Father Gavanto began to sing, and the crowd from the village joined in, a low, atonal hymn. I couldn’t catch the words.
When Sister Luisa reached the shrine, the father joined her at a dignified, slow pace. He looked through the crowd and motioned for me. I walked around the sisters toward him. Conscious that the eyes of all of La Pentola and all the girls were upon me, I tried to keep my face solemn and stately, but I felt illuminated, like I was floating in a beam of sunlight. The father said a blessing and then fell silent. The silence grew; it became a thing of itself. Birdsong called through the air. Down in La Pentola I could hear the bright strike of a hammer against metal. The sisters knelt in the long grass, staining their habits with green fingers.
The father took the cross from Sister Luisa, and one by one, the sisters approached St. Teresa’s shrine, touching their hearts, their mouths, the cross at the top of the alcove. I was strangely moved by the gesture, having not much thought of nuns’ hearts until then. They all loved St. Teresa. I pictured her image from the tapestry in the hallway, her tongue and her heart pierced with a quill from heaven. Nuns weren’t really supposed to have personalities or opinions; I knew that much. But love was allowed. More than allowed—it was necessary.
* * *
Our whole procession retreated back along the path, through the academy, down the hill, into the village to the church, where the cross was leaned against the altar. There, I was ushered into a front pew, and Father Gavanto delivered a long speech in Italian. I understood it was something to do with silence, and patience, but the rest was lost to me. In the dim church, the lack of sleep and the incense stung my eyes and brewed into a sludgy headache. I turned to search for Isabella, who was some way toward the back, her posture unusually upright. She was squinting at the father, frowning in such a way that there was a single dash between her brows.
When the bells tolled again, we stretched our stiff necks and joined the queue by the church door. Oak barrels of the convent’s hard cider had been rolled into the square, and laid out along two wooden benches were all manner of drinking implements: jelly jars, plastic beakers, even a pair of silver tankards I thought I recognized from the altar. Marco, the market greengrocer, gestured for me and, selecting a large tumbler, filled it to the top with cider. He winked at me. “Bravo,” he said, clinking my glass with his, spilling bubbles of amber liquid.
Over the cobbles Signora Bassi pushed a wheelbarrow draped in dishcloths, which she removed with a flourish to reveal “lingua cakes”—essentially apple turnovers baked into a diamond shape. She selected a large one for me and pressed it into my hands. “Beautiful,” she said, gesturing over my figure.
Isabella appeared on the other side of Signora Bassi’s wheelbarrow as I took a large, ungainly bite of the pastry.
“Hi,” I said, swallowing so quickly a chunk of apple caught in my throat. “Where have you been?”
“When?” The tip of her nose twitched.
“Before—this morning. I was looking for you.”
Isabella shrugged. “Around. You were probably distracted,” she said rather archly.
I opened my mouth and shut it again. My eyes stung.
Kids from La Pentola were pushing pudgy fingers into the cakes, and Signora Bassi chased them away with a volley of remonstrations. Isabella smiled at them deliberately. Indulgently, even. What had prompted her to smile at them but not at me? A flush of shame bristled over me. I’d made a fool out of myself; of course I had. All that attention. I’d overstepped. Embarrassed myself.
Nancy tapped me on the arm, nibbling on a cake. “Good job this morning, Bridge.” She nudged me. “You’re a natural.”
“Thanks,” I said, glancing at Isabella, who had been joined by Sylvia. They were kneeling to chat with a little boy dressed in a bow tie and knitted vest.
“So. Was it heavy? The lantern?” Nancy put a hand on my shoulder.
“Not so much,” I said, giving her a shallow smile and willing her to stop talking. If I was careful to be quiet, small, I might be able to revert Isabella’s mood. Father Gavanto began beating a cider barrel with a stick and Isabella grabbed hold of Sylvia’s arm as the little boy in the bow tie raced toward him, cheering.
The father climbed onto one of the rickety benches and gave a speech punctuated with cheers and claps from the crowd. Greta put her arm through Nancy’s. “What’s he saying, Nance?”
Nancy cocked her ear toward the father. “Something about a bonfire.”
“Bridge, you did swell this morning,” Greta said, reaching in front of Nancy to grip my hand. “You looked just like Liz Taylor.”
“Thanks.” I shot a glance at Isabella. She was helping Sylvia to light a cigarette but was laughing too much to keep the lighter steady. There was a grating thump in my chest. Why did she have to be so obtuse? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to punish me, when I hadn’t even asked to be given that lantern.
“What’s that?” Greta pointed toward the hill, where, coming down from the convent, two sisters carried a straw figurine in a white cloak. At first I thought it was a scarecrow, but as the sisters drew close I could see a rosary around its neck. It was meant to be a nun.
“Mother Mary,” said Isabella, crossing herself ostentatiously, then burying her face in the crook of Sylvia’s shoulder.
I set my teeth.
“They’re not going to burn it, are they?” breathed Greta. “Surely they can’t burn a fake—a fake sister?”
Nancy grimaced. “We should ask Sister Teresa.”
We searched the crowd for her, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Weird.” Nancy frowned. “I’d’ve thought she would be joining in. It’s her saint’s day, too, after all.”
“Don’t sweat it, Nance,” Isabella called over the wheelbarrow. “Sister Teresa’s got to attend some special prayer anyway back at the convent. Me and Sibbs will smuggle her a cake.”
Sylvia screeched with laughter as if it were the most hilarious joke she had ever heard.
I turned away from them both and squeezed past Nancy through the crowd. The straw figurine of the sister was being passed through outstretched arms until Marco grappled with it in the center of the square. He propped it up in a wooden bucket, and as I looked closer I saw that a sprig of silk apple blossom had been set where the mouth should be. I couldn’t decide if it was pretty or creepy. Greta and Sally came with a tankard filled to the brim with cider to find me, but it mustn’t have been too clean, as the liquor tasted bitter and dank with dust. Marco pulled a cart of wood from behind the chapel and began loading wood around the figure.
Katherine nudged toward us. “Nancy said you were asking about the—” She gestured toward the firewood. She was unsteady on her feet and her breath was sweet.