* * *
—
Apart from Paula’s, the file that most immediately concerned me was that of Commander Judd. It was a thick file. Among other misdemeanours, it contained evidence pertaining to the fates of his previous Wives, those he had been married to before my short-lived engagement to him.
He had disposed of them all. The first had been pushed down the stairs; her neck was broken. It was said that she’d tripped and fallen. As I knew from my reading of other files, it was not difficult to make such things look like accidents. Two of his Wives were said to have died in childbirth, or shortly thereafter; the babies were Unbabies, but the deaths of the Wives had involved deliberately induced septicemia or shock. In one case, Commander Judd had refused permission to operate when an Unbaby with two heads had lodged in the birth canal. Nothing could be done, he’d said piously, because there had still been a fetal heartbeat.
The fourth Wife had taken up flower-painting as a hobby at the suggestion of Commander Judd, who had thoughtfully purchased the paints for her. She’d then developed symptoms attributable to cadmium poisoning. Cadmium, the file noted, was a well-known carcinogenic, and the fourth Wife had succumbed to stomach cancer shortly thereafter.
I’d narrowly avoided a death sentence, it seemed. And I’d had help avoiding it. I said a prayer of gratitude that night: despite my doubts, I continued to pray. Thank you, I said. Help thou my unbelief. I added, And help Shunammite, for she will surely need it.
* * *
—
When I’d first begun reading these files, I was appalled and sickened. Was someone trying to cause me distress? Or were the files part of my education? Was my mind being hardened? Was I being prepared for the tasks I would later be performing as an Aunt?
This was what the Aunts did, I was learning. They recorded. They waited. They used their information to achieve goals known only to themselves. Their weapons were powerful but contaminating secrets, as the Marthas had always said. Secrets, lies, cunning, deceit—but the secrets, the lies, the cunning, and the deceit of others as well as their own.
If I remained at Ardua Hall—if I performed my Pearl Girls missionary work and returned as a full Aunt—this is what I would become. All of the secrets I had learned, and doubtless many more, would be mine, to use as I saw fit. All of this power. All of this potential to judge the wicked in silence, and to punish them in ways they would not be able to anticipate. All of this vengeance.
As I have said, there was a vengeful side to me that I had in the past regretted. Regretted but not expunged.
I would not be telling the truth if I said I was not tempted.
XIX
Study
The Ardua Hall Holograph
52
I had a disagreeable jolt last evening, my reader. I was scratching furtively away in the deserted library with my pen and my blue drawing ink, with my door open for air flow, when Aunt Vidala’s head suddenly thrust itself around the corner of my private carrel. I did not startle—I have nerves of curable polymers, like those of plastinated corpses—but I coughed, a nervous reflex, and slid the closed Apologia Pro Vita Sua over the page I’d been writing on.
“Ah, Aunt Lydia,” said Aunt Vidala. “I hope you’re not catching a cold. Shouldn’t you be in bed?” The big sleep, I thought: that’s what you’re wishing for me.
“Just an allergy,” I said. “Many people have them at this time of year.” She could not deny this, being a major sufferer herself.
“I’m sorry for intruding,” she said untruthfully. Her glance moved over Cardinal Newman’s title. “Always researching, I see,” she said. “Such a notorious heretic.”
“Know your enemy,” I said. “How may I help you?”
“I have something crucial to discuss. May I offer you a cup of warm milk at the Schlafly Café?” she said.
“How kind,” I replied. I replaced Cardinal Newman on my shelf, turning my back to her in order to slip my blue-inked page within.
Soon the two of us were sitting at a café table, me with my warm milk, Aunt Vidala with her mint tea. “There was something odd about the Pearl Girls Thanks Giving,” she began.
“And what was that? I thought it all went much as usual.”
“That new girl, Jade. I am not convinced by her,” said Aunt Vidala. “She seems unlikely.”
“They all seem unlikely at first,” I said. “But they want a safe haven, protected from poverty, exploitation, and the depredations of the so-called modern life. They want stability, they want order, they want clear guidelines. It will take her a little time to settle in.”
“Aunt Beatrice told me about that ridiculous tattoo on her arm. I suppose she told you as well. Really! God and Love! As if we could be taken in by such a crude attempt to curry favour! And such heretical theology! It reeks of an attempt to deceive. How do you know she’s not a Mayday infiltrator?”
“We’ve been successful in detecting those in the past,” I said. “As for the bodily mutilation, the youth of Canada are pagans; they have all kinds of barbaric symbols branded on themselves. I believe it shows a good intention; at least it is not a dragonfly or a skull or some such item. But we will keep a close eye on her.”