Sightwitch by Susan Dennard (5)

MEMORIES

Head Sister Nadya made me go outside today.

“When was the last time you saw sunlight?” she demanded, having cornered me in my workshop. She scuttled around the room, clucking her tongue at my piles upon piles of notes. And my piles upon piles of rocks.

“What are these even for?” She scooped up a handful of coastal limestone. “They leave dust everywhere, Dysi.”

“Don’t touch them, Nadya.” I rubbed at my temples. By the Sleeper, this headache was getting worse. “Please. Everything is where it is meant to be.”

“Except for you.” She dropped the stones clack, clack, clack atop their brethren and turned sharply toward me. “You do realize that you were supposed to take Sorrow duty three weeks ago.”

My forehead wrinkled. “That sounds … vaguely … Maybe?” My frown shifted to a scowl. “You know I do not have the Sight like you. ’Tis hard to remember.”

“Which is why I covered for you, Dysi, though I have a thousand other things to do.” Her expression softened. “And I covered the time before that too. And the time before that as well. Even though you lack the Sight the rest of us have, that does not excuse you from all Convent duties.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, though truth be told, I was not sorry. My inventions and my workshop—this was my world, and right now, I was stuck on this blighted Vergedi Knot. Everything beyond seemed trivial.

“Well,” said Nadya, “you can pay me back by going to the Sorrow today.”

It took half a beat for those words to settle in my mind. Then I was on my feet in an instant. “I cannot go to the Sorrow!” I opened my arms. “I am right in the middle of this—I think I have figured out the Knot, and if I can do that, we can finally open the doorways. No more Exalted Ones to enslave the people—”

“ENOUGH.” Nadya drew herself up to her fullest height. “You make this excuse each and every time, and though ’tis a noble one, I am sick of it. When was the last time you bathed? Your blond hair has turned black with grime. A single day outside of this cave will not affect the Exalted Ones’ grip on the land.” She thrust a pointed finger at the door. “Besides, a change might shake things loose. Now, go.”

I cringed.

“Go, Dysi.”

I went, and it was easily the longest ascent I’ve ever made. Or at least it felt that way. My thighs burned and my lungs ached, and I realized—with some horror—that it had been several days since I’d actually left my workshop in the mountain’s heart.

I will say, though, now that I have bathed and sit at the Supplicant’s Sorrow to await any visitors to the Convent, Head Sister Nadya was right. It was good to step away. I needed the exercise, I needed the sunshine, and I needed the spring breeze against my cheeks.

The scent of lilac is thick on the air.

LATER

Someone came to the Sorrow today. A man with sadness in his eyes and two daughters he could not raise.

“Their mother … died.” He struggled to get those words out, speaking in the mountain tongue, though he looked No’Amatsi.

“Can your tribe not help?” I asked. Afternoon fog curled around us, wispy vines to caress the bridge and the island.

“I am amalej.” He shifted his weight, and his eyes briefly met mine. The first time since he and his daughters had joined me on the island. “I am a soldier in the Rook King’s army,” he continued, “and I’m often away. Please, can you not take them?”

Lisbet, a girl of eight, stared at me, unflinching, with huge hazel eyes. I liked the stern set of her jaw; she would fit in well here. The younger girl, Cora, hid behind her father’s legs.

“We can take them,” I said slowly, choosing my words with care. “But you must tell no one we have done so. The war brings too many orphans to our doors, and we struggle to find space—much less food.”

His shoulders relaxed slightly. Relief…and loss too. No man wishes to be parted from his children, especially if they are all he has left of his wife.

Lisbet, to her credit, gave no reaction at all.

The man then twisted to reach for Cora, ready to pull her around. Yet he paused, his hand upon her dark head.

“May I visit them?”

The question was so low I scarcely heard. And though ’tis not allowed anymore—not allowed at all—I found myself reciting the old rules. “Yes. Once a month, you may come. On the day of the full moon.”

A thoughtful nod. Even without this grief to shroud him, he seemed the sort of man who spent most of his time inside his own head. “I will return in two weeks,” he offered at last.

Then he left.

It hurt me to watch him say good-bye and walk away. To watch Cora weep and Lisbet grit her teeth against tears. He must be near to me in age, yet he has already lost so much.

But this is the will of Sirmaya and the way of the Convent.

After he had gone, I looked down at Lisbet. She held her sister’s hand and tried to keep Cora, halfheartedly, from chasing after their father.

“First lesson of the Sightwitches,” I said, trying to mimic the authoritative way my mentor had spoken to me almost two decades ago. “There are no coincidences. If you are here, it is because you are meant to be here.”

Lisbet’s eyes narrowed in thought, an expression almost identical to the one her father had made only minutes before.

“What’s a coincidence?” Cora asked, and abruptly she stopped trying to pull away. In fact, she now leaned toward me with curiosity.

“It’s when things happen that seem connected,” Lisbet answered. It was a much better definition than I could have offered. “Like when you want honey cakes and I also want honey cakes at the same time.”

“I always want honey cakes,” Cora said softly.

I smiled at that—a real smile, for already I knew these girls would fit in perfectly here. “Well, Cora, I happen to know we are having honey cakes at break this afternoon. And did I not just say, are there no coincidences?”