My hands tremble, but that cannot be helped. Sleep will restore what is missing. It will patch the holes, exhume old pathways. Comemorning, the world will right itself, and all will make sense.
Pushing aside the blanket covering my lap, I carefully draw the soft white gown upward, revealing legs mottled with bruises, skin covered in abrasions. I need to see how severe the wound is, how close I came to embracing death. A large bandage wraps my stomach and chest.
Despite the pain, I manage to untie the bandage, peeling back the cloth to reveal the injury, its neat sutures. I freeze as a lick of cold moves through me. Indeed, it is severe. But that is not what prompts my unease, for I have seen such a wound before.
Harper is wrong. I was not attacked by a bear. Someone ran me through with a sword.
40
MOTHERMABEL DOES NOT VISITthe infirmary until sunset, when the bell signaling supper’s end tolls. She does not knock. As abbess, Thornbrook is hers to shape, hers to bend. Though this has never bothered me before, something bristles within me as she enters unannounced.
“Brielle. How are you feeling?” The hem of her alb hisses against the floor. For whatever reason, she does not wear her gold stole, only the white cord around her waist.
My arms quiver with weakness as I push upright against the pillows. “Tired,” I whisper.
“I can imagine,” she soothes. “You have experienced an ordeal, and recovery takes time.” She crosses to the window, where the last of the sun’s rays vanish behind the ridge of maple trees clumped at the wall’s perimeter. Catching the heavy curtains, she pulls them closed, a gloomy pall shuttering the space.
“Maria has informed me that you are healing exceptionally well. By the end of the week, you should be able to return to your daily tasks. No smithing, however.” As she approaches my bedside, she spots the untouched plate of food on my nightstand. “You were not hungry?”
I should be hungry, considering I can’t remember when I last ate, but the craving isn’t there. “I’ve had much on my mind.”
“Oh?” Her voice is gentle. And I remember then that it was she who raised me and placed the heavily bound manuscript that is the Text into my hands. Obedience, purity, devotion. Mother Mabel knows me like no other.
The pit in my stomach, which has steadily amassed throughout the day, yawns deep and wide. Yes, she knows me, or a single version of me, but do I know her? I’m not sure that I do. “Harper informed me of what happened,” I say, fingers hooking into the blanket. It is soft, heavy enough to ground me. “I have questions.”
Sinking onto the edge of my cot, she smooths the blanket around my legs, adjusts the pillows at my back. “What are your questions, Brielle?”
“According to Harper, it is the harvest season. How can that be? I don’t recall any passing time. Not the attack, nor what came before. I don’t rememberanything.”
She nods, eyes soft with understanding. “It is a valid concern. After we carried you back to the abbey, we immediately sent for the physician. Your wounds were severe. Twice, we nearly lost you.” Her right hand trembles, and she curls her gloved fingers tight into a ball. “Due to the traumatic nature of the attack, Maria mentioned the possibility of temporary memory loss. It is your mind’s way of protecting you from reliving the experience.”
It makes sense, I suppose. “So my memory will eventually return?”
The straw-filled mattress crinkles beneath her shifting weight. She does not look at me. I dread the reason why.
“It could be some time before your memory returns,” she admits. “But there is the possibility it might not return at all.”
“I see.”
I have lost the summer—an entire season of my life. It’s not right.
My last recollection does not sit like a leaf upon a crystal pool, something I might easily pluck free. No, I must submerge my hand and sift through the mucky riverbed until I find it: a head of gold-tipped curls, a laughing mouth and crinkling green eyes. I’ve never seen a face so compelling.
Mother Mabel pats my hand, and I snap free of my stupefaction. “Try not to worry,” she says. “In time, you will begin to feel like your old self. I am certain.”
“It’s not that.” My hand drifts across my sternum, the bandages crusted in blood. They will need to be changed soon. “Harper claimed I was attacked by a bear, but the wound I sustained came from a sword.”
“What makes you think that?”
Her terse inquiry doesn’t sit well. She has never doubted me before. I must be imagining it. “The stitches reveal a clean line. A bear would have torn the skin, left multiple puncture wounds.” And I would likely be dead.
“Brielle.” My name, a word infused with compassion. I’m helpless to resist its pull. “I know this is upsetting, but Isobel saw the bear flee across the fields.” She searches my gaze. “Are you suggesting she lies?”
“No,” I rush to say. For whatever reason, the implication leaves me breathless. “That’s not what I mean.” And yet, the concession only serves to heighten my turmoil. I want to believe her. The Abbess of Thornbrook is, above all else, forthright. But what she claims does not align with what I have seen. “Mother Mabel—”
“They killed the bear, you know.” Her icy declaration halts my tongue. “Kilkare sent out a group of huntsmen to search the woods. An attack is incredibly rare, but this bear was ill, foam rimming its mouth. Who knows what could have happened had it not been brought down.”
It makes perfect sense. So why this sustained unease? “That is… good.” I attempt a smile.
