LITMIR.BIZ

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and then reached into the satchel again. This time she pulled out a small box and an envelope. She opened the box and pulled back when she saw a fat gold spider sitting on black velvet. Shaped like a black widow, it was incredibly detailed. Small head, thin, wiry legs and a two-inch-long round bottom. Despite it being a replica, Lilith could almost feel its deadly aura. Her fingers trembled as she touched it.

      “Not exactly my taste in jewelry,” Sister Peter noted. “Even if I hadn’t taken a vow of poverty.”

      Lilith pulled it from the box and saw that the spider was attached to a gold chain. She looked at it quizzically.

      “Do you think it was intended to be a gift?”

      “Do you have a penchant for spiders?”

      Lilith shuddered. “No. But it is heavy. If it is gold, it could be worth a great deal. Why would she send such a thing? I have no need of personal money or possessions. Only donations that can be used for the village. Do you think she wants me to sell it? I cannot imagine such a thing would be easy.” She didn’t want to verbalize it, but the necklace was very ugly.

      “Read the letter.” Sister Peter pointed to the envelope in Lilith’s hand.

      Having almost forgotten it, Lilith set the necklace back in its case and tore into the envelope. It was written in English, but Lilith had command of the written language as much as she did the spoken one.

      The key is in the spider. Use it wisely.

      Welcome to your new life.

      Jackie (A)

      “Welcome to your new life….” Sister Peter read over Lilith’s shoulder. “What does she mean by that?”

      “I do not know. The key is in the spider….”

      Lilith scooped up the box and stood. She pulled out the spider and studied it from all sides. Turning it on its back, she spotted a seam in the gold. Using her thumb, she pushed and pulled until the back slid open. Inside was a small silver rectangular device that Lilith didn’t recognize.

      “I know what that is,” Sister Peter said. “It’s a memory stick.”

      Lilith shook her head. “I do not know….”

      “A flash drive. You insert this into the back of the computer in one of the USB ports. It stores files. Like a floppy disk or a CD only smaller and with more space. It means there is information on it. Information you can view if you plug it into the computer.”

      “I do not understand. Why would she send me computer files? Here? And the letter A next to her name. I thought her last name was Webb. None of this makes any sense.”

      “Then make sense of it. Read what’s on the files. You’ve probably got a few hours of battery life on this laptop. That should give you enough time to sort through whatever it is she wanted you to have.”

      Lilith took the memory stick from Sister Peter and put it back into the spider’s belly.

      “I was supposed to go to the monastery for study this afternoon,” she said absently. She had also thought that maybe today she would overcome whatever was holding her back and stop in to check on the visitor’s condition. She’d wanted to see for herself that he was doing well and that his leg was getting better.

      And if she were honest with herself, she wanted to talk to him without him being delirious this time. Given his improving condition, it seemed likely he would be leaving soon. This could be her last chance.

      “I have to go back up in a few hours to check on your friend’s bandages and to make sure he isn’t pushing himself too hard. I’ll let them know you’ve been detained.”

      “I feel anxious, though. Reading what is on this computer. What if it is private? What if this is a mistake and Jackie simply sent this ahead of her arrival?”

      “If it was a mistake she wouldn’t have written the note. And if it was that private she wouldn’t have sent it to you at all.”

      “I know one thing for certain. I do not want a new life,” Lilith said adamantly, referring to Jackie’s message. “This is my life. I cannot imagine why she would write such a thing.”

      Sister Peter shook her head and smiled sadly. “Oh, Lilith, this isn’t a life. This is an escape. Trust me, I know.”

      “That is not true.” Lilith was stunned by the sister’s words. “I am needed here. I contribute. I belong here.”

      “Of course you contribute. And yes, you are welcomed here. I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t. Only that… Well, you didn’t get to choose this place. It was chosen for you. You didn’t get to decide what you wanted to do with your life. It was decided for you.”

      “Not decided,” Lilith corrected her. “Dictated. Dictated by my condition. You have seen what I can do. I have no other choice.”

      “Yes, I’ve seen what you can do,” she allowed. “But you don’t know if your condition can be treated. You have never tried to leave this place to find out. Accept the truth. You were sent here as a punishment by your family. A punishment you didn’t deserve because you couldn’t possibly help what happened.”

      “I have never spoken of what happened,” Lilith said quietly. “You do not know what I did.”

      “I know it must have been bad for your father to do what he did, but I also know you were a child. Barely thirteen when you were abandoned here. You stay in this place to punish yourself for this wrong you feel you’ve committed. That’s not living life. That’s suffering in purgatory.”

      Lilith recognized the word from Sister Joseph’s many sermons. Purgatory was a place you went after death to atone for your sins before moving on to heaven.

      Glancing around the village, she saw the small huts and so many of the thin, suffering bodies that filled them. There were good days here, but she couldn’t deny that most of them were filled with pain. Pain she could only ease for a little while.

      Maybe Sister Peter was right. Maybe this was purgatory.

      But that didn’t mean that Lilith didn’t belong here.

      Chapter 3

      The screen turned black as she continued to press her finger down on the power button. Lilith wasn’t sure if it was the proper way to stop the computer but it was the only thing she could think of to make the words go away. And she so desperately needed to make them go away.

      If you’re reading this I’m dead….

      The awful part was that Jackie being dead was the least disturbing piece of information in her files.

      Genetic experiments. A new breed of powerful women. My offspring. My daughters.

      Shaking her head, Lilith tried to remove the flashes of phrases that were burned behind her eyes, but they wouldn’t let go of her. She couldn’t unread what she’d read or unlearn what she’d learned. It would be with her now. Always.

      Surrogate mother…two others created of my eggs…each of you now has a piece of my empire… Put the pieces together and all will be revealed… This is a taste…

      Hungry yet?

      Hungry? A taste?

      Empire.

      That word stood out among the rest. It was the word Jackie used to describe the endless amounts of folders on her memory stick. Some of the folders were names. Names that even in the far reaches of Arunachal Pradesh Lilith recognized. Leaders of the world, who had lied, cheated, raped and killed. Sinners, all of them, who paid money to hide their crimes rather than admit their mistakes and be punished for them. Vaguely Lilith wondered if they hadn’t simply created their own version of a lifelong purgatory.

      And there was more. So many folders that she couldn’t open, but after what she’d already read she couldn’t imagine going

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