Page 3 of Viper

I glance at Breaker, but he’s absorbed in the photograph, his focus making me uneasy.

“You were here, weren’t you?” the man asks me. “At the boys’ home?”

When I nod, he makes a sound in his throat, then shifts his attention to the ruins at my back.

“It was a good thing you got adopted,” he says. “Though none of the boys were here when it happened.”

“What happened?” Striker asks. “Fire?”

“Aye, if you wanna call it that.” The man gestures behind me, making the skin on my back prick. “It was more like hell itself had opened, and the Devil swallowed the whole place. You could see the flames for miles, and it burned for days on end.”

Turning, I take in the sight, my hands tingling with the memories. Hours spent kneeling, asking for forgiveness, begging Headmistress Isla to help me cleanse my soul. To this day, I’m not sure what I was supposed to be repenting for. Being a boy with no parents, perhaps.

“I was a teen when it happened. Maddest thing,” he goes on. “God’s perfect timing, my mum said. Two women from the Society for Boys and Girls phoned up about a week before, sayin’ the Society was takin’ the kids on a wee trip. Somethin’ about socializing. I mind readin’ in the paper that if they’d not left for the Spring Festival in Inverness, they’d all’ve been dead.”

“The sisters took them?” I don’t look his way, already knowing what he’s going to say.

“Naw. The two from the Society. They got the lads gathered up and took the whole lot. There weren’t many boys left at the school then. I mind it, ’cause we saw a few of them passin’ through the town, bein’ taken to different homes—maybe even to new families. It all happened that quick. Just a few weeks, ifI’m mindin’ right. But who kens? Whatever was going on up at that school, it was kept quiet.”

A soft, humorless chuckle leaves me.

“Anyway, if it hadn’t been for that trip, the lads would've been trapped in there as well, and gone up in flames like the sisters,” he says. “Awful thing, that.”

I step forward, where the entrance had been, placing a boot on the first step that now leads to nothing. Only blackened stone pillars remain where the old wooden doors once hung.

“You said they all died?” I ask.

“Aye.” He crosses his arms, lifting his chin toward the ruins. “They found the sisters in that big room at the back o’ the school.”

I blink, refusing to let the images of the past take hold. Unease eats at my stomach, knowing exactly which room he means.

“Folk in the town were sayin’ they found the bodies of the nuns huddled in the corner. The fire marshal said the door must’ve got stuck, or maybe the roof came down, trappin’ them inside.”

“That’s awful,” Striker says.

“Aye, burned the lot o’ them alive. The fire was so hot, folk said some of the nuns’ bones melted to the floor like plastic. The inspectors reckoned some kind of accelerant was used. Looked like a pro job, they said. Never did find out who did it or why. Heard they had to use dental records to tell who was who.”

“Sister Isla?” I ask.

He makes a sound, like he’s thinking, but I don’t turn around. “Aye, I reckon that was the headmistress back then. She was the one lyin’ on the altar. Burned that bad they had to take the whole mess to the morgue. Couldn’t even pry what was left of the bones off the stone.”

I sense more than see Breaker come to stand next to me. My focus drops to the photograph in his outstretched hand. When my gaze lands on the image, my eyes dart to his.

He quirks an eyebrow in question. “Is that who I think it is?”

I take the photograph, examining each face. The picture is grainy, the colors faded, but the color of her eyes is the same. Clear blue. Like glass.

Like home.

My chest constricts, and I close my eyes. A hand lands on my shoulder, and I open them to see Striker looking down at the image with an odd expression on his face.

Behind us, the man’s cough snaps me out of the fog. I turn around to face him, holding up the image he brought.

“How did you get this?” I ask him. “You said your mother had it?”

“Aye,” he says. “She said one of the Society lasses brought it to her on the way out of town that day of the festival. I mind seein’ her. She was bonnie. Right graceful. Mum said she gave it to her and told her to keep it. Said one day, someone might come lookin’ for it.”

My jaw clenches, and I glance back down at the image, an odd sensation in my gut.