Chapter 6 - A Hand from the Past
Morning brought a crisp, pale light filtering through the yellowed lace curtains. The mountain air was sharp and fragrant with damp earth. For the first time in three weeks, there were no sirens, no ringing office telephones, no paranoid glances over her shoulder in crowded grocery store aisles.
After feeding Mia a simple breakfast of canned oats and warm water from the pantry stores, Nora walked out to the small covered porch. Hidden beneath the loose floorboards near the woodpile was an old galvanized steel lockbox her grandmother had used for emergency cash and family documents. Nora pried it open with a flathead screwdriver.
Inside lay three hundred dollars in old twenty-dollar bills, a yellowed land deed, and a pocket address book with a cracked leather spine. Nora flipped through the pages, her finger stopping on a name written in her mother’s meticulous cursive: Sister Beatrice – St. Jude’s Convent, Clearfield.
Sister Beatrice had been her mother’s older sister, a woman who had taken holy vows forty years ago and dedicated her life to running a shelter for displaced women and children along the industrial belt. If there was anyone within a hundred miles who understood both sanctuary and the ruthless power of wealthy dynasties, it was Beatrice.
There was an old landline phone mounted on the kitchen wall, but Nora dared not touch it; copper lines could be traced through central routing switches with ease. She needed an untraceable connection.
“Mia,” Nora called out, stepping back into the cabin. “Put on your shoes. We need to take a walk down to the trading post on the main road.”
They walked hand-in-hand along the shoulder of the gravel road, keeping beneath the overhanging boughs of hemlock whenever a vehicle approached in the distance. The walk took forty minutes, the cool breeze stinging Nora’s bruised face.
The roadside post was a combination bait shop, gas station, and general store with an ancient coin-operated telephone mounted beside the ice machine. Nora bought a prepaid calling card with cash, handed Mia a paper bag containing two fresh apples and a warm blueberry muffin, and dialed the long-distance number for the convent.
The phone rang four times before a calm, gravelly voice answered. “St. Jude’s House of Peace. Speak with grace.”
May you like
“Aunt Bea?” Nora whispered, shielding the receiver with her coat.
A sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line was followed by an agonizing pause. “Nora? Merciful God, child. They’ve had two private investigators sitting outside our gate since yesterday morning. Where are you?”
