The Convent of the Pure

by Sara M. Harvey

  They moved away and began to murmur too softly to be heard. The door opened and someone else entered the room.

  “After all this planning! I cannot believe you almost killed her! Idiots! Amateurs!” Portia could hear the inflated bombast covering his feeling of inadequacy, his fear of failure. The rushed thump of his footfalls told the same story. And as always, he covered his weakness with a ferocious show of temper. Portia knew this bit of playacting all too well; she had been an audience to it for years. Nigel had forever been a grasping, conniving coward who rarely lifted a finger to do for himself, preferring to bully the rest of his companions and playmates into doing the work instead, and now he was somehow wrapped up this terrible endeavor. Portia was not surprised.

  The voices continued, their hushed tones rising and piling on top of one another. The someone who sounded like Imogen came to stand at the foot of the bed, defiance clear in her voice though her words fell just out of Portia’s hearing. But her stand was cut short. The slap resounded louder than the shouts and the red-haloed shadow doubled over and sank out of Portia’s limited sight.

  “Damn it, Imogen!” Nigel could be clearly heard, he always made sure of that, especially when he was angry. A scuffle followed and another heavy hit that made Portia want to leap from the bed to defend her lover, but Nigel left the room and, from the sound of it, dragged Imogen out with him. The door slammed and the air was still. She could not wrap her mind around what was happening. Did she truly hear Nigel strike Imogen? Did that mean the Imogen was real and solid enough to be struck? And what was she doing here with these people? Portia struggled for a moment, but felt a cool hand on her wrist.

  “Hush, now. You’re going to need your rest, little silver-hair. Tomorrow is going to be quite a big day for you.” The hazy image of the woman bent over a low table and came back holding something in her hand. Portia saw the light glint off of a long needle and a thick cylinder of glass. She felt a pinch in the crook of her elbow and the pressure of fluid being administered. It was cold, so very cold, and it sank into her bones, dragging her downward into what felt like the bottom of the ocean. She cried out, or at least thought she did, but the woman left the room without a single glance back. Portia fumbled in her mind for a prayer, an incantation, anything that might save her.

  “Dymphna, Saint and Savioress of the mentally ill, clear my eyes and let me see, free me from these dangerous illusions and let me wake with True Sight! Saint Dymphna, I call you to my side!”

  But no one came. Portia tumbled into unconsciousness and her words echoed in the tight confines of her own mind; she had not the strength to utter one sound.

  Portia’s head was being lifted and lowered. She stirred and reached up to touch her face. A strip of silk bandage was smoothed over her eyes. She bucked and pushed away the hands that ministered to her. Although her body felt listless and hesitant, it was obeying her commands. She clawed the bandage from her eyes and opened them boldly.

  “You’ll explain yourself!” She glared at the figure as if she could truly see.

  “Oh, Portia.”

  “Imogen?” The sunlight was dazzling, but she could make out a head of rich red hair. “Imogen, what’s going on?”

  She sighed and sat on the edge of the narrow bed. She twined her long fingers into Portia’s silver hair. “There is not enough time to explain.”

  Portia grabbed Imogen’s fingers. “How is this possible? This?” She gripped them, feeling the delicate bones within and watching Imogen wince.

  “I am still dead, Portia. This is my body and it houses my soul, but it is an unnatural marriage.”

  “Aldias?”

  Imogen nodded. “This has been long in the planning, my love. Nigel has just sped things up. And I am sorry to have ever been a part of it, regardless that it was against my will. You must understand that I had no choice.”

  Portia sputtered, crushed between fury and terror. “No choice? In what? In luring me to my death? Or in loving me?”

  “We have very little time, and I have no patience for histrionics right now. You shall not die. And I have always loved you.” She reached out for Portia’s hand, but Portia jerked it away. “Portia, please.”

  “Please? Please, what?” Portia pulled away, pressing her back up against the narrow wrought iron headboard. “Accept that my entire life has been a lie?”

  Imogen sighed. “It was a well-laid plan made long ago. The Lady Analise, as ambitious and cruel as she is beautiful, has spent her entire life hunting for us. She calls us the Pure Children. We are her Holy Grail. It will be through us and our Bene ‘elim blood that she can achieve her end.”

  “And what is that?”

  Imogen glanced about furtively and leaned close to whisper into Portia’s ear. “She seeks to destroy the Primacy and bring about the end of the Grigori.”

  “What? Why?”

  “That she may remake it according to her own designs. Her ambitions were always larger than her abilities, even after she found us out. We were studied, tested, and grouped according to our strength. And that is as far as it went for many years.”

  “What was she looking for?”

  “We never knew. Until Nigel came.”

  Portia saw the rows of beds and the chamber full of glass cases. She shuddered. “The experiments?”

  Imogen nodded. “Lady Analise began bringing him up from Penemue when he was but eight years old. It was the year you came to the chapter house. They knew about you early on and they were brimming with plans. The rituals and tests on the others, they have been all in preparation for your arrival.”

  Portia gagged. “You can’t be serious! What do they want with me?”

  “I am not entirely certain. All I know is that fifteen years ago, I was specifically selected to be sent to you. They wanted me to ingratiate myself unto you, to spy on you, to lure you here when they felt the time was right.”

  Portia's mouth narrowed into a thin line and she kept her tone even. “So, it was a lie, after all.”

  “No, Portia! Of all us here in this convent, our secluded paradise, I was chosen to be banished, for reasons I will never understand. I was the one torn away from the only home I had ever known and sent away. But I had never been so glad to have fallen from grace. What I found with you, my love, was worth the pain, the suffering, the long lonely nights I spent cut off from my brothers and sisters and our sweet, gentle guardians. I had no idea what horrible fate had befallen them in my lengthy absence, that they would still be here…and in that condition after all these years...” She shuddered and scooped up Portia’s hands in her own. “It is no lie that I love you. Had the choice been laid before me once more, knowing what I do now, I would say yes. A thousand times over.”

  Portia was not wholly convinced, but the sensation of Imogen’s fingers clasped around her own, feeling her lover’s leaping pulse and agitated breath, was intoxicating. “So, then, tell me. Your death? Was that part of this grand scheme?”

  She shook her head. “No. At least I don’t think so. When I met my untimely death, it was unexpected, by me and by the others. I thought that maybe then I was free. And I had never loved you more for that. I imagined that somehow you knew and you were releasing me. But Nigel was quick and he was clever. He corralled my soul before it fled and fettered me to the realm of the living. And so, I have carried on in my task, unwillingly. But truly, and you must believe this, my love for you has and always will be real, Portia.” Imogen unbuttoned the high-collared blouse she wore and laid her chest bare. An arcane symbol was carved deeply through her flesh and into her breastbone. Portia could see that new blood glimmered atop an old scar. “I can give you no more assurance than this. This is how I am bound. To undo it, all you must do is disrupt this sign. Cut with your fingernails if you need to.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because it is knowledge you may need. This body was once mine, but not anymore. The Aldias pull my strings now. I have as much free will as any clockwork
doll. There is no choice in my bones, although my tongue has more freedom than it once had. I know not why, but only that it somehow serves Nigel’s purpose that I am able to speak freely to you.”

  “This is all Nigel’s doing?”

  “He plays the master, yes.”

  “Then I am really going to enjoy his slow, agonizing death at my hands.”

  “Portia, but this runs deeper than his involvement. It was Lady Analise’s brainchild, but she was hardly alone. Perhaps it is the work of all of the Aldias, I don’t know.”

  “Then I shall just have to kill her, too. It’s as simple as that.”

  Imogen stifled a peccant snicker. “You are a Gyony through and through, my love.”

  Portia was not to be deterred, “But why Lady Hester? Her blood is on their hands. Tell me, don’t they deserve a vicious demise for that? Why did she have to die? What was her role in all of this?”

  Imogen looked down at her hands, picking at some minute bit of lint on her skirt. “Because Lady Hester knew what I was and why I was there.”

  Portia straightened, her still-drugged muscles protesting. “She knew?” Snippets of half-remembered conversations clicked together like cogs and sprockets. “The other night, after the fiend. She asked if you had been with me. She made a note of it in her papers.”

  “And then Nigel came to your room, and the next night you were summoned here. The Aldias keep tabs on everything.”

  Portia nodded, “From what I gather, Lady Hester had written a letter to the Primacy that was to be sent in the morning by special courier. Someone must have put a stop to it.”

  “Do you mean Nigel? At his bidding, I am certain, but not at his doing.” Imogen smirked. “Do you really think Nigel would dirty his own hands?”

  Portia laughed despite herself. “No, not him, that spoiled princeling.”

  “Some things will never change.” Imogen sighed.

  For a moment, the clock had been turned back many years, the two of them in one of their rooms whispering and laughing and gossiping long into the night. But the cold reality was all too close and it only took a moment for the shared mirth to fade away again, replaced by suspicion, anger, and fear.

  “Imogen,” Portia began.

  The girl shook her head. “Not now. I have dallied here overlong, and Nigel and Lady Analise will be suspicious.” She cocked her head to one side. “I hear her assistant coming now. I must bandage you before Katriel takes you, so your eyes do not sit open and dry out. And I must wrap your mouth for the same reason. Please, do not fight me.”

  Portia lay back down, still holding onto her lover’s hand, unwilling to let the full magnitude of what Imogen had told her sink into her heart. “They’ve always owned you. The entire time I have known you, you were theirs.”

  Imogen chose her words carefully. “My body, but never my heart,” she said. “Before that, I played in these gardens and ran through these courtyards under the golden sun as free as any plain human child, never knowing I was something else. In this pure, protected place we never comprehended that we did not age as ordinary children do. And when Analise Aldias came here, nearly two hundred years ago, she was cunning and sincere. The poor nuns believed her when she said she was a victim of the Grigori Primacy, here to search for her stolen child. They had no love for the Grigori, for their methods of removing children from their homes to be raised in chapter houses all across the countryside. Her tears seemed so honest. And then she brought the others with her--I even looked through their faces to see if I recognized my mother or my father. We all did. As much as we loved the sweet sisters, we longed to know what our own families were like and if they wanted us back. And they did want us, the children born of a truer Nephilim bloodline. The Pure Children, they called us, Bene ‘elim, they called us. The ordinary Grigori children had failed them, they said. They needed us to help them. We were the only ones that could.”

  “Yes, Bene ‘elim. That is what the woman said…” Portia reached for the transmitter in her pocket out of habit but realized her beloved duster was gone, and she wore only a simple linen shift that was too tight around the hips. “Was that Lady Analise we heard?”

  Imogen nodded. “Now lie still, Katriel’s coming.” She quickly bound Portia’s eyes. “Portia, my love, you shall not die.” Before Imogen wrapped Portia’s mouth, she kissed her. “I love you.”

  The silk smothered Portia’s reply as Imogen swaddled her lips firmly shut.

  The wrapping over Portia’s eyes was so snug that she could not open them at all. She desperately looked back and forth, sensing only shadows from behind her closed eyelids and layers of pale bandages. She found also that not only was her mouth gagged, but that bandages looped under her chin like a wimple kept her jaws shut as well. The only sounds she could make were hums and whimpers.

  She had been placed in a chair, her arms and legs buckled securely to it with leather straps. The chair was then wheeled along a corridor and into a small, creaking room. Axle grease and exhaust fumes pervaded the air. Portia guessed, and rightly so, that she was in an elevator. Downward she sank until her companion pulled the lever that brought the elevator to a halt, and then the doors clattered open.

  She knew her destination without having to see. The soft blue light of the specimen room was recognizable even through the yards of silk covering her closed eyes. Footfalls and the squeak of her wheelchair bounced back off of the glass cases to either side. She was surprised that they passed them completely. In what must have been the very far end of the room, she heard a curtain being withdrawn. Efficient hands unbuckled her from the chair and lifted her onto a metal table. Portia could not keep from trembling.

  “Why are you frightened, my little silver-haired angel?” The woman asked the question as if she expected an answer. It was a familiar voice, with melodious vowels and a lilting quality to her words. Lady Analise.

  Portia made a token attempt at a reply that she knew sounded like nothing at all. The woman laughed, and it was not comforting. “I will tell you now, you poor ignorant child, that I am not going to kill you. In fact, I cannot kill you, did you know that? It is not in my power or ability. You will indeed live to see this through.” She chuckled again, “Of course, you might wish you were dead, but live you shall.” She paced with measured steps around the table. Portia began to count them. “I am willing to bet that you do not even know what you are, do you? You have no idea. In fact, I don’t even think the Edulica or Gyony really know what you are, although they really should. I mean, that is their job, isn’t it?”

  Analise paused again, as if awaiting an answer. She continued her pacing, her voice rising in pitch. “They should have looked closer at you and taken better care of you! But obviously they couldn’t be bothered, so by rights they had no claim to you, really. Witless Hester Edulica never even bothered to question your mother, did you know that? She took your mother’s dolt of a husband at his word. Your mother’s husband, I chose that word specifically, do you understand? He was not your father.” It took fifteen steps for her to make the circuit around the table. “I made sure to speak to the both of them directly after Nigel told us about your hair. Because I am not an idiot.”

  “Mmmm hrrrrrr?” My hair? What has that to do with anything?

  “Yes, darling.” Her fingers were icy cold against Portia’s forehead. “Once you were old enough that it began to turn, oh, it was a simple matter of sweeping a few memories under the proverbial rug, keeping you from the knowledge of it. Clever, don’t you think? Goodness, what did we have that memory replaced with? Oh, yes, a fiend’s death wail. Yes, that certainly can turn the hair white, even in our kind. White, but not silver. A trivial detail, easily overlooked. And given your sense of modesty and your very hurt pride, thanks to Nigel, we made certain very few people ever saw it to even begin a debate about its color. Of course Hester, the damn harpy, was curious. But she was dealt with.” She stroked Portia’s hair, careful not to dislodge the wrappings. “Now, child, why is this im
portant? Are you curious?”

  When she paused in her touch and her words, Portia hurried to nod and answer, “Mmmm-hmmm.”

  “Oh, good! Curiosity is powerful, you know. Powerful enough to overcome many things: fear, isolation, pain. It is a ripe reward at the end of a long journey.” Portia felt the pinch of a needle in her arm and the cold drag of the strong sedative. “Part of that journey is earning that reward, being patient enough to see things through to their inevitable conclusion.”

  There were others in the room, she could hear them breathing and shuffling their feet now and again. They wheeled something near to the table, something that rattled quietly of metal on metal.

  “Lady Analise, we are ready to begin when you are.” The voice came from somewhere to the left, or so Portia thought; the sedatives were quickly numbing her remaining senses. It was low and smooth, but she could not place if it was the voice of a man or a woman.

  “Thank you, Katriel. Let us begin with the scissors.” With her failing hearing, Portia heard Lady Analise snip a lock of hair from near her ear. “And now, if you could be so kind as to hand me the scalpel?”

  Chapter Five

  She was upright, that much was certain. It was a strange sensation to be standing when she felt otherwise so relaxed. Vaguely aware of a pale, bluish light all around her, Portia realized that she must have been put in one of the glass cases. She knew that there were close to two dozen of them in the room along with her, yet she felt entirely isolated. Her toes flexed and stretched and gave Portia a start. A thigh muscle twitched in response, and her body weight shifted of its own accord. The disturbing sensation confirmed that her mind was far removed from the workings of her body. She attempted to reach up and push back the bandages over her eyes, but her hands would not so much as twitch. In fact, her eyes did not even bother to answer her commands. They looked neither left nor right and did not even try to blink. She floated, fully conscious and aware, in a useless mannequin.