“I think so.” I nod, trying to conceal a smirk. I know how to pot seedlings, for goodness’ sake. I’m not some soft-handed nobleman’s daughter. Setting seeds is a toddler’s job.
“And water them in when you’re done,” says Alice, taking off her apron. “I’ve got to go ask Joan what she wants planted next.”
I’m at this for a long while, alone in the shed, when I sense someone come into the room behind me.
“Well, isn’t this a surprise!” says a male voice, a swirl of golden ochre. I jump and turn to see a boy’s form standing in the doorway.
“God be with you, sister,” he says, bowing his head to me, the waves of messy, sandy hair tumbling over his hood. The arch of his upper lip. And the familiar flash of midnight-blue eyes…
“Mason—”
I have to keep myself from shouting it as I knock a pot on the bench, but right it just in time. I gawk at him, feeling the blush rise, my scalp tingle, this irresistible force pulling me to him. I want, like instinct, to throw my arms around him, to bury myself in him. I reach a hand toward him and just as quickly draw it back.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper, then, suddenly conscious of my overbite, cover my mouth with both dirty hands. “Here? Of anywhere in the whole country?”
“It’s…ah…a few reasons….” He looks down and wipes the stone dust from his hands onto his leather apron. “Work in Hartley Cross slowed down, and Brother Robert said Saint Gabriel’s was sending stoneworkers up north to rebuild an old chapel, and…here I am.”
I simply can’t believe it. This isn’t a dream—I can see the color of his voice. He’s got on the same green tunic covered in fine limestone powder. We just stare at each other, not speaking. I haven’t looked another person in the eye in months, let alone him.
“Your da?” I manage, fingernailing a crease in my apron. “Is he well?”
“No,” says Mason. “That’s the other reason. I said goodbye when I left.”
“God rest him,” I offer, my heart falling.
And something unlocks in me. For months, since Mam and Da died, I’ve been stopping up my heart, like I might pour out of myself if I let go even a little bit, not wanting to admit that people die, and they don’t come back. That my parents, and now Mason’s father, aren’t traveling somewhere, aren’t on pilgrimage, but are in the ground; not growing like these seedlings, but decaying, back into soil, back into time. But here stands Mason, alive, familiar, like a pillow placed under that grief. It’s all I can do not to grab onto him and never let go.
“It was that cough, you know, from the stone dust,” he explains. He touches a pot of earth and runs his finger along its rim, a resigned smile revealing how sorrow has slightly aged his eyes. “We all knew it would come. I expect it will for me, too, the same way. Death comes for all of us sometime.”
“Don’t say that. You’re here.” I look at his hands, callused and huge and full of cuts and scrapes, like they should be. Those hands, rough and gentle, the memory of their touch going through me even now.
“You’re right. It’s good to see you, Edie.” His is a thinner smile, with a new sadness.
“This isn’t what I expected,” I say, biting my bottom lip.
Mason gingerly picks up a bunch of seedlings and teases them apart. I make holes in the soil and hand him the pots to plant in.
“No. Nor I,” he says. “But I imagine you’re not going anywhere for a while, and this chapel here will take a long time to rebuild, don’t you think?”
I blush and try to hide my smile, looking down at my work. “I’m glad you’re here,” I say plainly.
“Me too.” He inches his hand over to mine and brushes my dirty fingers.
“Edyth, it’s your turn to— Oh! Hello!” Alice stops suddenly as she rounds the corner into the shed. Instant dizziness spins a web of blue around my vision, and Mason pulls his hand away in a flash.
“I’m sorry,” he says to both of us with a polite smile. “I’ll go.”
“No, wait—Alice, this is my friend, John Mason. He’s from Hartley Cross, can you believe it? I didn’t know that he was on the chapel crew this whole time.”
Alice draws breath to say something, but nods and smiles instead. “Alice Palmer,” she introduces herself. “Edyth, it’s time to wash up.”
“God give you grace, sisters,” say Mason humbly, exiting with a bow. I feel Alice’s prying gaze, but I put the box of seedlings back on the windowsill and hang up my apron, backing out of the shed, trying not to burst.
— 11 —
I wash my hands and face in the fountain and retreat to the scriptorium, drunk on the waking dream of Mason’s presence. The chalky smell of the room hits me first; that, and the faint goaty aroma of the parchment. It brings me back to earth—but I swear I can almost see angels reaching their hands right into the dirt of the world and pulling up spirit-stuff, hands filthy with these rough building blocks of holiness. The air whirls with rock dust and animal skins, planks of wood and beeswaxed linen thread.
My reverie is sharply interrupted.
“Huh?”
“I said, I need you to go to town for me, Edyth,” says Bridgit as I enter the grinding room. “Alice is going as well, for Joan’s medicines. Here’s my list. Go see the druggist first for the mastic and gum, and then the jeweler for the stones. Be careful when you come out of the jeweler’s—keep your wits. You don’t want anyone following you, thinking you’ve got something to steal.”
The list in my hands is simple, and going to town, what a relief—a long walk to shake out the thousand emotions coursing through my body.
* * *
—
“I can’t believe we get to leave the priory,” says Alice when we meet up at the gatehouse. “My world’s shrunk to the size of a peach pit over the last few months.”
“Don’t I know it,” I reply, distracted.
“Though it seems to me like yours is expanding,” she says, an impish smile on her lips.
On the bridge, we stop to drop dried leaves into the river and see whose comes out on the other side first.
Footsteps on the wooden bridge make us stiffen. We lower our heads and wait for them to pass, but they pause, and a reflection appears next to mine in the water.
“Are you going into town?” Mason asks, smiling at our mirror image.