Irina Was a Scorpio

An illustrated horror fairy tale

Irina knew what they were thinking. But she hadn’t done it.

It wasn’t her fault, no matter how hard they all stared. Even the priest, that sanctimonious hypocrite, that lecherous fool — even he fixed her with a look of penetrating disapproval.

She gazed at the priest, and she did not look away. He didn’t like it. She didn’t care.

“Let us proclaim the mystery of faith,” the priest intoned. Irina forced herself not to roll her eyes at everyone.

They would sing, and she would wait, and then she would speak. That was the schedule, the run of show, the evening’s gloomy program.

No matter what they all thought, she hadn’t done it.

That didn’t mean she would pretend to be sad about it, to groan along with the dolorous droning noise pollution these people called hymns. There had to be churches with good music, but this wasn’t one of them.

Irina only knew this church, only knew the little village where she’d been born, baptized, given her First Holy Communion while dressed as a baby bride, been forced to invent sins she…