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It turned out, they wouldn’t need a secret plan. A couple of days later, Mercedes was called into Agatha’s office, to be sent grocery shopping. And while she was inside, Mother Agatha was diverted by some noise the kitchen where Sister Claire had dropped a couple of plates.

When Heather opened their nightly war room meeting by announcing her plan to get their hands on the phone, Mercedes produced the phone with a huge grin in her face.

“Oh.” Heather looked puzzled.

“When I was alone in her office for a moment, when Sister Claire trashed the kitchen, I took the opportunity!”

Heather tried to look stern.

“Don’t look so smug. Do you have any idea, what she’d done to you, if she had caught you?”

Mercedes poked out her tongue at Heather. “You’re only jealous, because I can nick stuff too!”

Heather sighed. “I don’t want you to get into trouble with her, that’s all. Good job, love!” She ruffled the younger girl’s hair.

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