He flushes. “I can’t—I can’t think about that. I have to go where I’m called.”
“Well, so do I.” Aleys jumps from the platform and lands hard on both feet. She picks up her skirt and dodges apples as she runs toward the woods so he can’t see her tears.
But where? Where can a girl go?
And why hasn’t God called her?
The sting of Finn burns like swallowed lye, like her blood has turned molten and everyone can see the fire in her cheeks. Even though Griete’s the only one who knew about him, Aleys is sure her shame is stamped on her. She avoids her reflection the way Griete avoids the shrine. There’s something deficient about her, something unwomanly that would drive a boy to become a monk. Although that’s not fair, and she knows it. Finn loves God as she does. It’s just that she loved Finn, too. What a fool. She thought she could have them all: Papa, Finn, and God. It was like the trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Only false.
Aleys takes the leavings to the gate, shielding her head with her apron against the rain. A pair of Franciscans appears, their brown robes flapping about their skinny ankles. They have each other, she thinks, always two by two with their begging bowls and shorn heads. No one ever heard of a friar abandoning another, not ever. She wonders if they can see in her face that she’s been betrayed. But they murmur the same benediction they always do, like nothing’s changed.Amore Domini Dei. For the love of God.
She wonders what it would be like to be a friar, to have your mission spelled out for you. To commit to thevita apostolica, the life of an apostle. There are Franciscan sisters in other lands, a friar once told her, though not in Flanders. Here, a woman’s only choice for fellowship is to vanish behind convent walls. And the nuns aren’t that serious, anyway. Everyone knows the abbey is for surplus daughters. God didn’t call them; their wealthy fathers sent them. At least Papa wants her to stay.
Aleys studies the eyes of the friars as she ladles soup into their bowls. They mostly look hungry, but what a holy hunger it must be. So unlike Henryk and Claus, who wolf down their food and grab for more. She thinks of Finn eating in the monastery refectory and banishes the image of him. Unlike him, too.
The friars, the monks, the nuns all have companions. Only she has to go it alone. She watches the friars recede down the lane. The rain has stopped. Farrago nudges her and she bends to pat him and then drops into a crouch, hugging him close. She buries her face in his graying fur. The dog leans into her as she whispers how much it hurts to be human. Farrago understands. If only he could speak.
Above, the piercing cry of a hawk. Girl and dog lift their heads. The sound makes Aleys think of angels, armed and angry. She scans the skies.
“Mama,” she says to the empty air, “what now? I’m sixteen and out of wishes.” If Mama were here, she’d take Aleys in her arms and stroke her hair. But she’s not. The only way Aleys can find Mama is in her dreams, like when she prayed and the roof dissolved. That messenger, standing behind her, bearing one word from Mama:Seek.
Mama would tell her to seek. No, she thinks, I can’t. I’m in too much pain. She buries her head back into Farrago. The dog raises his muzzle to sniff the air. Aleys takes a deep breath. She looks up again.
The hawk threads circles above them. When its scream comes again, terrible and near, Aleys feels the raw broken thing inside her rise to meet the hunting angel.
They are telling her. She’s meant for God, not man. That the three wishes lead to a sacred union, not an earthly one. She takes a deep breath.
God is her beloved now.
Show me how to find you, she prays.I will seek. Show me the way.
But God sends trials, not road maps. Aleys is rinsing out the small beer jugs when Griete rushes from the side yard holding a leaf that looks like lace. “Our garden!” Aleys throws down the towel and races outside. Decimated leaves litter the ground. The broccoli, the lettuce, even the tomatoes are gone. Bent stalks lean from the soil like wounded soldiers. Cabbage moths. All the crops that they were about to harvest, all of it, eaten overnight. She imagines their root cellar in February, empty. Her heart falls.
Oh Mama, this never would have happened if you were here. Then she thinks, Where there are cabbage moths, there are clothes moths.
Griete has the same thought. They sprint toward the storage shed. Aleys gets there first, rattles the door. Of course it’s locked. Griete runs back to the kitchen, grabs the key, fumbles with the padlock, throws open the door. A small cloud of moths puffs out. Griete looks back, ashen, shaking her head.
“How bad?” asks Aleys.
“Bad.”
They push into the storage room, sweeping through billowing moths and grabbing stacks of dyed wool and running to the yard and dumping them into the sunshine, piles of red and blue and black. The edges of the fabric crumble in their fingers. They run back and forth until the shed is empty of everything but fluttering gray insects. Aleys bends to pick up a length of indigo wool and lifts it to the sky. Spots of light glare through like evil stars. She drops her arms and looks around. Maybe half their wool is salvageable. Maybe.
“I thought he took it to Brugge last week.” Aleys scans the yard. Ravaged plants, ravaged wool. Oh, why hadn’t she checked her plants for worms? She’d been so caught up in her fantasies and her broken heart.
“He went to the Lakenhalle, but the guild had lowered prices.” Griete wipes her forehead with her sleeve. “Papa thought it better to wait. He thought Mertens might finally grant him a stall.” She presses the heels of her palms into her face. “It was such good wool.”
Aleys could curse Mertens. They’ve been waiting on him as long as she can remember. The last time they went to the city to get their wool stamped, she’d sat in the back of a draper’s shop, leafing through her psalter, daydreaming of Finn. She barely looked up when a middle-aged man emerged from behind a curtain. He had a pink face, with skin that shone as if polished. The man spoke of weft and warp, but his eyes kept roaming to Aleys. Aleys frowned and turned a page. She saw Griete tilt toward the merchant, tip her blonde head and dimple at him.Regard my sister, not me.But Griete’s languid blink went unnoticed. Even if she was a flirt, Griete was still nearly flat as a board.
When they left, Griete turned to Papa. “Who was that? He was so comely.”
Was he? Aleys didn’t find him so.
Papa laughed. “Comely? That was Pieter Mertens, the head of the guild.”
“Oh.” Griete was no fool. “Who runs the Lakenhalle. He sells wool to princes.” Aleys could tell that Griete was thinking she’d like to meet a prince.
They all knew it was Mertens they needed, Mertens who could grant them the license that would allow them to grow. And now, looking at the remains of the wool, she knows they need that license to survive. They’ll have to scrub and brush what’s left and sell it fast. Aleys looks from the ruined garden to the ruined wool. They’ve already sold Claus’s horse. What’s next?
