Grey Sister (Book of the Ancestor 2)

Nona understood the holothour’s work now. It had tied a knot in each girl’s threads, linking the caves to the very worst and oldest of their fears so that their minds would step around the memory of the holothour and everything associated with it, denying it space in their thoughts. “We should go back,” she repeated.

“We should!” Jula looked up, her face eager. “What in the Ancestor’s name was that thing? We should take knives. Swords if we can.”

Jula seemed perhaps a little too enthusiastic: Nona worried she might have erased rather too much of the fear, or imposed her own desires on her friend. She resolved to use a lighter touch on the others. “Ara? We should go back to the caves. Don’t you think so?” Nona struggled to maintain her twin-trance, feeling the edges of her serenity slip away as a sense of triumph pushed in.

“We’ll have to be careful.” Ara was easier to free, the knot more obvious and less tight.

“Ruli? Don’t you think?” Now Nona’s clarity was escaping her: the threads fuzzed before her eyes. A headache knifed its way in past her forehead, trying to make a reality of the splitting of her brain in two. Even so, she found the damage done to Ruli’s threads and unwound it, not needing such sharp focus now that she had effected the repair twice before.

“I don’t know.” Ruli hugged herself and shivered. “That thing that chased us! I nearly wet myself when Darla got stuck in front of me at the exit.”

“Well think about it.” Nona pressed a hand to her brow and staggered towards the doorway, teeth gritted. The pain made her want to throw up.

“Are you all right, Nona?” Ara made to follow her.

“Fine.” Nona stumbled out into the hall. “Tired.”

By the time she reached the top of the stairs she was crawling. She managed to get to her feet again for the passage across Mystic dorm to her bed. She glimpsed Joeli at her bed, knee splinted and bandaged, a walking stick across her lap, then collapsed into her own.

Darla looked up from her desk, quill in hand, fingers inky. She said something but Nona had fallen too far into the black agony of her headache to separate the words. She buried her face into her pillow and vowed never to try thread-work again.

* * *

• • •

THE WAKING BELL brought Nona from the confusion of a dream, something to do with spiders and with webs. The first thing she realized as she rolled from beneath her blankets was that her head no longer hurt. The second thing she realized was that the morning would be spent in Spirit class with Sister Wheel, and immediately a twinge of the previous night’s ache returned.

“You’re all the colours of the rainbow,” Darla observed as her head re-emerged from the habit she’d pulled over it.

Nona craned her neck to look down over her shoulder and side. The bruising was still deep purple in some places, yellowish green over her hip, faded mauve on her thigh. Across the dormitory Joeli leaned on her stick, swinging her stiff leg to advance on her desk where against convent rules she kept a mirror. She spent several minutes each morning brushing her hair in it and Nona always felt less jealous of how good the girl looked when she remembered the effort Joeli had to put in.

“We’re going below tomorrow. You in?” Nona looked away from Joeli, now busy with her brush.

“Ancestor! I hate Spirit class.” Darla shook her head. “Couldn’t we just spend the morning working in the laundry instead? Shovelling manure at the vineyard stables would be better.”

The holothour’s mark is still on her. Keot rested across her collarbones.

Nona pursed her lips. She wasn’t in any hurry to try to untangle the mess Keot’s monster had made of Darla’s threads. A twinge of the previous night’s headache echoed behind Nona’s eyes and in that moment she decided that she would rather face the caves without Darla than undo the holothour’s knot and suffer like that again.

* * *

• • •

SISTER WHEEL HELD that novices of Mystic Class should be awarded the honour of having their Spirit lessons before the statue of the Ancestor. In practice this meant standing in the cold and draughty space beneath the dome rather than sitting in the snug classroom off the foyer. Sister Wheel got to ease the ache in her legs by striding around as she read scripture from her scrolls. The novices had to remain still, their attention on the Ancestor’s golden face.

Today’s lesson was different only in two regards. Firstly, Joeli managed to get herself a chair, claiming that Sister Rose had forbidden her from standing until her knee had healed. Secondly, Inquisitor Pelter came to watch, standing at the base of the Ancestor statue as still as the stone behind him and showing no more expression. Only his eyes moved, studying one novice then the next.

“The bonds of family are holy.” Sister Wheel stalked before them. “The links that bind you to your father and mother are repeated time and again, back through the years. These links form the chains that meet in the Ancestor. Each part of that unbroken chain is forged from the divine. A direct connection between you and the origin of all humanity. As the Path joins all things, the bonds of family join all people.”

The novices stood in four rows of three so all but two were on the perimeter, any inattention apt to cause an ear to be twisted as Mistress Spirit passed by.

“Why?” The nun paused at Nona’s shoulder. “Why does Sweet Mercy admit penniless strays from child-takers? Why does Abbess Glass reach into the Church’s own coffers to pay the confirmation fees for peasants?” She moved on. “Because it is a sin that any parent should sell their child. Some might hold that this same sin taints the child themselves, but Abbess Glass points to the convent’s own name and shows these children mercy.”

“Also,” Inquisitor Pelter spoke into the pause, “a sold child belongs to the Church in a way that a wanted child cannot.”

Sister Wheel scowled, pressing her lips into a bitter line. She kept her eyes on the novices and resumed her circuit around their perimeter, a sheep-hound hemming in her flock. “The false precedence of the Church’s claim on children in its care over that of their parents’ is one of the pillars upon which the foul edifice of the Scithrowl heresy stands. It is clearly stated in the Book of the Ancestor that a parent’s wishes are prime. The bonds of family, holy as they are, allow any parent to withdraw their child from service at convent or monastery, even if the high priest himself should object. In Scithrowl the Church claims a divine right to any child in their care. This is why they must burn—to purify them of their sin.”

“And,” Inquisitor Pelter slid his narrow voice into another gap, “it is why Abbess Glass buys girls. She would rather not lose control of trained novices should a father or mother demand their return. She avoids rather than defies the law.”

Nona furrowed her brow, keeping her gaze on the face of the Ancestor, the golden features so simplified they could belong to anyone. Abbess Glass had always told her she was free to leave, that the convent was a home not a prison. It seemed that the Church might disagree with that assessment. She glanced across at Zole. Of all the Mystic Class novices Zole was perhaps the only other sold child. She hadn’t been sold to Abbess Glass, though. Sherzal had acquired the girl from the ice. Zole had never seen fit to share the details of that transaction.