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Water filled his lungs. His body surrendered. Death came like a lover.
He answered her smile. And stepping through the curtain between them, embraced her at last.
“Sabrina! Where have you gotten yourself? Answer, or so help me—”
Normally such a threat would have shot Lady Sabrina Douglas from her hiding place like a bullet from a gun. Not so today. Today was different. It was the sixteenth of the month. Seven years ago on this date, her world had been turned upside down, and nothing had ever been the same since.
It wasn’t like her to spend time reminiscing about the past. The head of the sisters of High Danu said it was useless spinning what-ifs in your head. One could lose one’s self in the infinite possibilities of action and consequence until reality grew dangerously frayed. Madness lay in second-guessing.
But today, Sabrina courted madness. She’d forced herself to remember all that had occurred on that long-ago November day from beginning to end. Let it flow from her brain to her journal in a mad scrawl. And at Sister Brigh’s first shout was only as far along as noon.
“You ungrateful, undisciplined hooligan, come out this moment.”
When Sister Brigh scolded, Sabrina felt more like a disobedient ten-year-old than the woman of twenty-two she was. But then Sister Brigh considered anyone younger than herself to be a recalcitrant child, which included almost the entire bandraoi community. The woman was a hundred if she was a day. Only Sister Ainnir rivaled her in age. The two like mossy twin holdovers from centuries past.
“Sabrina Douglas! I know you can hear me!”
Sister Brigh by far the mossier. And the louder.
Sabrina sighed, closing her journal on the pen marking her place.
November sixteenth, 1808, would have to wait.
November sixteenth, 1815, was calling.
The priestess’s clamoring faded as she left the barn. Turned her search to the nearby outbuildings—creamery, laundry, gardener’s shed. The convent was large. It would take the head of novices ages to check everywhere.
Sabrina rose from her hiding place behind the stacked straw bales and grain bins, dusting the grime from her skirts. Straightening her apron and the kerchief covering her hair before slipping back into the bustle of the order’s life. And right into Sister Brigh’s ambush.
“Gotcha.” Her talons sank through the heavy wool of Sabrina’s sleeve. Squeezed with enough force to bring hot tears to her eyes. “Ard-siúr’s had me searching for you this hour and more. And here you are, hiding as if there weren’t honest work to be done.” She snatched the journal away. “Are you scribbling in that silly book again? You’ve been warned more than once about frittering away your time unwisely.”
Sabrina stiffened, giving Sister Brigh her best quelling look. “I wasn’t frittering. And I wasn’t hiding.”
It passed unnoticed. “Hmph. Come along. You’ve kept Ard-siúr waiting long enough.”
As they passed through the sheltered cloister, a group gathered at the front gates. Voices raised in surprise and confusion, drawing even the determined Sister Brigh’s eye from her purpose.
Sabrina craned her neck to peer over the crowd. “What’s happening?”
Sister Brigh responded with a scornful huff. “No doubt a lot of stuff and nonsense. Wouldn’t have happened in my day, you can be sure of that.”
Her day being sometime during the last ice age. Sister Brigh dressed in furs and sporting a club, no doubt.
She tightened her hold on Sabrina. Doubled her pace. Up the steps. Throwing the door wide with barely a word. Slamming it closed with a whisper equally as effective.
The old priestess’s sanity might be in doubt, but her magic was irrefutable.
The temperature plummeted once they stepped inside and out of the bleak afternoon sun. Frost hung in the passage leading to Ard-siúr’s office, causing Sabrina’s nervous breath to cloud the chilly air. The cold seeped through her heavy stockings and the double layer of petticoats she’d donned beneath her gown.
It wasn’t even winter yet and already she longed for spring. Spring and a release from scratchy underclothes and chilblains and runny noses and afternoon dusk and drafty passages. At this moment, she’d sell her soul for warmth and light and, well . . . something different.
So little varied within the order that any change, even the gradual shifting of seasons, seemed an adventure. But perhaps that was only because the genuine change she longed for still eluded her and would continue to do so if Sister Brigh had her grumpy way.
As they were shown through the antechamber to Ard-siúr’s office, Sister Anne waved a cheery hello. Received a bulldog scowl from Sister Brigh. A wan smile from Sabrina.
Compared to the chilly atmosphere of the outside corridor, Ard-siúr’s office seemed an absolute tropical paradise. A small stove put out heat enough to keep the tiny room comfortably cozy, and thick rugs on the floor and bright wall hangings cheered the stark color-draining stone. Add to that Ard-siúr’s cluttered desk, complete with purring cat and the slow tick of a tall-case clock in a far corner, and Sabrina’s taut nerves began to relax.
The atmosphere seemed to have the opposite effect on Sister Brigh. Her eyes darted around the room with fuming disapproval as she drew up in a quivering pose of long sufferance, only now releasing her death grip on Sabrina’s arm.
