Saint perpetua’s School for Unholy girls
unwanted by the world, the girls have been gathered up
into a school in the mists of the North.
but abandoned by their teachers, they have undertaken
their own education.
part visual art, part slowly-built story, Saint Perpetua’s is an adventure in wildness…
the thrilling wild of the heart as it reaches for the unloveable, and the wild of the unbridaled spirits of girls
who live as fiercely
as they can.
finch
finch
the beginning of Finch’s story…
…The child frightened everyone when she was brought through the doors.
Her hair was coiled and matted, thick with mud and something white. Her toes had crinkled and curled, and she didn’t walk, but bounced on thin legs. They had never seen such a degenerate child- but, such a mystery!- no starvation! No malnourishment, and the creature even seemed well fed, her dirty cheeks glowing with roundness.
How did this happen?
Who had hurt, and helped, this poor child?
They learned when suddenly, the sound of raining stones hitting the windows on the second floor ended the meeting…
FINCH
DEVOTION COMPASSION
Royal
Royal
ROYAL
GENTLENESS instinct
the beginning of Royal’s story…
Neighbors heard yelling all the way from the dirty green house most nights, so when the house was silent but for the blood and the body, police set off into the nearby forest to look for the daughter on a hunch.
She did not want to be found: footsteps were a terrible thing, and even shouting her name set her brain yellow with fear and dread.
She shed her shoes, and the feel of the mud and moss was the only kindness that had ever happened to her in her life.
That day, she swore alliegence to the forest floor, and only Miss Bonaventure ever found her: the police had given up and left the body’s daughter for dead. Miss Bonaventure, fond of bare feet herself, found a frond of a girl sleeping in a nest of royal ferns.
Echidna
Echidna
ECHIDNA
FEROCITY
DISCERNMENT
the beginning of echidna’s story…
…Her file said she was found with a snake circling her toddler-body, and it was true. No one tried to approach the child for fear of the snake, but she looked so calm that, eventually, and after two shots of whiskey, Tilly the hand tiptoed as close as the stick rattling in her shaking grasp would allow.
But it wasn’t the snake that hissed and reared and bit when Tilly jabbed the stick. Tilly had a hell of a time releasing the stick without hurting the child, in who’s teeth the stick was caught. And, by heaven, the child was hissing! All the adults took a step back, and quaked in their boots. The snake was quite calm, watching with a saturnine gaze that chilled every grown up, but seemed to warm and calm the child…
Cricket
Cricket
the beginning of CRICKET’s story…
…The adults were horrified: the dirty redhead had been weeping all night, all night! And when they finally gathered around her bed in the morning, a goliath beetle was sipping the tears off her cheeks.
The girl would scream and rage whenever a spider was crushed, or anyone went after a bug with a broom. But what was to be done? This was a city!
They thought she might enjoy biology, and she did, for a time. Until the chapter changed from insects to fish, and then she could never be found inside the confines of a desk...
CLEOME
CLEOME
…Cleome was different than all the other girls at St. Perpetua’s. She was loved.
She knew she was loved.
Every March 21st, Cleome received the only mail of the year.
It was always a bouquet of flowers, so long in transit, though, that they always arrived wilted. But Cleo loved them, and tugged the flowers out of the broken vase, threading the soggy stems through her braids and only tugging them out when the other girls complained of the stink.
The soft weight of the flowers told her everything she needed to know…
the beginning of Cleome’s story…
nox
nox
the beginning of Nox’s story…
…She was found at midnight, the first night of the full moon. The old nursemaid on site’s vision was fraying at the edges, but she swore later that she saw movement around the baby’s pearly head. When she gathered the cream cheese body up in her arms, she heard a softness, but saw nothing, and strode inside the school to look for a free crib.
The crib sat beside a window, and Tilly the hand hadn’t yet closed the curtains. Moonlight again found the sleeping child, and when Tilly came around for the first watch, woke all the babies with her squeal.
The little girl’s face was ringed with enormous moths.
They framed her face like a living, moving mosaic…
NOX
SEARCHING
SOLITUDE
COMING SOON
COMING SOON
the story of mysterious Miss Francesca Bonaventure…
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