The Red Abbey Chronicles (14 page)

S
ISTER
O
TOOK ME UP TO THE
T
EMPLE
yard yesterday morning. It was early, long before anyone was out for the sun greeting. The sun was not up yet and it smelt like the island always does on summer mornings: like rocks seeped in yesterday’s warmth, wild oregano and cypress, seaweed and dew. A koan bird flew over our heads in a purposeful straight line and gave out a single short screech. We stood side by side in silence and looked out, not over the sea but over the houses and roofs of the Abbey. Smoke was coming out of the Hearth House chimney. Sister Ers wakes up early.

The sun’s first rays peeked over White Lady, tinging the sky and mountain tops gold. I realized I had never greeted the sun from the Temple yard and now I never will. I will never become a sister, never stand with all the other sisters and carry out the familiar movements. I blinked a few times and turned around.
Sister O laid her veiny, sunburnt hand on my shoulder and turned me back to face the sun again.

“Maresi,” she said and her voice was sterner than usual. “Look around you. This is the other side of death. Life! And this side is even stronger.” She was quiet for a moment, and we stood side by side and watched the world explode into light as the sun rose over the mountain. Sister O turned to me. “I know the sacrifice you are making. You think nobody understands, but I do.”

I shook my head and she raised my chin so that I had to look her in the eyes. Her cheeks were wet with tears but her voice was steady. “It was a sacrifice I could not make, Maresi. I chose to stay here. I chose safety and books and knowledge. What the Crone had to offer me was too great a temptation. I turned my back on the world. But you have seen that it does not work, that the world finds you wherever you are and it is cowardly to try to hide. You are much wiser than I, little Maresi.”

I took her hand and pressed it to my cheek. She smiled at me and wiped away her tears.

“Always thinking of others. Your path will not be easy; you worry too much about people. That is what makes you unique. I will do everything I can
to provide you with as much as possible for your journey. I have spoken to Mother.” Her smile grew wider. “You are too young to leave us yet. You must study more of everything before you can go back home. You may study anything you want. Sister Nar can teach you about herbs and healing, Sister Mareane about animal care, Mother herself about silver and numbers, Sister Loeni about the secrets of the Blood.” She chuckled when she saw my expression. “She has much to teach, Maresi.”

I did not know what to say. It is too fantastic, too incredible. I have never heard of anyone studying
everything
. It will make it so much easier for me to return and realize my dream of founding a school in my green valley.

From the central courtyard I could hear the Novice House door opening. The Abbey was coming to life and soon the sisters would stream into the Temple yard. But Sister O still had not said the most important thing. I squeezed her fingers and my bottom lip trembled.

Then her smile suddenly softened, and she pulled me close and held me against her bony body.

“Maresi,” she mumbled into my headscarf. “You will become my novice. Novice to the Knowledge.
To the Crone. As long as I can keep you here at the Abbey, you are my little girl.”

I held her tight there in the Temple yard. I am the happiest girl who ever found shelter at the Abbey. I have gained so much and I am about to gain even more.

N
OW
I
HAVE WRITTEN DOWN EVERY
thing I can remember. I have been sitting in Sister O’s room for many days, writing with the same quill I have seen her use so many times. I am wearing the ring she gave me on my finger. A ring in the shape of a snake biting its own tail.

Jai and Ennike have taken it in turns to bring me food, but no one else has been allowed to disturb me. It has only been me and the light drifting through the room and the scratch of the feather pen against the coarse paper. The sounds of the Abbey float in: the laughter of the junior novices, the bleating of the goats, sandal-clad feet against the stone paving, the call of seabirds. All the sounds which should be there are there. The silence that reigned when the men came to the island is merely a memory now, a memory I hope will leave me in peace when I bind it to the page.

At night I have been sleeping dreamlessly, and I am no longer afraid of the darkness around and inside me. The Crone will not take me home. Not yet. I still fear the moment when she does, but I believe it is a fear I can get over. Sister O will help me, as will the Abbey, and all my friends here. I believe that if you live life fearlessly, with your whole heart, then in the end you cannot fear death either. They are two sides of the same thing. One day I will give myself over to the Crone, and she will reveal her mysteries to me. A small part of me thinks of that time with curiosity and maybe even anticipation. Perhaps all of me can see it that way, once the door opens again. But first I must live—live and learn and use my knowledge so the Crone can be proud of me when we meet.

I am glad that Sister O encouraged me to write down my story. The act alone has afforded me some peace: to put pen to paper, to see my experiences take on words. It feels as if the act of writing has already turned it into a new myth, a saga, one of the many stories that surround the Abbey. I also feel that I did not truly understand what happened before I wrote it down. Now I understand it a little better, but it also feels more distant. As if it happened to someone else, someone called Maresi who opened the Crone’s
door, and not me, the Abbey novice Maresi from Rovas. I cannot explain it any better than that.

This evening Sister O and I will put my book in the treasure chamber amongst the other important tales of the Abbey. It feels strange to think of my words next to books I have read so many times, but Sister O says that that is where it belongs. It fills me with pride. My words, Maresi’s words, will live on in the Abbey library for centuries to come. These words will still be here long after I am gone. The thought makes me reel in amazement, like when I look up at a night sky strewn with stars.

So that is the story of what happened when Jai came to the Abbey in the nineteenth year of the reign of the thirty-second Mother, when the Crone spoke to me and the women combed forth a storm. That is what happened when the island of Menos sent a warning message about the presence of unknown men, when the Rose sacrificed herself for her sisters and when I, Abbey novice Maresi from Rovas, opened the door of the Crone.

H
ERE
I
AM ONCE AGAIN, WRITING AT
Sister O's desk. For the past three years it has been my desk too. The quill is the same. Am I the same? Do we change so much with the passing of time that we are not the same person from one year to the next? I have just read through what I wrote after the men came to the island, and it is strange to think that it was actually I who experienced it all. It feels so distant, and yet I know that what happened is an inextricable part of who I am now.

It is time for me to go. Even writing those words is difficult, let alone thinking about what they entail. It is not as though I am unprepared. Over the past few years the whole Abbey has been dedicated to my preparation. I have had more schooling than any other novice and studied and worked as hard as I possibly could under all the sisters. I have read the
Moon House secret scrolls which only a privileged few may study. I even spent an autumn on White Lady. I cannot divulge what happened up there, but I learnt what did in fact take place when I believed that birds lifted me over the wall. Of course there is plenty still to learn, there always is, but now the time is ripe.

It was hunger that brought me to the Abbey: a lack of food. Once again I fear hunger, but this time it is a lack of knowledge that scares me. Here at the Abbey there are books. Here there are people with more to teach me. How will I satisfy my hunger without them? Mother says that there is a lot for me to learn out in the world. Things no one else can teach me and things that cannot be learnt from books. I know she is right. It is hard-won knowledge. I will have to pay for it in a way that I do not yet understand. I prefer knowledge I can gather from books.

Jai has been extremely busy since becoming Sister Nummel's novice last summer. Three new junior novices came to the island last autumn and they all chose to be Jai's special little protégées. Despite this, she has spent all her free time sewing the clothes I will need when I leave: tunics and trousers and headscarves. I have decided to continue dressing
like an Abbey novice and not in customary Rovas attire. I will be different and conspicuous whatever I do, and I think the Abbey attire might afford me a little security. My outfit is already folded up in a bag with sprigs of dried lavender. Jai packed it herself yesterday. She says I am far too impractical to pack.

“If it were up to you you'd only take books,” she snorted and brushed off some dry lavender flowers from herself. She was right. Unfortunately I cannot bring many books with me. When I was alone in the dormitory again I opened the bag and was hit by the smell of linen, soap and lavender. It smelt like home. That smell will be more precious than any books.

Jai also secretly made me a bloodsnail-red woollen cloak. Toulan dyed the yarn during the last snail harvest and Ranna and Ydda, who are skilled weavers, wove the fabric. Then Jai sewed every stitch herself and would not let anyone help her. She gave me the cloak one evening when we were sitting under the lemon tree and talking as usual. She avoided my eye as she handed it to me.

“For the cold nights in Rovas,” she said simply, and stared out to sea. She has finally started to admit that snow might actually exist.

“But Jai,” was all I could say. I took her hand and held it like she used to hold mine during the nights when the darkness frightened me. I knew she was thinking of them, too. I was also thinking that I will have no one to hold my hand at night from now on.

The cloak is much too valuable for someone like me, but Mother decided that I should have it. “You are still young. The cloak will give you the respect you need. No one will dare defy a woman, however young, who is dressed in a cloak like this.” That is what she said yesterday when she called me to her room in Moon House for a few final words.

“Rovas is a vassal state,” I answered, and fingered the cloak's silk lining which Jai had sewn down with invisibly small stitches. “We cannot enact our own laws. We cannot educate our own children. The ruler of Urundien wants to keep us in ignorance. I do not know how I will go about setting up my school.”

Mother raised her eyebrows.

“Did you think your mission would be easy?” She looked at me sternly. “Maresi. You must find your own way now. But I have every faith in you.” Then she smiled one of her rare, roguish smiles
which make her look like a young novice. “Heo, fetch my purse.”

Heo grinned proudly at me and unlocked one of the near-invisible doors behind Mother's writing desk. These are doors that conceal secrets. Heo is Mother's novice now. The youngest novice ever called to Moon House. How did we not see it all along? Heo was the obvious choice for Moon House! We were fooled by her playfulness and her incor rigible joy. But behind that she has enormous integrity. She is totally and utterly herself. It is no coincidence that she was the one who held me on this side of the Crone's door.

Heo brought out a fat leather purse and handed it to Mother, who weighed it in her hand before holding it out to me.

“This will open many doors for you that would otherwise be closed.”

I opened the purse. It was filled with shiny silver coins; not a single copper. After studying with Mother for several moons I knew that this was as much as the Abbey's whole annual income. “Mother. This is too much.”

Mother snorted. “It will not last long. When the silver has run out you will have nothing more than
your keen wits to live on. And this.” She held out her hand and Heo placed something in it. It was a large comb of shining copper. “The Rose requested I give you this as a farewell present. She has polished it herself.”

Ennike is the servant to the Rose now. I am supposed to stop calling her Ennike, but Jai and I have difficulty remembering her new title. Eostre, who was the Rose before Ennike, always corrects us strictly. “How can she fulfil her role if you insist on reminding her of the past!” she says. We always nod solemnly and agree, but as soon as she looks the other way we make funny faces at her baby daughter Geja until she chokes with laughter. She is a happy, chubby little girl. Strong. When I look at her I think of Anner and how weak she was. If we had known better, if we had known about nutrition and healing, we could have given her a better start in life. Then maybe she could have made it through the hunger winter. This is one of the reasons I feel I must go home. The knowledge I have gained at the Abbey can save lives.

Eostre could not continue as servant to the Rose after she had Geja. This is not on account of the scars from the fingerless man's knife. Eostre herself
has said that she is happy he cut her. It was thanks to him that her blood was on the dagger and mixed with Mother's and mine, so that the Crone's door could be opened. The fingerless man had not cut deep; his objective was not to kill but to inflict pain. To disfigure. Eostre is still beautiful; no scars in the world can cover that. Geja is what changed everything. Eostre is now taking part in another of the First Mother's mysteries. One day she will become servant to Havva, I believe. Those who have had a child of their own are close to Havva. Geja just has to grow a little bigger first. Right now Eostre is Geja's mother and nothing else, and it suits her well. She looks happy. Happy and tired.

I looked at the comb in Mother's hand. I thought about how much Ennike must have polished it to get it so gleaming. I thought about how I was her shadow when I first came here, how she was my first friend. Would I ever see her again? Would I ever see anyone from the Abbey again?

“The comb is the Abbey's protection,” I said slowly. “You need it.”

“Stop protesting against all the gifts,” said Heo and furrowed her brow. “We want to give them to you. You need protection too. You and all the
new pupils you will have and love.” She tightened her fists.

I walked around Mother's writing desk and laid my arms around Heo. She stood stiff and unhappy, but she let me hug her. “Not as much as I love you, I hope you know that.” I whispered in her hair. It smelt like sun and sea and Heo. “I will write often. As soon as I find someone who can take the letters south. Do you promise you will write to me?”

“
Must
you go, Maresi?” asked Heo. Her body went soft and she wrapped her arms hard around my middle. “I am going to miss you so much. I miss you already.” She dried her runny nose on my tunic.

I had to swallow several times before I could answer. There was so much I wanted to say.

“I will miss you too. So much. But I must.”

I held her for a long time. All too short a time. Mother looked at me over Heo's head.

“Do not be sad, Maresi. You have to let go of the old to begin something new. But that does not mean it is lost for ever.”

A spark of hope ignited in me. Mother sees things in her trances: things about the future. I opened my mouth to speak but Mother shook her head. “It is never good to know too much about what is going
to happen. Your own future is not a gift I can give you. We have given you what we can. Now the rest is up to you.”

Now the rest is up to me. I have never been so afraid. Not even in the crypt, at the Crone's door.