Death Comes As Epiphany by Sharan Newman

“Child,“ she said, “you’re covered with mud.”Ĭatherine blushed. She seemed more nervous than Catherine as she opened the roll, glanced at it, then twisted it, crumbling the seal as she retied it. Turning to a table by the narrow bed, she picked up a roll of parchment. She smiled a brief reassurance, then stepped away. She had long ago learned to compress the sensuality from her lips, to keep her expression calm, but those eyes would always betray her. Twenty years of sorrow and self-control had not clouded them. Héloïse, abbess of the convent of the Paraclete, was a tiny woman, with huge dark eyes. Héloïse rose and gently lifted Catherine’s chin so that the girl was made to look at her. Catherine stood motionless in the center of the room, eyes down, waiting for the abbess’s reprimand. Without speaking, she led Catherine into Héloïse’s room and, with a reproachful glance, left, shutting the door behind her. The prioress answered her timid knock instantly. “I only hope it’s not about to happen to me.” Catherine put down the hoe and squared her shoulders to face her fate. “Try to find out what’s happened to Ursula.” “Go at once! The rest of you, get back to your work!”

“More than impudence this time, girl,“ Sister Bertrada said grimly. “I’ve no doubt to punish you as you deserve.”

“The Abbess Héloïse wants you,“ was all she would tell the girl. The novice mistress stepped carefully between the rows until she came to Catherine. “What could she have done?” Sister Emilie whispered as they continued hoeing the cabbages. They could hear her pleading and crying all the way across the cloister. Catherine was working in the vegetable garden with the other novices on the morning Sister Ursula’s family came to take her away.

Death Comes As Epiphany by Sharan Newman