Page 44 of The Queen’s Witch

Beatrice took my tisane, laced with laudanum, and fell into a healing sleep.

“My lady abbess, I will remain with her for a while in case she wakes and needs another dose.”

“Thank you. But it grows dark; you should stay here until morning. There is no moon.”

Perfect. “Thank you,” I said.

While Beatrice slept, I ducked into Joan’s small bedchamber and set my spell. I had never done this before, but I had witnessed Grandmother uncurse a house. The same spell backward, plus the right offering, would curse this small chamber in the way I wished. Into a crack in the wall, I pushed bone wrapped in holly leaves smeared with my blood.

My first offering to the Dark One in exchange for malefic magick. But, again, this was justified, all part of my greater quest. I would not worry about it.

Beatrice slept deeply. Cecily showed me to the visitor bedchamber. It had a clean, comfortable bed, a wooden candleholder on a bedside table, and an unlit hearth. The bed hangings, faded and patched, had once been beautiful. A long slash, expertly sewn but the stitches nonetheless visible, marred the blanket. Had a dagger ripped through when the abbey was ransacked and Cecily raped, decades ago?

I waited.

Not for long; the abbey was not the royal court dancing far into the night. Nuns retire early. A piercing scream, and then another. I, along with everyone else, burst from bedchambers, clutching blankets and shawls and overnight clothes, feet bare on the cold stone. All but Joan, who sat screaming in bed, rigid with fear.

“Joan! What is it? What happened?” Cecily said, carrying a tallow candle in a wooden holder.

“A spirit! There is a ghost here!”

“Nonsense,” the abbess said. “I see nothing.”

“It was here! It was Satan! This abbey is cursed!”

Beatrice, woken by the clamor, called feebly from her cell, “What is it? Are soldiers come?”

Elizabeth, eyes wide, huddled close to Cecily, flinging one arm around the abbess’s neck so tightly that Cecily could barely breathe.

She peeled Elizabeth away, and the girl fled to me. I held her as Cecily tried to calm Joan, sent Sister Ursula to see to Beatrice, ordered Sister Margery, the other lay sister, to bring more candles. Timidly, I said, “If you need me . . .”

“No,” the abbess said calmly, “I thank you. Return to bed, please. Both of you, return to your chambers.”

I did so. Elizabeth followed me, climbed into my bed, and pulled the blanket up to her chin. “My lady abbess says there are no ghosts at abbeys.”

“That is so.” I did not want to frighten this child.

“But . . .” She struggled with a thought or question too difficult for her mind to crystallize. Finally, she settled for repeating, “My lady abbess says there are no ghosts at abbeys.”

“True. You are safe. Go to sleep now.”

She did, with a prompt restful sleep I had not known for years. But this night no unease marked my wakefulness. I lay still, smiling into the darkness, filled with the same warm, joyful glow as when I had cursed Beatrice to illness.

When I entered the refectory for breakfast, bread and ale with a small piece of cheese, Abbess Cecily sat frowning at a letter. Elizabeth stared dreamily out the window. Sister Margaret chomped away with nearly toothless gums at her bread. Ursula peered into her empty cup as if staring at it might produce more ale.

“Good morning,” I said.

Cecily and Elizabeth both looked up, Elizabeth with her radiant smile but the abbess forcing hers. She said, “Good morning, Mistress Lond. Sister Beatrice is much better, thanks to you.”

“I am happy to hear it.”

Elizabeth said, “Sister Joan is going away. I do not want her to go away. Too many people go away.”

I looked inquiringly at the abbess, who said, “Sister Joan is not . . . does not want . . . I will find her a place at another religious house.”

Elizabeth again: “I do not want Sister Joan to go away. Too many people go away.”

“That is her choice, dear child.”