“Here we go,” Linnette said, finishing her soup as Alicé and Haysarna both sighed. “Are you sure you don’t want to become a Questioner rather than a Gardener?”

  “This one’s for you, curiously enough.”

  “If it’s about the soup, it was delicious.”

  “What I don’t get is the entire time we’ve been here - Critswitch has never tried anything with you, Sister Belvarion.”

  “Sister-to-be Belvarion,” said Linnette. “Just like you.”

  “Thought that was what drew us together,” said Haysarna. “Even Katrina.”

  “I thought so too,” said Ileen. “But when I came to you, Linnette, I couldn’t think of an instance.”

  “Sounds like you’re trying to start one now,” said Alicé. Not so much the blaze of the fight; but the aftermath when her scriptorium application could be put in jeopardy.

  “Our paths rarely cross,” Linnette replied, moving onto her apple pie and cream pudding. “Claudia’s perhaps, but not Catherine.”

  “Not so much as a growl? Even from Claude?”

  “That will set Tarenzal off,” said Haysarna.

  “Has a ring to it though,” said Alicé. “Cousin Claude.”

  “Second Cousin if you want to be exact.”

  “Did you pay her?” said Ileen, as Alicé put a hand to her mouth.

  “No,” said Linnette between spoons.

  “Help her with dorm work.”

  “We don’t really speak.”

  “Same here,” said Alicé. “It’s more - glances and gestures.”

  “Before the nearest Sister catches you,” Haysarna yawned.

  “Did something happen, Linn?” Ileen continued. “You can tell us.”

  Spoon with pie section stopped in midair as Linnette looked at Ileen. “… Did you… just call me… Linn?”

  “Well, I can’t say Bel. You’d burn a cottage.”

  “Like if I said Leen?” Alicé asked.

  “You know better than that,” said Ileen.

  “As do you, Ileena,” said Linnette, spoon and pudding piece returning to the plate.

  “Are you trying to set everyone off today, Ileen,” said Haysarna. “It’s like a storm came and rained on your party.”

  “Curiosity. Why Linn?”

  “Say it again and you might get an answer,” Linnette said, moving ever so slightly back.

  “Oh, no you don’t Linn,” said Ileen. “No shrouds or banks of fog. The truth. All of-aargh!”

  Alicé shook her head. One moment, Linnette was beside her. The next, the chair was empty and Ileen was no longer in the space next to Haysarna.

  “Arrgh!” Ileen’s voice came from beyond the table edge and a wide-eyed Haysarna. “Get - off me!”

  Not enough time to run to the end of the long table; or dive underneath. Instead, Alicé clambered across the top - just missing Linnette’s pudding - and saw Linnette on top of Ilene and shaking her up and down by her robe front. “You want to know why Critswitch doesn’t try it with me?” Linnette said between shakes. “This is why!”

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “S-s-she-called-you-th-th-aat?” Ileen managed to say.

  “Fourth day on the first term. The following week because she wanted a rematch. Settled once and for all!”

  “Come on, Linnette, point proved,” said Alicé trying to grab hold of one of her wrists. “People - are watching-”

  “Like that ever bothered her,” Linnette said, side-barging into Alicé. “She loves it.”

  “She might, but we don’t,” said Haysarna, making a wrist attempt of her own. “Think of the patients.”

  Linnette stopped, just as a hands and knees Alicé surged forward, knocking her into Haysarna. A cry escaped from the latter, but Alicé didn’t have time to see what the problem was for the next moment Linnette rebounded into her. A rebound accompanied by bursting stars as Alicé crashed onto the floor.

  “Why me…” a voice moaned in her head. “What did I do to deserve this.”

  “P-Plenty, you overbearing, unrelenting, inconsiderate Little Miss Perfect…” a second coughed.

  “Oww…” a third - no, her own voice came as Alicé held the side of her head in one hand and tried to bring the other towards her forehead. “Not another bruise…”

  “Probably add a headache,” a fourth said from beyond the star-speckles.

  “Is that you… Haysarna?” Alicé squinted to stop the spinning. “But you went sideways….”

  “No, it’s not Haysarna,” the voice said, coupled with a primrose haired and fair face that was all too familiar.

  “Can’t… be…” Alicé said, turning to one side.

  “Can be,” said Elena, moving back into Alicé’s vision. “Having a spot of lunch and what do I see before me? Sister-to-be Belvarion shaking the daylights out Sister-to-be Dellamoone.”

  “A thousand - apologies, My Lady,” Linnette said, trying to roll onto her hands and knees. “It was a slight matter - that got out of hand.”

  “Would you like to say something, Dellamoone?”

  “A bit of a - disagreement, Miss-no My Lady,” Ileen replied, up on one side. “I went - too far.”

  “You said it,” said Elena, raising a hand at not one, but two approaching sisters. “Fighting on Abbey grounds; disturbance of the Peace. That’s a week’s instruction under Sister Martinet.”

  Alicé wasn’t the only one who gasped. No one in their right mind wanted to do an afternoon’s instruction with the Martial Sister, let alone a week. Trench-digging, weed-clearing and manure-heaping. Too much to think about, even if it was at Three Meres’ Farm.

  “Should be a week,” Elena continued. “But, I have other matters to attend to than tarnishing exemplary records. Think of the other person before you speak, Dellamoone, and do you really want to put one of your friends in the Infirmary, Belvarion?”

  Linnette and Ileen both nodded.

  “Let me hear only of peace between the four of you for the rest of the term,” Elena said, spinning on her heel and walking - no gliding away.

  “Thank you, My Lady,” Ileen added, helping Haysarna to her feet, whilst Linnette checked the back of the latter’s head for any signs of bruising. Alicé managed to get onto her hands and knees, but closed her eyes for a few moments, waiting for the swaying to recede.

  “Bleu de Ciel?”

  She opened her eyes again. The prophetess was at the end of the table. At the end and looking at her as if she had spoken.

  “Think she wants you,” whispered Linnette.

  “Can’t imagine why,” Alicé groaned, getting to her feet. Of course, Meldannon wasn’t going to let them off so easily. She was a Prophetess, after all. Ladies of Justice in all but name.

  “The matter’s closed,” Elena began, that - non-moving lips way of her’s. “But another exists between us.”

  “Enlighten me,” Alicé said aloud.

  “The same matter that brought you to the cathedral tower four days ago.”

  “You don’t know what I was looking for.”

  “High, far and wide for a dream?”

  Alicé’s hand went to her mouth as a faint smile flickered across Elena’s lips. “If you are - prepared - to use that which you deny; I have a test.”

  “You’ve just said that you were busy.”

  “Midnight. The Cathedral Nave. Without a circus.”

  “If I decide to,” said Alicé, but Elena was gliding away.

  “Decide what?” Ileen asked from further up the aisle.

  “I’m wasting my life denying who, or what, I am,” Alicé began, heading back. “And I should make a decision for the better.”

  “Can’t say that I disagree on that.”

  “As long as that’s all it was,” Linnette gathering her tableware. “Don’t think that I can finish my pudding.”

  “Don’t think that we should stick around here either,” said Haysarna, rising and wincing from another chair. “One or two are still looking.”

  “Good idea,” said Alicé. “I’ll give you a hand, Linnette. Meet you two on the corridor?”

  “Like I’m going to run,” said Ileen. “Things are still - moving.”

  “Wasn’t you who knocked heads,” said Haysarna, following her.

  “You can all go with me to the Infirmary,” Linnette added. “Or schedule an after-hours appointment.”

  “I’ll see how it goes,” said Alicé, glancing at Elena slipping through the doorway. One meeting with the First Prophetess and a test with the Second. Enough, along with the collision, to make her head re-spin.

  Share