The Sphinx
Emma McMillan
I felt myself dissociating. All I could hear was the achingly painful sound of Sister Hannah dragging the chalk over the blackboard. The chalk dust fell slowly to the ground, swirling on its descent like burning ash from a bonfire. I tried to refocus myself, staring at my shredded nail beds. They were raw and stripped almost down to the bone. Dried maroon blood caked my cuticles. I began to pick at what was left of them.
Every rip of my delicate skin stung.
I mustered enough courage to look over my shoulder and make eye contact with Amelia. I was merely met with a strikingly cold stare. I shuddered.
Turn around, she mouthed bitterly, her face scrunched up as she readjusted the cross hanging loosely around her neck. She always had that look on her face; I could imagine my mother saying it was going to freeze like that. Usually that made me smile, but today it made me wonder why I ever thought that look upon Amelia’s face was normal. So, I stared slack-jawed at her response. Was she going to pull this the whole day after last night?
I couldn’t even fathom that I was sitting in a classroom today. It was so unbearably mundane.
I should be going to confession.
The cacophonic shudder of the bells signaled a flutter of papers and subsequent rush to the door. I scrambled in slow motion to collect my things and entered the sea of plaid skirts. Each slam of a locker sent waves of nausea through my body. My Mary Janes squeaked against the linoleum floors, making me wince.
Every time I shut my eyes I could hear her scream. It made my insides feel cold and numb. My jaw was clenched so tight I thought my teeth would shatter from the force. I instinctively ripped a piece of skin from my index finger and felt a warmth spread through my body, making me feel real again. Blood spread down the side of my hand.
Blood. There was so much blood.
* * * * *
Sister Patricia called Margaret to the altar for the beginning of Religion Period. Her pale, lithe frame was shaking as usual. She didn’t quite enjoy reading out loud. It was as painful for us to hear it as it was for her to do it. Trust me.
“R-R-Romans, twelve ni-nineteen.”
As she shuddered through the verses, I spotted Amelia leaving from the side door. I rose from the pew instinctively. Sister Hannah slapped my hand.
“Ms. Hewes, you cannot leave right now, you know that,” she said and gave me a stern look, her wrinkles tightening around her eyes, making them sink deeper into her face.
“I-I just got my period. I’m going to bleed all over the pew if you don’t let me go.” I rattled on, hoping I sounded sincere. She clammed up; the sisters hated discussing menstrual hygiene, so it was a safe bet to bring it up to get out of anything. Finally, she nodded and allowed me to pass.
I found Amelia in the bathroom nonchalantly reapplying her lip gloss in the stained mirror. The greenish haze from the flickering fluorescent light made her look more menacing than she was in the daylight.
“Are we seriously going to act like nothing happened last night?” I tried to keep my voice from shaking and slammed my hand on the sink, but it didn’t seem to even startle her. She smacked her lips together.
“What happened last night, Caroline?”
I choked on my words. The apathy dripping from her lips baffled me into silence. She closed the tube of gloss and tucked it into her skirt, starting for the door.
I slid to block her.
“You’ll move if you know what’s good for you.”
“Jesus Christ!” I felt as though my eyes were going to bulge from my head.
“Now that’s not very godlike of you, Caroline—”
“We-You killed her—”
She slapped me.
The sound was surprisingly close to that which I’d heard in movies. The sting spread rapidly to my temples . I cradled my cheek in pain.
“Bitch,”I muttered to myself. She rolled her eyes.
“You think you would have some more chilling insults. It makes me wonder how you even got into the Sphinx—”
“I never wanted to be a part of the club! At least Charlotte did! But she’s dead—”
“Don’t utter another fucking word about this. You hear me? She swore an oath. You swore an oath, and you know what happens when you break it.”
She pushed me down against the chilling tile of the bathroom wall. I looked up to meet her eyeline only to find the quivering fluorescent light haloed around her blonde ringlets. She looked down at my fingers. Blood was cascading down my hand once again. She made that scrunched up face and began for the door.
“Clean yourself up,” she said.
The door slammed. I cleaned the blood from my hand once more, and I saw the horrifying scene of last night play against the darkness of my eyelids as I shut my eyes and winced from the pain.
* * * * *
The midnight stroke of the clock sent the three crows perched upon the school’s clock tower aflutter.
Everything was silhouetted, including the double line of plaid skirted girls, scurrying through the ancient halls. I was paired with Charlotte Davenport, who I had known since Sunday School.
“Aren’t you so excited?” she asked.
“Not really,” I muttered.
She shrugged off my comment. “Well, I am. I’m the first of my family to get in.”
“I’m only here because every woman in my family has been in the Sphinx since we got off the goddamn Mayflower. They only recruited me out of obligation.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“No, it is,” I replied.
Charlotte gave me a puzzled, almost pitying look but kept walking in toe with the others, nonetheless. Side by side, we marched, reminding me of that Madeline book my mother used to read to me before I closed my eyes:“ Twelve little girls in two straight lines.” This line plagued my mind until we came upon the Fulton Bridge.
Amelia Trescott was the Sororem quoque Inaugurandi. She was the one to impress. She already hated me, so that was a lost cause, but I could see Charlotte’s back straighten, and her breath hitch as Amelia’s eyes scanned over her. I smirked. There was always a sense of innocence that radiated from Charlotte since we were little— our legs dangling from the pew benches. Amelia grinned at Charlotte approvingly. I could feel the tension leave her body as Amelia moved onto me.
She scrunched her face up, her grimaces starting at my shoes. One was unbuckled. Then, she looked at my socks. They were uneven. One had a hole. My skirt was too short. She met my eyes, frowning. My smudged eyeliner was not approved.
“You’re nothing like the rest of the Hewes,” she said.
“Thank God,” I muttered. She turned on her heel, eyebrows raised.
“Praise God,” I corrected myself and gave her a smile. She moved on apprehensively.
“Now it is time for the recitation,” a year eleven spoke in a rough tone that made my insides itch. The hairs on my bowed head shivered as I peered at my shoes, the sulky moonlight beating off of them.
“Repeat after me: Illis quos amo deserviam.”
“Illis quos amo deserviam,” we repeated in a monotonous tone, the words echoing off the stones of the corridor, surrounding us in an all-encompassing sound.
“For those I love I will sacrifice.”
We opened our eyes to find the older girls in an arc, candles in hand. I blinked to see if the bizarre scene would dissipate. Nope.
“Now, sisters, it is time for the sacrifice.”
I rolled my eyes.
“We sacrifice to remind ourselves of the consequences of heresy, like the Holy Inquisition before us. Those who commit blasphemy will pay in life.”
I snorted.
Amelia sneered and scrunched up her face, which was harshly illuminated by the candlelight. Her features were sharpened to pointed slants. The hollows of her eyes deepened as she walked towards the line of us. Charlotte leaned over toward my ear,
“Are you trying to not get picked?” She asked genuinely in a hushed tone.
“Obviously,” I muttered.
“You.” A pointed finger extended to Charlotte, whose face picked up into a small grin. I hate to admit it, but I felt a small swell of pride for her. She was so excited for some ungodly reason.
Amelia escorted her toward the end of the bridge. Odd. I honestly had no idea what part of the initiation this was. There was an air of strangeness weighing heavily on my chest.
I watched, frozen, as Amelia shoved Charlotte Davenport off the side of the Fulton Bridge.
This really was a sacrifice.
I choked on my breath as each girl’s eyes wandered over the edge of the bridge, down to the pavement and down to where we all heard the thud of death below us.
The sight of Charlotte, unmoving and limbs sprawled against the cobblestone like a bird in flight, was horrifying. Horrifying, but mesmerizing.
We watched as if hypnotized, in a perfect double line, only one plaid skirt missing.
“Eleven little girls in two straight lines.”
Slowly, blood began to surround her, looking like spilled rubies reflecting the moonlight in the inky darkness. It was a thing of beauty to gaze at, until I reminded myself it was blood.
Blood.There was so much blood.
Nothing bonds a sisterhood like murder.
* * * * *
One year later.
Today was the one-year anniversary of Charlotte Davenport’s death. A memorial was evidently put into place by the sisters of St. Catherine’s, as was the case with every death in the school. It was a dismal affair. But I guess memorials are supposed to be. The sky was wrung of color, and the flowers seemed to droop, bowing their heads solemnly. There was an air of discomfort surrounding all those attending. For some, it was their perturbation with death. For others, it was their own contempt for suicide, a side effect of Catholicism. For a select few of us, it was the fact that we knew the truth.
The truth used to bother me, but now it rarely does. Over the past year, it seems to have slowly dissipated from my mind, like bits of charred ash from a bonfire, ascending into the sky. Yet, a few remnants still lay there, unmovable. Sometimes I hear them whisper in the dead of night, begging to get out. I shove them back down to the unmapped depths of my mind.
You see, at first the truth felt as though it was drowning me. I’d be in class, slick with sweat, my chest heaving, my eyes wild with images of Mary Janes, and my plaid skirts caked and creased with scarlet blood. I wanted to allow the truth to spill from my lips, for I was afraid it would soon drown my insides. But that was not allowed. No one in The Sphinx was allowed to tattle, or they’d be blamed then killed. It was a nice little system they instated, following the order from the Holy Inquisition. No mutiny. No coups.
I had thought about how I could dismantle the system, but how? How could I do it alone? No other girl would turn on the club. They had been tapped to belong. No one gives that up. And no one wants to give up their life.
Amelia was apathetic to my breakdowns for the first few weeks, but shockingly enough, she eventually took me under her wing. She claimed she wanted to help me work through my trauma and perhaps make a change within the Sphinx to prevent this from happening in the future. So I believed her. I allowed her to guide me into the depths of The Sphinx.
Looking back, I still don’t know if I’m grateful or horrified with the goodwill she provided me.
She coaxed me into being her companion through her final year at St. Catherine’s. She’d whisper to me every so often, offering me secrets and tattle, like little rewards for my piety and obedience. Perhaps it was dehumanizing, but it felt nice to have someone who knew what I knew by my side. And so my entanglement with the Sphinx only grew stronger with every nugget of information I was fed.
One night at a Cambridge cafe cemented the truth within me. A new truth. Because, you see, the truth can be twisted. Warped. You can start to believe a new truth.
“Every three years, we make a sacrifice to remind everyone of the punishment for wrongdoings. Every year would be too much, and the original sisters liked the religious significance of the number three.” She smiled as if agreeing with the statement, her fingers absentmindedly tapping the battered wood of the cafe table. “Every sacrifice is also around exam season to avert suspicion, and since St. Catherine’s is known for being the hellhole in Cambridge that drives at least two others to suicide or a psychotic break, not much has been investigated— although there have been a few close calls.” She chuckled to herself, as if absurdly reminiscing.
“But it’s murder,” I blurted out. Amelia’s eyes darted from the rain drizzling outside the window and locked on mine.
“No, Caroline, it’s a sacrifice.” Her voice deepened with annoyance.
“But why do we do this?”
“Because it’s tradition.”
I began nodding my head. I felt mesmerized. If I knew one thing, it’s the fact that Catholicism was deeply rooted in tradition— even if it was for the sake of a blaringly wrong practice.
“The Holy Inquisition silenced those who committed heresy, and we do the same to make sure the sisters understand that we are serious in our endeavors. No one since our beginnings has gone against the rules because they understand the consequences. It worked for them, and who are we to question those before us?” she said.
Amelia twirled a pale ringlet between her thin fingers in a placid manner. I found myself nodding my head intuitively. It was making sense. Was it supposed to be making sense?
“Sister Hannah was a part of the Sphinx,” Amelia whispered in a sneaky manner and chuckled. She was offering another secret, and I was accepting it. I found myself laughing along with her, thinking about the absurd fact that Sister Hannah’s deeply set eyes were once young and committing sacrifice.
“You know, Caroline, I see a lot of myself in you. I was so scared when I first joined the Sphinx. My friend was the sacrifice my first year: Rhea. It horrified me at first— the Sphinx’s practices.Their philosophy.The Holy Inquisition’s rules. For a while, I didn’t understand. But I want you to know that once you truly understand it, you won’t feel that it’s wrong anymore. It’s God’s will.”
Her words swirled in my head and eventually settled like sand in an hourglass. It felt right, why? Maybe, it made me feel better about the truth— about what I had witnessed and what I was a part of. Maybe, I truly believed it. So a new truth arose within me. Perhaps, it was the fact that I was an accessory to murder, and I could not tattle, but for an odd reason, I felt no need to allow the truth to spill from my lips. I felt that I could breathe for the first time in months: no more drowning.
Amelia offered me a soft grin. She took my hand, interlacing her thin fingers with my own. I allowed our hands to become one and found solace in it.
“You’ll see, Caroline, the power in sisterhood, the power in God, and the power you’ll taste— you won’t be able to resist it.”
* * * * *
My senior year at St. Catherine’s marked the three-year anniversary of Charlotte Davenport’s death. Three years since the last sacrifice. I had grown harder since freshman year— more stoic, less naive. I was sure of what I was doing. I understood it. I believed it.
Amelia was long graduated, and there was a new Sororem quoque Inaugurandi of the Sphinx, a new initiate class of “twelve little girls in two straight lines.” They shook in their plaid skirts, with the autumnal chill of the night rushing through the stone-lined corridor of the Fulton Bridge. I could hear the whispers of the girls: “That’s Caroline Hewes….”
I found a grin crawling onto my face. I was pleased that they were afraid. They all cowered as I walked and inspected them.
“Repeat after me: Illis quos amo deserviam,” I muttered, pleased with how my voice echoed resoundingly against the stone corridor.
I could hear Amelia’s voice murmuring in the back of my mind as I finished the opening ritual:
“Find the overzealous one. That’s the one you want.”
I assessed the girls up and down, looking for the correct one.
I stopped on the girl with perfect posture, who was looking straight ahead with an intense concentration. I chuckled softly. Marina Heffel.
She reminded me of Charlotte: so excited, so fresh, and so naive.
“You.” I pointed to Marina, whose face picked up into a small grin. Her swell of pride was evident; it made me hungrier to continue with the ritual. “Time for the sacrifice,” I said, and I heard a smattering of giggles. They had no idea what was in store. Their innocence was pitiable.
“We sacrifice to remind ourselves of the consequences of heresy, like the Holy Inquisition before us. Those who commit blasphemy will pay in life.”
I inhaled the words, allowing them to rush into my lungs.The truth.
I escorted Marina toward the end of the bridge. She walked with some hesitation now, and her brow was furrowed. I soaked in all of the silence that surrounded us. I derived power from it. I could practically smell the fear radiating from the girls. Marina turned to face me and muttered:
“What do I do now?” The quiver in her voice sent a wave of annoyance through me. I gave her a reassuring grin.
Then, I pushed.
A rush of adrenaline surged through my veins.
Only a second did my fingers brush the cashmere of her sweater. It felt electric.
Then, she fell down below us, and we all heard the thud of death.. That sound lit a spark within my soul.
I bit down on my lip fervently as I heard it. My teeth sank sharply as blood was drawn. It rushed into my mouth, thickly coating my tongue and teeth with a metallic warmness.
Blood. There was so much blood.
I licked my lips as the girls rushed to the edge of the bridge in panic. They’d soon understand, though, just as I did. They would understand the truth and the power.
And Amelia was right— the taste of power is irresistible.
Emma McMillan is a part of the Honors College Class of 2024, studying English and Visual Arts with a concentration in Photography. She’s from Marlton, NJ, and lives with her two sisters and parents. Emma hopes to continue creating and telling stories by getting a job in screenwriting or photography after graduating from Rutgers University.
Emma wrote this short story in Caridad Svich’s Creative Writing course during the Spring of 2021 semester. Svich selected the piece for inclusion in WHR.