When Stars Die (The Stars Trilogy) (6 page)

“I’m here,” I say softly.

In one swift move, I pull back the curtain, a gasp escaping my throat that wants to turn into a scream. Up close, Colette’s burns look like scorched bark. Her eyes are red and veiny. Bits of skin flake off her body, creating small piles of ash on her white bed sheets. Where she once had beautiful, golden curls, are now patches of hair of an indistinguishable color.

Colette reaches out for my wrist. I pull it behind my back. She freezes and looks down, a deep sadness blooming in her eyes. “Amelia.”

“W-what?”

“You’re going to be next, if you’re not careful.”

Something about the way she says this--the guttural way she pronounced the words, the darkness edging each syllable--has me immediately turning on my heel and running out of the infirmary. A single scream erupts in my head, and all I can think is how this is all a nightmare.

I will wake up. I will wake up. I will wake up.

I. Will. Wake. Up.

Chapter Six

The plum orchard’s fifty or so trees are crusted in ice and snow, some of their drooping branches forlorn. They’re all lined up in rows that look beautiful in other seasons, but now look like soldiers failing to line up in two straight lines. With the condition these trees are in, it’s hard to believe they produce lush, green leaves with beautiful plum blossoms in the spring. And the way I feel today, I look at those trees and wonder if they’re ever going to be beautiful again. I’ve always hated winter, and even more so now.

Above, the sky is an icy gray thick with clouds that look as if they’ll yield a flurry of snow soon. Since it has been weeks since I’ve been outside, I decided to go to my actual room for fur-lined boots, a wool gray dress, and a thick overcoat.

Snow crunches beneath my feet as I make my way to the gazebo centered in the orchard. Currently nothing goes through my mind other than this immediate reality. I have constructed an ice barrier against all that is negative in my life right now, so I feel nothing and do not want to feel anything for a long time. All those negatives, they’re just nightmares, and maybe this too is a nightmare I’ll eventually wake from. I’ve had nightmares before that felt like they lasted days. This can’t be any different. Or maybe I’m just in denial and will always be in denial. Either way, I’ll keep myself from breaking if I deny, deny, deny.

Oliver waves to me from the top step of the gazebo, his thin frame wrapped in a thick, black coat with a surplus of other layers underneath to keep him from going into hypothermia. His gray eyes match the sky but have far more life to them than this Malva winter. His appearance brings a small smile to my face, if only because I still have someone I can depend on, someone who makes me feel less lonely, someone who will never judge me for what I am or for what I do.

Oliver holds out a gloved hand to me and helps me up the steps, then guides me over to a white bench and sits both of us down. He smiles with lips that are a light blue. He pulls his lips inward to warm them up, and they come back out a light pink. “You look like you’re feeling a lot better.”

I lean up against the frame of the gazebo, and look out beyond the plum orchard, at the cemetery tucked in the back. The gravestones bring one thought about Colette to my mind, one I suppress by turning away and looking back at Oliver. To say I feel better would be a lie, but to tell the truth would prompt questions from Oliver I don’t want to answer. I give him my best smile and say, “I do…a lot better.”

Girlish screams arise from the other side of the orchard. In the distance, blurred gray figures throw snowballs at each other. Monday afternoons are the only times those training to be professed or those already professed have a break. Those in the trials have no such breaks. The professed relax in the cloister, away from prying eyes, during these breaks, while everyone else takes pleasure at the south transept, where there is an endless field of white and plenty of snow to build all manner of creations the mind can conjure. If I were over there, I’d dig an endless hole in which to pitch all my darkness.

Oliver grabs my hand, makes circles on the top, and looks at me with concern in his eyes. His touch brings some warmth to me, always brings warmth to me. There are times when I hate these feelings because I know I can never act on them. Then there are times when I am just appreciative of his friendship, and it is during these times when I can best suppress anything I feel for him. This is, thank Deus, one of those moments. “You’re awful at hiding misery, you know that? Now tell me what’s really wrong.”

There are too many things wrong: Colette, my sanity, those shadows, my being a witch, being out of the trials. Blast you, Oliver! I didn’t want to think about any of these things and there you go shoving them in my face as if I need to deal with them right now.

I yank my hand away from Oliver, my breath coming out in cold, ragged puffs. “I don’t need to talk about anything right now. I’m going to be fine.” I squeeze my eyes shut, the sound of my cold breathing thrumming in my ears. I snap them open. “I’m going to be fine!”

Oliver raises a black eyebrow, resting his arms on the gazebo’s frame and propping a leg on a knee. He looks like he should have a pipe in his mouth, or a Persian
cat snoring at his feet. “I don’t believe in locking away pain for a later day. I believe in getting it all out in the open. We can talk about Colette, you know. I know I don’t have the relationship you have with her, but she is a coveted member of Cathedral Reims regardless.”

A coveted member, like a piece of jewelry, or a favorite book. Does anyone else care for the person she is, or is she only of use because of the strength she has that is needed to be a nun? If she dies because of her epilepsy, Cathedral Reims will move on because the girls that go through the church are just bodies in gray dresses. But not I. I will not--no, never move on.

Tiny snowflakes begin falling from the sky. I catch one with my leather-gloved palm and watch it melt into the fabric. “It’s not so easy to talk about her.”

“You’re still not convinced, are you?”

I look up from my palm. “What are you talking about?”

“That you didn’t burn her, that she just had an epileptic fit?”

Last night spirals into my head in a sickening wave. I don’t know if what I saw was real or a nightmare, but I still saw the burns on her body, and the haunting words, whatever they meant, come into my mind like a heavy waterfall: You’re going to be next, if you’re not careful. What would Oliver say if I told him this? Does it really matter if that was a nightmare or not? Either way, the premonition is chilling enough, whether or not it actually occurred. I’ve never believed in coincidences. With the presence of those shadows, which I haven’t seen recently, almost anything is possible. I wouldn’t be surprised if what I saw was a vision.

I clasp my hands in my lap and look down at them. “Oliver, can I tell you something without your thinking I’m some harebrained girl who never should have been allowed in Cathedral Reims?”

“If you’re going to convince me you set her on fire, then just stop.”

I shake my head. “That isn’t it at all.” Watching my breath plume out, I suck it in and tell Oliver about last night, even reassuring him that I’m not sure if what I saw was real, or just a nightmare. And as I’m telling him, I then begin to wonder why I’m telling him at all. Maybe it just has me scared that much and I need someone to reassure me that I’m not going insane, that I’m still all here and won’t suddenly unwind like thread from a bobble. When I finish, I pull my arms in my coat to keep myself together.

Oliver reacts in an unexpected way. He stands and pulls me in an embrace. My breathing becomes strangled as his wintry scent fills my nose. I close my eyes, pushing back the tension that swirls through me in bursts of pleasant warmth. I could melt here, slip inside Oliver and never come out. I could, and yet I shouldn’t.

He continues to hold me. “I didn’t realize how much all of this was really killing you. Poor thing, suffering with these nightmares all alone. It must have been really frightening for you, being crammed in that cell with Colette and no idea what to do when she fell into an epileptic fit. That would drive anyone to have terrible nightmares.”

His reaction wasn’t what I wanted, but the hug is pleasant, not unwanted at all, never unwanted. His hugs are the only hugs that can make me feel untouchable. Colette’s hugs can’t do the same, but I’ve accepted his hugs as a type of armor for me. Even so, I hoped he’d tell me that the nightmare meant nothing and to forget about it. I suppose in a way he’s telling me that, but his comfort is not conclusive enough. I pull away from him, fixing my eyes on the bangs that obscure his left eye. I sweep them away, and they go sideways like silk in the wind.

He resumes his usual position, arms on the gazebo’s frame, one foot propped on a knee. “What are you going to do now that Mother Aurelia won’t let you partake in the trials for another year? Go back to studying, maybe do an apprenticeship? The latter is always an option.”

His question makes me go cold all over again, and I feel my eyes darken.

“Who said I was out? I know what you told me yesterday, but I refuse to believe that…that…” I don’t even know what to say. The anger, the unfairness of being removed without another chance, consumes me, and my fists shake in a desperation that wants to leap forth in a torrent of hate. I can’t hide my feelings though. Oliver is right that I’m lousy at hiding what I’m thinking. “Mother Aurelia can’t make Colette’s problem mine!” I might regret saying this later. In the heat of the moment, I mean it.

Oliver’s eyes soften. “Amelia…”

“She can’t! Is it my fault Colette allowed her weakness to overtake her? No! So why should I suffer for what she lacks? She should have known cramped spaces would be her undoing. She should have told me. But she didn’t.” The more I talk about Colette’s epilepsy, the more I begin to believe she had an epileptic fit and I didn’t set her on fire. After all, she was writhing about, and that alone seems uncharacteristic for someone on fire. The fire could have just been a hallucination. “I’m going to go to Mother Aurelia and demand that she put me back in the initiation. I made a promise to you, Olly, and I can’t break that.”

I stand up to go, but Oliver grabs my wrist. “Amelia, you’re…I don’t even know how to put it, but this is a promise that can be broken for your sake.”

I pull my wrist away. “If you’re suggesting I’m too incapable right now, then I can’t believe you. Olly, I am determined to become professed this year. Not next or the year after. This year. For Nathaniel, for your sister Ella, for…for…for you.”

I turn away, run down the slick steps, and push through the snow as fast as my determined legs will carry me. The warmth of Oliver’s promise begins to stagnate.

#

Mother Aurelia’s vestry sits comfortably on the east transept, a room that opens right onto the center floor of the nave. A roaring fire commands a marble fireplace sculpted with calla lilies that make me think of Colette as I trace their stony petals with my eyes. I haven’t been near a true fire in so long. It should warm me, but I can’t even care at the moment. Mother Aurelia’s vestry is cluttered with leather bound books, and papers drown the mahogany desk. She sits among the clutter, her hands neatly folded on top, and her dark eyes studying mine. She doesn’t even offer me a chair because I didn’t knock--I barged in.

I’m generally not a brazen girl. I’m the type of girl any man would love to have for a wife if only because I make myself seen but never heard. Being professed is something I need though, so hiding my submissive qualities was easy, even after what Mother Aurelia did to me in the bloodletting room.

“What is this nonsense about your removing me from the initiation?” I ask.

She keeps studying me, her mouth a line, her face indifferent to my boorishness. “Those of us in the Professed Order just agreed you needed another year.” Her voice is kind. It is hard to believe this is the same woman who beat me, but she is only kind outside of teaching and training. Otherwise, she is a cruel schoolmarm.

I close the space between me and her desk, planting my palms on the polished wood. “But what happened to Colette wasn’t my fault.” Even if I don’t believe she was struck with epilepsy, I have to make myself believe this to get what I want. “So why are you faulting me for this?”

Mother Aurelia looks down, and to my surprise, a faint blush sneaks into her sagging cheeks. “You don’t remember, do you?” She cocks her head as though she expects me to bring up whatever I’ve forgotten. “You aren’t…mentally competent enough to handle the rigors of being professed, Miss Gareth. You proved that when Theosodore found you banging against the door, screaming Colette was on fire when she clearly wasn’t.”

A fiery heat ripens my cheeks. Now I want to hide away from the world by burying myself in the snow and hoping I’ll have a quick death by being frozen. “But…but…considering the circumstances under which it happened…” I trail off, grasping for words with a dry tongue. “It’s not fair! If Colette didn’t have epilepsy, that never would have happened!”

Mother Aurelia closes her eyes, deep ravines forming at the corners. “We cannot blame Sister Colette, Miss Gareth. What happened to her is indeed a tragedy and will be a setback to her professing, but what happened to you seems like it would have come out sooner or later. We think it might be best if you go home for the year, your brother included. He hasn’t been doing well either, and I think you know this. His socialization skills have not improved. He does not get along well with the other children.”