Hedi lay quiet at the center of the little bed. Insomnia nudged her to roll right. Her ash-gray hair spilled over the pillow like a field that keeps sprouting crops season after season.
Selina, who’d been on the other bed, slipped to the left side. She wrapped Hedi and draped a soft, pale thigh over her, like a cat stealing warmth off a hearth.
“You can’t sleep like this in the Sacred Cathedral,” Hedi whispered. “Everyone has their own bed.”
“You’re not asleep?”
“It’s your fault for not waking me. I slept the whole afternoon.”
“I thought you were too tired.”
“Since we came back from Shattered City, I’ve been trying to reset my hours,” Hedi shifted gently. “But I never feel rested.”
As she spoke, the back of her hand brushed something furry, like wild grass. The touch snapped like high-voltage static. A startled cry leaped out of her. “Per… pervert!”
“Where’s the pervert?”
“You are! Didn’t a sister give you a night robe?”
“No way,” Selina pouted. “It smells like detergent.”
“Pervert! Pervert!”
In the soft dark, Selina’s smile flickered and vanished. Then, like a catfish invading a sardine’s turf, she hugged Hedi tight. No matter how Hedi squirmed, Selina refused to let her go.
“How about this,” Hedi yielded, “I’ll sleep on your bed, okay?”
“Mmm… let’s sleep holding each other.”
“Aren’t you a believer? Doing this in the Sacred Cathedral will get us scolded!”
“My doctrine allows cuddling.”
“You still have to respect Molokov Bay Chapel’s rules!”
“Eeyah!” Selina sprang off the bed, wrapped in the quilt, like a roaring beast bent on overturning the quiet night. She pounced and bundled Hedi inside the warm quilt, teasing, “Disobedient kids get eaten by the monster!”
Laughter spilled from the guest quarters of the Sacred Cathedral.
“What time is it—why aren’t you sleeping?”
The bark from the hall made them both shrink at once, two startled little creatures curled tight in the warm bed, not daring to move.
“This is all your fault!”
“I only wanted to sleep with you.”
“No. Not with you.”
Selina found Hedi’s ticklish spots, and Hedi writhed across the mattress. “That’s what happens to naughty kids!”
Laughter bubbled again from the guest quarters. Then came rapid knocking, exactly seventeen sharp raps.
Hedi straightened her night robe and cracked the door just enough for her head to peek out. Her face flushed. “Sorry. We’re going to sleep now.”
“What are you two doing?” asked the night patrol sister.
“Nothing.”
“Tell the truth.”
“We just… moved a bit,” Hedi wiped sweat off her face. “If the body’s tired, it’s easier to sleep.”
The sister said nothing. She stared into the room’s darkness like a vigilant sentry, evident sharpness glinting in her eyes. Hedi followed that gaze. All she saw was Selina, properly tucked in on her own little bed, a picture of quiet sleep.
“You!” The sister pointed at Selina’s fake slumber. “Go sleep in another room.”
Selina murmured softly, like she was just stepping into wakefulness’s first light.
“Once she’s asleep,” Hedi chose her words with care, “she sleeps till dawn.”
The sister paused, then asked, “So the noise just now was made by you alone?”
“Uh… yeah… I laugh when I exercise.”
“Heh. Mind your station! You’re a sinner!”
“Purification… I know…”
“And as for her, your accomplice—”
The sister cut herself short, pushed the door wider, and searched the room. Everything sat as it should. Nothing seemed out of place.
“Don’t make another sound!” She turned and glared at Hedi. “Sleep quietly!”
“I was just about to.”
“See that you do!”
Hedi watched the sister leave. She hurried to Selina’s bed and smacked her shoulder. “Sleep properly!”
“I want to sleep with you.”
“I’ve heard that line.”
Selina buried her head in the quilt and spoke muffled. “If I don’t hold you, I can’t sleep.”
“Molokov Bay Chapel’s rules are what they are. If Sister Bertha finds out—” Hedi paused, then added, “we’ll be punished.”
“Has Sister Bertha scolded you before?”
“Didn’t she just scold us?”
“Mmm… you answered a question with a question again!”
“Habits change slowly.”
“It’s no big deal. If you force yourself to change, you won’t feel like you.”
On her pillow, Hedi drifted into thought. A new term at the academy, the feel of opening a fresh textbook—she couldn’t grasp it yet, but the pages promised new knowledge and change. Yet whenever she faced the mirror, counting the rings of each passing year, a nameless panic rose: aside from the obvious places, I hardly seem changed at all.
“What are you thinking?” Selina asked. “Or sleep?”
“Just weighing the past me against the present me.”
“Any change?”
Hedi shook her head, a sigh in her voice. “Growing from child to adult means building and refining a worldview, bit by bit. Mine was finished early. Even magic—the unforeseen—just adds bricks to a foundation I already laid.”
“Don’t say it like that,” Selina propped herself up. “You’re just more mature than people your age.”
“Is that so?”
“Of course! You’re only twenty-two, and you talk like you’ve already been reborn once.”
“Do I look like it?”
“Oh! I get it. Molokov Bay Chapel worships the Goddess of Life, and you grew up here…”
Hedi trembled lightly and laughed. “The Priest probably shaped me without me noticing. He kept whispering in my ear, ‘The Goddess of Life governs rebirth’ and ‘Keep reverence in your heart.’”
“That finished worldview you mentioned—is that the Priest’s teaching too?”
“Obviously. You think I get a second life?”
“Mmm…”
Hedi smiled, indulgent. “Sleep.”
“I want to hold you.”
“No.”
Silence settled over the guest quarters of the Sacred Cathedral.
Tonight the moon was white in a strange way. Thin drifting clouds looked like little sailing ships, sliding through the deep-blue sky under moon and star. On such a night, the patrolling sister turned the kerosene lamp down a notch and shuffled along the cobbled path. Silent moonlight dressed the earth in a silver sheen.
