When the train slid into the platform, the sky still shed a fine, relentless rain, like gray strings combing the world.
The storm-scrubbed hills receded to the frame of her sight as the cars hissed in, like ink-wash mountains slipping behind a wet screen.
Hedi stood at the door with her suitcase; breath jammed first, like a swallowed cloud packing her ribs with cold, damp wool.
She bobbed her left foot up and down, eyes on a mirage where smoke and rain braided a gauzy veil across the tracks.
"Let's go back," Hedi said, heat flashing then fading like lightning behind clouds, "I always decide hot-headedly—Shattered City then, and now too."
An express letter drove me back to Naghtown for Sister Bertha's funeral, yet I'm a week late, like a clock stuck in rain."
Selina clasped Hedi's palm, warmth like a small fire cupped in both hands. "But you met me in Shattered City. Not all storms are bad."
"They'll shame me if they know me, like crows pecking, and my heart's not diamond-hard."
"That just proves you're human, warm as bread from an oven."
"A whole week late?"
"Because—" Selina swept a glance around like a bird testing wind, and lowered her voice. "You were in the Dark Realm."
"One look at the mailbox would've told me, like a sign nailed to a tree. Proof I've no conscience."
"You said they'd write and scold you, like hail on a roof. Not looking makes sense."
"Because I have no conscience..." Her words drift like mist.
Selina wrapped Hedi tight, like a cloak against wind. "You came back to honor the Priest and Sister who raised you. Then we leave, okay?"
Hedi shook her head in refusal, like a willow refusing the rain.
"Quick, the doors opened!" Selina stepped onto the platform like a leaping fish, and tugged at Hedi clinging to the frame.
"How are you suddenly so strong, like a river pulling?"
"Le... let's go back..." Her voice thinned like rain threads.
"Out first!" Selina heaved with all her strength, like hauling a net, and Hedi stumbled from the car straight into her arms.
They toppled together onto the platform, a splash of bodies on wet stone, and nearby faces tilted over like sunflowers.
"You okay?" Selina looked at Hedi in her arms, fingers smoothing her hair like combing silk. "If the doors closed, you'd ride on and get scolded."
"Check a return ticket, like checking the tide."
"Back now?"
Hedi rose and patted mud from her pants like dusting off leaves, then repacked what had spilled from the suitcase.
"Call it a farce from a fogged brain, like a lantern smoked over. Hurry and buy the return."
She shoved damp bangs back with a fretful flick, like pushing reeds aside, then sat on the bench to await Selina's good news.
"I asked," Selina drifted back, voice low as driftwood on a tide. "Earliest train's at three in the afternoon."
"It's only eight in the morning, like a long gray shore."
"Mm..." Her reply lingered like a bubble.
"I hate it. After all these years it's still that time, like a stubborn clock."
"If you don't want to go, we'll wait here till afternoon, like stones by a stream."
Hedi re-combed her hair and tied a low ponytail, like gathering a river into one thread.
She took round sunglasses from the suitcase and set them on her nose like a shadowed visor.
"They don't allow idlers to loiter on the platform. Let's duck into an inn, like birds under an eave."
"Your disguise works. I almost didn't know you, like mist over a mirror."
"They're just sunglasses... ow... shouldn't have—" The protest trailed like rain on glass.
"Be good. If anything happens, I'll protect you, like an umbrella in a squall."
Selina took Hedi's hand, and they walked toward Naghtown like two dots of ink on wet paper.
Naghtown had only six streets, a place barely big enough to be called a town, like a handful of shingles under mountain eaves.
It held a dozen shops or so, and yet the Molokov Bay Chapel was renowned, like a bell heard valleys away.
Near the inner side of the road stood a small inn, a nest for out-of-towners who came to pray or tour the Sacred Cathedral.
Every room looked the same, like they were cast from one mold. A balcony sat out back, with a single wooden chair.
The houses were single-storey, a low row with a chimney like a finger raised to the rain.
Unlike most, the bedroom and living room were separate, with a bathroom between them, like a strip of sand between two pools.
A pull-cord light hung from the ceiling, a pale fruit on a string, and a radio sat humming like a small hearth.
Selina took in the layout with interest, standing on the balcony where Naghtown spread below like a stitched quilt.
The row of rooms linked by their balconies meant she could walk all the way along, like a cat on a fence.
"Not safe at all," Selina said, and locked the balcony door with a click like a pebble.
"No idea why it's designed like this, like leaving ladders out."
"Because believers talk with one another, like streams joining. It's to make things easy for them."
"But I haven't seen a single believer, like a field with no birds."
Hedi lay back on the sofa, watching Selina through her shades like a pond behind reeds.
"Aren't you one?"
"Then so are you, like a mirror facing a mirror."
"Ha... ha..." The laugh landed weakly, like two drops.
"We haven't met any acquaintances along the way," Selina said. "You can relax now, like a sail in calm."
"Even if no one spoke—" Hedi recalled the walk to the inn, eyes on her like people watching a rare animal.
"Why did so many stare? What's on my face, like ink?"
"Narcissism," Selina said, grinning like a cat.
"I'm serious. Didn't you feel it, like a draft under a door?"
"No," she said, flat as still water.
"Of course. They weren't looking at you, like moths to another flame."
Selina dashed to Hedi and pinched her cheek, fingers springy like a ripe peach. "I'm prettier than you."
"Heh, you've just got two extra pads of baby fat, like clouds on a hill."
Selina huffed playfully, then asked with curiosity bright as dew, "Why's the Sacred Cathedral here called Molokov Bay?"
"Because there's a Molokov Bay here, like a name carved from the shore."
"I only saw mountains, like walls."
"You have to go farther in, about where the Chapel stands, like walking to the mouth of a cove."
"Mm... you—"
"I know what you want to say. Not going, like a stone refusing the rope."
Selina toweled Hedi's wet hair, strokes soft as rain on moss. "We're here already. Let's go once."
"No. We'll rest till three and leave, like travelers catching a break in a storm."
Selina was about to press on when a bell sounded outside, a bright ring like a bird above rain.
She pushed open the shutters and saw a long procession inch along the street, like a river of cloth, and gasped, "A Holy Maiden procession!"
"Likely sending Sister Bertha off, like carrying light to the shore."
"It's already been a week, like a circle on a calendar."
"Exactly because it's been a week—" Her voice pricked like a pin.
"And people on the road are all kneeling, like wheat in wind."
"The Holy Maiden is the gods' proxy on earth, like a lamp set low. That's normal."
"The god I follow has no Holy Maiden, like a sky with no moon."
"Different doctrines," Hedi said, the words plain as stones.
"And she looks so much like you, like a reflection on water."
That hooked Hedi's interest like a fish on a line. She rose and went to the window, gaze steady as rain.
Among the black-clad crowd, a unique wash of gray-white appeared, like an egret on a riverbank.
It was a woman with hair to her waist, her tresses pouring like a waterfall.
"Where's the resemblance?" Hedi toyed with her sunglasses like flicking a fan. "You're making a fuss."
"From far away, truly alike, like two cranes in fog."
"I'm much shorter than she is, like a hill to her ridge."
The Holy Maiden walked slow, and to each kneeling soul along the road she inclined, with a gentle smile like sunlight after rain.
"Pro... Professor..." Selina pointed to the flag-bearers behind the Holy Maiden, long banners like river reeds.
"Look at the words."
"Can't see. It's a blur, like ink bled by rain. What does it say?"
"It says Hedi Melvina. You're the Sacred Cathedral's Holy Maiden, like a name raised on the wind."
