The walk to Mistress Gable's office was the longest of Johnny's life. Each scuff of his worn-out shoes on the polished linoleum floor echoed in the cavernous silence of the corridor, a drumbeat marking his path to damnation. The stew churned in his stomach, a sour knot of fear. She knew. She had to know. Maybe someone had seen them slip into the girls' bathroom, or heard something through the thin walls. He imagined the punishment: the switch, weeks of solitary chores, the public shaming in front of everyone. But it was the thought of what would happen to Gill that truly terrified him.
He pushed open the heavy oak door. The office was as severe as the woman who occupied it. It smelled of old paper, lemon polish, and a faint, antiseptic coldness. Mistress Gable sat enthroned behind a large, dark desk, her hands steepled beneath her chin. The only light came from the tall, barred window behind her, casting her in a formidable silhouette.
"Close the door, Johnny," she said. Her voice was flat, without inflection, which was somehow more menacing than if she had been shouting.
He did as he was told, the click of the latch sounding like a cell door locking. He stood before the desk, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his gaze fixed on a crack in the floorboards. He waited for the accusation.
"You have reached the age of seventeen," Mistress Gable began, her words precise and cutting. "As you know, that is the age at which our wards are expected to leave our care and enter the working world."
Johnny's head snapped up. This wasn't what he'd expected. His mind, which had been bracing for a storm, was left reeling in a sudden, confusing calm. Leaving? He hadn't thought about it, not really. The orphanage, for all its misery, was the only home he'd ever known.
"Arrangements have been made," she continued, ignoring his stunned expression. "There is a position for you at the city ironworks. Lodgings are provided. You will leave tomorrow morning."
The words hit him, but they didn't quite sink in. Tomorrow? His thoughts scrambled. Gill. The ironworks. Leaving. A strange mix of panic and a wild, traitorous flicker of freedom coursed through him. "Tomorrow?" he managed to choke out. "But… what about the others? Peter is seventeen. Thomas is almost there. Why is it just me?"
A flicker of something—impatience, perhaps even disdain—crossed Mistress Gable's face. She leaned forward slightly, the hard lines of her face seeming to sharpen in the grey light. "Do not compare yourself to the others, Johnny. Your situation is… unique." She paused, letting the word hang in the air between them. "You have caused enough problems."
The fear rushed back, cold and familiar. This was it. It wasn't about his age at all. "Problems? I don't understand."
Mistress Gable let out a short, sharp sigh, the sound of a woman whose patience had long since been exhausted. Her eyes, like chips of flint, bored into him. "Have the others gotten a nun pregnant, Johnny?"
The world stopped. The air in Johnny's lungs solidified into a block of ice. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. The question was so absurd, so far from the reality he had been dreading, that his mind simply refused to process it.
She saw the utter incomprehension on his face and her lip curled into a sneer. "Is any of them a dad already?"
Dad. The word was an alien sound in the sterile office. It didn't belong to him. It was a word for other men, grown men with wives and homes. And then, a name surfaced from the depths of his memory, a ghost he had long since buried. Sarah.
Sister Sarah. She hadn't been much older than him, barely out of her novitiate. She had kind eyes and a smile that she always tried to hide behind a veil of piety. He'd been assigned to help her in the chapel storerooms, a year, maybe more, ago. It had started with stolen glances, then whispered conversations in the dusty dark, two lonely souls finding a clumsy, fumbling comfort in one another. He remembered the rustle of her habit, the smell of incense and soap on her skin, the terror and thrill of their secret meetings. He had been young, stupid, driven by urges he didn't understand. He thought it was just a secret, their secret. Then one day, she was gone. Transferred to another convent, they said, for her piety. He had been sad for a week, then youth's selfish resilience had taken over, and he had moved on. He had moved on to Gill.
"Sarah…" he breathed, the name feeling like ash on his tongue.
"Yes," Mistress Gable confirmed, her voice dripping with cold satisfaction. "Sister Sarah. So you do remember. I commend you. You ruined her life with your immature, animal urges, and you barely seem to remember her name."
"She… she was pregnant?" Johnny felt dizzy, the floor seeming to tilt beneath his feet. He gripped the edge of the desk to steady himself.
"She had the child," the Mistress stated, delivering the facts like hammer blows. "A boy. Born almost a few mouths ago. She was a nun, Johnny. Devout. She would not hear of… ending it. An unforgivable sin on top of an unforgivable sin."
Johnny stared at her, his vision blurring. A boy. He had a son. The thought was a monstrous, impossible thing.
"The child was immediately sent to a foundling home in the city. He will never know who his parents are," she continued, her voice relentless. "And Sister Sarah was permanently relocated to a penitent convent in the north. A place for the fallen. Her vows are broken, her soul is stained, and her life is over. All because you couldn't keep your hands to yourself."
She leaned back in her chair, the judgment complete. "So, no, Johnny. You are not like the others. You are a problem that must be removed. The ironworks are waiting. Consider it a mercy. At least you get a future. She did not."