The Magdalen
The other sound you heard in the laundry was coughing. Like a chorus from hell. The girls all chain-smoked; it relieved the tedium and gave them a sense of being adult. The fumes in the place, combined with the nicotine, produced the racking cough from the very depths of despair. When Lucifer heard that sound, she began to smile, without even realising it. The smile began at the corner of her eyes and spread in step as she stalked the length of the room. The girls, heads down, tried to gauge her mood. Course it was always foul, but the level of her wrath varied.
Her favourite trick was to select a girl and ask her to sew a pile of curtains. She’d almost sweet-talk the creature, then from nowhere, she’d lash out with a fist and send the girl spinning, as she screamed,
“You w
