Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(162)

IT WAS A TINY stone building with a thatch; Minnie thought it must once have been a lambing shed or something of the kind. The thought made her inhale, nostrils flaring—and she blinked in surprise. There was certainly a smell, but it wasn’t the warm agricultural fug of animals; it was the faint tang of incense.

Mrs. Simpson glanced up at the sun, halfway down the sky.

“You won’t have long,” she said, grunting a little as she lifted the heavy bar from the door. “It’s almost time for None—what she thinks is None. When she hears the bells, she won’t do anything until the prayer is done, and often she’s silent afterward.”

“None?”

“The hours,” Mrs. Simpson said, pushing the door open. “Hurry, if you want her to speak with you.”

Minnie was bewildered, but she did certainly want her mother to speak with her. She nodded briefly and ducked under the lintel into a sort of glowing gloom.

The glow came from a single large candle set in a tall iron stand and from a brazier on the floor next to it. Fragrant smoke rose from both, drifting near the sooty beams of the low ceiling. A dim light suffused the room, seeming to gather around the figure of a woman dressed in white robes, kneeling at a crude prie-dieu.

The woman turned, startled at the sound of Minnie’s entry, and froze at sight of her.

Minnie felt much the same but forced herself to walk forward, slowly. Instinctively, she held out a hand, like one does to a strange dog, presenting her knuckles to be sniffed.

The woman rose with a slow rustling of coarse cloth. She wasn’t veiled, which surprised Minnie—her hair had been roughly cropped but had grown out somewhat; it curved just under her ears, cupping the angles of her jaw. Thick, smooth, the color of wheat in a summer field.

Mine, Minnie thought, with a thump of the heart, and stared into the woman’s eyes. Mrs. Simpson had been right. Mine, too…

“Sister?” she said tentatively, in French. “Soeur Emmanuelle?”

The woman said nothing, but her eyes had gone quite round. They traveled down Minnie’s body and returned to her face, intent. She turned her head and addressed a crucifix that hung on the plastered wall behind her.

“Est-ce une vision, Seigneur?” she said, in the rusty voice of one who seldom speaks aloud. “Is this a vision, Lord?” She sounded uncertain, perhaps frightened. Minnie didn’t hear a reply from Christ on the cross, but Sister Emmanuelle apparently did. She turned back to face Minnie, drawing herself upright, and crossed herself.

“Erm…Comment ca va?” Minnie asked, for lack of anything better. Sister Emmanuelle blinked but didn’t reply. Perhaps that wasn’t the right sort of thing for a vision to say.

“I hope I see you well,” Minnie added politely.

Mother, she thought suddenly, with a pang as she saw the grubby hem of the rough habit, the streaks of food on breast and skirt. Oh, Mother…

There was a book on the prie-dieu. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she walked past her mother to look at it but glanced up and saw the crucifix—it was a rich one, she saw, polished ebony with mother-of-pearl edging. The corpus had been made by another, truer hand, though—the body of Christ glowed in the candlelight, contorted in the grip of a knotted chunk of some dark wood, rubbed smooth. His face was turned away, invisible, but the thorns were carved sharp and vivid, sharp enough to prick your finger if you touched them. The outflung arms were only half freed from the wood, but the sense of entrapment, of unendurable agony, struck Minnie like a blow to the chest.

“Mon Dieu,” she said aloud. She said it in shock, rather than by way of prayer, but vaguely heard the woman behind her let go a held breath. She heard the rustle of cloth and straw—she hadn’t noticed when she came in, but the floor was covered in clean straw—and forced herself to stand quite still, heart beating in her ears, though she longed to turn and embrace Sister Emmanuelle, seize and carry her, drag her, bring her out into the world. After a long moment during which she could hear the woman’s breathing, she felt a touch on her shoulder. She turned round slowly.

Her mother was close now, close enough that Minnie could smell her. Surprisingly, she smelled sweet—a tang of sweat, the smell of clothes worn too long without washing, but incense perfumed her hair, the cloth of her robe, and the hand that touched Minnie’s cheek. Her flesh smelled warm and…pure.

“Are you an angel?” Emmanuelle asked suddenly. Doubt and fear had come into her face again, and she edged back a step. “Or a demon?”

So close, Minnie could see the lines in her face—crow’s-feet, the gentle crease from nose to mouth—but the face itself was a blurred mirror of the one she saw in her looking glass. She took a breath and stepped closer.

“I’m an angel,” she said firmly. She’d spoken in English, without thinking, and Emmanuelle’s eyes flew wide in shock. She took an awkward step backward and sank to her knees.

“Oh, no! Don’t do that!” Minnie cried, distressed. “I didn’t mean it—I mean, Je ne veux pas…” She stooped to raise her mother to her feet, but Emmanuelle had clapped her hands to her eyes and wouldn’t be moved, only swaying to and fro, making small whimpering noises.

Then Minnie realized that they weren’t just noises. Her mother was whispering, “RaphaelRaphaelRaphael,” over and over. Panicked, she seized her mother’s wrists and pulled her hands away from her face.