This actually outrageous behavior told Edie a great deal about what it had been like for Cosima to spend her life with one of the most famous women in the world for a mother.
The priest blinked at Cosima for a long moment, then seemed to startle. He broke in their direction at a rapid walk that soon turned into a jog. He was in late middle age, his temples streaked white against dark hair that swooped over his forehead and curled behind his ears. His beaky nose made him interesting to look at. “Miss Frank, is it not?” he asked. “I remember when you were here with Señora Phoebe. Years ago.” He extended both hands and, when Cosima gave hers to him, clasped it between them. “What can I help you with?”
“We’re trying to solve a puzzle,” Cosima said. “We have a map with a series of clues we’ve been following. It’s led us here. The basilica is represented on this map with a drawing of a nun holding keys. Do you have any idea of the significance?”
Edie watched, fascinated, as the priest’s face broke into a wide smile.
“I do,” he said, nearly laughing. “I can’t quite believe this day has come, but I do. I can’t believe it is you at the end of this journey. If you’ll follow me?”
Cosima did, of course, and kept up a polite conversation with the good-looking priest that Edie couldn’t attend to as she trailed behind. If she burst into tears, would it be from the colors, from gratitude for vista after vista of beauty, or would it be from the sight of the woman she loved coming into her full princess powers right before her eyes?
They’d ducked into a less ornamented area, not quite a corridor. There were no straight lines here, which meant where they’d ended up felt more like a place Edie might discover beneath the canopy of a willow tree, if such a place could be built from pale stone. The priest knocked once outside a room and leaned into it, gripping the room’s opening in strong fingers.
“Imagine this,” he said to someone Edie could not see. “I have a woman here who’s followed a map and is looking for the nun with the keys.”
“If you’re lying,” a woman’s voice said, her English more strongly accented than the priest’s, “I’ll make you pay for it.”
The priest disappeared into the office, the sound of his laughter drifting out. Cosima stopped at the threshold, turning to spear Edie with a look. “Well, hustle yourself in here,” she said. “You think I’m doing this without you?”
Edie hustled. She found herself settled into a sturdy wooden chair beside Cosima, before the desk of Sister Ona, if the nameplate was correct. The nun had short-cropped gray hair, a dark sweater, a silver chain around her neck with a bright silver cross, and a lit cigarette between her lips. She looked older than Morag. She pushed a tin of cookies in Cosima and Edie’s direction. “Have one,” she demanded. “The cloistered sisters make them. They’re hard to find, but I have a source.”
Edie peered into the tin. She took a crumbly cookie out and smelled anise. “Are these baked on bricks? Butter or olive oil?”
The nun’s head disappeared below the edge of her desk,where she’d opened a drawer with a screech of metal on metal. The priest stood behind her chair, his arms crossed, beaming. “I didn’t think I’d be here to see this,” he said. “I wasn’t here for the beginning, of course, but I believed it would go on long past my time.”
Sister Ona snorted. “Things come to an end, José Antonio. I knewIwould live long enough for this day. I plan to live to see the building of this basilica to an end.” The top of her head rose back into view, and she looked at Edie. “Bricks, yes. Olive oil.” Then she dropped something white onto the desktop. It was a stack of envelopes. It immediately toppled, sending the one on top skating toward Cosima, who snatched it just as it was about to drop to the floor.
Edie took a bite of her cookie. “Did you know that cloistered nuns invented marzipan?” The question was mostly for herself, to help her focus. “They used to make cakes and pastries for the rich in exchange for donations.”
Cosima opened the envelope and extracted a letter written on cream stationery. Edie wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it said. She focused on the sandy cookie melting against her teeth with coarse sugar, the tang of anise both familiar and different from how it tasted back home.
“She sends a new letter every year.” Sister Ona patted the pile of letters. “I’ve read all of her books. They are…” She looked at the priest. “Sobre gustos no hi ha res escrit?”
“There’s no accounting for taste,” he said.
Edie watched Cosima read the letter, her expression revealing nothing. After a moment, she passed it to Edie.
Agatha’s handwriting was still strong, but the lines were slightly uneven. The handwriting showed the age of the author, and this made Edie’s heart squeeze.
Darling Minnie,
If you’re reading this, you’ve come to Barcelona. Love has triumphed over fear, or maybe you’ve become curious. I don’t care which.
You told me you didn’t know how to find the way to be with me, and I told you I would make you a map. I said it would be there when you were ready, and so would I.
Come to One Tree Cottage in Tintern. You said you wanted to see it someday. Is today someday?
I love you still.
Bronwyn A. Llewellyn
Edie’s tears fell through the fingers of her hand she’d clasped over her mouth. She looked at Sister Ona. “How many?”
Ona put her hand on top of the stack. “Not quite fifty. The first one was handed to me in 1977. The others have come each year around Epiphany.”
“And we’re the first to ask for them?”
She nodded. “Agatha told me the person who claimed them would have a map. That was your ticket, though I suspect you’re not who she’s expecting.”
