“It sounds like banging a hammer to me,” I admit. “Like red daggers, not music.”
“And a laugh just sounds like a laugh to me,” he concedes. “But it’s obviously so much more.”
I smile, astonished, so relieved. I wish I could see his laughter dancing in the air every day.
A wind rises up, tumbling a string of old leaves through the still alleyway, and on it, a voice carries. I hear my name being called. By Agnes. Another errand. My back’s starting to smart against the fabric of my dress. I look intensely at Mason.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll go around another way.”
— 22 —
At chapter, Agnes tells me curtly that I’ll be fetching for the prioress today, who’s finally returned from a preaching tour. Something feels different in the atmosphere with Prioress Margaret here, like the air isn’t as thick in my lungs somehow.
Alice is giving her first lesson this morning, the one she’s been preparing for weeks. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,” she begins. “So says the Author of our faith. But who are the healthy, sisters, and who are the sick?”
She’s nervous; it’s plain by the way she keeps looking at the floor, trying to remember the next line she’s memorized. I like it, though. Alice has a gentle yet authoritative way of teaching. She speaks like one of us, not someone trying to climb the priory ranks or show off how smart she is.
She concludes: “And there is no health in us, says the confession. But there is a remedy for our souls, and there is a Great Physician ready to give this medicine—only, however, to those who admit their need.”
“Thank you, Alice,” says the prioress. “Well done. We look forward to more from you in the future. And now Sub-Prioress Agnes de Guile will give our announcements.”
* * *
—
After the meeting, Prioress Margaret approaches me. “Edyth le Sherman,” she says, “follow me to my study, please.”
She carefully puts her books away on the shelves, sits at her desk and shuffles through a stack of letters.
“Edyth, I see that some events have transpired in my absence.”
I stare down at the floor, unsure of how much she knows. She picks up a note from her desk and begins to read.
Carelessness with precious materials in the scriptorium.
Insubordination.
Defacing of cell walls.
Flagrant defacing of a holy psalter.
Carousing with a young man from the work crew.
Habitual tardiness, and even absence from prayers.
She pauses, glaring at me. “Shall I continue? Speak, child.”
I can’t lift my eyes. I don’t know anything about this woman or what she’s capable of. Then I hear myself speaking.
“I am sorry, Venerable Mother.”
I can feel the prioress looking at me, judging my very breath.
“Edyth, do you believe your punishment was sufficient for your sins?”
“Yes, Venerable Mother. I mean, I don’t know.”
The prioress stands up from her desk. “Have you learned your lesson?”
“Yes, Venerable Mother.”
She slowly walks behind my chair where I can’t see her. The room dims and falls silent to the rhythm of our breathing.
“I don’t think you have.”
My eyes fill with terror as the prioress walks over to another part of the room. I quickly glance up to see what implement she will use to beat me. She reaches up to the top of a large shelf, and I shut my eyes and brace myself. The light behind my eyes explodes into a hundred shards of gold, slicing the darkness into a shredded quilt of pink and orange. But I feel nothing in my body. That must mean I’m ready to take what’s coming.
And then I hear the sound of pages turning; doubtless she’s consulting some ancient text on how to make me hurt like hell.
“Edyth.”
I open my eyes to see the prioress standing in front of me. In her hands is a huge Gospel book, larger than any I’ve ever seen, with a heavy wooden cover wrapped in calfskin.
“Open it,” she says, placing it on a bookstand on her desk. “Come, child, open the book.”
I unstick my hands from the chair and edge closer. The prioress points to the book with one hand and beckons me toward it with the other.
My heart beats fast as I open it. I’ve never handled a book this large. When I touch the cover, a warm sensation crawls up my fingers.
“Handle it carefully. It is centuries old, and fragile.”
A wafting scent urges me to get closer. I lean into the book’s gutter and inhale. For such a holy object, it smells earthy and low. The pages speak; I hear voices reading the words aloud to me from the great orbs of the uncial letters.
The parchment makes a soft crackle when I turn the page, and I’m drawn into another world. Animals in small drop capitals on opposite pages speak to each other across the parchment expanse. In the margins are winged creatures, some like regular animals in costume—rabbits, foxes. Some are unlike anything on earth: blue creatures with flared nostrils and wild hair, demons with gaping bright orange mouths. Things that tingle in my mouth like horseradish.
I turn page after glorious page.
“Stop at the next one,” says the prioress. “There’s recognition in your eyes. You’ve seen this image before.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. I draw my hands away from the book, feeling repulsed by it, ashamed at its intrusion into my thoughts.
Prioress Margaret lets out a deep sigh. “Child, tell me what you see.”
The only thing left to do is confess. “Yes, Venerable Mother, I’ve seen this before. It’s from a dream I have. But I don’t know what it means.”
The prioress sits back at the desk and picks up a smooth stone. Tumbling it along her fingers, she stares at me. “Tell me everything.”
There is no option but the truth. “I see things.”
“Yes.”
“Colors. All the time.”
“Go on.”
“The way that walking through leaves is light liquid blue, and the hammer on stone is bright red, brighter than blood. Ultramarine is…like going straight to heaven. No one sees it but me.”
“And the world is not always kind to those of vision,” she insists. “You know that.”