“Poor poppet,” a low, throaty voice croons. Because I am half asleep, it takes me a moment to realize the voice is not Annith’s nor even Sister Serafina’s. I come fully awake then. The far bed is empty, the wrist ties dangling loose to the floor.
“Poor poppet,” the girl kneeling by my bed murmurs again, and fear stirs in my breast.
"Who are you?” I whisper.
She leans in closer. “Your sister,” she whispers back. Her words sear away the last dregs of sleep. Her hair is a wild tangle of midnight black falling down her back and shoulders. The faint moonlight reveals a bruise high on her cheek and a cut on her lip. I wonder if she got those from the nuns or if she had them when she arrived.
“Do you mean you were sired by Saint Mortain as well?”
She laughs softly, a terrifying sound that sends goose bumps scuttling across my skin. “No, I mean we have been sired by the very devil himself. So says my lord father.”
It is exactly what the villagers have claimed about me all my life, but I find the words no longer ring true. The reverend mother’s revelation has altered something deep inside me, awakened some hope that slumbered hidden all these years. Suddenly, I am eager to convince the girl that she is wrong, just as the reverend mother has convinced me. I push myself up so that I am sitting rather than lying. Her hand falls from my hair.
“Your lord father is wrong.” My whisper is so fierce it scratches my throat. "We have been sired by Mortain. Chosen by Him to do His bidding. Your father, the Church, they all lied.” As I stare into her haunted, broken face, I grow desperate to convince her, to take this small flame of promise from my chest and light it in hers.
A spark of interest flares in her eyes, then is quickly quenched. She cocks her head toward the door. “They are making the rounds. Farewell.” She jumps to her feet, then onto the bed next to me, and begins leaping her way down the row.
“Stop!” Sister Serafina cries from the doorway. The note of command freezes the blood in my veins, but the girl does not even pause. She leaps gracefully as a young deer, making her way to the open window, an almost playful glint in her eye. Two more nuns appear behind Sister Serafina, all of their attention focused on the escaping girl. “Stop, Sybella,” the tallest one calls out. Her voice is low and musical and as soothing as I imagine a mother’s caress would be. The fey girl falters, as if that voice has some power over her. with an effort, she leaps to the next bed, but her movements are slower, clumsier.
“If you stay,” the lovely voice continues, "We will find a way to give you back your life.”
The girl turns and anger flares in her eyes. “You lie!” She takes the last three beds in as many leaps and arrives at the window. without knowing why, I am afraid for her. I am certain that if she goes out that window, her madness will burn her up and leave nothing but bitter ashes behind.
"Wait!” I add my voice to the others. She stops, and the nuns grow still. everyone holds her breath. “Don’t you wish to learn the arts of Mortain?” I ask. “How to kill those who have done this to you?” I do not know why I am so certain someone has caused this insanity in her, but I am.
She is quiet so long I am afraid she will not answer, and then she does. "What are you talking about?”
“She has not yet spoken to the abbess,” the musical-voiced nun says. “She was too wild when she first arrived.”
“May I tell her then? If it will keep her here?”
The nuns glance among themselves, an unspoken conversation in which options are weighed. Finally, one nods. I turn to the girl. “Are you so eager to go back to where you came from? To your lord father?”
In the darkness of the bedchamber, the shadows on her face seem to deepen. “No,” she whispers. “But I will not be held prisoner by a clucking passel of busybodies who pry and poke.”
I glance uneasily at the nuns, but they are unperturbed by her assessment of them. “They mean well,” I assure her.
Her quiet laughter is so full of scorn it nearly curdles the air between us. “Good intentions are only lies the weak tell themselves. I will not be caged.”
But where else will she go? “They have promised to teach me of poison,” I say, hoping I am not getting Annith in trouble by revealing this. “And other ways to kill a man.” I share what the abbess told me, her words still bright in my mind. “They will train us in stealth and cunning and give us such skills that no man will ever be a threat to us again.”
Sybella turns toward me, a glint of interest in her eyes, but that is all I know of this new life I’ve been promised. I look helplessly at the nuns.
Annith steps easily into the opening I have made. “They will teach you of all manner of weapons,” she says, coming more fully into the room. “They will show you how to wield a dagger and a stiletto. How to shoot an arrow and draw a sword.”
“That is a lie,” Sybella says. “No one would teach a woman such deadly skills.” But I can see how much she wants to believe.
“It is not a lie,” Annith swears.
It is working. with her eyes on Annith, Sybella steps down from the bed. “Tell me more,” she demands.
“They will teach you how to caress a man’s throat with a garrote so that when he expects your soft lips, he will feel the deadly bite of wire instead.”
Sister Serafina speaks next. "We will teach you to make poisons.” Her voice is as gentle as the lulling waves. “Poisons that grip the gut and force a man’s life to dribble from him into a slop pail. Poisons to stop the heart or squeeze the humors from the body. Bloodwort to congeal the blood so it can no longer move through the veins. we will show you subtle poisons that take days to fell a man, and those that kill within seconds. And that is just to start.”
There is a long pause and we all hold our breath, wondering what Sybella will choose. when she speaks, her voice is so faint I have to lean forward to hear it. “Is there a poison that will make a man’s member shrivel and fall off?” she asks.
When Sister Serafina answers, her voice is full of a grim determination that makes me love her. "We will create one, you and I. Now, come. Get back into bed and we will tell you of all this and more.”
Sybella studies us for a long moment, then shrugs, as if staying here is of no consequence to her one way or the other. But we are not fooled. She comes to stand next to my cot. “Scoot over,” she orders.