by Anne Groß
A thick branch growing in a gentle slope from the trunk of an oak passed under the window ledge. It wouldn’t be too difficult to slide from the ledge and straddle the branch, then shimmy down to the trunk and make her way into the garden. The branch seemed sturdy enough, but the distance from the window to the branch was the span of about two of her hand lengths, and seeing the ground far below made her ears buzz with fear. Then there was the length she’d have to crawl down the branch before reaching the stability of the knotty trunk. For at least three meters there would be no stabilizing place to put her hands on either side of her body. She took a deep breath. God was on her side today, she reminded herself.
She left her wooden sabots on the floor and stood up on the bed, then took up the skirt of her gown and draped it over one arm. After maneuvering herself to hug the window frame, she peeked down towards the branch and tentatively poked her bare foot out into the air. Just as her big toe touched the rough surface of the branch, she heard the garden gate creak open. Adelaide gasped and pulled her leg back inside and pressed herself against the wall.
Voices rose from below and drifted into her little bedroom like a stray breeze. At first the words were hard to distinguish. A feminine voice rose liltingly in a question. A masculine voice responded with the chesty breathiness of gentle reassurance. The feminine voice circled confusedly like a fluttering butterfly. The masculine voice lengthened and slowed in a more determined response. Eventually, curiosity got the better of Adelaide and she bellied down the length of the bed to poke her nose out the window. Far below, seated on a bench under the hedge roses, a man dressed all in black was talking to a young woman.
Le Père Gregoire, Adelaide breathed. She crossed herself, knowing the priest was practically on par with Jesus himself. Even old Abbess Sister Marie-Thérèse couldn’t keep the fire from her eyes when she spoke of him. He was an older man, at least forty, Adelaide guessed, looking at the white that was beginning thread through his thick dark hair. He was speaking earnestly and holding to his chest the pale hand of a plainly dressed woman who had her back to Adelaide. There was an intimacy about them that made her want to sink deeper into the blankets of the bed. She strained to hear what they were saying.
“She knows. I’m sure she knows,” said Bishop Gregoire. “She saw us last Sunday.”
“So we must not see each other any longer. It cannot be.”
“We must, I cannot live without you,” the Bishop said. He pulled the woman’s hands to his mouth and bent over them and she sighed and put her head on his shoulder. “I’ve taken care of it,” he continued. “Soon it will not matter if she’s seen us or not. It is for God to judge, not the Abbess.”
“How? How have you taken care of it? We must stop this. We must confess and atone for our sins.” She pulled her hands from the Bishop’s grasp and began to weep.
“Don’t cry, love. I can’t bear it.” He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. He offered them beseechingly and when they were refused he pressed them to his face. Then he pulled the woman into his arms. She melted so quickly against him that her initial resistance seemed like a ruse. She turned to press her cheek against his chest, allowing Adelaide her first glimpse of the woman’s face.
It was Claire, the quiet girl in the top class, the one with the soft brown hair and sad eyes. Bishop Gregoire was so old, how could Claire possibly be in love with him? The fact that he was also a man of God didn’t immediately strike Adelaide as a knock against his eligibility, but when it slowly seeped into her consciousness, past the rush of vicarious romance she was feeling, she couldn’t help but lean further out the window. The discovery of two colliding worlds made Adelaide’s head reel. She wished she had made it to the oak tree before they had arrived in the garden so that she could have a better vantage.
“Do not worry, ma petite chou-chou,” Bishop Gregoire said soothingly while smoothing Claire’s hair back into the fashionable updo she wore at the back of her neck. “Sister Marie-Thérèse will not be the Abbess here for much longer. I’ve found a place for her at Caen.”
Both Adelaide and Claire sat up straight with a gasp. “You cannot do that. She’s lived here for nearly her entire life,” Claire protested. To her credit, her eyes were round and shocked at the scandalous idea.
“It’s done. Now there’s nothing to stop us. Once Sister Ignatia takes her place, you will take the vows so that we can be happy together.”
Claire tried to pull away, but was cornered. “Take the vows?” she squeaked.
“Sister Ignatia?” mouthed Adelaide. The idea was horrific.
Suddenly the door to Adelaide’s room crashed open and there in the hallway was the Abbess herself, as though conjured by their very thoughts. The great old woman glared at her with her tiny black eyes set much too close together. The wrinkles around her mouth were accentuated by her pucker of disapproval. Adelaide felt her body melt under her glare. Fear of discovery clutched at her throat as she slammed the window shut. “I was only taking in a bit of fresh air.”
With a single dismissive wave of Sister Marie-Thérèse’s arm, any sense of self-possession Adelaide had gained by the solitude of her little room was removed. She watched as the Abbess pulled the bottle of sirop d’anise from her pocket to hold in front of Adelaide’s nose. “Sister Ignatia found this under your desk after you had gone. Tell me how it got there. You have one chance to answer. If you weave the wrong story, you will not be allowed to weave a second. You will be punished.”
Adelaide felt herself press back against the wall. The evidence might have been circumstantial, but it was also fairly damning. She had no doubt that the Abbess already knew why the bottle was under her desk and didn’t truly require any explanations. “Oh, Mother Superior,” she cried as she fell to her knees on the floor like a supplicant. “Thank you so much for coming,” she wept, wringing her hands in distress. Adelaide was soothed to see the old woman take a step backwards in confusion. She continued with an inner calm that belied her outer panic. “You’ve awoken me from the most awful dream, just horrible. God must have known and called you here to intercede.”
The pucker around Sister Marie-Agnes’s mouth grew tighter in concern and her thick black brows knitted in sympathy. She swooped into the room to wipe the tears from Adelaide’s cheeks and help her crawl back into bed. “My dear girl, do not think upon dark dreams. They are from the devil and are sent to draw you down. To dwell upon them is to let them influence your heart.”
“But I must tell you what I dreamed. I must,” Adelaide insisted. “For I dreamt of you.”
The old sister’s eyebrows shot up under her wimple in surprise. “Me?” She busied herself by tucking the blanket under the straw mattress. Adelaide could see at once that she was struggling with her curiosity. Finally, the Abbess gave in. “Why on earth would you dream of me?”
“Oh Mother Superior, you were so beautiful in my dream, so that I knew it was you. You were bathed in the holy light of goodness and righteousness and your white cloak glimmered and your beautiful high brow reflected its...” Adelaide paused to find another suitable word, hoping she wasn’t laying it on too thick, “righteousness,” she said again. “You held out your hand for me to come to you, and I tried, Mother Superior. Truly I tried, but something held me back.”
The old woman sat down on the edge of the bed and took Adelaide’s hand in her own. She leaned forward with a look of deep concern on her face. “Go on, child. Tell me what held you back.”
Adelaide’s mind whirled as she tried to pull the threads of her story together. She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened her mouth again and rolled her eyes up towards the ceiling, thinking. If she could draw the story out long enough, the bottle of sirop d’anise might be forgotten. Thus far, it seemed to be working. “Bishop Gregoire kept me back,” she said. “He said I shouldn’t go to you, that you were no longer who you said you were—you were no longer Mother Superior. He said Sister Ignatia was to be the new leader of the Abbey. Is it tr
ue? I fear it to be true. I couldn’t bear it if it were.”
The Mother Superior froze as the story came to its finish. She seemed to consider the possibility, then she chuckled. “My sweet child, do not fret so. I have been the Abbess for many years and will remain for many more years to come. It was just a dream, although perhaps it tells of your true protective nature. I appreciate that you do not wish for any harm to come to me.” She patted Adelaide’s cheek affectionately and then looked at the brown bottle that she’d left on the table beside the bed. Adelaide held her breath, waiting for the punishment to arrive and hoping she’d done enough to be spared from the worst of it.
A soft knock announced someone at the door, extending Adelaide’s sentencing a moment longer. “Come,” said old Sister Marie-Thérèse. The sweet face of Sister Marthe appeared in the crack. Her expression caused the Mother Superior to rise in alarm. “What is it?” she asked.
“Bishop Gregoire is here. He has asked to speak with you.”
TAKING CONTROL
As a result of having her prophetic dream come true, Adelaide had been made to leave the convent school. It had been a painful parting, full of fear and misunderstanding. Her talent had not been lauded, as it might have if she’d predicted a happy occurrence. She had not been touched by god, but by the devil and as a result, deemed dangerous to the other students. Just thinking of those months after she’d been cast out made her feel as though rocks were rolling heavily in her heart.
She had prayed every day to be able to return to the convent. Now here she was again, in a convent turned into a prison. There was not much difference. The old saying was true—be careful what you wish for. Adelaide bent her knees and pressed her feet against the far wall of her cell so she could lie flat on her back in the mildewed straw. Despite the cramped space, she was not uncomfortable. She had always been able to think more clearly in an unadorned room and there was nothing in this one save her knitting and her cards, both of which kept her sharp.
“Why?” came pitiful cry from the cell across the hall. Adelaide rolled onto her side and twisted the end of the yarn idly around one finger, her legs still curled out of necessity. “Because” was the answer. It was the only meaningless answer that could match Odile’s meaningless question. Because no one cares about you, that’s why. The sooner Odile learned this lesson, the stronger she would become. Adelaide sat back up again and took her knitting into her hands once again. Things that can be made, can be unmade, she thought to herself as she strengthened the yarn by turning it into an ever growing plait of chained loops, like a shirt of mail. She started a pattern of added and subtracted stitches and lace fell from the needles. It made her think of the lace she had learned to make in Alençon.
It had been the kind Sister Marthe who had been brave enough to help Adelaide find a new home. “I’ve asked all manner of business owners to take you as an apprentice,” Sister Marthe explained, “and Madame Sagii was the only one who would consider you.” Adelaide was hurt by the confession, but the town’s slight faded when she saw her new quarters at the milliner’s shop. She’d been given a tiny room just under the roof. Adelaide finally found the privacy she longed for, and from the window of her new bedroom she was able to look out at any number of pretty gardens in the old town.
Madame Sagii was a quiet widow, always busy with the hat forms and the shop books, but she was kind to Adelaide. There was an air of independence about the woman that both attracted Adelaide and intimidated her. In those initial first days, Adelaide slunk around behind Madame Sagii and watched her like a hawk; in the evenings she’d practice moving like her, gracefully, with confident large gestures. When she began tying her hair up in the same style, Madame Sagii took note and offered her bits of wisdom as a reward for her many hat sales. Her patience had been boundless.
At first, Adelaide was taught to needlepoint lace in the Alençon style. She spent many hours learning the patterns for creating nets of lace to complete the orders for the aristocrats who wished to remain fashionable. She had been promised a good salary for the skill should she endure the seven years to complete her apprenticeship, but the activity and the promise hadn’t been enough to keep her interest. She soon veered from following the prescribed patterns and began creating her own strange curlicues. Mrs. Sagii again took note and split Adelaide’s time between lace making and sales, to break up her day. Adelaide found she excelled in convincing even the most modest woman to purchase ribbon for her petticoats, and the thriftiest woman to buy a lavish bonnet. When she boasted of this to Madame Sagii, her mentor correctly pointed out that her talent was not in gathering money, but in keeping up a long stream of stories and compliments, a far more profitable skill which could be used in all manner of instances. For her success, Madame Sagii presented Adelaide with a wolf’s fang for polishing the filling stitches of her lace.
The moment she realized that creating lace was not just for adorning women and furniture was the moment that Adelaide’s true lessons began. It had happened when Madame Sagii had introduced her to three other women, one who delivered babies, one who owned the bakery down the street, and one who had eight daughters who also sewed lace. They all had smiled at Adelaide with sharp eyes, touched her with delicate hands, and radiated a palpable power. Three years after the introduction, she was given her very own leather bound grimoire wrapped in a protective lace shawl.
Adelaide still had the grimoire and the fang, but Alençon was in the distant past. The Revolution had made it a dangerous business to cater to the luxurious tastes of the aristocracy. The lace makers who hadn’t fled the town had been guillotined. Now she no longer netted her hopes and wishes into delicate threads. Knitting with thick wool was faster for weaving spells and, Adelaide found, just as effective.
She was a spider spinning a grey web, her spinnerets clicking rhythmically in the gloom of her cell. She’d heard that spider wives ate their husbands for dinner. The thought made her smile. Not all of creation’s females mewled in the darkness like Odile. There were women who were spinning webs at that very moment, she was sure of it, creating patterns of cables and knots that bound all foes and warmed all friends. She thought of Mademoiselle Rachlieu, Mademoiselle Languedoux, and Madame Laurier who had received the letter she’d sent and responded with soothing words of sympathy. She was confident that their knitting included a protective pattern designed to keep her safe. Then there was Madame Southill.
Her little maid Agnes had stopped by the prison that morning to bring the letter that had arrived from across the channel. It had pleased Adelaide to see Agnes, but when she read the letter, her company was forgotten. If she had interpreted Ursula Southill’s poorly written French correctly, the woman had had the golem within her grasp, inside her own circle even, and still she did nothing, asked nothing, offered nothing in her note but casual advice. At best, the woman was being deliberately useless; at worst, she was simply incapable. Madame Southill’s predilection for puttering in her woods and attending the occasional birth of another English whelp was baffling to Adelaide. She seemed to have no aspirations to anything higher than dabbling in the basest of superstitions. Ridiculous woman, thought Adelaide, dreadful woman. What gall to send such a condescending reply!
Adelaide reached into her corset and touched the deck of cards that she kept secret, pressed against her heart. The gesture had become recurrent, the action consoling. At least she now knew where the creature was dwelling. It did seem strange that the golem had landed in London, but of all the infinite possibilities in time and location, London was far from the worst. The creature was retrievable. She merely had to find a method for doing it, and in the meantime, she would let it be known that Ursula Southill was too weak to continue her affiliations with la Société.
The knitting had fallen into her lap where it sagged over her thighs in loose strands, now too slack to contain within it all the protective qualities she had instilled. In its place in her hands, Adelaide held a single card that seemed to have magically manifested
itself; she had no memory of pulling it from her cleavage. It was the six of diamonds, a card that demanded prudence in the face of adversity. She studied it in the dimming evening light.
The subject in the center of the card was that of the dauntless mongoose, protected by an armor of dried mud, entering the mouth of the crocodile to tear it apart from the inside. Years ago when Adelaide had created the cards, she had seen fit to draw the pair of animals in a riverside landscape, the Nile perhaps. The river had been meaningless to her initially, but now as she studied the card it took on a new importance. The way the water edged up on the bank opposite from the crocodile made it seem swollen and dangerous, and yet the crocodile was obviously standing on a sandbar, which would only happen when the river receded. The more she stared at it, the more the scene confused her. The mongoose and the crocodile were easy enough to understand—the crocodile represented a hardship that the mongoose was about to dispel. However, should the river sweep them downstream, hardship and hero both, then only the river would matter.
Adelaide slipped the card into her apron pocket, pressed her hands against her eyes, and mulled how she would maintain prudence in the face of adversity. Ministre Fouché’s thin face loomed into her mind as her adversity. He was still hounding her nearly every day, just as he’d promised. He still wanted to know the location of the jewel and assumed the golem had it in her possession. With Madame Southill’s letter, she could now tell him the location of the golem. He could go and retrieve the scarab, but she feared for her creature. Its punishment would never be as lenient as prison, that much was certain. She must tell him anyway. Telling him would certainly secure her own release. And there was a small chance that he would bring the golem back for a trial. If that happened, she might even be able to retake control. Adelaide’s fingers found her temples and gingerly pressed in concentric circles. It bothered her to have to place so much of her own future in Fouché’s hands. Perhaps the card was suggesting there was another way to proceed prudently.