“That’s why you sent me away.”
“I wanted to spare your feelings. I knew you were…attached to her.”
I laughed—hollow. When had the Reverend Mother ever considered my feelings? I knew the truth. She’d been afraid. Afraid of what I might have done had I been present when she broke the fragile peace I’d maintained for ten years at the convent. Not a nun, but a shadow. And what happens to shadows when they’re held to the light? They burn.
I rubbed my stinging eyes with the heels of my hands. As I stood slowly, I heard her sharp intake of breath, accompanied by the wheeze she carried each spring as the plants bloomed. Anger, red and hot, burned in my chest. My nails bit into my palms as it surged through me. I rounded on her and watched her eyes go wide, the whites stark with fear.
Keep to the shadows. Help those who cannot help themselves. Survive.
Tears pricked my eyes, but my mother’s words echoed in my ears. Push it down. Stay in control. Stay hidden.
With nowhere else to put it, the anger drove me forward. I was moving. I was running, with no destination in mind. I let thefury bleed out as my lungs heaved, a sharp pain like a dagger between my ribs.
I ran until I couldn’t, doubling over to keep from collapsing. Beneath me were the stone steps leading to our chapel. I had no destination in mind, but my feet always seemed to lead me to one place—and that was to him.
The chapel was empty and dark, save for a single candle burning at the altar. I knelt on the cold stone, my knees already aching, but the physical pain was better than the hollow ache in my chest.
Ten years. Ten years of morning milkings, of whispered secrets, of her patient brown eyes watching me grow from a frightened child into…whatever I was now. She’d been my only true confessor. I’d told her every worry, every sin.
And they had swallowed her, just as one day they would swallow me.
I heard footsteps behind me but didn’t turn. “I wish to pray alone.”
“Katharina.” Heinrich’s voice was gentle. “I heard…about the cow.”
Another bitter laugh escaped me. From his lips, I heard the ridiculousness of it. “The cow. Yes. Just a cow.”
He moved closer, his wool robe rustling as he sat on the step beside me. Not looming over me, not assuming authority. Just…present.
“Tell me about her.”
“Why?” The word came out sharp. “So you can remind me that animals don’t have souls? That grieving for a beast is foolish?”
“No.” His voice remained steady. “So you can remember her properly.”
The kindness in his tone broke something in me. “She was old. Useless. Her milk had dried to almost nothing. It was practical to—” My voice cracked. “She trusted me. Every morning forten years, she trusted me, and I couldn’t even be there when they?—”
Because that was the truth of it. Mother Agnes feared what I would have done had I been there when the butcher came. Feared I would transform into some twisted hag or cursed the very earth beneath me. But in truth, I would have just held her. I would have let her know she wasn’t alone in those last moments.
Tears came then, hot and filled with shame. I was crying over livestock when women burned weekly in the square. But Leibchen had been constant, safe in a way nothing else could be.
Heinrich was quiet for a long moment. “When I was twelve, we had a dog. Bartholomew—a terrible name for a terrible dog. He bit everyone except me, stole food, barked at nothing. But he slept by my bed every night. One day he disappeared. My father was less than upset, but I went looking.” He paused. “I found him torn to bits by wolves. He’d been protecting our small herd of sheep.”
I looked at him then, his eyes bright with memory.
“I buried him in the orchard and told no one. My father would have said I was weak, crying over an animal. But grief doesn’t follow rules of proportion, does it?”
“No,” I whispered. “It doesn’t.”
We sat in silence for a moment. Then Heinrich shifted, moving toward the confessional. “Come.”
“Heinrich—”
“Not as your priest. Just…sometimes it helps to speak in the dark.”
I rose and entered the opposite side of the confessional. The familiar scent of wood and old incense enveloped me. Through the screen, I could barely make out his profile.
“Speak freely,” he murmured. “Whatever weighs on you.”
