The Pri said this was a gift, the way I see things. Not a curse. For the first time, I truly open my mind to that possibility, and when the bell ripples stop, they make room for the stars, each one with a colored halo, like the holy people painted in the books—only these halos are violets and blues and magentas, brighter than the ochres or yellows or even the gold encircling saints’ heads.
Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae
Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto—
The Angel of the LORD declared unto Mary
And she conceived of the Holy Spirit—
The taste of peppermint leaves. A prickle in my big toe.
I straighten my spine, close my eyes and let the minty prayer linger in my mouth until it fades, fully feeling, fully awake. I keep praying.
Ecce ancilla Domini
Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum
Behold the servant girl of the LORD
Be it done unto me according to Your word
I lean my head back and unpin my veil, unwind my thick braids and shake my hair, enjoying the delicious relief of it coming down on my neck. The bells cease, and I look out toward the fields, where the constellations are brightest. Two planets almost kiss.
Just then, a fireball flashes in the western sky. It comes fast and then breaks into six pieces, all burning slowly in the dome of the night, a shower of sparks falling over the priory hill.
The comet from my dream, from the pictures.
It’s beginning.
It’s then I become aware of two others in the cloister with me, standing frozen in the warm night, with disbelief on their upturned faces, just like me.
Prioress Margaret.
And Agnes de Guile.
My heart pumps one question through my whole body:
What is coming?
— 24 —
Even through the hammering rain, the pounding on the gatehouse door is so loud, it travels over the roofs of the priory buildings to the dormitory. The last bell was lauds—that means it’s the middle of Saturday night and now every one of us is up, vexed at missing out on our precious stretch of two hours’ sleep. Five minutes go by, and I hear footsteps stomp up the stairs and throw open a cell door, the wood reverberating down the hallway.
“You’re needed,” Joan calls, clapping to wake her apprentice. I hear Alice get up and scuffle into her shoes.
“Sorry to trouble you all,” the physician shouts as she walks out. “Enjoy your rest.”
She slams the dormitory door shut.
A sick pilgrim must have arrived, traveling all night in search of a remedy. This is nothing new. With Saint Christopher’s reputation for physic, and Saint Eustace’s chapel nearly complete, we’re always expecting visitors. But I think about that comet I saw tonight, and I’m uneasy.
The community has breakfast in our usual silence, made even more hushed by the torrent of rain pelting the wooden roof. We head to the chapter house, the humid air heavy with our curiosity about who arrived last night in such a panic. Agnes is unusually quiet and distracted. The Dragon Nun is obviously happy to have replaced me at her side, though her loyalty to Agnes bewilders me.
“I would like to ask our physician, Joan,” says Prioress Margaret, “to give us a report on the visitors who came to our infirmary last night.”
“Thank you,” says Joan, coming to the center of the room. “A man and his son arrived late last night with fever. I’m sorry to report that the young boy has passed. He was only ten.”
A sympathetic murmur goes through the room.
Lord, have mercy.
It’s never easy to lose a child, never.
“The father, too, is affected,” she continues. “He said that his son’s illness began the same way, but he was not able to elaborate before he lost the ability to speak. I fear he is near death, also. I have asked Father Johannes to administer last rites, and for the chapel builders to begin digging a grave for them both. It is a sad situation. Let us all pray that the Lord ushers them into His gates quickly.”
The prioress leads us in prayer and dismisses us to our work. Agnes throws a hard look my way, and Felisia wears a grin that chills me utterly.
Before I go to the scriptorium, I run through the downpour to the churchyard and stand under the yew for shelter, watching Mason and the other builders dig the grave. His clothes are drenched and his hair is dripping. I approach him, but he doesn’t hear me over the sound of the shovels and the insistent rain. I’m just about to tap his shoulder when I see the bodies.
The father and son have both been wrapped hastily in bedsheets from the infirmary, which now serve as shrouds. Their bodies are rain-soaked, but blood still hangs on their lips. Their skin is purplish black and covered with sores.
But what stuns me more is who I’m looking at.
I recognize the boy and his father. They were my companions from the journey here to Saint Christopher’s. It’s the boy who offered me apricots, and the father who helped old Brother Timothy from the cart.
Suddenly Mason sees me. The fright on his face scares me.
“Get away from here, Edyth,” he admonishes, looking over his shoulder. “Go!” And he turns back to his work, digging the muddy double grave.
I’m fixed to the spot. My heart pounds out of my chest, a catch in my throat, a whine in my ears.
Mason turns again quickly and our eyes meet again.
“Please, Edyth, go,” he pleads. “Get away from this.”
I bolt to the scriptorium tower, trying to shake the image of the diseased bodies from my mind. I work until the funeral bell rings. The priory mourns with a Mass that afternoon—
et lux perpetua luceat eis
—and the nuns all file out of the church. How sad, the sisters say. Death is part of life, after all.
But I can’t move. Something lurches up from the recesses of my heart.
I relive the day of Da’s murder again, his body looking too small to be real, lying on the muddy riverbank. The unbearable verity of putting my father into a hole in the ground. The hasty, no-top coffin made out of my drawing board. Brother Robert, pouring dirt over his death-distorted face. And Mam’s. And Henry’s—and all of a sudden, I can’t breathe. Can’t breathe through the smothering, swirling colors, the ringing vibration of the Sound.
The other novices in the row have to squeeze past me. Alice looks back from the transept door and sees me alone and frozen in the empty church, gasping for breath, tears streaming down my neck. She leaves the others and comes to me. She knows what’s happening, that I’m being taken over again, and she smooths my face and gets me to focus through to her eyes.