Death Comes As Epiphany

Catherine was working in the vegetable garden with the other novices on the morning Sister Ursula's family came to take her away. They could hear her pleading and crying all the way across the cloister. "What could she have done?" Sister Emilie whispered as they continued hoeing the cabbages. "I can't imagine," Catherine answered. "She always seemed so devout." "Sh!" Sister Adeline warned. "Sister Bertrada is coming this way." The novice mistress stepped carefully between the rows until she came to Catherine. "The Abbess Heloise wants you," was all she would tell the girl. "I've no doubt to punish you as you deserve." "No doubt," said Catherine. "But for what?" "More than impudence this time, girl," Sister Bertrada said grimly. "Go at once! The rest of you, get back to your work!" She stalked away. "Go on." Emilie nudged Catherine. "Try to find out what's happened to Ursula." "I only hope it's not about to happen to me." Catherine put down the hoe and squared her shoulders to face her fate. The prioress answered her timid knock instantly. Without speaking, she led Catherine into Heloise's room and, with a reproachful glance, left, shutting the door behind her. Catherine stood motionless in the center of the room, eyes down, waiting for the abbess's reprimand. Heloise rose and gently lifted Catherine's chin so that the girl was made to look at her. Heloise, abbess of the convent of the Paraclete, was a tiny woman, with huge dark eyes. Twenty years of sorrow and self-control had not clouded them. She had long ago learned to compress the sensuality from her lips, to keep her expression calm, but those eyes would always betray her. She smiled a brief reassurance, then stepped away. Turning to a table by the narrow bed, she picked up a roll of parchment. She seemed more nervous than Catherine as she opened the roll, glanced at it, then twisted it, crumbling the seal as she retied it. Finally, she spoke. "Child," she said, "you're covered with mud." Catherine blushed. "Yes, ma'am," she said. "It's my afternoon to hoe the cabbages." "Does one need to lie flat to do that?" "No," Catherine admitted. "I didn't see the strings set out to mark the rows of new planting and tripped over one. Then, as I was getting up, I slipped on the mulch and..." Heloise shook her head in awe. "Never mind what else. I suppose you are aware that one of our sisters has been taken from us." "Yes, Mother." "Her family arrived quite suddenly this morning. They brought me some information which, they said, made them doubt my suitability to oversee the spiritual welfare of their daughter." Her fine-boned fingers crushed the rolled paper. "I'm sorry," Catherine said. But she wasn't sure for what. She waited for the abbess to begin again. Heloise seemed in no hurry. She put the roll back on the desk and gazed for a moment out the window toward the river Ardusson. The afternoon light illuminated her face and Catherine thought how beautiful Heloise was still, even after so many years in the convent. It wasn't hard to imagine how she must have looked when Peter Abelard had first seen and fallen in love with her. BuNewman, Sharan is the author of 'Death Comes As Epiphany', published 2002 under ISBN 9780765303745 and ISBN 0765303744.