Prologue
"She was a good woman, Mariana." Sister Ida looked at me sadly. "Just...troubled."
"Troubled...isn't the word I would use." I muttered. I sighed and moved the box from the table, carrying it haphazardly to the front door, and dropping it by the other miscellaneous pieces of junk that had been rotting with it.
"You must understand...she wasn't well. She was given a gift that she simply couldn't handle."
"Gift? What gift? She went senile and killed a man." I looked at Sister Ida bitterly. "Everything that has fallen on my family has been a direct consequence of her actions. What she did uprooted the foundation of not just us, but the town, the Congregation--the whole bloody Church! Nobody talks to us, nobody looks at us--we were run from this place. I was barely allowed to grocery shop this morning when I got in. They know my family, they know Aunt Di, and they know what she did, who she killed, and somehow it is all our fault. Generations later. To be a Cross is to be a monster."
"Diana was put on this Earth to heal people, Mariana." Sister Ida was quieter now. "She was only doing what she thought was right."
I turned to her angrily. "Those who have taken the oath know better than anyone else that what she did is forbidden amongst the sisterhoo--"
There was a sudden shattering noise, and the lights in the room vanished. Both Ida and I let out a scream as pieces of the chandelier's bulbs above us fell to the floor. Sister Ida crossed herself, muttering something in a language I didn't know. I looked at her, cowering in prayer, and back to the floor.
"The light blew. That's all." I grumbled. I ran my fingers through my bangs and knelt down to collect the shards. I grabbed them individually, looking at each one carefully. Reaching for the last shard, I caught my reflection on the edge. I looked awful, as usual. But then I saw something else. Something that wasn't Sister Ida, or me. Something dark, with maroon-colored eyes, reaching out for me with clawed fingers.
