The memorial viewing was set for June 18 at three in the afternoon, a fixed star stamped on the calendar.
At dawn on that important day, first light filtered through the stained glass of the Sacred Cathedral like watered silk, and Sister Bertha was already in motion like a shadow slipping under reeds.
Her figure drifted down the corridors, quiet as mist along stone, and with the other nuns she moved light and orderly, arranging the ceremony like birds laying twigs.
As the sun grew warm, every corner of the Sacred Cathedral softened like milk poured into tea, and beams refracted through the panes, gilding the air with dust that whirled like powdered white light.
At the altar, Sister Bertha set fresh-cut flowers with careful hands, and placed the holy text at the center like a heart in a chest, a heavy gold-edged tome whose every page held notes by Priest John.
The air carried a faint thread of candle smoke, braided with flower-sweet and warm timber, and the mix made her drift as if Priest John still sat on the pew like a calm stone, gazing over the layout with steady eyes.
She closed her eyes like shuttering a window against wind.
Memory rose like a spring, incredibly clear, as if peering down a telescope and seeing the far end sharpen into a star.
In her mind, Priest John remained vivid as lantern flame: his gentle smile, his slightly hoarse voice like gravel in a stream, his solemn face at the pulpit like winter pine, and the way his brows tangled when dealing with Melvina’s punishment like knotted rope.
A prickle of dread bit first, and she drew a breath with a soft hiss, the sound like steam. “I thought of something bad,” she said, her words falling like ash.
The other nuns stilled, and a hush draped the Sacred Cathedral like snow, so that each tiny sound sharpened like a pin.
Sister Bertha straightened her back like a brand-new pencil, almost comically rigid, and she waved her hand as if brushing gnats, signaling she’d blurted nonsense off key.
“If you’ve got worries, you can tell us,” a voice offered, gentle as a palm leaf.
“It’s not a worry,” she said, her tone flat as paper. “You know.”
The nuns fell silent, and scalding white light poured through the glass like hot rain. The suspended bell shivered and spoke seven times, each peal slow and steady like a giant’s heartbeat, and then they went back to their tasks with faces blank as stone.
People trickled into the Sacred Cathedral, young men and women in dark clothes like crows in a field, all of them orphans or children born with disabilities adopted by Priest John, and in that tide Sister Bertha couldn’t find Alina’s face like a missing bead.
“Where is she?” Sister Bertha asked, letting the question drop like a pebble in a well.
“Didn’t see her this morning,” a girl answered, her words quick as sparrows, then a flash of surprise lit her eyes like a spark. “You didn’t put her in confinement? She locked me in the bathroom,” she added, the memory like a slammed door.
“At this juncture we can’t enforce confinement,” Sister Bertha said, her voice flat as a blade.
“Then I don’t know,” the girl replied, the phrase light as dust.
Sister Bertha said nothing, her silence stretching like a taut string. Her tongue felt swollen, like wood soaking up water, and she forced down the gathered saliva like bitter tea before blurting, anxious as a flapping curtain, “She went to find Melvina! She told me.”
“Right!” the girl said, ears tilted like a fox’s, “We haven’t seen Melvina either.”
“It’s none of your business. Don’t ask,” Sister Bertha cut, the words like a shut gate.
The girl nodded with a guilty look, her face dimming like dusk.
Sister Bertha let out a breath like wind leaving a sail. She couldn’t speak of Dark Magic, because that would smear the Sacred Cathedral like spilled ink. Between “not attending the Priest’s funeral” and “studying Dark Magic,” both choices were thorns; and once Melvina stepped into Dark Magic, her absence from the funeral was set like iron. Even if the ignorant called her cold, the blame would cling like burrs.
“You’re here,” Sister Bertha called, her voice traveling the nave like a bellrope, to the men and women who stood like solitary structures in the Sacred Cathedral. “Help us with some things.”
Under Sister Bertha’s guidance, the idle youths came to the tasks like rain joining a river. Some set flowers on the altar like bright birds; some arranged the seats like tiles in a courtyard; others wiped fine dust from the candelabra under the nuns’ directions like polishing moonlight. Every step was prepared and practiced like a ritual dance, sure and clean, and by the time it all was done, the sun tilted toward noon like a poured bowl.
Then Alina stepped through the main doors, her whole self like an animal that hadn’t seen sunlight for too long, its coat faded and rough.
“Everyone’s ready,” Sister Bertha said, irritation cutting like a thorn. “So you do come back?”
Alina didn’t answer; she stood by the door like a lost post, staring at the tidy interior like a lake without ripples.
“Melvina’s at Hervor Academy,” Sister Bertha began, the words hesitant as a thin thread, “and she forgot to tell you—”
“She should go there,” Alina cut in, her voice wilted like a drooping leaf. “She went to Pandro.”
Sister Bertha gave a vague sound like a muffled drum. To her, not finding Melvina was both regret and relief, a coin with two faces. She knew Alina’s nature: if Alina learned where Melvina was, she might force out the truth about Dark Magic like prying open a shell, and the truth would stain the Sacred Cathedral like ink in water.
“If you didn’t find her, let it go,” Sister Bertha said, trying to settle things like dust.
“I found her,” Alina said, the words firm as a knuckle.
Both lines landed together like two droplets merging, and then silence came down again like a curtain.
“Pandro?” Sister Bertha asked, astonishment showing plain as sky. So Alina likely knew why Melvina left, and, just to be sure, she pressed, “What did you two talk about?” Her question hovered like a moth near flame.
Alina shook her head as if shooing a tiny bug, the motion quick as a flick.
“Then how did you meet?” Sister Bertha asked, confusion seeping like fog. “Melvina loves magic; she wouldn’t go to Pandro.” The name sounded dull as stone.
“Do you know what she thinks of the Sacred Cathedral?” Alina asked, her voice brittle as thin ice.
Sister Bertha thought for a moment, her mind weighing words like stones, and guessed, “Disgusted, nauseated, hates everything here—and me?” The guess landed like a tossed twig.
“She said she feels nothing for this place,” Alina answered, the phrase hollow as an empty bowl.
“And?” Sister Bertha asked, her tone soft as dusk.
“No friends,” Alina murmured, her voice sinking like a leaf. “It was me who decided she was my friend,” she added, the confession small as a match flame.
“Did you talk about anything else?” Sister Bertha pressed, her question thin as thread.
“We didn’t talk,” Alina said, the denial flat as slate.
Sister Bertha grew more confused, the feeling spinning like a caught fish, and she let Alina cool down a little like steel in water before saying, “Tell me from start to finish,” her request steady as a plumb line.
“I understand… why she won’t visit the Priest… I understand everything…” Alina said, the words broken like a cracked cup.
“It might not be what you think,” Sister Bertha replied, caution lifting like a hand.
“What else could it be?” Alina asked, the question hard as a pebble.
This time it was Sister Bertha who shook her head, the refusal quiet as fog.
Alina stared, and the thing inside her like hope lost its strength, guttering like a candle in wind. In some ways, that fading hurt more than a clean death. “We’ve lived in the Sacred Cathedral so long—” she stammered, the phrase limp as cloth, “and in the end she feels nothing for it.”
“If you insist on reading it that way, it isn’t wrong,” Sister Bertha said, offering comfort like a shawl. “I used to like her,” she admitted, and then, after Melvina learned Dark Magic, “I don’t anymore,” the sentence was blunt as a blade.
Alina nodded dully, her head heavy as a stone, and her mind filled with negative tides like a lake in storm, blurring her thoughts and nudging her toward another wrong choice later in life like a misstep on wet stairs.
