When Stars Die (The Stars Trilogy) (2 page)

He gestures us out into the hall, where we find other sisters in gray dresses and tattered shawls huddling for each other’s scarce warmth. The stained-glass windows make outside bleary, but they don’t disguise the snowfall that curtains the world in white. Theosodore starts to lead us down the hall. Colette latches her icy hand on my own. Despite being couched in a group of bodies, the cold slices through me even more than it did in that room, shivers disguising any nervousness I feel for the impending test. As we make our way to the first trial, I spy Sash peering out from behind a statue of a witch tangled in a noose. He’s looking at no one in particular, until I pass.

Then he locks his eyes on mine, and I find myself pulling on Colette to press us farther in the crowd of bodies. Though I no longer look at him, in that one gaze alone I could see the words on his mind: I know you can see us, and I’m going to prove that you can.

He will be at the trial. He will watch me at the trial. I already know. Deus, if you can hear my prayer, you will steer him away from me. If he is there, if he is present at every trial, then I just know I will never be professed. I will have to go home to parents who haven’t seen my brother and I in three years. I will have to go home to a future far more uncertain than this one.

I can’t bear that. I’d rather die.

Chapter Two

Just as I suspected, Sash and Asch have followed us to the bloodletting room, which sits outside the east transept. It is an innocent structure disguising sinister intentions. No longer in use, it is a relic from a time when people believed using leeches to cleanse the blood of poison would also get rid of demons. It also existed in a time before witches were hated; thus, there is no witch propaganda like there is in every crevice in the cathedral. There used to be chairs for the patients too. Now it’s just a bare room with concrete walls, a scarcely-lit fireplace, and one rose window.

From the corner of my eye, I see the shadows watching through the window, likely crowded on some winter-garbed tree. They merely watch us, waiting for one of us to make eye contact, to lock eyes and stare. Then they'll know that person can see them. I will not be that person. For now, they will be mere obstacles in these trials.

We sisters kneel on wooden chips scattered on the ceramic floor. We’re clustered in a circle, bare arms brushing against one another, the cold searing through our nakedness. The only thing keeping any of us from going mad is the remaining warmth that hums through our bodies like a string of rosary beads. The chips bite and cut into our knees, but we’re too afraid to adjust ourselves for fear of showing weakness that might make Mother Aurelia reconsider us for the Professed Order. She never told us what she expected. We can only guess. Not moving is difficult though, especially since I’m used to being covered head-to-toe in a wimple and gray dress.

Colette kneels across from me. I can’t help but compare my exposed self to her. Whereas I’m a sickly pale, the color of the ceramic tiles when covered in dust, Colette is a lily white, her hair sunshine flowing over her naked shoulders. If she weren’t in a convent and instead having her season, she’d be the envy at her ball, and every man would be vying for her attention. She is a dance piece in a music box, and shame burns my cheeks over my lack of beauty. I’m too pale, not shapely enough, and my breasts are not full and round like hers, and I have fat in places where fat should never be.

Mother Aurelia’s boots click behind me. Instinct tells me to look up to see what she’s going to do, but I keep my eyes on the blood-crusted drain in the center of our circle, one of the many set into the ceramic tiles. Across the circle, Colette widens her eyes. Her surprise is soon justified when Mother Aurelia wrenches my hair by the roots. Tears leap to my eyes, blurring my sisters, the shadows, and the bloodletting room. A sharp sting ripples across my scalp as my breathing deepens to suppress the intense throbbing. I imagine the Mother Superior wrapping my brunette tresses around her arms like a serpent as she pulls, harder and harder, her face set in a perpetual grimace. For a moment I think she has freed my hair from my scalp, but then realize that is the cessation of pain when she loosens her hold. She yanks again.

I must not cry out. I must not cry out. I don’t know why I shouldn’t cry out. All I know is the lives of professed nuns are grueling, which is why I assume Mother Aurelia’s initiation is so torturous. Professed nuns must be fully devoted to our god Deus in order to carry out His teachings without dispute. Nuns pray all day on a hard stone floor in the cloister, with few toilet breaks, no meals until dinner, and little breaks to stretch their sore limbs. What they pray about is a mystery, yet Mother Aurelia assures us their prayers are for suffering. Some nuns are assigned as teachers, and when I’m professed I hope to be a teacher. On weekends they’ll do charity work, but for the most part their lives are hidden within the walls of Cathedral Reims.

Just when a scream is about to graze my throat, Mother Aurelia lets go of my hair. The area where she pulled pulsates.

Mother Aurelia wordlessly moves on to the next girl.

The tears spill over my eyelashes in little droplets, and the bloodletting room comes back into focus. I glance at Sash and Asch, who no longer seem focused on us. My eyes then move to the drain and remain there. I wonder how much blood has fallen into the darkness and where it all goes.

A scream from one of the girls pierces my thoughts, followed by a smack from Mother Aurelia.

“Quiet, girl! You act is if I’m tearing your flesh from your bones.”

Mother Aurelia’s unrelenting cruelty makes a girl’s finishing school seem like a prerequisite to being in a convent. Her heels click over to Colette. Head still down, my eyes dart from the drain to her. Colette has always been known for her charm and grace and manners. She does all her tasks with a smile: vows of silence, cleaning latrines, hours of study with no breaks, grueling deportment lessons, and a plethora of other responsibilities. When Mother Aurelia comes to her and grabs her hair, she shows neither pain nor defiance in her eyes. She smiles up at the ceiling, as if it’s Deus pulling her hair and not our pudgy Mother Superior with eyes that settle into her doughy face. Tears don’t even appear in Colette’s eyes, and jealousy burns through my veins thinking how easy she makes this seem.

Mother Aurelia lets go of her hair. Her smile shrinks, and she looks back down at the floor. My eyes fall to my knees, bruised with welts from the chips, to avoid her small smile. I shouldn’t be jealous of my own best friend, but I feel like her influence should have rubbed off on me and it hasn’t. What’s even worse is I don’t know what Mother Aurelia is going to do next. She could sting us with wasps, wrap barbed wire around our throats, rend into our flesh with her gnarled nails, or any number of things that involve gut-wrenching pain.

Beside me, a plump girl vomits on the floor, then whimpers.

Once Mother Aurelia finishes with the last two girls, I hear her settle her immense bulk behind me. My heart pounds like galloping horse hooves across cobblestones. I squeeze my eyes shut, suck in my bottom lip, and dig my fingers into the chippings. Shivers tease my spine in anticipation over what she’s going to do next.

Time slows down. The world closes in around me. The breathing of the girls pounds through my ears like a steam train. Mother Aurelia shifts behind me. I want to scream, Just do it! Nausea overtakes me, then there is a sharp sting across my back. A scream funnels through my throat, clipped short by the gritting of my teeth. The tears don’t hesitate this time. They fall over my lashes in tiny streams. I’m certain each tear that falls pulls me farther and farther from being professed. My heart sinks down to my knees, which have gone numb and are cracked, beads of black cherry blood staining the chips and floor.

Each lash seems to take an eternity. I constantly have to remind myself why I’m doing this, and that reason is for my little brother Nathaniel. The hope is that once I become a professed nun, Deus can forgive him for being a witch, for being the epitome of sin, for being something through no fault of his own. I’m his older sister, I should take responsibility for what he is, so I should suffer and serve Deus until my death.

On the sixth lash, several of the girls start whimpering. I want to join them, but I keep my cries frozen at the back of my throat.

On the seventh lash, a welt breaks open. The cries frozen at the back of my throat turn involuntary, and one leaps from my lips before I even know it’s coming. It’s a small, pathetic cry, but enough for Mother Aurelia to beat me harder on the eighth lash with her disapproving leather strap. Warm blood trickles down my back, forming a tight knot in my stomach not even a knife could pry apart. At this moment, I think I prefer the stares of Sash and Asch to this. They can watch me in my sleep for all I care, so long as I never have to go through this again.

The tenth lash hits with such force I actually have to plant my palms flat against the floor to keep from falling on my face. My hands clench as I wait for the next lash; it doesn’t come.

Mother Aurelia clicks on over to the next girl. All I can do is sigh in relief that it’s over while internally cursing myself for letting that one cry escape.

For all I know, one cry could cost me the entire initiation process. Then I’ll have to endure another year of silence, isolation, endless prayer, bland meals that make us malnourished, a cold winter with a meager fire, and endless chastising for every little thing, like a drooped fork or a wimple put on wrongly. Life is not like that when we first enter, but sisters are slowly weaned from luxuries as the years pass. Upon our third year, luxuries are removed entirely to prepare us for the professed life.

Mother Aurelia makes her rounds of beating girls. They all cry out, some more than others. I count the lashes for each girl. The Mother Superior is inconsistent: twelve lashes for one, fifteen for another, ten, eleven, and the next two are more than ten. I wonder if the number of lashes is deliberate, or if she just beats however long she feels like with each one.

Colette doesn’t even cry out when it’s her turn. It’s as if she has no nerves in her entire body. Either that, or she has Deus’s divine favor or something. Better yet, Mother Aurelia hits her only five times. That wonderful Seven Deadly Sin of jealousy takes over, and I shift my knees to bring forth a sharp pain that dispels the feeling. A Seven Deadly Sin is the worst thing in the world. Seven Deadly Sins breed witches, after all, a punishment from Deus for the evils of mankind. Should I ever decide to have a child, I don’t want my child to be a witch. I don’t want my child to suffer the emotional burden that Nathaniel suffers through. Mother Aurelia once told me he is an isolated boy, so removed from the social sphere of Cathedral Reims that it’s not normal. Being a witch, I’m certain, has something to do with that.

Mother Aurelia finishes with Sister Colette. My stomach lurches as she moves away from her and toward me. Yet, while she moves toward me, she does not move behind me. Rather, she stands in front of me.

She claps her hands. “All right, girls. Stand and place yourselves against the walls, palms flat on the bricks, if you please. This will purify your souls.”

On unsteady legs, I stand. Pinpricks shoot through my legs from having been frozen in the same position for so long. I feel like a newborn as I toddle to the wall and press my palms against it. The rest of the girls meander to their respective bricks as well.

Mother Aurelia approaches me and removes a metal box from her habit, probably kept tied against her waist the entire time. Only dear Deus knows. She opens the box. Inside are squirming leeches, sluggish beasts with terrible mouths full of terrible teeth. My stomach threatens to implode at the sight of the monsters. She removes one of the writhing things and grabs my arm with cold, bony fingers. Her mouth in that characteristic perpetual grimace, she lets the leech latch on, and she presses my hand back against the wall. Right when the creature sinks its tiny fangs, I begin to question if I am going to be able to survive this. The leech squirms too much, is too hideous, and I can actually feel my blood being drawn from my veins. I’ve always been peculiar about my veins. Even someone checking my pulse makes me queasy.

The leech starts to fatten from my blood. Mother Aurelia pulls it off. Before she can even put another one on, a gasp escapes my lips. A long line of blood trails down my arm, but that isn’t what sends the heaviness of an impending faint through me. It’s the puckered flesh where the leech was, and the vein bulging through my skin.

I look at Sash and Asch one last time. They’re engaged in deep conversation, looking from us to each other. They look alarmed. A black curtain slowly falls over my eyes, and before I faint the last thing I see is Sash pointing. At whom, I’m not certain.

#

We sisters are in the infirmary, a dull room with bare walls, cheerless windows that show fallow fields beyond the outskirts of Malva, old beds, and the constant scent of disease that presses on our lungs. Candles illuminate our faces. Some faces are streaked with tears, some with frowns, the rest with indifference. We’re all on beds, wrapped in fleece blankets, nursing hot cups of tea. I suppose Cathedral Reims doesn’t want us to die after all, though we could all stand to use a fire in here. The tea at least warms my insides but does nothing to dispel the humiliation of being the only one who fainted.

I’m not going to be professed. I fainted and woke up at the end of the bloodletting session. Fainting means I’m too weak, not devoted enough to Deus, not strong enough to handle the rigors of being a professed nun. I slump, my face downcast, my feet turned inward, and my hands resting dejectedly on my lap. At least Sash and Asch aren’t in here. I don’t know where they disappeared to, but I don’t care now.