II.
Weakness was a monster that lived inside. It watched and waited in the unexplored waters of the soul too dark for the conscious mind to penetrate, then it clawed its way to the surface in a flash of rising tide. But for Helena, weakness existed beyond the boundary of the physical body. It walked the streets in empty vessels, copies of her image created by the devil to spread his word. She was to hunt them down, to empty them of their power.
Today, though, Helena had looked weakness in the eye and she had crumbled.
From her place on the floor she could not look at Tomas and she could not look at Sarah. Tomas was speaking to her but she didn't hear him. I'm sorry, I'm sorry she murmured unconsciously. She was suddenly somewhere far away, in a place where the sound of Sarah's heavy breathing became her own frantic inhalations, where the steel beneath her changed texture to become asphalt stinging her palms. When Tomas reached to pull her to her feet he grabbed the arm of a ten-year-old child, not the adult that he had slapped the rebellion from moments before.
Only a few memories still lingered from her time with the nuns. All of them of the same woman. Outside in the hallway Helena was overcome by the feeling of hugging her skirt, the overwhelming smell of a market hanging in the air.
May I please go outside to play?
If you've finished all of your chores, you can come with me to town.
Spesybo, Sestra!
They would go to town. She would get to see the other children playing, they'd look up from fun games and their smiles would say come join us. As the sun went down she and Mariya would walk back home hand in hand, singing her favorite hymn.
Except that had never happened. Helena had ruined their happiness.
Her breath hitched with remembrance and she trembled as she leaned against the wall. She had almost been tricked into forgetting. Weak. Shameful. No better than the others.
The sound of the metal door grating on its hinges saved her from the self-loathing thoughts. Still unable to look at Tomas, she stared at her feet.
"Let's hope that your moment of weakness hasn't cost us anything. That kind of doubt cannot happen again and be forgiven."
"I'm know, Tomas. I'm sorry. She is special somehow, stronger than the others."
"Don't make excuses. For now the sheep stays in there, and you will stay out here." He turned and twisted the rusty padlock on the door into the locked position; it clicked with finality. "You're too easily tempted. The prisoner is important to our cause, I can't allow you to risk our best chance."
The taste of her failure still burning her tongue, Helena knew that he was right; yet a part of her cried out in protest at his words. She stared at the lock with frustration and longing.
As if in answer to her confliction Tomas had suddenly moved in front of her, grabbing her and lifting her against the wall so that her toes just scraped the ground. His hands clenched the collar of her coat. Helena stared at the gnarled fingers stained with red. Her heart beat loudly in her ears, that same red blood pounding in her veins.
Tomas brought his face inches from her own. "If you even try to see the sheep against my orders, I will lock you up too. Do you understand?"
Darkness. Cold. Stiff muscles. Iron bars.
Helena understood.
Her chin dipped with a reluctant nod. Tomas exhaled and eased her back to her feet. "You know I don't mean to be cruel, but you test me. It's all for your own good. I know it's difficult for you, to be so close to them, but you did right to bring the sheep here." He stroked Helena's cheek. "I just want to make sure that we don't waste this opportunity."
"Now, go and atone." Helena watched him leave towards the front of the ship. As he walked his heavy form threw a hunched shadow arching over the curved walls of the narrow corridor.
It reminded her of Satan.
The book lay on a table and the blonde woman bowed before it, fingers tracing the well-memorized verses unconsciously. Her lips moved soundlessly around the hallowed words.
"And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission."
The razor was cold but as it parted her skin it drew a hot rivulet of blood to the surface. The wound stung mercifully. Pain as escape, pain to release sin. She tried to free her mind, to allow her thoughts to burn away into white agony, but the confrontation in the alley plagued her like a fragmented fever dream.
There had been a child, a beautiful child with a slight wave in her auburn hair. That same wave had rippled naturally through her own hair once, a long time ago, hadn't it? Before the angels had come to melt down her sin and forge her a golden halo, before they'd taken her into hiding and put a knife in her palm.
The child's letter was still crumpled in her pocket. She pulled it out with her free hand as she whimpered against a fresh surge of pain. One sentence stood out.
Mrs. S. says you are in the sunshine.
Sunshine was a stranger now and Helena could barely remember what it felt like. But the alley had been dark and yet the emptiness that normally came with darkness had been missing. The child had touched her face, her small hand possessed of a gentleness that Helena hadn't known existed, and for a moment she'd felt graced by the kind of escape that had eluded her for the entirety of her remembered life. Kira was light, sunshine itself.
Helena couldn't understand how a child so pure could have been created by one of her copies. The impossibility frightened her.
Her fingertips brushed over the ridges of her wings and the disfigurement caused her to shudder. These wings had never granted her escape like that child had in one breath. Kira was a true angel, the true light; something Helena knew that she, hands stained with so much blood, could never really become.
When Thomas returned Helena was sitting by one of the windows watching dusk settle over the harbor like ash. The low fog that had gathered above the water and slithered over the pier masked her companion's arrival; she just barely noticed him as he slipped down to the lower level. When she left her post to go meet him she saw that he carried shopping bags in his arms. The sight was unfamiliar but welcome; Helena's mouth watered and her stomach clenched painfully as she remembered that she hadn't eaten anything for at least a day.
"Hello, Tomas," she greeted, eyeing the groceries. Tomas dropped the bags unceremoniously under a small white table.
"For the prisoner," he said, gesturing to the bags. With his foot he pushed one away from the others. "For you."
Helena left the doorway and retrieved her bag, rifling through its contents. Crackers, water bottles, peanuts. a banana. The latter was ripe; her fingers left small depressions in the soft fruit as she peeled away the outer layer and took a bite. Gradually the knots in her stomach loosened, clearing her head somewhat. She thought of Sarah, slumped in her chair in that little room. Helena wondered if she was awake, if she was hungry.
No, not Sarah. Sheep. Demon. Hunger could only wound it further, drive it out of her.
Helena looked up from her half-eaten banana. She cocked her head in her companion's direction; he was leaning over the table adjusting something, his back turned to her. "Tomas?"
"Yes, Helena?"
"What will you do to her?"
Tomas paused and shifted slightly. Helena could see what he had been working on- a rudimentary light, rigged up to a tripod. It flashed on and off as he tested it with the portable generator they had stored on the ship.
"I'm going to find a way to make the creature useful for our cause."
"But you won't… kill her?"
Tomas didn't turn. The light flashed again. "We cannot let the demon live, you know that. But I don't plan to kill the sheep, exactly. The prisoner will still breathe, but the demon must die."
Helena chewed at her thumb in thought, staring at her master's back. Sarah's words weighed heavily on her mind. How can I be wrong, unnatural, if I made her? Destroying the demon would undoubtedly destroy whatever part of Sarah had created the child, whatever vestige of light had somehow flourished inside of her. Helena had seen that light when Sarah had allowed her to live, the night in Maggie Chen's apartment.
Tomas approached Helena, resting a hand heavily on her shoulder and eliciting a hiss as he rubbed one of the reopened scars. He continued to massage the spot anyway as Helena looked up at him with wary, flinching eyes.
"The prisoner was imitating the cop?" he asked.
"Yes." Copy-cop, too smart for her own good…
"Good, then it'll be difficult reporting anything. It's unlikely that there'll be a serious search effort from their end, at least not yet. The same can't be said for the Neolutionists, unfortunately. I need you to be on the lookout for anyone who comes by- we may have to move location if they find us somehow."
"Okay." They'd moved many times. It always seemed to bother Tomas, picking up and searching for somewhere new to hide away, but Helena didn't mind. She had not had a true home since the convent, not even when she'd lived with Tomas for five years in their small cabin. The only reason she feared moving was the toll it took on Tomas' mood. Perhaps if they had Sarah with them things would be different.
"I'm going to stay here for a while. Coming and going too often will give us away. You're to stay on the ship as well."
He picked up the light and headed in the direction of Sarah's room. "I'll be out soon. Go to the upper level to watch." Helena did as she was told.
Tomas had never slept on the freighter before; he passed through only occasionally to deliver new information. His newly constant presence was a reminder that despite the silence, Helena was not alone on the ship. Every so often he would rise from his place on the other side of the large room to go check on Sarah, Helena watching his every step with wakeful eyes.
In the dark she could not relax. She pressed her face to the mattress that reeked of mold and sweat, rocking fitfully in a state of half-dreaming. Sarah's presence reached out to her from the other side of the wall. She couldn't breathe with the other woman so near; the close proximity teased her, deepened her obsession. Desperately she caressed her own face, running a thumb over those familiar features and imagining that they belonged to her copy.
Sleep had been something to fear, once. She'd watched tree shadows shiver on the wooden ceiling, had felt her muscles cramp as she'd propped herself up on sore elbows and stared through the crack of the open door to her room for hours. The minutes had ground away slowly while dread frayed her young nerves. Waiting for him. Waiting for the yelling and the bruises and the guilt.
That was when the loneliness had begun to spread through her like frostbite, eating away her identity and her memories. What was left was the strength that her calling required, Tomas had said. He'd helped her to become what she'd needed to be.
But Sarah and her daughter had brought warmth flooding back into the parts of her that had been frozen, and now her soul ached. Half of Helena wanted to let that pain consume her, and the other half wanted to give it back to Sarah, to shed it permanently. All she knew for certain was that she didn't want Sarah locked away, hidden from sight. She wanted to face her weakness head on, wanted trial by fire.
As Tomas returned from the other room Helena watched him slip a key over his neck before rolling onto her side.
Sarah Manning, she thought. Do you have fear of sleep? Are you watching the door?