The last day, the girl fades quickly, dissolving into air. Though she can no longer ask for Ursula’s story, Aleys tells it to her anyway. In heaven, she tells the girl, there’s a special maidens’ garden, trees bent with pink and golden pears. And so many friends. She hopes it’s true, what she’s saying. The girl draws a long ratcheting breath. There are swings in the trees. The girl moves her hand to Aleys’s wrist to quiet her.Stop, she seems to be saying,I don’t need this now. She opens her eyes and Aleys reads something deep that says,Still.Be still.
Once, when she was a girl, Aleys happened upon roe deer in the meadow where the slope of larkspur and bishop’s lace spilled from dark pines. The morning light fell on the red doe and her spotted fawns, just so. The doe raised her head, measuring Aleys. A moment, another moment, and the world stilled, the trees holding them, the sun holding the trees. It was as if the slender doe had stepped from the pages of the psalter to this spot at the edge of the wood, silver and red ink come alive. The fawns continued eating while the doe watched Aleys, until, at some mute signal, the three deer moved into the woods. At the margin, the red doe turned back, and there was something in her liquid eye; an understanding passed between them, between Aleys and the doe. An acknowledgment. A silent, sure gossamer thread between them suddenly visible.We are made of spirit. And then the doe left.
Aleys returned to the meadow later. She lingered on the path. She sat beneath the trees on a carpet of rusty needles. But she never saw the doe again. She had been given one glimpse, and she came to understand it was meant for a lifetime. A single note from which to build a song. Yet she yearns for more. She knows the doe is there, watching from the trees. Aleys does not speak of this to anyone.
The girl squeezes her hand, and in the child’s eyes she witnesses a sudden opening depth, like mirrors upon mirrors receding into dark, a knowing. The soul of the child looks out, ancient and benign, and whispers, “I shall endure.” Aleys slips into her open eyes as she would into a clear pool, enveloped by perfect silence beneath the surface. She does not know how she knows. Somehow, beyond phlegm and pulse and swallow, beyond touch and thirst, the essence of this child will live.
And then the child coughs and gasps for breath, and Aleys surfaces into the ward. The girl’s eyes close and she withdraws into her body, which will struggle, one breath, the next, shuddering and grasping. Though the soul travels ahead, the body fights to stay. Aleys sees this and wonders. The air above the child shimmers. She looks about the ward; it is dense with waiting spirits. She cannot see them, but she can sense them. Perhaps she is becoming beguine, after all.
Ida pulls her away to help splint a leg. When Aleys returns to the girl, there is no more wheezing. Aleys feels a sudden vertiginous drop. She cannot stop her tears from welling. Though she knows the child is gone, though she has seen the certainty in her eyes, still she would pull her back from the woods.Come back. Don’t leave. Wait for me.Aleys stands, searching the margins of the world for the child who is not there, but everywhere.
All that evening, through the dinner and the reading, Aleys holds a thought as if she’s protecting a Candlemas taper, a glimmer of some understanding that could flicker and die if she doesn’t tend it. She carries it to the begijnhof chapel to sit alone. As she passes Sophia’s window, the magistra is just turning down her lantern. Her hair is loose, the wimple set aside, and Aleys sees with a shock that Sophia’s hair is streaked with white, like it’s painted with chalk. The lines in Sophia’s face are cast into relief by the shadows, and Aleys sees what she had not seen before, the effort. Sophia’s eyes flick up, sensing someone outside, but Aleys treads quietly the dark path past her window.
Empty, the church echoes. A faint moonlight sifts through high windows, rendering the nave in black and silver. Aleys’s robe reads gray in this light, as if she is beguine. Aleys pauses and rubs her hands over her thighs. It wouldn’t be so bad, she thinks, joining the beguines. They have purpose and they have faith, and even if they lack glory, they do have each other. Their mending and their mutual understanding. Their laughter. It might not be the quickest path to God, but she would have good company.
The night she left home in her blue dress, the moon following her between the trees. It feels ages ago. She had thought it would be different, this journey to find her beloved. More certain. She had thought it would be easier. What does she know of God? What does she really know?
Aleys stands before the bare altar, taking account. She feels she’s been given glimpses, sparks that are proof of fire, quickly extinguished. It’s so hard to keep his light before her, always. To never lose sight. “Beloved”—she falters—“why do you hide?” The darkness is so vast, the light so fleeting. “Why hide from me? From all of us?”
He is silent, up there on his cross.
Behind her, the door squeaks. For a moment, her heart leaps. Is he come? But it’s Sophia, bearing a candle. The magistra stops to cross herself before the altar.
“I thought you might need this,” she says, placing the candle on the step.
“You knew I was here?”
“It’s the work of a magistra to see.”
Sophia sits on the step, pats it. Aleys sits beside her. The candle casts an egg of light over the two of them. Christ hovers above them like a nighthawk.
“How goes it, the running toward God?”
Aleys checks to make sure Sophia is not making fun of her. She can’t tell.
“It sounds foolish.”
“Not to me.” Sophia looks up to Christ. There’s a small smile on her lips.
“Were you ... ?” Aleys has never thought about Sophia’s experience.
The magistra doesn’t move her eyes from the cross. “Was I once on fire with love of him? Yes, I thought the world would burn if I couldn’t find him.” She places her palms on the stair, straightens her elbows. It is a gesture more girlish than matronly. Her loose hair spills down her back, silver in this light. “Everything was urgent. I needed proofs and showings.”
“And now?”
“Now”—she sighs and looks at Aleys—“I am become more his hausfrau than his lover.”
Aleys feels sorry for her.
“No, no. Don’t mistake me. I am content, most of the time. It almost makes me miss it, watching you. The desire. I once wanted him for myself. All for myself.” She laughs. “I was sure I was his most ardent lover. I thought I was special.”
But you are.“Did he come to you?”
She looks back up at the crucifix and doesn’t answer for a moment. Her capable hands lie quiet in her lap. Finally, she speaks. “You know, I believe he did.”
The magistra stands, smooths her dress. “Blow out the candle when you leave.” Her eyes contain an equal measure of joy and sorrow. “And Aleys? It’s not enough to be in love with love. You must be willing to suffer with him, too.”
The light seems to dim when Sophia leaves. Aleys suppresses a shiver and slides her hands deeper into her sleeves. How is she supposed to suffer with Christ? She thinks of the suffering lying in the hospital now, their moaning and thrashing, the awful final stillness that comes over them. She can witness their pain, she can give comfort and tell stories, but she doesn’t want to inhabit their suffering. Not the way Sophia means. And if she can’t manage even that, how is she supposed to understand the suffering of God?
