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  "You have no need for childish diversions now." She turned one of the books over, examining its cover and scowling. "You will be taught from the Catechism primer all our girls use."

  Away went Mother Goose Rhymes, Gulliver's Travels, and The Adventures of Oliver Twist into a pocket somewhere about the black-robed woman's flowing garments.

  The only one Lizzie could read on her own was the Mother Goose, but it was her least favorite. She grieved all three of them, though she could almost recite them by heart, having heard Mama read them aloud over and over, for her whole life.

  "Mama said I must learn to read them by the time she comes back for me."

  "Your mother will probably not be back for a very long time, child," Mother Superior said in a stern tone. "You will, I hope, have the ability, but not the inclination to squander your wits on novels when you see her again. And we will both pray that she learns better than to give a child such trash before she returns to reclaim you."

  She made it sound as if being "reclaimed" by Mama would be a disaster for Lizzie.

  "Put away your things and convene with the other girls in the dining hall. Dinner is already in progress. Try not to be much later than you already are."

  With that, the woman left Lizzie alone.

  There were two hooks on either side of the narrow bed. Lizzie looked down the dormitory and saw that the other beds all had the same hooks, upon which hung a nightdress and an extra dress. Some of the extra dresses were finer than others. None were as fine as the one Lizzie wore now. Mr. Landrieu had brought it when he came to take her and Mama away this morning.

  She changed into her every day dress and hung her other things on the hooks.

  She didn't know where the dining hall was, but she could not bear the thought of eating. Mama had told her that Mrs. Banks no longer needed a maid and so Lizzie would have to stay here in this cold, strange place with the women in black, until Mama could find another job.

  But as terrible as the story was, the truth was worse. And Lizzie knew the truth. She had been just about to announce herself to Mama--to ask if she might walk to the park for an hour--when Mr. Landrieu had appeared. She had hidden behind some draperies and watched it all. She had heard Mr. Landrieu's proposal to her mother. She had seen the dazzling bracelet.

  Mama's promise had been a lie. Mr. Landrieu was going to make her a countess, and Lizzie could offer nothing to compete with that. So she had pretended to believe Mama's story. She had not cried when Mama left.

  But now the stone she had swallowed in Mother Superior's office seemed to have grown and a cold, hard emptiness took hold of her chest and sent tears stinging her eyes.

  ***

  Sister Cecilia was the pretty one.

  Her eyes were dark brown--almost black--but soft and kind. Lizzie imagined that her hair would be a light brown color--like Mama's--though she couldn't see it under the black and white veil that crept all the way under her chin and tightly around her face. Her cheeks had little roses in them, especially when she was happy. And she was happy more often than any of the other sisters. In fact, she was sometimes reprimanded for not being serious enough.

  But Lizzie liked Sister Cecelia the way she was. She was the morning teacher, which meant she taught practical needlework and singing, but during the time for the sewing, she also read aloud.

  Lizzie hated sewing, but she loved to hear the Lives of the Saints, as read by Sister Cecilia. True, there were times when the pretty girl--she couldn't have been more than 16, Lizzie guessed--would stumble over some words, pause, then seem to begin again from her own imagination, rather than the book. But those were the very times when the story was best. For example, right at the moment when Saint Faith was about to be stripped naked and tortured, the most beautiful angel appeared, struck the jailor with a heavenly paralysis and took Saint Faith's hand, flying her up through the sky and out of the city, to a friendly village where she married a handsome farmer's son and they lived together happily into old age, grandchildren surrounding their death beds.

  Lizzie could tell that Sister Cecilia didn't want them to know what the book really said. But, though she was curious about what had happened to Saint Faith, she was sure that Sister Cecilia's stories were better.

  And Sister Cecilia liked Lizzie too. Lizzie could tell by the way she smiled quietly and looked away whenever she caught Lizzie watching her. She could tell because however uneven Lizzie's stitches, Sister Cecilia always smiled and said "you are making lovely progress, Elizabeth" instead of making her kneel in the corner like the afternoon teacher did when she let a pot boil over during cookery lessons.

  It was after Sister Cecilia had been unable to lead the sewing and singing for the third morning, that Lizzie began to worry. The sister who had taken her place told them Sister Cecilia had caught a cold and would return soon. But two weeks later, Sister Cecilia was still not back and Lizzie was aghast to learn that Saint Faith had died a horrible death, roasted alive over hot coals by men who smiled to hear her shrieks of pain.

  ***

  Lizzie's right palm burned. She could feel the flesh peeling away from the blisters under the clenched fingers of her fist, but she would not cry.

  "You are the best reader in your class, Lizzie," Mother said calmly, as she blew out the flame of the candle over which she had just held Lizzie's scorched hand. "Why do you suppose you find it so difficult to remember your catechism lessons?"

  Lizzie was silent, using all her concentration not to let tears fall in the woman's sight.

  "Your mother is not a member of our faith, but you are an intelligent girl. There is no reason you should not be learning better unless some devil has a hold on your heart. You must try harder to fight it, whatever pain it may cost you. Quite probably you were born of some terrible sin..."

  Mother examined her now with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

  Lizzie felt an angry heat rise to her face. It was true that her grandfather had punished Mama with an awful rage when he came home from the war to find her living in his house with his blacksmith. Mama had told her about it. Grandfather--a man of whom Lizzie had no recall--had killed the blacksmith--Lizzie's papa--by stringing him up a tree. That was when Mama had left Georgia for New York. Lizzie had not been quite two years old.

  But Mama said that she had loved Lizzie's papa and he had loved her, and that was why Lizzie was born. And Lizzie was sure that love was not a sin. But she knew instinctively that she should not share these thoughts with Mother Superior.

  Instead she bowed her head in pretended submission as Mother ordered her to attend more carefully to the catechism lessons, mumbling "yes, Mother" at the end of the lecture and leaving the room, her hand throbbing softly but her heart filling with secret courage.

  ***

  "Elizabeth!"

  Mother Superior had appeared in the door and called Lizzie's name just as the sewing was about to end and the singing begin.

  Lizzie stood quickly, the petticoat she had been hemming falling to the floor. She wasn't sure if Mother Superior would find it more disrespectful if she stooped to retrieve it or left it there, but before she could decide, Mother had summoned her to come to her.

  The woman led her silently down the hallway, up three flights of stairs and down a dark, narrow corridor on a floor Lizzie had not ventured to explore in her eighteen months at the orphanage. Doors adorned with simple wooden crosses lined both sides of the hall, merely a few feet apart. When Mother stopped before one, and opened it, Lizzie was not sure that she was not about to be cast into a jail cell for some infraction she had not known about until now.

  Mother Superior liked to surprise the girls with infractions. Often, they did not learn that it was "sullen" not to meet Mother's eye, or that it was conceited to smile at her, until a day or two after the sin had occurred.

  But it was not a jail cell that Lizzie found when the door was opened. It was Sister Cecilia.

  Lizzie almost didn't recognize her without the wimple and veil that us
ually concealed all but her face. Lizzie had been wrong about her hair. It was not light brown like Mama's, but a flaming red that stood out bright against the white linen of her pillow.

  "Oh, Lizzie..." the girl smiled weakly from a narrow cot pushed against the wall of the tiny room. A two-drawer bureau with a pitcher of water and a drinking glass stood beside the head of the bed. A straight-backed chair sat across from its foot. There was barely room left for Mother and Lizzie to stand side-by-side, looking down at Sister Cecilia.

  "Sister, you will send the girl back in no more than an hour," Mother said.

  "Yes, Mother Superior," Cecilia answered.

  Mother left the room, closing its door behind her.

  "Sit down, Lizzie," Sister Cecilia told her visitor.

  Lizzie turned to find the chair behind her and sat.

  Sister Cecilia's cheeks were rosy and her eyes were bright. Lizzie was so glad to see her looking so well--even if she was in bed--that she didn't even mind the prospect of missing the noon meal which would begin soon. But even as this crossed her mind, Sister Cecilia pointed to the bureau. "Open the top drawer," she whispered.

  Lizzie did as she was told. Inside lay something wrapped in a tea towel. It proved to be two raisin buns.

  "Sister Jean sent them up," Cecilia said with a mischievous smile. "Mother doesn't know. One for you and one for me..."

  Lizzie took a bun and gave the other to Cecilia. A rush of happiness filled her. She had not felt so light and free since Mama had left.

  "Why me?" she asked Cecilia.

  "You?"

  "Why am I here?"

  "Because I am going to be ill for a while longer and they said I might have one of the girls come and read to me for an hour every morning.

  "And today you chose me?"

  "I choose you every day, Lizzie--if it isn't too much for you."

  "No."

  But it almost was too much. It was too much joy after months of dry, dim sorrow barely relieved by tiny sparks of life--most of them coming from Sister Cecilia and her stories. But now Sister Cecilia had chosen Lizzie among all the girls, when she might have chosen any of them.

  "My reading isn't as good yet as some of the older girls'." It was false modesty. For while Lizzie was not quite nine years old, she read as well as most of the girls in the orphanage and better than many her own age and even older.

  But Sister Cecilia did not flatter her. "That's just as well," said Sister Cecilia. "We can practice. I know that you like a good story, and I think you might like a good poem too. But you must promise not to tell Mother Superior what we read. I ought not to have them, but I love them too much to part with them--even if it is a sin."

  Lizzie's added delight of having a secret with Sister Cecilia was quickly dampened when the young nun fell into a terrible fit of coughing. Sister Cecilia pointed to the water pitcher and Lizzie shot up and poured out a glass and held it to Cecilia's lips, supporting her slightly from behind. Sister Cecilia stopped coughing just enough to take a sip, then lay her head back against Lizzie's arm, her red hair spilling all around. Lizzie wanted to stroke it, but she still held the water glass. She knit her brow in worry instead.

  "Are you all right? Sister?"

  Sister Cecilia's eyes were closed, but she whispered. "Thank you, Lizzie." Then she moved carefully clear of Lizzie's arm and propped herself against the pillow again.

  She pointed back to the drawer again. "The books are there."

  Lizzie was still worried. There were some tiny spots of red on Sister Cecilia's white bed linens that were not there before she had begun coughing. But she looked in the drawer and drew out the first book she saw. It had a tooled leather cover, stamped and painted with lilies and roses, and it read:

  Sonnets from the Portuguese

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  "What is it?" Lizzie asked, but when Sister Cecilia tried to answer, she fell to coughing again--though not as bad as before--and Lizzie did not wait for an answer. Instead, she let it fall open to where a rose was pressed between the pages, faded to a pale brown color and dry as the paper itself. She picked it up as gently as if it were a Communion host and glanced at the bed.

  Sister Cecilia extended her hand and Lizzie dropped the little dried rose there, watching with awe as Sister held it to her nose, closed her eyes and smiled. She was quiet, though, so Lizzie looked back to the book and read.

  "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Lizzie began slowly. "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height." She looked up at Sister Cecilia, whose eyes were closed, but who was smiling. Lizzie kept reading, ending awkwardly at each line, so as to confuse the sense of the poem:

  "My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight."

  When Lizzie got to the end of the poem, she looked up again and Sister Cecilia seemed to be sleeping. She sat quietly for a moment, unsure if she should stay in the room--which she wanted to do--or leave, which she feared was what she was expected to do.

  But just when she was about to put the book down, Sister Cecilia opened her eyes. "Don't stop," she said, "but read it again. Mind the punctuation this time--not the line endings. It's a bit like music."

  Lizzie read the poem out again and this time, it made more sense.

  Sister Cecilia smiled and even seemed to sigh a little--almost happily--as Lizzie read the next poem in the book, and the next, until at last Sister Cecilia opened her eyes and said. "That's enough for today. I must sleep for a while now. Thank you, Lizzie. You read them beautifully."

  Lizzie put the book back in the drawer and slipped quietly out of the room.

  She didn't dare hope that it was really true that she might come back to visit Sister Cecilia again tomorrow.

  But it was true. She was taken, before the singing lesson, to read to Sister Cecilia again the next day and the next. After more days than she could count of the same--every day but Sundays--she had come to trust the new routine.

  So when she got up to leave her sewing one morning more than three weeks later, and was stopped outside the door on the fourth floor by a strange nun all in white, she thought it was a mistake.

  "I must go to Sister Cecilia," she said.

  "You may someday go to Sister Cecilia, child, but it will not be today. God grant it will not be for many years to come."

  Lizzie didn't understand.

  "But she needs me every morning to...help her sleep."

  "She will never need you or anyone else again. She went to the Blessed Mother last night."

  Lizzie's heart gave a frantic slam. She had to see Sister Cecilia. She pushed the woman aside and threw herself against the closed door. It was not locked and opened easily.

  "Child! The woman chastised, but her hands were burdened with a large basket and she did not put it down fast enough to keep Lizzie from the room.

  There lay Sister Cecilia in the bed, her eyes closed and her once pretty cheeks white as the sheet against which they lay. Only her hair was still bright, though now it was pulled tightly away from her face and woven into a long braid that lay across her shoulder.

  But for all the body resembled Sister Cecilia, the body on the bed was a mere empty vessel. Whether Sister Cecilia was really with the Blessed Mother, Lizzie did not know. But she knew that she was gone.

  ***

  It was dark and the other girls in the dormitory were sleeping. The moon outside the tiny windows was high and bright. Lizzie threw off her thin sheet and crept down the hall into the stairwell.

  There was no window to cast the smallest light into the corridor, but Lizzie knew her way without looking. Once on the fourth floor, she ran a hand along the wall, counting the doors until she came to the one that belonged to Sister Cecilia.

  She knew she wouldn't find Sister beyond the door. They had buried her that very morning, in a pine box, in a bare field that held the departed sisters in rows marked only by simple wooden crosses. But she waited, hand on the doorknob for a long moment, as her heart fluttered. She took a deep br
eath, turned the knob and opened the door just wide enough to slip inside.

  The full moon lit the room faintly, allowing Lizzie to see that a black veil hung over the cross at the head of Sister Cecilia's bed. The water pitcher still stood on the bureau beside it, but the drinking glass was gone. For the first time, it came to Lizzie that what she wanted might be gone too and her heartbeat picked up again as she stepped to the drawer.

  But they were there. She took them out, one by one, running her thumbs across the covers and laying them carefully on the bed:

  Sonnets from the Portuguese, Shakespeare's Complete Sonnets, and Ivanhoe, which they had not finished yet.

  She took one last look at the pillow where Sister Cecilia's beautiful hair had laid, gathered up the books and crept silently back down the stairs.

  ***

  Jack be nimble, Lizzie thought. Jack be quick... She slipped out the kitchen door of the orphanage and into the alley behind the building. Sister Cecilia's books were bundled in her nightdress. She wore a pair of trousers and a shirt she had stolen from the boy who slept behind the kitchen and stoked the oven. Her curls were on the pantry floor and the knife she had used to cut them off was hiding in her left boot.

  Mama was never coming back. Sister Cecilia was with the Blessed Mother. Lizzie did not want to learn the Catechism. She wanted to be free.

  END

  Want to know what happened next? Read Jack, by Shannon LC Cate, available at Amazon.com and everywhere ebooks are sold.