Mason doesn’t speak for a minute. He leans his head back against the wall and sighs. “My father hit me all the time,” he says. “And then when I apprenticed, the master used to clock me on the head if I wasted stone. I guess this is the first time I haven’t been hit.”
Words fail me when I think of anyone hurting him.
He forces a smile. “I’d like to see these nuns try it on me, though!” Mason makes boxing fists, and we chuckle at the image of him and Agnes locking horns. And then we grow quiet again and stare at each other. He slowly rearranges wisps of my hair hanging out from the veil, and I think, How remarkable this boy is, how good. After all he’s endured, how his eyes can still sparkle with life. And the terrible thoughts I had a few minutes earlier begin to dilute and wash away.
“It’s like glittering gems,” I muse—and I can’t believe I said that out loud.
“What is?”
“Your laugh.” I bend my knees up and hide my face. “I can…see it.”
“See what?”
“You think I’m crazy.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy, Edyth. Tell me what you mean.”
I hesitate a long while.
“I used to think everyone saw things like I did,” I begin. “Mam and Da and Henry played along, I guess. Different sounds and smells—well, they have different colors and shapes. Your laugh, it’s like twinkling bright gemstones, yellow and sky blue and bright pink.” I point in the air as though popping bubbles. “I feel the colors, too, like when I’m excited, or frightened—it fills part of my body with light. Sometimes it gets so intense, I almost faint. That’s what happened in the scriptorium with the ultramarine. It almost happened today when Agnes—”
Mason puts his hand over mine and laces our fingers together.
“I wish I could see what you see,” he says.
“No, you don’t. I don’t work like other people, Mason. There’s something broken in me.”
“That’s not true.”
“But I see things that aren’t there. It’s not real.”
“What if what you see is more real? What if we’re the ones who are blind?”
His words stun me.
He grasps for his meaning. “My da taught me—he said to listen to the song of the stone and it would tell me how to cut. It’s true; it really works. You put the wedges in a line where you want the crack to be, and you play the hammer down the line like an instrument—like bells. The stone sings what it wants to do.”
“It sounds like banging a hammer to me,” I admit. “Like red daggers, not music.”
“And a laugh just sounds like a laugh to me,” he concedes. “But it’s obviously so much more.”
I smile, astonished, so relieved. I wish I could see his laughter dancing in the air every day.
A wind rises up, tumbling a string of old leaves through the still alleyway, and on it, a voice carries. I hear my name being called. By Agnes. Another errand. My back’s starting to smart against the fabric of my dress. I look intensely at Mason.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll go around another way.”
— 22 —
At chapter, Agnes tells me curtly that I’ll be fetching for the prioress today, who’s finally returned from a preaching tour. Something feels different in the atmosphere with Prioress Margaret here, like the air isn’t as thick in my lungs somehow.
Alice is giving her first lesson this morning, the one she’s been preparing for weeks. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,” she begins. “So says the Author of our faith. But who are the healthy, sisters, and who are the sick?”
She’s nervous; it’s plain by the way she keeps looking at the floor, trying to remember the next line she’s memorized. I like it, though. Alice has a gentle yet authoritative way of teaching. She speaks like one of us, not someone trying to climb the priory ranks or show off how smart she is.
She concludes: “And there is no health in us, says the confession. But there is a remedy for our souls, and there is a Great Physician ready to give this medicine—only, however, to those who admit their need.”
“Thank you, Alice,” says the prioress. “Well done. We look forward to more from you in the future. And now Sub-Prioress Agnes de Guile will give our announcements.”
* * *
—
After the meeting, Prioress Margaret approaches me. “Edyth le Sherman,” she says, “follow me to my study, please.”
She carefully puts her books away on the shelves, sits at her desk and shuffles through a stack of letters.
“Edyth, I see that some events have transpired in my absence.”
I stare down at the floor, unsure of how much she knows. She picks up a note from her desk and begins to read.
Carelessness with precious materials in the scriptorium.
Insubordination.
Defacing of cell walls.
Flagrant defacing of a holy psalter.
Carousing with a young man from the work crew.
Habitual tardiness, and even absence from prayers.
She pauses, glaring at me. “Shall I continue? Speak, child.”
I can’t lift my eyes. I don’t know anything about this woman or what she’s capable of. Then I hear myself speaking.
“I am sorry, Venerable Mother.”
I can feel the prioress looking at me, judging my very breath.
“Edyth, do you believe your punishment was sufficient for your sins?”
“Yes, Venerable Mother. I mean, I don’t know.”
The prioress stands up from her desk. “Have you learned your lesson?”
“Yes, Venerable Mother.”
She slowly walks behind my chair where I can’t see her. The room dims and falls silent to the rhythm of our breathing.
“I don’t think you have.”
My eyes fill with terror as the prioress walks over to another part of the room. I quickly glance up to see what implement she will use to beat me. She reaches up to the top of a large shelf, and I shut my eyes and brace myself. The light behind my eyes explodes into a hundred shards of gold, slicing the darkness into a shredded quilt of pink and orange. But I feel nothing in my body. That must mean I’m ready to take what’s coming.
And then I hear the sound of pages turning; doubtless she’s consulting some ancient text on how to make me hurt like hell.
“Edyth.”
I open my eyes to see the prioress standing in front of me. In her hands is a huge Gospel book, larger than any I’ve ever seen, with a heavy wooden cover wrapped in calfskin.
“Open it,” she says, placing it on a bookstand on her desk. “Come, child, open the book.”
I unstick my hands from the chair and edge closer. The prioress points to the book with one hand and beckons me toward it with the other.
My heart beats fast as I open it. I’ve never handled a book this large. When I touch the cover, a warm sensation crawls up my fingers.
“Handle it carefully. It is centuries old, and fragile.”
A wafting scent urges me to get closer. I lean into the book’s gutter and inhale. For such a holy object, it smells earthy and low. The pages speak; I hear voices reading the words aloud to me from the great orbs of the uncial letters.
The parchment makes a soft crackle when I turn the page, and I’m drawn into another world. Animals in small drop capitals on opposite pages speak to each other across the parchment expanse. In the margins are winged creatures, some like regular animals in costume—rabbits, foxes. Some are unlike anything on earth: blue creatures with flared nostrils and wild hair, demons with gaping bright orange mouths. Things that tingle in my mouth like horseradish.
I turn page after glorious page.
“Stop at the next one,” says the prioress. “There’s recognition in your eyes
. You’ve seen this image before.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. I draw my hands away from the book, feeling repulsed by it, ashamed at its intrusion into my thoughts.
Prioress Margaret lets out a deep sigh. “Child, tell me what you see.”
The only thing left to do is confess. “Yes, Venerable Mother, I’ve seen this before. It’s from a dream I have. But I don’t know what it means.”
The prioress sits back at the desk and picks up a smooth stone. Tumbling it along her fingers, she stares at me. “Tell me everything.”
There is no option but the truth. “I see things.”
“Yes.”
“Colors. All the time.”
“Go on.”
“The way that walking through leaves is light liquid blue, and the hammer on stone is bright red, brighter than blood. Ultramarine is…like going straight to heaven. No one sees it but me.”
“And the world is not always kind to those of vision,” she insists. “You know that.”
She leans forward and addresses me directly.
“Daughter, I am not going to speak to you in symbols. Something terrible is coming, Edyth, and it is making itself known to you. Every generation has a defining moment, a crisis of decision. When I was your age, we faced our crisis: starvation and death on an unimaginable scale. Have you heard of this?”
I nod. “My grandparents died in the Great Famine. My da was eight years old. He said the cows bobbed in the floodwaters like apples.”
“Many perished here as well. But they didn’t need to. There was one person here who was called. She, too, was a visionary, Edyth, just like you. But she turned her back on the ancient way. Hardness of heart stole her gifts from us. Her life of praise became a song for the dead, a dirge that still echoes in these walls.”
Rising from her desk, the prioress points to the open page of the book. In the margin is a list of names in impossibly thin letters, each in a different hand, and I recognize one: Agnes de Guile.
I look at the prioress in disbelief. “Sub-Prioress Agnes? I heard she saw things, like me, but I didn’t know this.” Suddenly I can see things from Agnes’s perspective, that fear of her own sight. And people died because she chose to hide it all away.
Prioress Margaret takes the book from its stand and returns it to the shelf. She dips a quill in ink and writes my name below Agnes’s.
Edyth le Sherman.
“You can no longer deny what you’ve seen, Edyth. You must be reassigned immediately.”
“No, please!” I rise abruptly and reach out to the prioress. “Please let me go back to the scriptorium!”
“Why on earth would I send you anywhere else, Edyth?” The prioress lets out a laugh like silvery ribbons. “I’m promoting you. I mean to make you an illuminator. How else will you understand what you are seeing, unless you immerse yourself in your gift?”
I’m stunned. Illuminating is a noble art. I’m a peasant’s daughter.
“You will start immediately,” she continues. “Have your meal and change into your own clothes. I’ve already told Bridgit and the others. You will no longer be in the employ of the sub-prioress.”
“Thank you, Venerable Mother.” I’m breathless; my head swims.
“And, Edyth,” she says, “this is no time for shame. Now you are awake.”
— 23 —
After the midday meal, I can’t wait to get to the scriptorium. Muriel greets me at the door, and instead of turning left to the pigment room, we turn right to a table set up with the tools of the trade: a piece of parchment with a drawing lightly plotted on it. Brushes of all sizes and shapes. Feathers, some stiff, some fluffy. A penknife, a bulbous flask of water in a metal stand and some seashells. And two small pots of color that I recognize: terre verte and bone black.
“This is holy work,” Muriel begins. “We never pick up the brush without a prayer.”
“Bridgit taught me that,” I respond.
Muriel recites:
Sint placentes sermones oris mei meditatio cordis mei
In conspectu tuo Domine fortitudo mea et redemptor meus
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer
I repeat it carefully. My Latin is still pretty lousy.
Muriel shows me each item in turn. I know about the pigments, of course, intimately.
“I’ve always wondered—what is this for?” I ask, touching the water flask.
Muriel takes it from its stand and holds it close to the parchment with the drawing on it. “Look through it,” she says. The lines look magnified in the watery globe.
“Is that how you get such tiny details?”
“Exactly, so we don’t ruin our eyes,” says Muriel. I wonder what genius must have figured that out.
“First I will show you how brushes are made,” she continues. “This kind is the most basic. Take a feather and cut off the top, like this. Cut a notch in it on one side. Then, from the bottom of the feather, cut a tube. Put the top piece inside the tube and…pull.”
She glues the brush head into the tube with melted resin and adds a straight, peeled twig for a handle.
“It’s a brush!” I gasp.
“We make many, many brushes and pens, as you can see!” Muriel gestures to the vessels full of feathers on each desk.
I finally burst. “What are we going to paint first?”
Muriel laughs. “Not so fast, Edyth! I know you’re eager, but you’re new. You won’t be painting for a while.”
“Oh.” My face falls, and Brother Timothy chuckles from his desk. I know Muriel is right; all apprenticeships start with grunt work until you’re ready to move to the next step. That’s how students eventually become masters. I try to put a mature face on it.
“You’ll start by ruling lines,” she says. “Take this scrap and practice. Fill this page, then come to see me. And, Edyth—no mistakes.”
Muriel leads me to the empty desk and gives me the few tools I’ll need. She and Anne go for a walk, and I sit for a minute and run my hands over the slanted wooden work surface.
And then I see it: in the corner of the desk, a tiny carved drawing of a stag under a yew tree, swirls of water flowing beneath, a flying comet overhead. It isn’t fresh; the incised lines are now the same color as the desk. But the truth is unmistakable. Agnes de Guile worked here. As an artist—like me. Saw the vision, like me. Was tasked with a mission, just like me. I trace the carving with my finger as Brother Timothy limps over on his gouty foot and lays a stack of pages on my desk, the margins lightly outlined with vines and ready to be inked.
“I’ll bet you can handle more than ruling straight lines,” he says, looking at the carving, then at me. “Always remember this, little sister: It’s not only about what you see. In the end, it’s about what you do.”
* * *
—
It’s hard to believe all that’s happened in one short day, but it’s already the hour of the Angelus. The summer night sky glitters with a million stars as I step out, alone, into the cloister garden. Only the candelabra are lit in the corridors; no moon obscures the pinpricks of light. The silence is pierced, like the sky, by the barking of a dog. I watch the Angelus bells make blue ripples in the air, like fish coming to the surface of a pond, their little fish mouths opening, pop pop pop.
The Pri said this was a gift, the way I see things. Not a curse. For the first time, I truly open my mind to that possibility, and when the bell ripples stop, they make room for the stars, each one with a colored halo, like the holy people painted in the books—only these halos are violets and blues and magentas, brighter than the ochres or yellows or even the gold encircling saints’ heads.
Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae
Et concepit de Spiritu Sancto�
��
The Angel of the LORD declared unto Mary
And she conceived of the Holy Spirit—
The taste of peppermint leaves. A prickle in my big toe.
I straighten my spine, close my eyes and let the minty prayer linger in my mouth until it fades, fully feeling, fully awake. I keep praying.
Ecce ancilla Domini
Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum
Behold the servant girl of the LORD
Be it done unto me according to Your word
I lean my head back and unpin my veil, unwind my thick braids and shake my hair, enjoying the delicious relief of it coming down on my neck. The bells cease, and I look out toward the fields, where the constellations are brightest. Two planets almost kiss.
Just then, a fireball flashes in the western sky. It comes fast and then breaks into six pieces, all burning slowly in the dome of the night, a shower of sparks falling over the priory hill.
The comet from my dream, from the pictures.
It’s beginning.
It’s then I become aware of two others in the cloister with me, standing frozen in the warm night, with disbelief on their upturned faces, just like me.
Prioress Margaret.
And Agnes de Guile.
My heart pumps one question through my whole body:
What is coming?
— 24 —
Even through the hammering rain, the pounding on the gatehouse door is so loud, it travels over the roofs of the priory buildings to the dormitory. The last bell was lauds—that means it’s the middle of Saturday night and now every one of us is up, vexed at missing out on our precious stretch of two hours’ sleep. Five minutes go by, and I hear footsteps stomp up the stairs and throw open a cell door, the wood reverberating down the hallway.
“You’re needed,” Joan calls, clapping to wake her apprentice. I hear Alice get up and scuffle into her shoes.
“Sorry to trouble you all,” the physician shouts as she walks out. “Enjoy your rest.”
A Cloud of Outrageous Blue Page 11