An Offering: The Tale of Therese

by Pittman, Allison

  Therese wanted to make a joke about her friend being fat enough to last the entire day without porridge, but the sting of the water on her face took her breath, and suddenly hurrying up seemed like a good idea.

  Having washed, she straightened the blanket on her cot, tucked her braid up under her cap, and slipped her stockinged feet into her wooden shoes. She and Girt clattered down the hall and across the courtyard, holding hands, each urging the other to a quicker pace. It would be warm in the refectory. Not only could they get the freshest porridge, they could get the seats closest to the fire.

  Stick and Stone, Sister Heida had called them, capturing Therese’s tall, willowy frame contrasted with Girt’s short, sturdy one. She had been true to her promise to Opa, finding Therese a place here at Brehna and acting as her protector from the first day. Not that Therese needed protecting. She sat in the classrooms absorbing everything the nuns taught her. Even Latin, though she knew she’d never have a chance to read the Scriptures as the priests did. She studied her catechism and took her First Holy Communion and memorized her prayers and went to confession with nothing more than childish grudges to speak to the shadowy priest. It was Sister Heida who took Therese into her arms one February afternoon to tell her that Oma and Opa had both died from a fever that tore through their village, and that they had willed their land to the Church, purchasing Therese a place forever, should she take her vows and want to stay. But it was Girt, her friend—her stone—who sat up with a weeping Therese the night Sister Heida succumbed to an illness that had left her riddled with pain for the last months of her life.

  “God has taken everyone away from me,” Therese had said into her friend’s soft shoulder. “He wants me to himself.”

  On this November day, however, such sadness seemed far off. Because it was Friday, there would be no meat, but the porridge was thick and hot, and the girls were given a drizzle of molasses on top by Sister Elisabeth, who held a conspiratorial finger to her lips. Too much celebration and the treat might never be repeated.

  The girls were just beginning to tuck into their breakfast when Sister Odile approached. A large, imposing woman, she moved like a great, gliding bear straight toward them.

  “Girt, Therese—” her voice echoed in the near-empty room—“I need you to go to the front hall and welcome a new girl. She’s fallen asleep and needs to be brought in for breakfast.”

  Therese’s mouth was too full of sweetness to respond, but Girt swallowed quickly and asked the unthinkable.

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Sister Odile said, miraculously ignoring Girt’s impertinence, “she is little, and probably a bit frightened, and I imagine her belly is just as empty as yours.”

  “What’s her name?” Therese asked, hoping her genuine curiosity would make up for Girt’s brashness.

  “Katharina von Bora. And she’s six years old. Now go, before she wakes up and finds herself all alone.”

  “Yes, Sister Odile,” Therese said, looking into her porridge, only one bite taken.

  “Keep your bowls at your place. You may finish when you return.”

  “At least we get the seats by the fire.” Girt always had something to whisper.

  They walked with quiet obedience until they were sure their footsteps would not be heard, then broke into a giggling race to the heavy door that opened to the entry hall.

  “Boost me up,” Therese said, pointing to the little port near the top.

  “Why do I always have to be the one to boost you?”

  “Because you’re sturdy.”

  She kicked off her shoe and put her foot in Girt’s hand. Clinging to the nails protruding from the wood to ease her lifting, she slid the tiny opening and peered into the hall. The room was dark, barely gray with morning, and it took some maneuvering of her head to see the bundle on the bench. A curled up little girl. Katharina von Bora. A small girl for such a big name. A noble name. Curls tumbled across her face, soft lips parted in sleep. Therese tried to remember what it felt like to be that small, to be cold and hungry and alone, but the single bite of sweet porridge held her memories at bay.

  Girt’s grip tightened. “Well? What do you see?”

  Therese stepped down and opened the door wide. “An offering.”

  About the Author

  Allison Pittman is the author of more than a dozen critically acclaimed novels and a three-time Christy finalist—twice for her Sister Wife series and once for All for a Story from her take on the Roaring Twenties. She lives near San Antonio, Texas, blissfully sharing an empty nest with her husband, Mike. Connect with her on Facebook (Allison Pittman Author), Twitter (@allisonkpittman), or her website, allisonkpittman.com.

  Germany, 1522

  Katharina von Bora says the bravest good-bye a six-year-old can muster as the heavy convent gate closes behind her. Though the cold walls offer no comfort, Katharina soon finds herself calling the convent her home. God, her Father. This, her life. She takes her vows—a choice more practical than pious—but in time, a seed of discontent is planted by the smuggled writings of a rebellious, excommunicated priest named Martin Luther. The message? That Katharina is subject to God, and no one else. Could the Lord truly desire more for her than this life of servitude?

  Turn the page for an exciting excerpt from Allison Pittman’s novel Loving Luther.

  Available in stores and online Fall 2017.

  Join the conversation at

  www.tyndalefiction.com

  Chapter 1

  MY FATHER ALWAYS told me if I never took a sip of wine, I’d never shed a single tear. One begat the other, and only the common cup in the hands of a priest, the blessed wine of the sacrament, could offer peace. Only the blood of Christ could offer life. Any other was nothing more than ruin, a sinner’s way of washing sin.

  And yet he drank. Every night, the flames of our small fire danced in the cut glass of his goblet.

  It seemed a silly warning, but for all of my brief childhood at home, I had only two sips of wine. The first over a year ago when, at the age of five, I begged for a taste at the grand table. The other just months ago, in the feast following Mother’s funeral. Then, true to my father’s prophecy, tears streamed down my face.

  So, too, as I stood in his embrace, the cold wind of November whipping all around us. Ice like pinpricks upon my cheeks. Perhaps I’d taken in a sufficient amount from the constant scent of wine on his breath, and from the traces left on his lips when he kissed me.

  “My Katharina.” He stretched my name, and I imagined it pouring out in a stream mixed with tears and wine. He knelt before me, the patched fabric of his breeches touching the last bit of unsanctified ground.

  “Papa? Where are we?”

  To answer, he took me by my shoulders and turned me to look at the foreboding stone structure on the other side of the iron gate. “A church, kitten. A house of God.”

  That much I assumed from the tall, arched windows and the lingering echo of the bell that had been tolling upon our approach. Six rings, and the sun nearly set. A new sound emerged in the wake of the bells. Footsteps, strident and rhythmic, displacing the tiny stones on the path beyond the gate. They carried what looked like a shadow—tall and black and fluttering.

  Frightened, I twisted back in my father’s embrace. “Papa?”

  “Be strong, my girl.”

  Before I could say another word, I heard the screech of metal and a voice that matched its tone in every way. “Katharina von Bora?”

  “Papa?” I clung to him, even as he stood tall and away.

  “Ja. This is my daughter.”

  A heavy hand fell on my shoulder. “Say good-bye to your papa, little one.”

  Good-bye?

  Two days before, when Papa told me to pack a few things—extra stockings and my sleeping cap—into a small drawstring bag, he’d said nothing about leaving me at a church to say good-bye. In all our travel, the miles riding in the back of farm carts, the night spent among strangers at the small, damp inn, he answer
ed my questions with platitudes about what a fine, strong girl I was, and how it was good to get away, just the two of us.

  “Is it because of the new mama?” The woman loomed large, even with two days’ distance between us. Her stern commands, her wooden spoon ever at the ready to correct a sullen temper, her furrowed brow as she counted the meager coins in the little wooden box above the stove. “I can be good, Papa. I will work harder and speak to her more sweetly. I’ll be a good girl. I promise. Papa—please!”

  I grasped his hand, repeating my promises, feeling victorious when he scooped me up off the ground. I tried to bury my face in his neck, but he jostled me and gripped my chin in his fingers.

  “Ruhig sein.” His voice and eyes were stern. “Hush, I say. You are Katharina von Bora. Do you know what that means?”

  “Ja, Papa.” I touched my hand against his grizzled whiskers. “Bearer of a great and proper name.”

  “Very old, and very great.” He was whispering now, his back turned to the shadowy figure. From this height, looking down over Papa’s shoulder, I could clearly see that it was only a nun. A soft, pale face peered from behind a veil, while long black sleeves fluttered around clasped hands. A tunic over a plain black dress bore an embroidered cross, and in many ways she was not unlike the nuns I knew from our church back home. So why had Papa brought me here, so far away?

  “But I don’t want to stay here, Papa.” I had to look down into his face, and it made him seem so much smaller.

  “Be a good girl.” He set me back on my feet and bowed down to meet me eye to eye. “Grow up to be a strong, smart young lady. And do not cry.”

  “But—”

  His admonishing finger, nail bitten to the quick and grimy from travel, staved off the prick of new tears. “Strong, I tell you.”

  “Are you coming back for me? After a time, after I’ve grown up a little? When I’m a lady?”

  A weak smile played across his lips, and he cast a quick, nervous glace up to the nun. “Child,” he said, gripping my shoulders, “I am delivering you into the hands of God, the same God who once gave you to me. Could you ask for anything better than to be in his loving care?”

  I knew, instantly, how I should answer. Thinking back to our small, dark home, with rooms shut away to ward off the chill. My three older brothers crowded around the table, squabbling for the last bowl of stew, and taking mine when there wasn’t enough. Now, with me gone, there would be more for everybody else. Not enough, but more. Maybe the new mama would smile a bit and not stomp through the kitchen rattling pots like a thunderstorm. Maybe my brothers would stop stealing bread and making their papa lie to the red-faced baker when he came pounding on the door. There would be one less body to soak up the heat from the fire, and more space in the crowded bed.

  I stood up straight and wiped my nose on my sleeve. “I’m ready now, Papa.”

  “That’s my good girl.” He kissed my forehead, my cheeks, then briefly, my lips. One kiss, he said, for each of my brothers, and one final from Mother watching from heaven. The nun kept her own silent watch until the end, when Papa handed me the small bundle he’d been carrying over his shoulder for the last mile of our walk.

  “No.” The sister’s sturdy hand stretched from within the long black sleeve. “She comes with nothing.”

  “Please, Sister—”

  “Sister Odile, reverend mother of the convent of Brehna.”

  “It’s just a nightcap,” Papa said, not mentioning that it was the cap Mama—my mama—had stitched with small purple flowers. “And clean stockings and an apron.”

  “Nothing.” Sister Odile tightened her grip and dragged me to her side.

  Head low, Papa shouldered the bag once again, saying, “As it should be, I suppose.”

  I noticed the quiver in his chin and knew it was one of those times when I would have to be strong in his place. I needed to stand straighter, fix my eyes above, and set my mind in obedience. A pinpoint of cold pierced my shoulder where the gold band on Sister Odile’s finger touched my flesh. Ignoring the growing grayness of the sky and the imminent demise of Papa’s resolve, I took a deep, cleansing breath.

  “You should start for home, Papa. It will be dark soon.”

  “Yes,” he said. And that was all. In the next instant, I was turned toward the gate, then marched through it. Sister Odile’s robes flapped against her, an irregular rhythm in the growing wind. For all I knew, Papa remained behind the iron bars, watching every step. Counting them, maybe, as I did. I listened for his voice, waiting for him to call me back, but if he did, the words were lost to the crunching of the stones beneath Sister Odile’s bearlike feet. I myself felt each one through the thin, patched leather of my shoes. When we came to a turn in the path, one sharp enough to afford a glance out of the corner of my eye, I saw the gate, with Papa nowhere to be found.

  Then came the rush of tears.

  “Stop that, now.”

  To emphasize her command, Sister Odile stopped in the middle of the path, leaving me no choice but to do the same. I scrunched my face, calculating the distance between the looming church and the empty gate. Both were within a few easy, running steps. And I was fast—faster than any other girl on my street, and some of the boys, too. I could outrun my brothers when I needed to avoid one of their senseless poundings, and I could cover the distance from our front door to the top of the street before Papa could finish calling out my name in the evenings when he came home before dark. In an instant I could be free, back at the gate, squeezed through, and in Papa’s arms before the nun would even realize I’d escaped. Or I could fly, straight and fast, right up the path to the looming church. Surely Sister Odile’s cloddish feet and flapping sleeves would make her lag in pursuit. The height and breadth of the outer stone walls promised a labyrinth of dark corridors and twisting halls within. I could run away, hide away, lose myself in the shadows until morning, when the clouds might disperse and reveal a shining sun to direct me home.

  Labyrinth. It was a word Papa taught me, reading from a big book of ancient stories. A monster lived in its midst—half man, half bull. Minotaur. I mouthed the word, feeling the dryness of my chapped lips at the silent m, and reached a tentative hand out to Sister Odile’s skirt, wondering if the voluminous fabric might not be hiding such a creature within.

  “Hör auf.” Sister Odile slapped my hand away and resumed our journey, doing nothing to allay my fear that I might well be in the custody of a monster. The size of the feet alone promised supernatural proportions, and now the woman’s breath came in snorts and puffs like some great-chested beast.

  “You want to run, don’t you, girl?”

  “No.” The lie didn’t bother me one bit.

  Sister Odile let out a laugh deep enough to lift the cross off her frock. “Back out the gate, wouldn’t you? And what if I told you to go ahead? You’re little enough to squeeze right through, aren’t you? You want to chase down your papa? Do you even know which way he went? Up the road or down?”

  Every word in every question climbed a scale, ending in a high, gasping wheeze.

  “If I did run, you’d never catch me. I’d disappear like a shadow.” It’s what I did at home, on nights when Papa wasn’t there. I’d fold myself into the corners, away from the reach of the new mama’s spoon.

  “Not even a shadow can escape the wolves,” Sister Odile said, her grip softening a little. “And hear me when I tell you this, my girl. That is all that waits for you outside these walls. Wolves ready to tear little girls into scraps for their pups.”

  This, I knew, held some truth, as Papa had often said the same thing. Still, my trust faltered. “And what is inside the walls?”

  Sister Odile laughed again, but this time the sound rumbled in her throat, like the comfort of long-off thunder. “Great mysteries and secrets. The kind that most little girls will never learn.”

  “Like in books?”

  “In the greatest book of all. And sacred language.”

  Our steps fell into a com
mon pace, with mine trotting two to every one of Sister Odile’s.

  “I can read a little already,” I said, my words warm with pride. “Papa taught me. I can read better than my brother, and he’s eleven.”

  “Then your father has done a very good and unselfish thing, allowing you to come here. Let your Dummkopf brother fend for himself.”

  I stopped my laughter with the back of my hand. Fabian was an idiot, by all measures. Cruel and thick and lazy. He was the closest to me in age, and therefore the most likely to deliver abuse. Clemens was thirteen, and Hans a full-grown man, almost, and I wondered if they would even notice my absence. Our sister, Maria, had been gone for nearly a year, married to a solicitor’s clerk, and had rarely been mentioned since.

  “You can find peace here,” Sister Odile was saying, “because we work to keep the darkness of the world away.”

  We’d come to a heavy wooden door with an iron ring fastened so high, Sister Odile had to stretch up on her toes to reach it.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  “There is another door on the other side of the building,” Sister Odile said, “open to all who seek sanctuary. This one is just for us.”

  Us. I repeated the word.

  “The sisters. And the girls. Other little girls, just like you. And bigger, too. We don’t lock the door until after supper, and then don’t open it at all after dark. You got here just in time.”

  The mention of the word supper brought my stomach rumbling to life, as loud as the sound of the sliding bolt and creaking hinges. Whatever hunger I felt, however, knotted itself into pure fear at the image in the open doorway. No amount of black fabric could shroud the twisted figure of the old woman who stood, leaning heavily on a thick walking stick, on the other side. A stub of candle illuminated a face the likes of which I had never seen before. One eye clouded with blindness, thin lips mismatched to each other, and a cascade of fleshy pink-tinged boils dripping like wax down one side. In stature, she was not much taller than I, and I stood silent and still as a post under the woman’s studious gaze. Then the single squinted eye was aimed up at Sister Odile, and a voice squawked, “She’s too late.”