delivering a parcel to Lucas's house above Tebo's tavern. 'I'd never go near no tavern, Mother Superior,' she repeated.
'Please, Rachel, dear, say any tavern, not no tavern,' admonished Mother Elizabeth. 'We do not never speak in no double negatives… not around here,' she explained to the adults, making Lucas frown.
Meredyth quickly asked the girl, 'Rachel, do you know how we could get in touch with your friend Lauralie who's left the home? Lauralie?'
'I dunno where she is. I swear I lost touch. We stopped being friends like way before she left.'
Meredyth sensed a fear in Rachel, but a fear of what, of whom? Mother Elizabeth or Lauralie or both? Mother Elizabeth suggested, 'Why not speak to the sixteen girls who've recently graduated and opted to leave the convent, all now living on the outside? They're all on the list Sister Audrey's preparing you. Lauralie Blodgett is only one of them.'
'Is there anyone in that group, Rachel, who had a boyfriend on the outside?' Meredyth pressed the girl, ignoring Elizabeth's interruption.
Rachel again looked to her mother superior before saying, 'You should try to talk to all of them.'
'Any among them who didn't like life here at the convent or was discontented in general? Anyone who liked destroying things around here, maybe setting a fire?' asked Lucas.
Rachel looked to her mother superior again before answering. Getting a nod from Mother Elizabeth, she replied, 'That'd be Lauralie.'
'We keep hearing that name come up. She was something of a bully, I understand, always getting into trouble and detention,' said Meredyth.
'Everyone was glad to see her go.'
'But you two were friends, weren't you?'
'I broke it off with her; she started wanting to do things…I–I-I didn't wanna do.'
'What sort of things? Like smoking? Getting into trouble?' pressed Meredyth.
'Mother Superior, I don't like to talk about this.'
'It's all right, Rachel. Be forthright. Tell the doctor everything, Rachel.'
Rachel wrenched her hands and stuttered. Finally she spat it out. 'Sexual things. She wanted to play with me, to put things into me. Wanted to fondle me, sleep with me.'
Mother Elizabeth sat without the slightest twinge, a stone statue. 'It's all right, child. It's all right.'
'Lauralie had a way of making you do things. I had a hard time with her. Saying no to her. I finally told Mother Orleans, and she was going to punish Lauralie, but that's when Mother Orleans had that awful accident, and after that Lauralie left me alone when you came to the home, Mother Elizabeth.'
'Lauralie was always looking for someone to love her,' said Elizabeth. 'She somehow had gotten the fixed idea in her head that she could only be loved in 3 sexual manner.'
'Perhaps she was abused in one of the homes she was placed in at an early age?' asked Meredyth.
'I have no record of an incident of that type.' Elizabeth sighed deeply 'Sad really. Even Father William could not help Lauralie, try as he might. He called her a hopeless child once. I had to straighten him out on that, none of our charges is without redemption. Lauralie had her redeeming qualities. She was tenacious and persistent in her struggle to learn who her parents were, for instance, admirable in her determination, I'm told, even at an early age.'
'She just always said…said we both of us needed the experience for when we got out into the real world,' said Rachel, her voice having raised an octave, as if wanting to outdo her mother superior. 'I had to fight her off every night for a time. She liked to kiss me and touch me all over.'
'That's enough, Rachel!' Mother Elizabeth put an end to it, and Rachel curled back in on herself like a closing flower.
They said good-bye to Rachel, Mother Elizabeth walking her out to the hallway, conferring with her in a whisper. Meredyth and Lucas only caught snatches of each voice: Mother: '…don't care-' Rachel: 'She's evil-' Mother: 'What you think-' Rachel: '…name shoulda been Laura-LIE! with… capital let-' Mother: 'Enough.'
Rachel: 'You tell me…stand up…strong, but…won't let me.'
Mother: 'Get back…kitchen, now!' Rachel: 'And Father Wil… touched me again.' Mother: 'No more. Later… talk privately.' Rachel, stomping off, shouting back: 'She pushed her.' Silence…more silence. Then a reverberation of Rachel's voice from the end of the corridor. 'She's evil…was always evil. She hurt the mother.'
Mother Elizabeth rejoined them in the conference room, quickly reassuring her guests that 'Lauralie Blodgett was not so discontent or unhappy as the picture the other girls painted. True, there was a time she was in constant trouble, but her discontent came of a genuine longing to know her roots, to know about her birth mother and father. That's quite understandable, don't you agree, Doctor?”
“Yes, quite.'
'Her school record is filled with cases of theft and lying as a child, and constant bouts and arguments with both the sisters here and her classmates.'
'Any bouts with statuary, icons, paintings?' asked Lucas.
'She was often caught destroying property, yes. But she was just a troubled child, not so different from Rachel, unable to fit in with foster families. Very similar histories, those two, and for a time they were friends, and I thought it good for Lauralie…she was such a loner, you see. I encouraged their…closeness, but I had no idea until Rachel came to me with her lurid stories of nighttime rape that…that what Mother Orleans had put a stop to had again flourished. For a long time, I prayed Rachel was making it up to get attention, but I caught Lauralie at her one night and that was the end of it.'
'This Mother Orleans was in charge here when Lauralie first arrived as an infant?'
'My able predecessor, Mother Sara Orleans.'
'The one whose room still smells of smoke?' asked Lucas.
'The one who had an accident? Is she in retirement? Can I meet with her?' asked Meredyth.
'The unfortunate accident proved fatal. It's why I was called here to take over.'
'How did she die?' asked Meredyth.
'A fall down a flight of steps in the night. She apparently got up in the middle of the night and slipped on the stairs. Her skull was fractured. She was in a coma for weeks until the decision to release her came from the family. Tragic really.'
'Sounds like Mother Orleans lived a dangerous life for a convent nun,' said Lucas, drawing a stern look from Elizabeth Portsmith.
'Let's get back to this Lauralie,' said Meredyth. 'Was she ever adopted?'
'No, never adopted, but once…no, twice actually, she went into a foster care situation; both before my time here. However, I've read about the placements in her records, the reasons behind her being returned to Our Lady. I always read the histories on all the children I am responsible for.'
'What are the reasons she didn't do well with her foster parents?'
'In both cases, she never made it past the trial period. In both cases, wonderful situations that ought to've led to adoption simply failed, largely due to Lauralie's self- destructiveness.'
'Can you be more specific, Mother?' pressed Meredyth.
'Unruliness, stubbornness, a kind of underlying fear of being out there and not in here where at least she knew the rules. She was eleven the first time, thirteen the second time. But by then-'
'Patterns of behavior were set,' Meredyth finished for her.
'Did she bum down a house? What?' asked Lucas.
'No, nothing so dramatic, but just as destructive in its way. She wouldn't be guided, would not follow the simplest of rules, throwing temper tantrums, balling up into the fetal position for hour upon hour, refusing to eat, starving herself to skin and bone, lashing out, acting out. She simply refused to be a part of her new family. Hurt newfound siblings. Pitiful shame really. It was quite severe when she was young, but by the time I came on the scene, she was simply withdrawn and sullen.'
'Is that when she started the fire in the closet in the convent?' asked Lucas.
'By that age the children who have not been adopted, often they become, I hate to say, toughened to the fact that they are not adorable little creatures that people want to adopt, and so they often play the role of the exact opposite, the un adorable, unruly delinquent. It can become worse still when they leave our controlled environment. It's why I counseled Rachel and Lauralie to remain with us to at least twenty-one. Rachel chose to remain, Lauralie
