Free Sisters of Sorrow by Axel Blackwell

The pantry floor was devoted to sacks of potatoes.
    Anna discovered that her inside-out sheep had very deep pockets. She crammed a loaf of bread into one of these. The other she filled with potatoes. Having secured her provisions, she huddled under a pile of empty burlap sacks, listening, thinking, waiting for the signal.
    He said it would be loud. If I hear it, won’t the sisters hear as well? Will they all be lured away from the exits?
    Not exits, Anna, that other voice said, he didn’t say exits, he said entrances .
    But what does that matter? As long as I get out. How does he know they will all be lured away? Will they all need to go check the boiler? That doesn’t make sense.
    Anna wrangled these thoughts, puzzled over them, all the while listening intently to the sounds in the old stones. She worried that she would miss the signal if she slept, but Joseph told her to sleep if she could. She burrowed deeper into the empty potato sacks and closed her eyes.
    You know what you’ve done, Anna, you are not a little girl anymore, her other voice said.
    But she didn’t listen. What does it matter now, as long as I get out.
    She hugged herself and worried and rocked and slept.
     
    Anna woke to someone calling her name. It took only a minute for her to remember where she was. The smell of fish and bread and potato dirt filled her nose. She lay still as death and listened. The old stones groaned. They seemed to pulse with anticipation. Pipes overhead vibrated and thrummed.
    Then her name again. “Anna Dufresne! Show yourself!”
    Not in the kitchen, but close. One of the sisters.
    Anna didn’t know which, and she didn’t care. If one knew she was out, they all knew. A cold sweat broke on her neck and arms. She curled into a ball, trembling, feeling as if she had been punched in the stomach. I couldn’t have missed the signal, she insisted . I couldn’t have.
    The bell tolled. Anna held her breath. It struck twice, then stilled.
    Two in the morning. I’ve been asleep almost four hours . She stared, wide-eyed, at the dark underside of a potato sack. Her mind groped desperately for a plan or an idea.
    What had Joseph said? Wait for the signal. When I hear the signal, the kitchen door will be open for me. What signal? Is the door open now?
    If I slept through the signal, it should be.
    She slipped out from under the burlap and gingerly pushed the pantry door ajar. Through the crack, she could see the recess that housed the kitchen door, but it was shrouded in shadow.
    Anna crawled out of the pantry on hands and knees. Her lambskin coat, heavy with stolen food, dragged along the floor under her. Keeping the butcher-block island between herself and the dining hall, Anna worked her way toward the door.
    The kitchen brightened a bit, light seeped in from somewhere. Anna could make out the frame of the door, its bar, its locks, its bell wire. Whether she had slept through the signal or not, the kitchen door was still closed, bolted, locked and alarmed.
    Then, the dining hall door burst open. Light flooded the kitchen. Anna froze. The long counter stood between her and the dining hall. Whichever sister had entered the kitchen couldn’t see Anna yet, but she surely would as soon as she rounded the counter.
    “Anna,” it was Sister Elizabeth, “if you are in here, you had better show yourself. Right now.”
    Anna slid to the counter and pressed her back against it. She looked left and then right, searching for anything that might save her. Then she looked straight ahead. Her lungs locked up. The pantry door still stood ajar.
    Sister Elizabeth saw it too. “Aha!”
    But, that was all she said. At that moment, the floor rose. A slow, powerful heaving of the stones lifted Anna. Sister Elizabeth shrieked, and apparently dropped her candle. Darkness swallowed the kitchen once more.
    A noise like nothing Anna had ever heard enveloped her, a deafening, grinding roar. Thunder crushed Anna’s eardrums, as if the sound had fingers, and