Shroud of Shadow (6 page)

Highway 6 took him out through Golden where the Coors factory sent plumes of steam slanting westward into the air: even the breeze and the weather seemed to have decided to go in the direction of the seasons and the sun. Beyond Golden, the highway shrunk to two lanes and wound along beside Clear Creek, but George kept driving, still wondering where he was going, but looking at—and, in a way, beginning to dimly appreciate—the trees and the sky and the sharp road cuts, veined with a hundred minerals and colors, that stood up before and then fell away behind his rattling van.

And perhaps because he had so thoroughly lost himself in the trees and the thoughts of the 747 and the vague and inexpressible visions of newness that were swimming unaccountably up from depths in his mind that he did not know he had (that, at another time, might have terrified him), he found himself suddenly veering off the highway and onto a dirt road.

He was heading up a steep slope before he realized it, the engine laboring in low gear, the sleeping bag and box of food he had tossed onto the bare metal cargo deck sliding aft with a rush and a clatter. There were no signs telling him not to trespass, nothing to indicate what lay ahead.

Up, down, around, gravel skittering from beneath four bald tires and branches scraping against the windows. Sunlight filtering and flickering through new leaves. Aspen now: gray green trunks, a few pastel buds. The pines here were tall, straight, and, surprisingly, the land appeared unspoiled by the refuse that normally characterized a wilderness so close to the city. This place seemed bent upon putting on a good face, opening itself to George as though an old friend had met him at the porch of a mansion, thrown the doors wide, and beckoned him in with a smile.

And as he crested a ridge and started down a slope, George suddenly felt it. It was spring. New, reborn, spring had come to this hidden valley, had cupped it in a strong hand, was reaching out now to George and drawing him into its mansion like a friend, coaxing him to gun the engine a little more, to take the curves a little faster.

Come on. Come on in. Get your ass in here, boy.

George came, got his ass in there. Looking for a real spring, suddenly and inexplicably receptive to the potentials of openness—there was nothing behind him, after all, and as he had only a vague supposition that there was anything ahead, he would accept whatever came—he had suddenly found it, found its beginnings, found the first few syllables of its language. He was seeing the spring, hearing it; and he was starting to believe that, maybe . . .

The van crunched to a stop where the road ended in a puddle of gravel and rock that seemed to have been poured into the middle of a forest clearing like a ladle of pancake butter. George shut off the engine and let a different kind of silence backwash into the van, into his heart. Birdsong. The sigh of pines. A flicker boinged somewhere nearby, flashed red wings at him. A sparrow hawk appeared with a flutter and perched on a branch a few feet away.

Private property, I guess
, George thought.
It always is.
But it was not private property. Or rather, it was the most private property of all, for it could not be owned, could not be touched or even be seen save by those few who were open enough, who listened, who had come to believe—desperately or not, despairingly or not—in spring.

***

Haec dies, quam fecit dominus: exsultemus . . .

Omelda struggled up out of sleep as she struggled through everything: plodding heavily along, surrounded by the voices of nuns. They had escorted her into sleep with compline, befuddled her dreams with matins and lauds. Now, with prime, they were lifting her up to greet the new day.

Deus, qui hodierna die . . .

She opened her eyes. Dawn. But something was wrong: there was no roof above her, only gray sky. Her father had committed her to the cloister with the understanding that she would be entombed alive as a bride of Christ, and since then, whether it was of wood, or plaster, or figured with intricate vaulting, a roof had always been over her head, and walls—stone or stained glass—had always surrounded her.

But here there was no roof, there were no walls, and she cringed at the terrible openness, fearful that the heavens might suddenly swing open like vast shutters to reveal the face of God leaning down towards her—white brow, hooked nose, gray beard, eyes piercing as stars—transfixing her in the field like a bug on a carpet.

Domine Deus omnipotens, qui ad principium . . .

A murmur from close by. Omelda gasped, turned her head. A few feet away, Natil was curled up in her fantastic cloak of patchwork and feathers. The harper was asleep, and she must surely have been dreaming, for her brow was furrowed, and her delicate face wore an expression of deep concentration.

Then—slowly, laboriously, plodding through the voices that continued to intone the chant in her mind—Omelda remembered. She was not in the convent, she was not in Maris, she was not in any of the hundred towns and cities through which she had passed in the course of two years. She was sleeping in the open, with Natil, and Natil was . . .

. . . Natil could . . .

Omelda prodded herself to her hands and knees, crawled to the harper's side. “Natil!”

. . . Jesum Christum Filium tuum . . .

No response. But the idea that her head could suddenly be silent spurred Omelda into actually shaking hercompanion, picking up her carefully wrapped harp, thrusting it into her limp hands.

“Natil!”

“What . . .?” Natil opened her eyes, blinked at the graying sky. “What is it, child?”

“Can you play . . . something, please?”

Natil regarded her silently for a moment, then sighed. “Good morning,” she said politely.

Omelda suddenly felt ashamed. “I'm acting . . . badly,” she said. She sat down hard on the grassy ground, hung her head. “I'm surprised that you want to . . . keep me around.”

Natil lay, eyes unclosed, looking up at the sky. They were a few miles south of Maris, near the shore of the Bergren River. New as the morning was, a boat was nonetheless already passing downstream, the steersman alternately yawning, blowing on his hands, and grumbling a snatch of song. Closer was a stand of trees, half leafed. Birds were building nests. Singing, too.

Benedicamus Domino.

Omelda writhed in guilt. “Really, Natil: I'm sorry. Go back to sleep. I won't bother you again.”

Natil's gaze flicked back to her. “Good morning.”

Omelda looked up. There was kindness in the harper's eyes. “Good . . . good morning, Natil.”

The harper nodded her approval. “And blessings upon you. The voices again?”

Omelda dropped her head back down. In the convent, the deserved rebuke would have come quickly, but Natil seemed to have no rebukes in her save in response to comments that equated flesh and dung. Omelda, nonetheless, could not shake the feeling that she had transgressed. “Yes,” she nodded, “it's the voices.”

Natil pushed herself up, sat, stretched in the manner of one who was not used to stretching: one arm at a time, as though inwardly remarking how strange a thing was morning stiffness.

Mors Sanctorum ejus.

The chant hemmed Omelda in, made her ask in spite of her guilt: “Can you . . . can you play now?”

Natil shook her head. “The strings of my harp are cold and will take much tuning. What are you hearing?”

With a shrug, Omelda started up the chant, her outward voice blending with her inner, obsessive choir: “
Si consurrexistis cum Christo—
”

“Stop,” said the harper. “That is not the way I taught you to sing yesterday.”

The chant thudded within Omelda's mind like a chronic headache. She wrinkled her nose. “There's not much to it. It's just a tonus with . . . a flex and a metrum. It's not really a melody.”

“It is
all
melody,” said Natil. “Even the spoken word is melody. Sing properly.”

Painfully, Omelda backed up to the beginning of the Short Lesson and began again, stressing the syllables in accordance with the cadence of speech, uttering the Latin not in monotonous, plodding rhythm, but lightly, conversationally.

But when she reached the end, the chant went on within her, plodding along with severe cadence:

Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini . . .

Omelda hung her head. “It's no . . . good, Natil.”

Natil was almost dispassionate. “It is a start. Does the chant in your head sound any different now?”

“No.”

Natil's dispassion crumbled, and she passed a hand over her face. “Dear Lady,” she murmured.

Natil's invocation was a homely reminder of convent life.
By Our Lady
had been Dame Agnes's favorite exclamation in time of joy or trouble. In spite of the chant, Omelda smiled at the memory. “You like her, too?”

Natil had apparently lost herself in thought. She looked up, almost startled. “Like? Who?”

“Mary. The Virgin.” Omelda laughed as much as she could with that terrible vault of blue growing over her head and the chant ringing in her mind. “I used to talk to her. I always had the . . . feeling that she actually listened.”

Unaccountably, Natil's eyes had misted. “She always listens. Always. Even . . .” The harper bent her head quickly, as though to hide tears. “Even now.”

Omelda shrugged, feeling strange that someone like Natil had been so affected by a few words. “Oh, Natil,” she said, “Mary's supposed to hear everyone, all the time. Even someone . . .” She laughed again, heard the sob behind the sound. “. . . even someone like me. There's even a story about a nun who left her convent and ran away . . . just like me. When she finally came back, no one had missed her because Mary had taken her place. Mary does things like that.”

Amen.

The voices trailed off. Prime was done. In Shrinerock Abbey, Omelda's sisters in Christ w3ere filing out into the cloister, preparing for the
mixtum
. Relief flooded into her, and she put her hands to her face, rubbed, blinked as though only now had she really awakened.

On the river, the boat was still passing, moving off into the distance, fading out of sight like the convent and the convent life and all the predictability and surety Omelda had ever known. She suddenly missed the four thick walls, the gardens, the constant reassurance of unutterable sameness. Only her knowledge that the voices—incessant, battering—would return at terce kept the longing from turning abruptly into heartbreak. “At least, they say she does.”

Natil was watching her.

“But . . .” It was a painful admission, but Omelda said it. “But I don't think that would happen if I went back,” she said. “I don't think things like that happen anymore. Besides . . .” She shrugged heavily, indicated her head.

Natil's eyes were damp. “I understand.” She looked off at the sunrise. “Perhaps they might happen again. Someday.”

Omelda felt herself grow hopeful. “Do you believe that?”

The harper's face was solemn. “I want to believe that. I want very much to believe that. I think that I have . . . dreams . . . of that. I want very much to believe those dreams.”

The conversation had taken an odd turn, and Omelda felt the sudden chill and queasiness that came from a close encounter with a prophet . . . or a madwoman. “Some say that dreams come from the devil,” she said cautiously. “Dame Agnes said that they come from impure thoughts, and that we should ignore them.”

Natil was still staring off at the sunrise. “Do you think that is what they are? Simply impure thoughts? Is hope an impure thought?”

These were genuine questions. Natil really appeared to have no idea what to think about dreams. “I . . . I don't know,” said Omelda. “God says we should hope. It's a virtue, after all.”

Natil nodded slowly. “Do you dream?”

“Yes . . .”

“Do you ever dream dreams . . . that come true?”

“I don't know.” Omelda writhed. “I . . .”

Natil became aware of Omelda's distress. “I am sorry, beloved. I did not mean to pry.”

The harper said nothing more about dreams. Instead, she made food, and the two women ate eggs and bread from Maris and three fish that the harper coaxed from the water. Omelda, hungry and trying to shake her sudden homesickness, crammed her mouth full as she muttered an inward grace. Natil, however, bent her head over her meal and remained so for the better part of a minute.

Omelda flushed. Here was a musician more devout than a nun. Hastily, she put down the bread in her hands and crossed herself, trying hard to make her second thanksgiving more sincere and deliberate than her last.

Natil lifted her head, smiled. “Everything worth doing, Omelda, is worth doing consciously, attentively. Eating, harping, saying grace . . . even chanting.”

Omelda shrugged heavily. Natil's words seemed obvious: how else did one plod through a life? But, still feeling guilty about the rudeness with which she had awakened the harper, she did not pursue the subject until after they had both finished breakfast. Then: “What can I do . . . about the chant in my head?”

“What can you do?” Natil wiped her hands, unwrapped her harp, tried the strings. The morning had warmed, and the instrument with it: the chords rang true. “I fear you might not like what I have to tell you.”

Like? Did she like the chant? “Tell me anyway.”

Natil spoke simply. “I believe you will have to live it.”

“I'm . . .” Omelda had hoped for more. She had hoped for hope. “I'm already living it, Natil.”

Natil shook her head, plucked a few strings. “You will have to live it consciously, attentively, and with knowledge.”

They spent a few minutes with music, then. Natil drew melodies from her harp and politely requested that Omelda sing them. At first, she tried popular songs—bawdy and sentimental both—but when Omelda proved to know very few of them, she turned to chant. Omelda balked at the task, for chant in any form awakened too many echoes of her inner voices; but Natil, insistent, made her sing the same chant over and over again with the inflections and cadences and stresses of ordinary speech until the old, monotonous plodding was beginning to fade in Omelda's mind and she could think of the chant in question only as a plastic, organic, living thing with all the taut springiness of a freshly clipped lawn.