The Hurt Business by Mike Miner

Author:Mike Miner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

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The Church of the Sad Sisters

There was only one way to get there. A treacherous path through a rainforest infested by poisonous snakes. Built centuries ago by Jesuit missionaries trying to bring Christ to the natives, instead they brought diseases and death. The convent remained abandoned for years until a group of nuns reclaimed it.

It stood at the foot of the Santa Maria Mountains and took its name from them. Peaks the color of bone rose out of the jungle surrounding it. When visitors approached the front gate, the tall stone buildings loomed, the cliffs leaned as if trying to protect the property, shield it from the world. Gargoyles danced on the roof of the church, struck rakish poses. There was an old rumor that the creatures visited the chaste nuns in their dreams, performed devilish acts.

There were a lot of old rumors about the Santa Maria Convent, known also as La Iglesia de las Hermanas Tristes. The Church of the Sad Sisters. Some wondered if it even existed.

The sisters wore light blue robes that brushed the ground as they walked. Long sleeves covered hands always joined in prayer. Perfectly white coifs framed their faces and draped down their necks. Few people ever laid eyes on these women.

A rickety, slippery rope bridge crossed the wide, roaring River of Saints’ Tears. Piranhas survived on whatever, whoever, fell in. As one crossed, they might hear the angelic voices of the sisters singing or the sad lament of their prayers, messages from Heaven reaching the sinners’ ears. From the near bank of the river, the chapel’s tower could be seen. Perhaps they continued closer while the fat gong of the bell called for noon prayers.

It was a land of echoes. The trees a metropolis of monkey shrieks and bird calls, mixed with women’s whispers and jaguar roars, sometimes the sound of children at play, and always, always, the electric hum of mosquitoes in the air.

Children?

An orphanage. A school. Not all of the women who braved the dangerous trail through the deadly jungle were alone. Many carried a baby in their swollen bellies. The children, even before they were born, knew the taste of terror.

Castaways. Women sent to the sad sisters to avoid scandal, they trudged into the heart of the steamy forest, hidden by the thick canopy, kept company by the warning growls of unseen predators, the bites of mosquitoes, the memories of the men in their lives, the forbidden acts. In their dreams they heard again the slap of skin on skin, each slap of a mosquito a reminder. They spoke to their unborn children, promises of a life free of evil, free of sin, they begged God for forgiveness.

The daughters of farmers, politicians, policemen, gangsters. By the time they reached the thick tall gates of the convent, they were just desperate, pregnant girls.

Like Ernesta. All she knew when her fingers squeezed the rusty, moss-covered gate was that she was hungry. Like the others before and after, she thought she was safe.

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