“No. This is sacred.”
Aleys twists away and loses her balance, hitting her hip, hard, against the corner of her table. The knife clatters to the floor, and she stumbles to one knee. Then Lukas is upon her, pinning her down, his acid breath in her face, and she understands that she is the offering to his God. Cold fear sweeps her. She is Isaac, the choiceless, bound to the slab in a game that is suddenly no game, watching his father unsheathe the blade he uses to gut sheep.
There must be an angel who will come to stop this. For a moment, she imagines a being of light, descended through the roof, muscled wings back-beating to slow itself. The voice: “Do not lay your hand on her.” The voice should ring, it should say, “Do not do the least thing to her.”
Her eyes find her knife on the floor. Her blade that shaves parchment, that sharpens quills. That fits so easily in her hand.
The understanding breaks over her like a wave. She’s not Isaac; she’s not Abraham. She’s the angel.
Lukas sees her glance toward the blade. He hesitates. And in his hesitation, she feels his fear. Not just of the knife, but of her, of her body, of the flesh cave and passage between her thighs. The dark mystery of pillow and bone, of maiden and crone, midwife, blood. Anger. Hunger. Anything could emerge from her womb, anything. Snake or bat, milk or blood, wolves. A holy child. With her cheek pressed to the floor, Aleys feels herself become a new thing, a night thing, a creature of teeth and talon. She is bird-foot and pinion, feather and muscle.
A breath of air comes down the chimney and ash flies upward like snow.
The prophet Isaiah speaks of wilderness. In his voice is fear, of chaos, of the woman Lilith and other monsters.She shall become an abode for jackals.Beasts stir in her belly, raise their heads and sniff the wind.Wildcats will meet with desert beasts, satyrs shall call one to the other.The tambourine shivers and the hag and the maiden join hands and know themselves one.There shall she repose and find for herself a place to rest.Aleys is the owl within the tree, hidden in the hold.With his hands he marks off their shares of her. They shall possess her forever. But what Isaiah did not name is the share she keeps—the untouchable, unpossessable share.
God is not coming. Not for this.
She grabs the knife and plunges it into Lukas’s side. He rolls off.
When she rises, she bears the wings of a nighthawk.
She flies to the door.
One step. Another step.
Nothing.
The cathedral does not crash upon her. The soaring arches hold their points, the glass panes cling to their holdings. No ribs crack, no windows shatter. She doesn’t fall.
Aleys moves into the aisle. Everything is strangely slowed. She looks back. The hold is full of dancing bits of amber. The squint is limned with the colors of the cross, gray, blue, silver, black.
Then Lukas appears at the threshold, gripping his side, shouting words that are, somehow, inaudible. She sees them form on his lips:You’ve broken our covenant.
No. She remembers Mary.The priests are blind, the pillars crumble.Her covenant is with God, not men.
She runs.
Liber Quartus
57
Aleys
Aleys sprints up the aisle, careening like a toddler, reversing her funeral. She shoves open the cathedral doors and the sky explodes above her. She stops in awe. The heavens are enormous, astonishing, as if God has lifted the roof off the city. A sickle moon hangs in the east, and the stars, the stars are white pepper scattered by a careless hand. So many. So bright. She looks at her feet. The cobblestones gleam like opals.
She must keep moving.
Aleys takes the deserted street beside the church, away from her hold. At the end, orange light flickers. She hesitates, reminds herself that it’s people, not demons, in the next square, doing what people do on Midsummer Eve. She pushes on, turns the corner to a bonfire as bright as the sun. Aleys’s hands fly to cover her face. The insides of her lids glow crimson. Only slowly can she open her eyes, peering through her fingers, spreading them bit by bit until she holds them to her temple as blinkers. The air before her seems smeared with paint. Colors jump from every object, the doors, the flags, the people. Was the world always thus? She lifts her face to feel the heat.
A man looks over his shoulder, then yanks the arm of his friend. Aleys realizes she’s wearing only a thin shift. Her hair is loose about her shoulders. It’s a feast day, and these men are drunk. She’s not safe here. And, she realizes, the authorities will come after her. She’s a fugitive.
Aleys slips back into the shadows. She hugs her arms over her breasts and walks quickly, keeping to the edges, dodging into alleys, heading for the canal. She can’t leave the city; the gates are locked. She can think of only one place to go. She follows the canal until it swells into a pond cinched by a bridge patrolled by swans with inked eyes. The begijnhof, she knows, is shut for the night. She remembers a delivery landing on the side canal. The gate is too high for her to climb into the courtyard, but the dock is hidden from sight. She gains the small platform. The water is still. Behind the wall, the begijnhof church rises like a lighthouse, lit and glowing.
Though men may find her tomorrow, she’s safe in this moment.
A breeze stirs, sifting the hairs on her bare arms; she’d forgotten breeze. Her every sense is raw, every fiber tingling like she’s newborn. Aleys stands on her tiptoes and spreads her arms. The night air tastes of juniper.
A beat of drum and tambourine, fresh and sharp, comes over the wall. Her pulse quickens. Marte will be inside the church with Ida and Katrijn and the young pledges and old Agnes. Though it’s late, they’re still dancing. A plaintive flute, full of yearning, fills the night. Her throat catches. Somehow, the hollow reed knows how it feels to be forced from your home. Aleys closes her eyes and holds herself still in the flute and the juniper night and feels like she’s hearing music for the first time. She’s suspended in the sound when the voices ring out: “Sing, O women of Jerusalem!”
