The Red Abbey Chronicles (7 page)

We found out that Jai hated it in autumn when they had to make the preserves: the air in the kitchen was sharp with vinegar vapour and she had to dice the vegetables ever so thinly. But she did enjoy crushing her mother’s various spice blends in a mortar. She had never seen snow, so when Heo and I tried to explain what it was she burst out laughing for the
first time since we had known her. She has a surprisingly light laugh considering how deep her voice is. “Something cold and white that falls from the sky! You do say the funniest things, Heo.”

“Have you not seen the white snow cap on White Lady?” I asked with an exasperated smile. Jai shook her head and I understood that, as far as she was concerned, the mountain peak could just as well be covered in white flowers or stones.

M
Y LEAST FAVOURITE TIME IN SPRING
is when we come down to Body’s Spring one morning and see Sister Kotke waiting there with a big grin. “Time for spring wash,” she says, clearly taking pleasure in our groans.

Straight after breakfast all the novices gather with Sister Kotke in the central courtyard. Sister Kotke, Ydda and Ranna have everything prepared: the big washing tubs, a fire in the stone pit near the well, a big iron pot of water hung above the fire.

“You know what to do,” says Sister Kotke, and we hurry away to Novice House and Sister House to get all the bedlinen we can lay our hands on, ripping off the sheets and emptying the cupboards. Then we stumble back to the central courtyard with our arms full and spread everything out on the clean-swept stone paving. Next Sister Kotke, Ydda and Ranna go through all the sheets and cloths to decide which are
acceptable, which need to be patched and repaired and which are only good for rags. They sort it all into big piles while we deal with the water pot. As soon as the water bubbles Ennike and I carry the pot to one of the washing tubs and empty it very carefully so we do not scold ourselves with the boiling-hot water. Sister Kotke places the laundry into the tub in batches and cuts in a piece of soap. Some novices stir it around with long washing paddles, which are whitened and smooth from years of use, while other novices haul more water up from the well to refill the pot.

I think laundry is the dullest task imaginable. Usually Sister Kotke and her novices do it all themselves, but not the spring wash. When at last everything has been boiled we load it onto a wagon and pull it down to the sea. There everything is scrubbed on beach stones and, finally, rinsed in the sea. After that the laundry is hung up to dry in the sun and the sea breeze, and we can eat and rest for a bit while it dries. Once it is dry, we sit there with needle and thread to patch and mend anything that is worn and tattered. I think that might be even more boring than the washing.

Jai and I were sitting side by side on a bench in the shade of Body’s Spring, patching tears in the freshly
washed linen sheets. I thought it might do her good to talk about her sister, so I plucked up my courage.

“Tell me about Unai,” I said, biting off a thread. “What was your sister like?”

Jai’s hand froze for a moment, but then she continued to sew. I let out a breath I had not realized I had been holding in. I was still worried I might frighten her away; incite the fear and horror that seized her when Heo asked about Unai before.

“Unai was two years older than me. Like all men my father had wanted a son as his first-born. We were a disappointment to him.” Jai turned the sheet around on her knee to continue sewing. “Unai was always a good daughter. She tried to be exactly the kind of Koho girl my father wanted: good, obedient, out of sight. She wanted to please him. And I wanted to be just like her.” She put down her sewing and looked out over the courtyard with a vacant stare. “The best part of the day was just before the men came home from the rice field. If we’d already finished our daily chores Unai and I would sit up on the roof. Sometimes Mother joined us if she had time. Our soma was so cold that our drinking bowls sweated in the warm evening air. Soma is a very refreshing drink made of mint, sugar and a
small, sour fruit called cerre that grows wild up in the mountains. We would sit there as the sun set behind the mountains and talk and laugh while we still could. Father did not like the sound of women laughing.” She smiled faintly.

“No, the best time was probably at night when Unai and I would crawl into the bed we shared. First we helped each other take down our hair.” She gave the back of her head a self-conscious little stroke. “Koho women wear their hair up. We could never be seen with our hair hanging loose like we do here. The higher the hair, the better. It takes a long time to take it all down at night. It is easier if you have someone to help. Then when we got into bed Unai would tell me what I had done well that day and what I could do better. At the same time she would massage my scalp, which ached from having my hair pulled so tight all day. Unai truly wanted me to be a good woman. One who followed all the traditions and was obedient and submissive so that Father could be pleased with us both. I so wanted him to be pleased with me, but only for her sake. I would do anything Unai asked me. But I could not be as submissive as she was. It seemed natural for her to bow her head and not make eye contact
with Father, or any other men, and to answer, ‘Yes, Father,’ no matter what insults he threw at her. When he hit her she said it was her own fault. She was not quick enough or she had not been careful enough. I never felt that way.” Jai looked at me. “It was difficult for me to be obedient. Everything inside me was fighting against it. But I did my best for Unai’s sake. If Father was not satisfied with me, sometimes he took his anger out on her instead of me. But I could never believe it was my own fault that he resorted to the cane.” She turned to me. “Did your father hit you if you did not bring his soma quickly enough? If the food was not to his liking, or if you accidentally spilt something when you were waiting on him and your brother?”

I shook my head. “My father would never have hit me or any of my siblings. And I have never waited on anybody.”

Jai’s eyes grew wide. “I always thought that was how it was for everyone. Unai was convinced that our lives would be easier if only we could learn to live up to Father’s expectations.” She closed her eyes, bowed her head and swallowed hard. “She was a good daughter her whole life. It was of no use to her, in the end.” Her voice became so little that I could barely
hear her. “She did not even try to get out when he laid her in the pit. She could have got out, could have fought back. He threw earth on her body first. Saved the head until last, so that she would meet her death with open eyes. She still did not move until the weight of earth on her chest became too much. When she could not breathe panic set in and then she tried to struggle. But it was already too late.”

I dropped the white sheet and threw my arms tightly around Jai. I could not even begin to understand such evil, that there were places in the world where people could do such things to each other.

“Holy Goddess,” I whispered into Jai’s hair, which smelt like soap and sun-bleached linen. “Maiden, Mother, Crone, I pray to all your aspects. Relieve this girl’s burden.”

Jai straightened up, shook my arms away and looked at me. Her brown eyes glared beneath her sharp eyebrows. “I do not need relief, Maresi. But do pray for me. Pray that I will get my revenge.”

She was frightening me. Her pain and anger were beyond anything I could understand. I grieve for Anner too, but I have never had a desire for revenge. I looked away and bent down to pick up my sewing from the ground.

“How did you get here?” I asked.

“Mother.” Jai looked at the sheet on her lap, confused, as if she did not know how it had got there. “When she lost Unai she decided to stand up to Father for the first time in her life. She came into my room the night after they buried Unai. I was awake but I did not understand at first. She had packed up all her jewellery, and Unai’s and mine, in a bundle. She dressed me and hid the jewels under my clothes and did my hair up without saying a word. Then she led me outside to where a man was waiting with a donkey cart. I do not know how she had got hold of such a thing. I did not ask. ‘You are going to the Abbey,’ she said. ‘You will be safe there. I will lose another daughter, but you will be saved.’

“We had heard about the Red Abbey in stories and songs that Mother and our aunts sang to us sometimes when the men were not around. I always thought it was a myth. It sounded so unbelievable. A place filled only with women where men were not allowed. I could not imagine how they would get by. How they would survive. I was taught that a woman is nothing without a man.

“I do not know if Mother even believed the Abbey was anything more than a myth. But she knew that
without Unai I could never live up to Father’s expectations. And someone who has killed once does not hesitate to do it again.” Jai closed her eyes. “She said nothing else. Only kissed me on the forehead and pushed me away. She did not stay to watch the cart drive away.”

Jai opened her eyes. She looked up at the blue morning sky and straight into the sun as if to burn something clean from her eyes. “We were on the road all night and only let the donkeys rest briefly the following afternoon. The driver seemed very nervous. I think Mother paid him to drive me all the way to the sea, but he left me in the first town we came to. I do not even know what it was called. The driver was probably scared that my father might take revenge, because when we were on a little side street, all of a sudden he shooed me off the wagon and drove away without looking back. I stood on the street surrounded by strangers with no idea where I was or where to go. I was so scared, Maresi. I had never spoken to any men other than my male relatives before. I was so alone. I had always had Unai by my side.” She lowered her face to her sewing and began to stick the needle in the cloth as if at random. “It was a woman who saved me. Of the Joi folk, no less.
They are raised to despise and shun us Koho. But when she saw me standing there she told me that a woman of my class shouldn’t be seen in town alone without a male chaperone, and I started to cry. She took me into her house, which was small and modest but not dirty and unholy, as I’d been told Joi houses were. It was clean and respectable. I told her everything, because what else could I do? Even she knew about the Abbey. I’d always thought Joi folk were ignorant and did not know about anything except menial labour. She gave me some of her own clothes and dressed me like a Joi woman. When she let my hair down it was the first time anyone other than my mother or Unai had seen me with my hair undone. She told me to sew my jewellery into the hem of the chemise and I hid one ring next to my skin. She gave me food and board, but when I offered to pay she was offended. The next day her brother came and took me out of the town and nobody stopped me or talked to me, because what was there to see or say about a lowly Joi woman?

“Then I started walking. Sometimes I got a ride on some farmer’s cart or a trading caravan for a little bit. I’d never walked so much in my life and my feet started bleeding, but then the skin hardened and I
could walk some more. In the next town I stopped in a boarding house for Joi farmers where I rested a few days and ate my fill. But then one night I was robbed. May whoever did it die unmourned and forgotten and buried in an unmarked grave! After that the ring I’d hidden was the only thing I had. I had to walk the final stretch to the harbour city where I eventually found a sea captain willing to take me here in exchange for my last piece of jewellery. I am sure the sailors would have abandoned or robbed me also, if they had not known the Abbey might pay even more when they got me here. And Mother did pay generously.”

“Were you not hungry? Afraid?”

Jai’s hand trembled but carried on sticking the needle in the cloth. “The whole time.”

A deep-red dot seeped through the linen sheet under Jai’s hands. I gasped when I saw that it was not the cloth that she had put the needle in. She was stabbing at her left hand over and over again with the sharp point of the needle. When I held her hands back she hissed at me like a wounded animal.

“You realize she is gone now, right? Maresi, she is dead. Mother is dead! Father would never have let her live.”

A
T THE SECOND FULL MOON AFTER
the awakening of the Spring Star, moon and star come into alignment and it is time for Moon Dance. It is the most important of all the rites of the Abbey. It is when we visit the First Mother in her own realm and she meets us with all three aspects: Maiden, Mother and Crone. Moon Dance honours the First Mother and we dance for the fertility of the world and the inseparable union of life and death. Mother always explains this to us the day before the dance.

We undressed on the beach. The night was cloudless and the moon was high in the sky, gazing down on us from amongst her starry entourage. The moon who rules the movements of water and women’s
blood, the moon who gives energy to all that lives and grows, the moon who measures time and reigns over death. The moon in whose image woman was created, the Moon, the Goddess, who hears our sorrows and shares our joy.

We stood in a line, alternating sisters and novices, and Mother took her position at the front and began to sing. It was a wordless, wailing song which carried over the bay and encircled us as we walked along the beach, towards the cape that encloses the bay to the south. Mother led us around the cape to Maidendance, a labyrinth of smooth, round stones of the same sort found along the beaches. It is there all year, eternal and strong, but we only go there once a year at Moon Dance.

Burning torches were stuck into the earth encircling the labyrinth. They made the surrounding darkness deeper still. When I looked up the Moon appeared larger than before, as if Mother’s song had brought her closer. It was a brisk night and the stones were chilly beneath my feet, but I did not feel the cold. Mother’s song kept me warm.

Mother was the first to dance into the labyrinth and out again. Maidendance is not a labyrinth to get lost in. It is a labyrinth to lead us into the
other realm. Where life and death are one, and the Goddess herself resides. Mother lifted her feet up high, took big steps and carefully avoided touching the stones which formed the labyrinth. Touching them brings very bad luck. Mother has danced the Moon Dance for many years and never touched a stone. She came to a stop when she reached the middle and started spinning around slowly while her song turned into words. Words about the Goddess, words of the Goddess. Words which lauded and praised, cowered and trembled, saw and foresaw. They were hard to catch and fully understand. I could hear her singing about danger, singing about blood, about lifeblood and spilt blood, and shadows coming ever closer.

One by one sisters and novices weaved their voices into the song and danced through the labyrinth. Everybody danced in their own way and everybody added something new to the song. Voice after voice joined in with the song of worship, making it swell and grow like the ocean tide. But only Mother sang with the voice of the Goddess herself.

When Jai’s turn came and the labyrinth pulled her in she raised her hands in terror at first, but then the Moon called to her and opened her mouth, and
she joined her song in with the others’. Her fair hair reflected the moonlight and torchlight, shining gold and silver at the same time. Her body looked very thin and her scars glowed red against her white skin. As soon as she took the first step her hands flew out to the sides and she began to spin. Slowly at first, a little way into the labyrinth, but then with more and more force. The swing of the song went on. How could she not touch a stone if she kept spinning like that? I was the only one left who had not sung yet and I wanted to rush out and stop Jai. But Mother carried on singing loudly and steadily while the women and the girls lowered their voices and sang Jai through the labyrinth. She was spinning so quickly her hair whipped her in the face, and her movements became a blur. When she reached the middle she sped up even more, which I would not have thought possible. She spun until the sand whirled around her feet, until the torch flames flailed, until the Moon came down and kissed her flying hair. Sisters and novices sang and sang and Jai sang too, and together they all sang her out of the labyrinth again.

She had not touched a single stone.

My turn came last. When I took the first step of the dance my voice burst into song involuntarily. I
heard it ringing in my ears but I was not aware of my mouth forming sounds. I felt the warmth of the torch flames on my skin, but I could not see them. All I saw was the Moon.

She was enormous now. So close that if I stretched out my hand I could touch her cool cheek. She filled my whole vision, filled me with her music. Now I understood: it was about life and death. I gave up my body to the song and let it dance me into the labyrinth.

I had danced this dance before and always felt the Moon’s energy flood over me and leave me feeling wild, empowered and free. But this time it was different. The Moon was bigger than ever before. Her energy was making the air vibrate. The moonlight pulsed so that everything around me seemed to flicker. The women outside the labyrinth, the rocks around us, the dark sea—everything was blurred and warped, like looking through the bottom of a bottle of Vallerian wine. The song continued to steer my steps and each one was solid and precise; I did not touch a stone.

Something loomed large in the centre of the labyrinth. In the vibrating, trembling night it was the only thing whose form was fixed and clear.

It was a door, tall and narrow and silver in the bright moonlight. It was closed, but I could sense the darkness that waited on the other side. Darkness so deep not even the light of the Moon could penetrate it. It was the door from the hunger winter, and behind it the Crone was waiting.

I was gripped by a fear that cut through the trance and the song, and I tried in vain to stop my steps. The dance was taking me closer and closer to the door. I could not tear my eyes away from it. I had never seen it so clearly before. I could see that the frame was blackened with age, but the surface of the door was shimmering. I could see the handle, shaped like a snake with onyx eyes. The door was all too familiar. I did not want to see it, I did not want to acknowledge it existed, but my eyes refused to look away and my legs refused to obey me. A stream of air flowed out through the crack underneath the door and coiled around my calves. The rancid breath of the Crone. It mixed with the metallic smell of blood from my own skin. The smell of death that has clung to me for years, ever since the hunger winter. Since the Crone took Anner.

My jaws ached from trying to hold back the song and my body jerked from the strain of trying to stave
off the dance. I was getting closer, so close that the tentacles of darkness were licking at my body. They were creeping out through the cracks around the door, luring and drawing me in. I could not resist. Nobody can resist death.

Then I heard the voice. It came floating through the darkness; it was made of darkness. Fragmented words stretching out to me.

Maresi. My daughter. Here, see my gateway. My mouth.

I danced on the threshold as the voice of the Crone scratched at my bones.

This is your House
, said the Crone, and the terror became so great that I finally found my voice.

“I do not want to!” I screamed.

As soon as I broke the song the music cut out, the moonlight paled and the door disappeared. Clarity returned to the world.

“I do not want to!” I screamed over and over again until Mother appeared in front of me in the labyrinth and laid her hands on my body.

After that I remember no more. When I awoke I saw that Mother had carried me out of the labyrinth. The torchlight flickered around us and the moon was back to being a little lamp up in the
heavens. Mother’s concerned face was hovering above mine.

In the corner of my eyes I could see slicks of darkness sliding around, and on them rode the voice of the Crone, wordlessly whispering.