Fern often tried to look through her mother’s poise and impeccable manners to see if there was anything beneath them.To see if she was sad about the way she was sidelined, ignored and minimized.
Fern wondered if her mother had built a facade so thick and perfect that even she couldn’t break out of it now.
All Fern had ever seen ahead for herself was more of the same. She’d met the new president five years ago. A man in his forties with a charismatic demeanor that made Fern want to scream and run away and hide forever.
She’d been sixteen, facing down the prospect that in only two years she’d be marrying a man well old enough to be her father, but even worse—the same sort of man as her father.
She would never be free.
She would never have a life.
And all the things she’d learned—the ways she’d navigated her whole minefield-filled life—wouldn’t matter because she would just be playing power games from behind the bars of a cage.
It had been a low moment.
Then Ragnar had taken the throne back in Asland and those plans had fallen apart.
She’d never been so relieved.
This man, whom she’d never met, had saved her.
At least, that was what she’d imagined. Until her father told her that Ragnar intended to marry her still—as the leader of the nation and the rightful beneficiary of the agreement.
She’d been sure her father would bundle her right off and send her into marriage with a total stranger—after all, he’d never cared what she wanted before.
But she’d tried to resist. To protest. She’d always thought it a useless thing to do, but faced with what felt like a certain demise or the futile defiance of her father, she’d decided to raise her voice.
To her surprise, he’d listened. She understood that it was because he agreed—for some reason—with her concerns.
So now she was here. Hidden. Protected. Surrounded by other women, who found meaning in serving others and in sitting in silence. In serving the divine, not man.
It was a whole new way of being. One that Fern had never been exposed to before. At first she’d missed her phone—she had it with her but it barely worked. There was only wired internet available at the convent and only then in Mother Superior’s study, and only used to communicate with the diocese and to receive time-sensitive information.
She had missed sleeping in at first too.
At the convent they arose at five to spend time with God. Though Fern had been given license to spend it in whatever type of meditative state she chose.
Eventually she stopped missing the fast pace of the internet and the constant relentless news cycle. Eventually she stopped seeking quick hits of shallow satisfaction from mindlessly browsing online. She started to look forward to the mornings. To the time alone with her thoughts.
She had friends now. She did chores. She took long walks. She read. She didn’t perform, because the sisters had taught her that it didn’t matter what a person pretended to be; it mattered who they were in their heart.
Here, she felt like her insides finally matched her outsides.
She didn’t have to wear makeup or designer clothing to project her father’s wealth and importance. She wore linen dresses and aprons. She had one simple pair of boots and a simple pair of flat shoes. She didn’t add highlights to her hair or put ruthless straightening products on it anymore. Her curls were dark and wild.
She was wild too.
Perhaps part of the sweetness of the wild was knowing that it could be taken. If her father decided to come and fetch her.
If Ragnar found her.
Freedom was tenuous, and not truly hers, as ever.
If she thought about it too much it filled her with rage. But she was here. In the sun and the quiet and the glory, so she chose not to think of it.
She chose to be at peace, because she had otherwise never been permitted peace.
And in the three years she’d been here her disdain for her father had only grown. What had been a feeling—that he was wrong about most things—had become clear, fully formed thoughts now.
