Sister Christine

"Don't worry about me. I can't...I never get ill."

I felt as if in a strange, mad dream. I had just witnessed an act as close to bestiality as it was to murder...and the two women in front of me were conspiring to make me believe I had imagined it.

"Christine, may I make a request of you?"

"Of course, Edward. What is it?"

"Will you pull down your collar and bare your neck for me?"

"Why should she do that!" my wife shouted. Leasa's eyes took on the same fury I saw the night I had initially accused her of having an affair with the girl.

I lay stunned again at Leasa's aberrant behavior. But Christine sat composed and unmoving.

"Edward, of course."

"No—don't! This is uncalled for..." Leasa protested.

The young girl then slowly reached to the thin material about her slender throat and peeled it down.

There was no mark.

There was not even a trace of a mark.

I sat stunned and unbelieving of my eyes.

But Leasa seemed even more astonished! She stared at the girl's tender neckline, then slowly sat down on the bed, still staring at the girl's throat—obviously bewildered and confused.

"Edward, you've had a bad dream," Christine explained, as if to a child. "I want you to go to sleep and get some rest."

Then the strange girl looked at Leasa:

"And you too, Leasa. The sun will be up soon. You've had a long and upsetting evening. You should rest, too."

The half-child then rose and seemed to glide slowly from the room.

Leasa sat entranced staring after her until the door closed, leaving us as strangers, alone together in our sleeping chambers.

"Leasa, what's happening?" I asked.

Leasa just sat on the bed staring dumbly at the door from which the strange visitor had just exited:

"Edward, I don't know."

"What is the girl's story? I understand confidentiality, but you must tell me. Something strange is happening to us."

Leasa turned to me with a look of bewilderment. I suddenly realized, I'd never seen that look masked across her features before.

"Edward, I have no idea. I cannot fathom this creature."

Then she added:

"She fascinates me!"

**********

In the following days, Leasa's health seemed to take a turn for the worse. She appeared to be aging before my eyes.

I tried to insist upon a doctor being summoned to attend her, but she would not hear of it. The more I tried to convince her of the need, the more upset she would become.

Leasa would sleep all day with the curtains tightly drawn, and would have Christine visit and attend to her, in privacy, throughout the night.

Yet her health and appearance worsened, drastically.

After entering the room one morning, I was shocked to see my wife in such a state of what might only be described as decay that I realized death must be near.

I finally called upon a local doctor to visit us, against my wife's will. He arrived at night, only days before the Lord's Holiday. A light snow was falling outside and it was cold enough for one to see his own breath in the frosty air. But the snow did not stick, it only wet the piles of dead leaves along the walkway to our home, as if performing Extreme Unction upon them—too late.

He entered the foyer brusquely, pounding the snow from his boots. But the dead leaves clung to them like leeches to a host:

" 'Evening," he remarked, without making eye contact. "Where's the patient?"

I led him upstairs to the bedroom door. I opened it and approached the bed in the darkly lit room.

The air in the room felt as frigid as outside.

"My God, man! Why aren't you heating the room?"

"The heat is on!" I explained. I myself couldn't understand the chill in this room.

Then a soft voice spoke from the shadows in a far corner of the room:

"Perhaps we should light the fireplace."

Christine emerged from the shadows dressed only in her nightgown.

The doctor was confused by Christine's sudden appearance:

"Who's this?" he inquired, turning to me.

"Our guest from the local convent, Sister Christine."

"Good evening, doctor. I hope you can help, but I think Leasa will be best left in my care," the young girl said, with quiet authority.

The doctor was taken back by all he'd witnessed thus far, but then "harrumphed" with disdain and turned to his patient.

Leasa lay buried in shadows upon the veiled, four-posted bed. The doctor drew the veil and turned on a lamp near the bedside. I could hear a low moan from my wife that seemed to turn to a growl—much like those we had heard on the grounds of the home earlier in the Fall.

The doctor staggered back from the bed, shocked at the sight before him. I stepped up to see my wife lying, almost skeletal in appearance, but with the violent eyes I had seen the night through the keyhole.

"Get him out of here! Get him away from me or I'll kill him!"

The voice was no longer my wife's. Indeed, the creature decaying in the bed was no longer my wife. I couldn't recognize any trace of Leasa save the wedding ring that now appeared oversized on the withered finger of her left hand.

"Good God she needs care immediately!" the doctor exclaimed, his voice high and wheezing.

"Get him out of here!" the half-corpse rasped.

The doctor hurriedly exited the room and I followed him down the stairway.

"What shall you do?" I asked him.

"I will return from the hospital with an ambulance! How long has she been in this state?"

"Perhaps a week or so." I responded frantically.

"She is near death, you must know that! I am not sure we can save her. Has this disease effected her mind so, or is she insane?"

"No, it's the illness."

"Stay here. I'll return shortly!"

The doctor left hurriedly, but I had seen sheer panic in his eye. When I turned from the doorway, I found Christine standing behind me.

"He will not be back," she stated, flatly.

"Whatever do you mean? He's going to get assistance for Leasa!"

"Yes. But unfortunately his heart will not survive his experience tonight. Trust me, Edward. I know these things."

"How? How do you know?"

"I see things you can't."

I just stood in dumb astonishment at the calm command in the young girl's demeanor.

I believed her. But I had no idea why.

"Are you killing Leasa?" I asked.

"No. I am saving her...and you, too."

Then the girl added with a slight smile:

"Edward, Leasa will rest tonight."

"What kind of devotee are you that would seduce a wife and her husband?"

"Edward, I offer my poverty...I have not yet mastered the other two vows."

Christine left the statement hanging. She looked knowingly at me and left for the staircase. After she had half ascended it she stopped and turned toward me:

"I'll be in my room," she said faintly.

Then she continued her ascension until she'd left my sight.

I repaired to the study's bar and poured a double shot of bourbon. I threw it down. It seemed to steel me.

I wanted to return to Leasa. I feared for my wife's life. My thoughts ran wild, unbelieving that this strange nightmare was happening.

I returned to the staircase and slowly climbed the stairs. My mind wrestled with care for my wife—and the haunting invitation Christine had proffered on the stairs.

At the apex of the staircase, I had cast out the girl's advance and decided I would attend to my ailing wife. Perhaps the doctor would return shortly, I thought.

I opened the door to the bedchamber. As I entered, I could see my own breath. The lamp had been thrown to the floor and Leasa had submerged into the shadows of the bed once again.

"Leasa, it's me. Are you alright?"

"I thirst..." she hissed: "Come closer to me. Edward, I need you."

I froze in fear...it was not Leasa who was speaking. It was someone or something I didn't recognize at all.

I backed away from the bed, and as I did a shroud appeared to rise from the shadows behind the bed's veil. It took form before me and appeared to grow. Then slowly its form became apparent...it had talons and it's face was masked with ashen, dead skin. The thing's jaw began to open like that of a viper's, almost unhinging as if to devour its prey.

The beast's eyes were wild and alive...as red as I'd witnessed them the night I'd peered through the keyhole to Christine's room.

As her jaw continued to distend, a string of saliva ran from the corner of her lips. Its breath was putrid.

My heart pounded. My clothing was wet with sweat even within the frigid chamber. But much as in a nightmare, I could not move.

In my mind, I could hear her speaking to me:

"I thirst!"

As the thing floated toward me, I grew numb. I prepared to die and my mind cried out:

"Holy Father, save me!"

Then a warmth seemed to enter the room.

"Leasa, it is not Edward, but I you thirst for," Christine declared, solemnly:

"You must take me. I will salve your thirst," the young nun stated, approaching the threatening form.

Christine then slowly peeled the sheer white nightgown from her shoulders and let it glide down her body to the floor. Her white flesh appeared to almost glow in the dark.

The girl then opened her arms to her lover, my wife, and stood in wait. I thought she had the appearance of a human crucifix.

The terror before us seemed confused and paused for a long few seconds, as Christine stood, arms spread in sacrificial surrender.

"You fooled me!" the creature hissed:

"I am starving!"

A light, like sunlight seemed to radiate from beneath the naked flesh of the girl. Leasa, moaned, and then tried to advance upon her.

But then the creature that had been my wife began to dissolve before our eyes.

She hissed:

"Edward, help me...she's evil."

But Christine, ignoring me, spoke to the horror:

"Leasa, your ordeal is over. I've come to take you home."

The thing that had been Leasa began to make sounds that seemed to be weeping. It fell prostrate before us, hissing many names, which could have only been the victims of her many sins. Then—her confession seemingly complete—she faded from view, as if she'd never existed.

I felt faint, and once again that black pool of ink began flooding my view.

I allowed myself to drown in it.

**********

When I awoke, sunlight was already streaming into the room from behind the drawn curtains. I arose slowly, clearing the cobwebs from my head and pulled all the curtains wide.

The room was a mess and still retained the foul smell of death.

All was still, silent.

I ran down to Christine's room and opened the door. I was astonished to find it completely made and empty. I threw open the closets—they were bare! I hurriedly jerked open the bureau drawers—also empty!

There was no sign of Christine at all.

It was as if no one had ever been there.

**********

I drove to the convent that day. I had called ahead to request an appointment with the Mother Superior.

When I got to the convent Mother Superior preferred we speak outside. So we spoke outside in the garden. An old gardener raking the dead leaves in the freezing cold was our only audience.

The old man labored heavily beneath one of the convent's stained glass windows to clear the grounds of the decaying leaves. But more leaves continued to fall, condemning his efforts to failure.

Behind the older woman and I, the naked trees' branches appeared to point toward the convent walls—and upward toward the overcast sky—accusingly.

"I've come to ask about the young nun whom you sent to stay with my wife and I," I began. "What can you tell me about her or her past?"

The Mother sat staring vacantly at me:

"Young nun? We have no young nuns here, Mr.----. I wish we did, but our recruiting for the Order has slowed to almost nothing in the past two decades. Our youngest nun is in her fifties."

We stared at each other, each trying to figure if the other was in jest:

"I am talking about the young sister you call Christine," I said, as if it would refresh her memory.

"Christine?" The Mother repeated aloud: "But we have no sister here named Christine. There must be some sort of mistake. I am sorry, but I cannot help you."

We talked somewhat further on. As I pressed the issue, the woman became more testy in her responses. But as I asked more questions, all ended with the same result. The Mother Superior insisted she had never heard of any 'Sister Christine.'

When she left and had bid me farewell, I did not thoroughly believe the woman.

I walked out to the car, confused and dejected. I had lost my wife whom I had loved. And I was not sure if she ever really existed in the way I wished to remember her.

Now I was not sure my savior, the young girl, had ever existed either.

As I started to drive away, the old gardener flagged me down. I pulled over and rolled down the window:

"Can I help you," I asked.

"Nope. But I think I can help you," he said grimly.

I waited for several seconds; "...yes..." I prodded him.

"The girl, was she young with long black hair?"

"Yes."

"Large eyes, white skin...but...you know...painted up?"

"Yes. But how do you know?"

He looked both ways, as if wanting to be sure he was not over heard.

"They don't like to talk about it," he said, obviously referring to the nuns.

Then he added:

"You saw the ghost."

I stared at him in silence.

He stared back.

"What do you mean, 'the ghost'?"

"She was a nun here, early 1800's. But she died very young—in shame."

"In shame?"
"The story goes that she got something from one of the young farm hands in the area. The order was so ashamed to admit it to themselves—or to want anyone else to hear of it—that they tried to just treat it as a fever.

"She grew very ill, but lingered for months...lost her mind...they finally turned her out to her own devices. She wandered the area for a while, but was finally found dead, in a bad way. Maybe a wolf got her...but they was still superstitious back then.

"Claims were made it was a vampire or somethin'. She was cremated...supposedly to save her soul.

"Now she walks the convent halls and surroundings, looking over this place, trying to atone for her shame."

I sat listening in dumb silence:

"What of the Order's shame," I whispered aloud. "That poor girl."

"What do you mean? She was a wicked thing. I know, I seen her myself!"

"You saw her?"

"Once she appeared to me here at night. She was in her habit, but with lipstick and makeup. She smiled at me...but in a sexual way. Ya' know?

"Another time she was all in white...near the bushes there. Long black hair, white skin...it sorta' glowed in the dark. But she seemed to call out to me...it...it was seductive, kinda'. She signaled for me...but I wouldn't go."

It all sounded so bizarre. But the old man's description was perfect. It was Christine he'd seen.

"How do you know the girl's story?"

"After I reported what I'd seen. One of the older nuns told me the story. But she made me swear to secrecy.

"Then I checked some sources in the library. It checked out."

"I see," I remarked, dumbly. But I saw nothing.

After thanking the gardener, I pulled away. He began shouting after me:

"I never done nothin' with her! No sir! Never!"

Leaving the convent, I returned to the mansion.

I found the halls quiet and dark.

I poured a drink and pondered my strange fate. To whom could I ever relate this strange story?

For the time being, I had been spared. But by who—or what—and why? I knew not.

Something compelled me to draw out a deck of cards from the coffee table. I shuffled the deck, and, as in solitaire, began to reveal the cards one-by-one before me on the table.

I found that they were not playing cards. They spoke to me in strange symbols from another world.

First card turned: the Devil.

Second: a man hanging upside down.

Third: a tower destroyed by a thunderbolt.

Next, Death...a hooded skeleton grinned at me.

My final draw: "The Universe." A circle. It seemed to complete the cryptic message.

I stopped. I had no idea what it meant.

Then I heard Christine's voice whisper into my ear:

"Edward...the Dead trump the Undead."