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The boy’s screams wake Sister Maggie from her sleep.
She is startled at first, afraid that something terrible has befallen one of the children or Father Paul, God forbid it. It takes her a moment to realize it is Matthew’s screams echoing through the halls again. He is having another nightmare.
Her heart wrenches at the sound.
She chastises herself immediately. She should leave him be. Let the nightmare pass and encourage him to get a grip.
But his cries are so anguished that she can’t bear to leave him like that, alone in the dark. Alone in the pain.
She rises from her bed. She scuffles in the drawer of her nightdesk for a box of matches. She lights a flame and uses it to light the wick in the lamp at her bedside. She blows out the match and discards it hurriedly. She uses the light to find her coif and place it over her head. She checks herself in the mirror to make sure it is secure.
Her eyes snag the time on her bedside clock: 3 A.M. The devil’s hour. Matthew has been showing a pattern.
She takes her robe from the hook on the back of her door and puts it on, tying it quickly before grasping the handle of the lamp. She hears hurried footsteps on the old stairs of the orphanage, creaking with the pressure. When she opens her bedroom door, a girl is already there.
“Sister Maggie–” she pants out, panicked.
“It’s okay, Rose,” she says, laying a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “It’s only Matthew having a nightmare. I’ll take care of it. Go back to bed.”
Rose nods and obliges, her little feet sounding down the stairs once more.
Sister Maggie moves to follow and notices the door across from her own is creaked open. Father Paul is revealed in the low light, emphasizing the lines of worry etched upon his face. “Matthew–” he begins.
“Yes, Father,” she says. “Don’t worry, I’ll check on him.”
“Are you sure? I can–”
“I should be the one to do it,” she says too sharply.
I’m his mother , she wills herself to say, but the words die on her tongue. She didn’t feel she deserved such an excuse after everything she’d done. Matthew deserves better.
Her voice softens. “You need your rest, Father,” she continues. “Mass is in the morning. I’ll only be a moment.”
He nods. “Of course, Sister,” he says. “Make sure he is okay. That boy has been through enough.”
She winces at the words. Things could have been different if she’d stayed with Matthew and Jack. It was common knowledge to herself and surely to Father Paul, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.
Father Paul realizes the weight in his words. “I didn’t mean–”
She waves a hand and cuts him short. “No matter,” she says. “Get some rest.”
Sister Maggie doesn’t wait for him to respond or object. She didn’t want to leave Matthew waiting any longer than she had to. She rushes down the dim hallway and the stairs, using the lamp as her guide. Matthew’s screams still echo through the old walls, and each scream she hears settles like an anchor in her stomach, festering in her guilt.
Other children have wandered from their bedrooms and gathered around Matthew’s room. She assumes they would be used to the occurrence by now, considering how often it happens, but they never seem to. They grow worried and agitated each time. They send someone to Father Paul or her for assistance while the others wait. It must’ve been Rose’s role tonight.
Sister Maggie always tells them it isn’t necessary, but they don't stop and she knows why. She has seen it all the years she’s been here when another orphan joins them. They see Matthew as their own, even in his isolation, and they care for him.
Sister Maggie reassures them and sends them away.
Matthew’s door is shut.
They’d separated Matthew from the others for the time being for his comfort. They knew it would take time for the boy to adjust to a home full of children. He’d only shared a home with his father for most of his life, after all. The transition would come in due time, but there was no point in overwhelming the boy after everything he’d endured.
She pauses at the door, her spine straightening, preparing herself to see her son’s face, the son she’d abandoned all those years ago. There are no adequate ways to prepare oneself for such a thing, she’s plenty aware, and she knows it when she opens the door. Her ears ring with the shrill noise of his screams. Her heart aches with the desperate desire to ease his pain, to pull it into herself to bear the brunt of it. There is nothing she wants more. She would suffer it tenfold for him if she could.
“Matthew,” she says, shutting the door behind her.
In the moonlight shining past his window, she can see his small frame writhing beneath the duvet, his eyes frantic behind his closed eyelids, sweat beading on his forehead.
She rushes to his side. “Matthew,” she repeats louder, taking a seat at the edge of his bed.
He doesn’t relent.
Sister Maggie places the lamp on his nightstand, and she grabs hold of his shoulders. “Matthew!”
Matthew startles awake, gasping and thrashing. Sister Maggie cradles his face. “It is only a nightmare,” she assures him. “You’re okay. You're okay.”
“Sister Maggie– Sister, I–”
“It was only a nightmare,” she repeats. “You’re okay. Breathe.”
The boy looked pale. Whatever he’d experienced in his dreams had surely spooked him. He lays back against the pillows, heaving for breath. She takes the lamp and rises to find a towel to dampen and place over his forehead. It will certainly make him feel better. But she couldn’t remember where she’d placed the fresh one from the laundry, so she scours every corner of the room.
“Sister Maggie.” His voice is small, afraid.
“Yes?”
“What time is it?”
She pauses. “The devil’s hour, I’m afraid.”
“The devil’s hour,” he says quietly. “It’s always the devil’s hour.”
She pays no mind to his words. He wasn’t making sense. The dream must still have him in its clutches – the short period of time after waking when the dream seems prophetic, probable.
Finally, she finds a small towel on a pile of folded laundry in the seat in his room. She places the lamp back on the nightstand and resumes her place beside him, the towel in her lap. She takes the glass of water from his nightstand.
“Here, drink,” she says. “You’ll feel better.”
He lets her tilt his head toward the glass. He gulps down the water hungrily. He sighs once she pulls away.
He’s mumbling something she doesn’t understand. She becomes so worried for his health that she places her hand on his forehead, convinced he’s feverish and has been lost in a fever dream, but his skin is warm. How could the dream still have such a hold on him?
“What’s that?”
“Forgive me,” he whispers. “Forgive me, please.”
“It was only a dream.”
“No, it wasn’t,” he insists, his voice frail. “I-I heard it, Sister. I felt it.”
“Matthew,” she says, more sternly. She dips one end of the towel into the glass, soaking up the remaining water. She places it on his forehead. “Be still. It was only a dream.”
She grasps his hand with her free one, and he relaxes at her touch. His breath deepens. She sits with him in silence and waits for him to settle.
“Matthew,” she says finally, “what did you dream about?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t say.”
“You can tell me and Father Paul anything. You know that.”
He shakes his head again, eyes squeezed shut. “I can’t, I can’t.”
“Okay,” she says. “It’s okay.”
He relaxes again.
“Sister Maggie?”
She squeezes his hand in reassurance. “Yes? I’m here.”
“Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?” He pauses. “I’m afraid.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll stay.”
She waits with him. For a long while, his eyes are open and unfocused in the dark, his mind wild. He doesn’t speak, and neither does she.
And then she pushes his hair away from his face in a tender moment. She’d done it before she realized, unable to help herself. His face turns toward hers, questioning and soft and pleading. She pulls away, feeling she’d given him too much information in a single touch.
They say nothing.
Soon enough, his eyes begin to flutter, and then they close. He hasn’t fallen asleep quite yet, but he’s getting there. He begins muttering something again.
“What is it?”
She leans in close to hear him, his breath tickling her ear. Her blood runs cold at his words. “I was the Devil,” he says. “I was the Devil.”
In the dream, she realizes.
She pulls away and stares at his limp form, whispering those haunting words again and again. He repeats them until Sister Maggie breaks, falls to her knees, and begins to pray for her boy. He repeats them until she’s soaked his duvet in her tears, her back and knees aching, her rosary clutched between her fingers so tightly that blood pools beneath them. He repeats them until she slips into a restless slumber in the middle of her frantic prayer, her cheeks stained with tears. He repeats them until the lamps burn down to nothing:
“I was the Devil.”