“What…what happened?” The trance peels away from me and leaves me with goose bumps.
Bridgit clucks her tongue and gestures toward the table. “You were daydreaming, or in some kind of stupor—I don’t know! But look at this mess!”
I scrape what I can of the spilled pigment onto a piece of scrap paper.
“You can’t use that now,” Bridgit sighs. “It’s tainted. You’ll have to mark it as substandard. Maybe someone will use it for patch work. Good thing it was only a small bit.”
My cheeks flush fire at Bridgit’s scowl, at the pigment, like I’ve thrown pure gold into the rubbish pile.
“I don’t know why that happened.” I hang my head in my hands. “I knew I shouldn’t have done the ultramarine. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry….It’s too much.”
“What’s too much?” she rebukes. “It’s just a different process, Edyth. Why on earth—”
I’m paralyzed, mouth gaping, tears coming. Can’t tell her about the colors. She’ll think I’m insane. She’ll send me away from the scriptorium. But Bridgit’s been good to me. Maybe—
“The color—it took over,” I confess. A shroud of shame covers my head.
“What do you mean, took over?” Her face is twisted in confusion.
“Almost like fainting,” I try to explain. “I’ve never seen a color like that. It’s beautiful when it’s dry, but when it’s wet like that…too much.”
Bridgit lifts her hand and I flinch.
But instead of striking me, she puts her arm around my shoulder and gives me a little squeeze.
“Forgiven,” she sighs. “It happens.”
“It does? Really?”
“Well, no,” she says. “But…you’ll try again tomorrow.”
A headache is beginning just behind my eyes. Bridgit cleans up the pigment, wrings a cloth in cool water and puts it on the back of my neck, then sits across from me and folds her hands, staring at me.
“Right,” says Bridgit, finally. “Let’s get you to bed. I’ll say you’ve taken ill.”
Bridgit walks me down the endless winding halls to my cell. I sleep through the bells and wake at dusk, staring at the shadows being thrown by the dying light, that space between, where I always seem to live.
* * *
—
After compline, Bridgit brings Joan the Physician to see me, with Alice assisting her. Joan asks me a string of questions.
“Bridgit said the color…took over? What color? What do you mean?” A suspicious glance passes between the women.
“I’ve never seen blue like that before,” I say, shamefaced. “Doesn’t it…do something to you?”
“What, lapis stone? Hardly,” she chortles to Bridgit. “I use it for eye sores.” She gives me tincture of hellebore in a brown bottle and a corked pitcher of water. “At any rate, I find nothing of concern. But keep this tincture here in your cell. If it happens again, four drops in this spring water, no more—or you will vomit all night.”
“All right,” I say, eyeing it warily.
“It probably won’t kill you,” she says dryly, “but give a holler if you see Saint Peter.”
Alice looks at her boss sideways.
Joan packs up her medicine box. “Have Cook prepare her a curative supper, Alice, and bring it to her later. And you, Edyth, stay behind from the daily office for one more day. Eat here in your cell, and pray. I’ll vouch for your absence. But try to pay attention next time to what brings it on.”
* * *
—
Later, Alice returns with a bowl and bread, and pries my secret out of me.
“You don’t think I’m out of my mind, then?” I ask.
“Give it a few more months here, and then we’ll see if you still want to ask that question,” she teases. “But come on, you really blanked out because you saw some ultramarine?”
“It’s not only that,” I admit. “I don’t just see something, or hear something, or smell something. There’s always color with it, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. But this is the first time it’s been that intense. There’s something about that blue. It’s…overwhelming.”
“Joan said there was one other person this happened to—you know, trances, things like that.”
I perk up, intrigued. “Here? At the priory? Who?”
“The Anti-Pri.” She giggles. “Oops, I meant the sub-prioress. Agnes de Guile.”
“What did you call her? The Anti-Pri?”
“Never mind, never mind. A little play on words.”
“I like her just fine,” I say.
Alice scoffs. “That’s because she likes you.”
“Seriously, Alice? I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m addled. You’re the one she’s always praising.”
“Oh, no, trust me,” says Alice. “It’s all an act. She picks on you because she knows you’re smarter than you let on. She hates me. There’s a certain type who doesn’t care for questioners.”
“But isn’t that what you’re here for, to ask questions? Alice Palmer, the promising young scholar?”
“As long as my questions don’t apply to the people in charge. Aristotle and Aquinas? Fine. Agnes de Guile? Pfff.”
“Do you really think Agnes…sees things? The same way I do?”
“Well…” Alice ponders. “Didn’t you say the Anti-Pri used to work in the scriptorium?”
“Sure. Muriel showed me a few folios of hers. They’re gorgeous.”
“Now, what would make her leave something she was so good at? Come on, Edyth. Guess. What would happen if people found out that she saw things that weren’t there?”
“But don’t saints see visions?” I suggest. “What about Blessed Francis? He levitated, and Eustace saw a cross in a stag’s antlers, and—”
“Look, Edyth, usually those people die hideous deaths or get run out of town. Not everyone who sees weird things is saint material. Maybe Agnes preferred an easier path. You should think about that.”
“But everyone knows what happened to me now! What do I do?”