Chapter Text
Unsurprisingly, Beatrice found herself in a church.
Ava had stifled any more complaints that she may have harboured on the ride back to the apartment, sitting pressed against her, uncharacteristically still, with hands wrapped tightly around her waist. Beatrice had left her there without so much as a goodbye, feeling tight and tense and at risk of saying something ruinous; of doing something calamitous.
She seated herself quietly on a hard pew near the back of the nave, deep in the shadows cast by narrow strips of light through distorted, old glass. Finally, she released a shuddering sigh.
She’d felt on a knife’s edge all day; from the moment of waking, naked and spent and entirely exposed in Ava’s arms. Realising with sickening certainty what they’d done, away from the thrill of the alcohol, the comfortable cloak of the darkness. Seeing the marks on her throat and collarbones, the proof of what had happened, of how she’d broken her vow to God and to herself. How she’d surrendered to base desires; unnatural urges.
The worst part was that none of it had felt unnatural. As soon as her craving for Ava was longer a selfish, hidden thing trembling behind her eyes, under her hands, catching in her chest, but there in the open between them — none of it had felt like sin, like wickedness, like corruption. On the contrary; it had felt like the easiest thing in the world. Something she didn’t need to force, train for, fit herself into. Something that she could make with Ava that was effortlessly, entirely good.
Something that maybe, just maybe, Ava wanted to continue to make with her.
It terrified her.
The church was silent; it was eleven o’clock on a Thursday. Morning service was well over, and it wasn’t exactly well attended anyway, at this provincial church in a small Swiss village, where the congregation were the last holdouts of an older generation. The recent swirling rumours of Adriel’s new flock can’t have helped, either. Dust motes swirled in the rays of light. Her breath felt loud to her own ears.
Beatrice sighed again, and allowed herself to drop her face into her hands, elbows on her knees. She rubbed rough circles at her temples.
She hadn’t lied to Ava. She didn’t lie to Ava, ever. She did need to consult with the Order. She just hadn’t decided what to consult them on, or who to consult with. First, she needed to understand the maelstrom of swirling thoughts and urges inside her head.
There was one good reason why she simply could not leave: no one else could train Ava. No one was skilled enough that the new Bearer trusted. Lilith and Mary were God only knew where. Camila was too new, too green. Mother Superion — well. The threat had been made, but it was an empty one. The two may have reached a ceasefire in their active hostilities, but Ava would most likely make it through half a day under her tutelage before giving it up for lost and vanishing to South America, or something. And the rest of the Order, the other chapters scattered around the globe — they didn’t understand. They wouldn’t get Ava. Wouldn’t get what she needed, or how to get the best out of her. How to prepare her for what was surely coming.
She thought about that. Thought about the mission, the risk, the duty. That had never changed. Whatever else had happened, that had never changed.
Beatrice heard footsteps echo on the cold stone towards the altar, and looked up, tensing in automatic readiness.
Just the priest; a middle-aged man, paunchy, fair haired and with a ruddy complexion. He hadn’t seen her, and was clearing the remains of the morning service: the heavy Bible and prayer books. He paused in front of the crucifix hanging at the altar and crossed himself.
She watched him. As a nun, she was still subservient to priests; she sat some places beneath them in the Church’s ancient and rigid hierarchy. He had the right to direct her, to guide her. To absolve her.
It couldn’t hurt.
She stood and approached him. He started when she gently cleared her throat, having not heard any footsteps. “My child,” he said, in German, looking at her curiously, “forgive me, I didn’t see you. How can I help?”
“I’d like to confess my sins, Father,” she said, speaking German in turn. It was easier to talk about this in her fourth, fifth, sixth language. More distant. Less personal.
He looked at her hesitantly, and nodded. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you at Mass? Are you a member of the congregation?”
“No,” she replied, “I’m only visiting. From Spain.”
“Oh,” the priest replied, uncertainly, and they were silent for a moment. But he nodded again, and led her towards the sacristy.
Beatrice shook her head. “I’d rather use the confessional, please.”
So, they slipped into the confessional, the priest becoming little more than a shadow behind the narrow grille. Beatrice knelt on the wooden step and took a deep, calming breath in the familiar confines, the smell of incense and old wood filling up her senses.
“Take your time, dear,” the shadow murmured.
She only needed another moment. Beatrice made the sign of the cross, long-ingrained muscle memory taking over. “ Vergib’ mir, Vater ,” she breathed, “for I have sinned. It has been three months since my last confession.” She’d last confessed to Vincent, and the thought of it disgusted her, how he"d collected her pain, her secrets, her doubts like keepsakes even as he’d spread Adriel’s evil within and around them. Killed Shannon.
“God hears all, child,” the priest replied, “and He blesses your honesty and your penitence. Tell me your sins.”
“Last night, I —”
What? I committed adultery? I lay with God’s chosen bearer of Adriel’s holy Halo? I had lesbian sex with my best friend?
Twice?
Beatrice realised her heart was racing and her mouth was dry. Her last confession had been a farce, taken by a liar and a hypocrite and an enemy of God and the Order. There’d been nothing holy about it, no absolution. And here she knelt, in front of a stranger, with no idea of who she was, how she’d gotten here, a world away from that lie in Andalusia — how could this be real?
Also, I’m an ordained nun. So the lesbian sex was doubly bad and sinful. And I’ve killed people as part of being an ordained nun. But that part’s alright, I guess. My Mother Superion told me so.
“Fuck,” she breathed, Ava’s word harsh and unfamiliar in her mouth, giving her a moment of relief.
“It’s alright,” the priest said, having understood nothing. “I understand it can be difficult.”
She sighed, and tried again. “I had intimate relations with a woman. A — a friend.”
Intimate relations. Friend. That’s a way to put it.
“Oh.”
Oh, indeed. Beatrice shifted her knees on the unyielding wooden bench. “Just once. Or, well. In one night. But I have … had thoughts about her. Of that nature. For some time.”
“I see.” She wondered for a second if she’d flummoxed him. “You know that such relations are a sin.”
She almost laughed at that, kneeling stiffly in the confessional. Maybe he was catching up. “Because we’re unmarried or because we’re both women, Father?”
“Well. The Church, traditionally, teaches that both of those qualify.”
She felt a vicious anger then, a derision at this weak-willed stranger sat behind a screen, imbued with an authority he didn’t wield. So unlike the Church she fought for. The women of the Order. Cardinal Duretti. Vincent. Adriel.
“So it’s in my nature to be sinful, then. I can’t change how she makes me feel. And I can’t marry her, and make it alright with God. I’m a nun. I took solemn vows.” Her confession fell into the dead air between them like a corpse, like a defeat.
“Oh.” He said again, quietly, and the sound of it made her want to scream. “If I may, I think you may wish to speak with your Mother Superior about your indiscretion. And about whether you can continue to honour your vows, sister.”
That gave her pause. She looked at the still shape, formless and featureless behind the screen.
“You are conflicted. It is better to leave service honestly with your Order’s blessing, than to hold yourself to vows which you have already rejected in your heart.”
“That would be —” faithless? She stumbled on the statement.
“We Christians find many ways to honour God,” the priest continued calmly. “If one way isn’t right for you, you can find another.”
The OCS. Home — duty — punishment — salvation. There was never meant to be another for her.
“I didn’t come here to talk about my vows,” she replied eventually, voice stiff and tense.
“Of course,” the priest replied, placidly. “What did you come here to talk about? Your adultery?”
“—yes.” Such an ugly word, spoken so evenly. Quite without the revulsion and the viciousness she’d grown up expecting to hear.
“Well. You requested it, and I will not speak to your vows. But you know that the position of the church on relationships between those of the same sex is not unanimous. I can assign you penance, but I fear that this is no longer my place.”
Beatrice fidgeted, uncertain, wrong-footed.
“These are difficult times for our flock, sister,” he continued, gently. “You said you would marry this woman. You would consecrate your relations with her before God, swear to love, protect and honour her as long as you both may live. Where I see love, I will not condemn it. Even if I cannot understand it.”
She swallowed, his words burrowing somewhere under her chest, drawing a sharp, painful sob from her.
The priest waited a moment. “Is there anything else you wish to confess, Sister?”
She choked down the tears, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I … I hurt the same woman this morning. I mean, we were training. We do physical training together. Martial arts. I lost my temper, with everything that’s happened between us. I was too hard on her and I caused her pain. I regret that, deeply.”
“Well, I can quite understand,” the priest responded, and she heard the smile in his words. “She has put you through difficult times.”
She clenched her jaw. “You have no idea.”
“You know that the Lord has given you great power, sister, and strength. Save your strength for those tasks which merit it, and do not give in to wrathful urges. Be righteous in your anger, and your power, and turn the other cheek to those who cause you pain.”
The rest of the confession was more solid ground for Beatrice. She avoided mentioning her very literal body count — that really was something for Pope Duretti and the Order, not this village priest — and accepted his instructions of penance through prayer for her anger with grace.
“The Lord has freed you from your sins. Go in peace, sister, with God in your heart.”
“Gott sei Dank,” she breathed in response, making the sign of the cross. Thanks be to God.
She left the Church then, deep in thought, numb to the kiss of the midday sun on her skin.
She’d thought — she didn’t know what she’d thought. That she’d unburden her soul, accept her penance, and go to make the arrangements for Ava’s training with a clear conscience and an order to atone from her Church. But there was no penance. There was no conscience to clear. The Holy Father’s direction, if that, was something entirely different, unthinkable.
She started up the moped, turning it over in her mind.
The position of the Church is not unanimous.
God is perfect. Omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent.
She thought of Adriel — exiled from Heaven, hunkered for a thousand years under the Holy See. She remembered Vincent — pious and wise and steady and treacherous. She remembered Duretti — ambitious and calculating and self-serving, and now, thanks to all of that, the supreme head of the Catholic Church. God’s representative on Earth.
The Church, she recalled, is not God. The Church is men.
You would consecrate your relations with her before God.
Would she? Bit of a leap, Beatrice thought absently, easing the moped through the narrow streets. She’d never thought about it. Never thought about anyone like that. From the moment she’d been old enough to understand her nature, she’d understood that it was dangerous, not to be indulged. She had flinched guiltily away from the other girls in the P.E. changing room at secondary school. She’d sat nonplussed and bemused at the edge of their conversations about the boys in their class and the pop starlets adorning the posters on their walls. She’d stared hungrily and confusedly at Vanessa Wilder’s long legs and shimmering waves of blonde hair, and then Vanessa had stared right back at her in the confines of her bedroom, and kissed her deeply —
Even over the roar of the moped’s engine, Beatrice heard her mother’s distressed cries, English and Hokkien and Malay mixing into a reproach beyond the limits of any one language, a rejection of her very being which turned her into something monstrous and malformed. She heard her father’s cold fury and disgust, his clipped tones sharp enough to cut, making her feel small and stupid and inadequate. They’d spoken of shame, and perversion, and selfishness, and Beatrice had taken all those things and packed them up somewhere inside herself. They chafed and they smarted, every time she tried to peek inside. There was no room in there for someone else, among their jagged edges.
She saw none of them in those memories with Ava. None of it in the nameless priest’s circumspect counsel.
Where I see love, I will not condemn it. Even if I cannot understand it.
She reached the edge of town, the landscape opening up before her again, and drove only as far as a familiar rest stop. She hiked the rest of the way, indifferent to the grumbling of her stomach and the aching in her overworked calves, up and up into the sticky, heavy air until she broke the tree cover and found the lake.
Their lake, she thought. She’d taught Ava to swim here maybe a month ago, submerged to her navel with careful hands on the other girl’s back, chest, and shoulders, helping her float, trying not to drown alongside her in something far more dangerous.
She’d watched from here the other day as Ava had launched herself across the surface of the same water, glorious, fearless, crossing it like Jesus Christ himself over the Sea of Galilee, all to reach her. The thought should be blasphemous, heretical. She found it was just fond.
Better to leave service honestly, than to hold yourself to vows you have already rejected in your heart.
She picked her way down to the bank, and followed the usual route to the outpost jutting into the lake, treading sure footed across uneven rocks until she arrived at their spot. This spot was where Ava had confided in her; where she’d told her, quiet and serious, that all of it — Adriel, the Vatican, Mary, Lilith — all of it was her fault. That she had a duty to make it right. Ava hadn’t needed God or the Church to tell her that. She’d known it in herself.
Beatrice perched on the rocks, picking up one of the flat stones she’d left there from the other morning. She turned it over in her hands. Her father had taught her to skim them, his huge pale hand engulfing her smaller darker one, on a frigid beach somewhere on the west coast of Scotland, before everything had fallen apart and he’d seen her for who she was. Or, she mused, revealed himself for who he was.
She stared out at the glassy, calm surface of the lake, breathing in through her nose, and out through her mouth. A careful count, regular and unhurried. A tactic she’d used since she’d been a child to manage the waves of panic and shame which would periodically crash through her, pitiless and destructive, something like the tropical typhoons which battered the home of her infancy. Beatrice drew circles into the stone with the rough pads of her fingers, and traced the turbulent path of her feelings backwards. Tried to find something real, steady and certain in her, something not upended by the last twelve hours of Ava, and her, and them both.
And in allowing her mind to wander — for the first time in a very long time — she allowed herself to miss Shannon.
It was complicated for her. Shannon and Ava were two sides of a spinning coin; you couldn’t have both. The first’s life had abruptly ended before her thirty-fifth birthday. She’d begotten the second, allowing Ava’s life to restart at nineteen. And Beatrice, in all that had happened since, hadn’t let herself think about Shannon. To regret Shannon’s loss had felt like betraying Ava’s trust, at a time when no one else had had any faith left at all.
Shannon had been everything Ava hadn’t; worldly, graceful, stoic, pious. But sometimes, she saw flashes of Shannon in her successor. Her humour, her tolerance, her kindness. And latent, within the new Bearer, to be drawn out; a propensity for leadership. Leadership that inspired faith. To nurture that leadership, to coax it into bloom like a shoot in spring, was Beatrice’s job.
Beatrice wished now, more than anything, that she could talk to Shannon. She would have loved Ava. Would have taken her under her wing, like she’d done to Beatrice, whether or not she’d wanted it. Would have put her in her place when she was being a brat, would have laughed heartily at her stupid jokes. And she wouldn’t have judged the mess that had unfolded between them, Beatrice knew it.
She thought to murmur a prayer for Shannon. But the words wouldn’t come. So instead, she just thought it, a private message to the Warrior Nun she’d known and loved as her sister.
Wherever you are, I hope you’re at peace. I hope you’re happy. I hope you get to rest now. We’re doing okay here. I’ll tell you all about it when I get there. Sooner, or later.
She stood and skimmed the stone in her hand, watching it bounce smoothly over the surface of the lake, once— twice— thrice— before it was swallowed by the grasping waters. And she let Shannon go with it.
She brought her mind back to the present. She could have used Mary here. Mary, to clip her around the back of the head and mutter something disparaging and, somehow, affectionate. To see through all her navel gazing and drag her towards solutions , and getting by , and this will do . Mary would have gotten it. Mary, who had sat in the chapel for three days and three nights after they’d lost Shannon. She’d been wild-eyed, and possessed, and never quite the same afterwards. But through all that, she’d brought them Ava. She’d given Ava the faith she’d once saved for Shannon, and had never quite granted to the Church.
Mary might have understood Beatrice a little too well, in this moment.
She offered up a message to Mary, too, eschewing the trappings of Our Lord, and Amen , and grant her mercy in your benevolence.
We miss you, Mary. We need you. Come back to us when you can.
And she let Mary go. Mary couldn’t help her now.
Then, Beatrice set her shoulders, and sank back down onto her perch, crossing her legs and straightening her back. She murmured the Lord’s Prayer twice, the Latin version, not thinking of the words, but recalling and forming the sounds as a habitual pattern to settle her mind.
She sank into her meditation, turning it over. Duty — devotion — desire. Somewhere from the woods behind her, a bird trilled. The summer sun, high in the Alpine sky, inched westwards, behind blooming afternoon clouds. They solidified and gathered, hinting at a break in the heat, a late summer storm.
It was much later, air turning grey and heavy with impending rain, when she opened her eyes and pulled out her phone from her pocket. It was a cheap thing she’d bought by the train station in Zurich, with an awful, fuzzy camera and an interface at least five years out of date. But it called and it texted and it held charge, so it worked for her.
Her thumb lingered over Ava’s contact. Ava had insisted on saving it with a little emoji next to her name. She hadn’t been able to find a Halo that met her expectations, so she’d gone for a donut instead before shoving the phone back in Beatrice’s hand. It made her smile every time she saw it, and she knew that had probably been the intention.
But Ava would be working now, spinning stories and mixing cocktails and breaking hearts no doubt behind the bar, and her call would remain unanswered.
Beatrice hesitated over Camila’s number; but that wouldn’t help. It would be too easy, and solve nothing. Camila loved her, but she wouldn’t understand.
Hans? She let herself smile at the thought. The poor man wanted absolutely nothing to do with her spiritual struggles, her romantic ones, or indeed the dubious juncture where the two met.
She scrolled instead to Mother Superion’s number. And dialled.
The venerable Mother picked up after a single ring. “Sister Beatrice.” Beatrice swore she could detect a note of concern in her brusque tone. “Are you well?” She spoke in Italian — her preferred language. Also, Beatrice noted, a language which Camila, presumably nearby, didn’t speak well.
“I am well, Mother Superion,” she responded, carefully.
“And the Warrior Nun?”
“Yes. She’s fine.”
A rustle of skirts trickled down the line, as though her leader had allowed herself to relax out of tense readiness; maybe take a seat. “So. What brings you to me, Sister?”
She could be calmer about this now. She knew what she had to do.
“Mother Superion. I need to tell you about something that’s happened. To clear my conscience.”
“Out with it, then.” The connection crackled, and Beatrice wondered where the rest of the Order were. How far away she and Ava had secreted themselves from them, in a cocoon of mismatched mugs and shared jokes and weeknight TV.
“I broke my solemn vow. The vow I made when I entered the OCS.” It was easier to say than she’d thought. She drummed fingers on the stone perch beneath her.
“I am presuming that you have not committed apostasy, and that you remain steadfast in your obedience to the Lord. Otherwise, I doubt you would be talking to me. I am also presuming that you have not come across a winning ticket for the Euromillions.”
“No, Mother,’ she replied, just as evenly.
There was a long beat of silence. “Your indiscretion was with Ava, I presume.”
Had it been that obvious ? She resisted the sudden, humiliating urge to punch the unyielding rock beneath her hand.
“Yes, Mother.” Beatrice watched a waterbird gliding along the surface of the water, some metres away from her. It upended itself, suddenly, diving for food with a splash of water and a ruffle of feathers, and slid gracefully underwater. She counted the seconds of grainy crackling silence down the phone, until the bird surfaced again with a triumphant, loud cry, almost like a dog’s bark. She saw the distinctive plumage crowning its head and neck. A great crested grebe, she recalled. It ruffled its feathers, a clicking call from its beak echoing strangely around the natural dip in which the lake had formed, suddenly swaddled in darkening afternoon cloud.
She waited.
“Why are you telling me this, Sister?” Mother Superion’s voice was flat, unexpressive. A test. “This is not a confession. You know that I cannot take your confession.”
“I’ve already made confession. The Father directed me to you. For the matter of my vows.” She swallowed. “You’re the head of my Order. My transgression was against God, and against you. It’s up to you to decide my punishment.”
The rustling of skirts again. “Do you want me to punish you?”
“I will accept any command you give me. You are my Mother Superion,” she said, calmly, hoping that the cheap receiver did not pick up the pounding of her heart, the catch of her breath.
“You know, Sister,” Mother Superion said, and a wry note had entered her voice, “I would expect that breaking your solemn vow should evoke a certain amount of contrition. Are you contrite?”
She didn’t answer that, squeezing the plastic case of the phone in her hand, watching as the grebe was joined by another, flying in low from somewhere over the trees.
“I could expel you from the Order and summon the Warrior Nun to account for her actions.” Mother Superion mused, her tone unreadable.
“You could,” Beatrice agreed, eventually. “It is your right.” She wondered vaguely what the auditory equivalent of a staring contest was. She was probably already in it.
“Sister Beatrice,” and now she heard, distantly, the tap of Mother Superion’s cane on stone floors. She was walking slightly faster than normal. That, Beatrice thought distantly, was her annoyed pace. “You have the most important undertaking of any of us. Does your — transgression — interfere with your duty to the Warrior Nun? To God?”
That was the question, wasn’t it. The only one that mattered.
“No, Mother Superion,” she said, after a moment. “I am here to train her. And protect her. My duty is unchanged.”
“And if the Warrior Nun is compromised, and the Halo needs to be preserved? Will you take it for yourself, and accept Ava’s return to our Heavenly Father with grace?”
Shannon’s body in her arms. Ava’s blood on the floor.
“Will you?” Beatrice snapped.
The birds, with a noisy cry, soared out of the lake, into the now leaden sky. A drop of rain fell onto her shoulder, cold and startling.
There was nothing over the line for a moment but the crackle of static. Then, Mother Superion let out a noise. Something like a huff, a sigh. Maybe even a laugh, though quite without levity. “I suppose we will not know until we get there. We never do.” The cane tapped again, slower. “Remember this, Sister. Only God is perfect. Do not presume to compare yourself to Him. We are all of us sinners, tainted by the weakness of Eve, of Cain. Of Saint Peter himself. It is in our nature to sin. To fail. To waver. It is our duty to make our peace with our shortcomings, with our humanity, and with God.”
She blinked. The receiver hummed.
“Do your duty, Sister Beatrice. To the Halo, and to its Bearer. And know your heart. When we meet again, and our victory is assured, we will talk about where you go from here. Where God, and your heart, may be calling you. But I would remind you, Sister,” and a chilly note crept into her superior’s tone, “of the precautionary tale Jesus told his disciples, as written in the Gospel of Luke. Chapter 14, verse 26. Remember who you serve.”
A low blow.
“I never forgot, Mother Superion,” she replied, shortly. “I prefer to be guided by how Paul described it, in his epistle to the Romans. Chapter 12. Verse 9.”
“Hmm. ‘ Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good .’” she recited, with a dry edge to her voice. “Very good, Sister. Be well, and go in God, then. We will speak again.”
“Go with God,” she replied, and hung up the call. Her mouth was dry.
So that was it, then. Her gamble had paid off, her conscience was cleared and her position was unchanged. A diplomatic victory, her parents would have called it, while uncorking a vintage Malbec.
Fat, heavy raindrops were falling in earnest now, splashing irregularly against the surface of the lake, the rocks on which she sat, her head and shoulders. Beatrice realised she’d left the rucksack with her jacket under the moped seat, a good two hours’ walk back downhill, and sighed. An extremely avoidable oversight. Well, there was no shelter to be found here. She picked her way back, carefully, towards the tree cover. The rocks were squeaky and slippery, treacherous now under the heavy soles of her boots.
She’d only just gotten back to the bank when a flash of lightning lit up the hillside, followed almost immediately by a low, drawn out clap of thunder, and she cursed. Under trees was also not a good place to be right now. Rain trickled down the back of her neck, chilling her.
Beatrice, cautiously, began to make her way along the narrow track. The dirt path was quickly turning to churning mud under her boots and visibility was reducing under the sheeting rain; she slowed, knowing that twisted ankles and missed signposts were not going to help her get out of this any faster.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket. The screen had lit up with a message from Ava, but it was instantly too wet for her to unlock the damn thing and tap on it. She shoved the phone back into her pants, suspecting that “waterproof” was another feature she’d eschewed for the sake of a few hundred francs.
Another clap of thunder rolled, still ominously close, and she started, almost veering off the little trail. There was really no excuse, she thought irritatedly to herself, for this particular predicament. Other than that she’d, for once, acted on her own impulse, and that she’d used that impulse to turn inwards, not out. She’d cracked open a series of brittle boundaries in her own head and unleashed a messy, amorphous something that she wasn’t quite sure how to untangle, or rein back in, or seal back up, and it had entirely disorientated her.
Maybe she couldn’t contain it anymore. Maybe it had grown far beyond those constraints. Maybe she had.
She was about halfway back to the highway when her mobile rang. Ava, again. A familiar spark of concern flickered in the back of her throat. Ava, alone, cornered by demons or Adriel’s thugs. Adriel himself. Beatrice squinted at the screen through soaked hair and poked it with clumsy, chilled fingers, but she couldn’t accept the call and it rang out. There was a stack of unread messages there, too, all capped with the little donut emoji. One from Hans.
She tried to swipe again, but the phone slipped out of her grasp and into the pooling rainwater under her feet.
“God damn it,” she muttered, and Ava would have just loved that. The phone was dead, screen blank, when she picked it back up. She’d have to put it in a bowl of rice later. Or just accept defeat and get a new one.
Panicking would not help her get there any faster. Lightheaded, hungry, drenched and cold, she continued her solitary descent.
By the time she’d made it back to their little street, the afternoon had darkened into an eerie twilight. The storm hadn’t let up; even as the lightning had crawled northeastward away from town, the rain had continued steadily, heavily, soaking her through and making the roads slick and treacherous under her moped’s balding tires.
She was exhausted and chilled. She hadn’t eaten since dawn; she’d run out of water soon after dropping Ava off that morning. It had been a stupid, self destructive urge driving her up that hill to the lake, as if she had something to prove, something to suffer for, some sort of miracle to seek out.
But there was no point in beating herself up for her idiocy. All she could do was keep moving.
When she finally got to their front door, pushing keys into the lock with shaking hands, Beatrice felt a wave of weakness almost seize her and drag her under. She let herself lean against the heavy wood for a moment. She just had to get in — eat something, drink something, get out of her heavy wet clothes. Call the bar, make sure Ava was safe. Dealing with her — with them — was no longer the priority. It would come later.
The door swung open under her forearms and Beatrice almost stumbled onto her face. She was caught by strong arms and a familiar voice.
“Beatrice — oh my God —”
At Ava’s exclamation, the confirmation that she was home, safe, here waiting for her, the last reserves of Beatrice’s brittle strength seemed to leave her entirely. She almost stumbled again, trying to get one shaking leg in front of the other. She allowed Ava to wrap an arm around her side and pull her into the apartment. She allowed her to push her, shivering, onto one of the wobbly kitchen chairs. Allowed her to grab a threadbare towel from the linen cupboard and wrap it around her shoulders.
“I’m so glad you’re alright!” Ava declared. Her voice was high and fast, her hands darting animatedly as she spoke. “The storm came in so fast— we closed the bar, no customers and I think there’s a leak— you didn’t answer your phone, I was calling you, I don’t know what I thought, you always answer your phone—”
“I’m okay,” she managed, more for something to say than any real assurance, a way to stop Ava’s concerned rambling, every word of which was squeezing a little bit tighter around her chest. “You closed the bar?”
Ava nodded, eyes wide and concerned. “Hans did. He tried to message you, too. I thought you might have just been— ignoring me.”
Beatrice shook her head. “Dropped my phone in a puddle. I wasn’t ignoring anyone.” True, but not entirely true. She pulled out the useless plastic gadget and discarded it on their kitchen table with a clatter. Ava glanced between it and her, still hovering awkwardly just out of reach.
Then, before Beatrice had worked up the resolve to excuse herself, her roommate leapt into action again. “You’re soaked. You need to get in the shower. Here, let me—” and before Beatrice could decide whether to stop her, Ava pulled the towel off her and unzipped her sodden jacket. She tugged at its edges, easing it off, and Beatrice’s world shrank to the warmth of Ava"s hands against her bare shoulders.
The jacket slapped heavily onto the kitchen tiles. Ava bit her lip, and then reached out to tug Beatrice’s waterlogged hair out of its braid. She ran a hand through it, pushing it carefully back out of her face, and Beatrice had no will to resist the warmth and care of her touch. She leaned her head into Ava’s palm.
Emboldened, Ava dragged out another chair to face her and sat, looming into her space. She reached carefully for the hem of Beatrice’s shirt.
Beatrice didn’t stop her.
Ava let her hands still there for a second, watching her face, before pulling the wet shirt cautiously over her head. She dropped it to join the jacket on the floor. Then, she reached over and put hands back on her shoulders, eyes searching her expression.
Beatrice let herself meet her gaze, see all the concern and care and tenderness in there, and she felt a tension somewhere between her shoulderblades snap. She wondered how long that tension had been there, bearing down on her spine, the headache looming at the corner of her vision, the knot pulling tight at the base of her neck.
Ava’s mouth worked for a second. “I was so worried about you,” she said, simply, rawly. “And I know you’re, like, the toughest person in the canton. In the country. But that doesn’t mean I don’t worry about you, when I think you could be upset. Or in danger. You’re the most important person in my life. So, please, don’t do that again. You’d kick my ass if I ran off all day,” Ava continued determinedly, a smile creeping into the skin around her eyes, “so don’t be surprised if I want to return the favour.”
Beatrice felt shamed at that. Shamed and vulnerable and embarrassed, sat there in pants and sports bra, hair heavy and dripping down her back and ears, onto Ava’s hands.
She’d never meant for this to happen. Any of it.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” she said, the words dragging themselves out of her, awkward and unwieldy. “I don’t know how to mean that to someone.”
Ava chuckled. “Don’t look at me. I’m not used to thinking about anybody but myself. Thoughtless and self-centred, remember? I sure didn’t plan for any of this.”
She did remember, how she’d hidden worry and fear and uncertainty under layers of calm aloofness, and how much since then had changed. “Ava —”
“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Ava replied firmly. “You were right. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. I could have been mother fricking Theresa. Wouldn’t have made much difference.”
That felt vaguely sacrilegious. Beatrice didn’t have the fight in her to challenge it.
Ava stared at her another moment, and then slipped off her chair to kneel in front of her. Beatrice felt a wave of rising panic as Ava began to work at the laces of her boots.
“Ava, you don’t —“
“Please, Bea,” she didn’t look up, fiddling with the knots, “please, let me help you for once.”
Beatrice had helped her with her shoelaces the first few weeks; it had been a strange feeling, teaching her things that were so basic. It should have aroused annoyance, or pity. Beatrice couldn"t recall feeling either, just determination, just a sense of responsibility. Ava could have refused her help. Sometimes she’d wanted to, clearly. But she’d kept working on it, flashing her furtive looks, tugging the laces frustratedly through eyelets and into bows, until it had clicked and she’d presented her work to Beatrice with a pleased grin.
And now, Ava got the double knot out and pulled the laces loose. Her hand settled on the muscle of Beatrice"s calf, and Beatrice surrendered to it. Ava slipped off one boot, one drenched sock, and then the other. Her touch was so gentle, so foreign to Beatrice, that she squeezed her eyes shut, willing back sudden tears that burned hot against her chilled face.
Then, Ava helped her to her feet and led her to the bathroom. She started up their shower, the uneven, lethargic stream sputtering loudly against the ceramic of the bathtub, and battled with the knobs until the water was somewhere in the scant safe zone between freezing cold and scalding hot. She hesitated, turning to Beatrice. “I can stay. But only if you want me to.”
Beatrice wanted nothing more than to pull Ava under the stream with her, to press their bodies together again until there was no telling where one ended and the other began. She also wanted Ava to leave the bathroom, the apartment, the continent, and her mind, never to appear again. So she compromised and shook her head, awkwardly. “Just— don’t go far.”
Ava nodded, and slipped out of the bathroom. “I’ll be right outside.”
Beatrice peeled the rest of her clothes off and stepped under the gentle flow of the water. Ava had gotten the temperature almost right; it was only slightly too hot for her.
The door creaked open while she was in there, scrubbing sweat and mud from her limbs, and habitually she turned away to cover herself. But Ava only slipped in for a moment, determinedly not looking at her, to deposit her flannel pyjamas on the counter.
Beatrice stood under the flow for more minutes than she would usually permit. The steam and the hot water unwound her tense muscles; they washed the salt of dried tears from her cheeks.
The bruises stayed.
Dressed and clean, she left the little bathroom to find a steaming mug of tea and reheated bowl of soup on the kitchen table. Ava was leaning against their ancient oven, trying to look casual, fingers twisting into the cuff of her too-big sweater. Beatrice recognised it as her own faded blue one, retrieved from the back of the kitchen chair. Her mouth was dry.
“You don’t have to hover,” she said quietly, before she recalled the repetition from their night, and clamped her mouth shut.
“Oh—” Ava looked at her, something close to alarm flashing over her delicate features, “I’ll go to the bedroom, then.”
Beatrice almost spilled her tea. “No — I meant — just sit down.”
Gingerly, Ava perched on the edge of the chair she’d pulled out earlier. She looked at Beatrice, a bit like she might look at some sort of skittish woodland creature, or a ticking hand grenade, and away again. The cuff of the sweater ended up against her mouth, teeth flashing out to worry at the cotton.
Beatrice banished thoughts, memories, longings about that mouth and focussed on the soup; chicken noodle that she’d made the other night. She was ravenous.
For a moment there was a heavy silence, only punctuated by the clink of her spoon against the bowl, her careful sips of the hot tea. Ava had added just a dash of milk, exactly how she liked it. She’d stirred in a couple of sugars, too, which was a not unwelcome surprise. The sweetness was disarming, and fortifying.
“I’m sorry,” Ava said quietly as she drained the last of the soup from her bowl. “What I did last night was selfish. It wasn’t fair to you.”
Beatrice held the mug between her hands, cradling its warmth. When she spoke, she found herself plucking out familiar refrains. “I’m sorry too. For hurting you today, and for being unkind. I let my emotions get in the way of my duty to you.”
Ava sighed. “Can we not talk about duty? Just for the next, like, hour?” Beatrice squeezed the ceramic of the mug. “Bea. I know what your duty is. You’re, like, the queen of duty and all that. But,” Ava pushed the sweater sleeves up and over her elbows and ran a frustrated hand through her hair, “every time you go back to talking about duty it makes me wonder if… if I’ve imagined everything between us. If all of it is just because you have to be here. For the damn holy frisbee jammed in my back. And I’m just the fuckup you have to tolerate for it.”
Beatrice swallowed down a defensive retort, and returned to her tea. It was hot and strong, exactly how she liked it. The sugar was a change, but it gave her energy, a tender warmth that she’d lost out there in the storm. It was a mug that had come with the apartment, chipped and faded, with a bad German joke on it. Ava had cackled when she’d understood it, and Beatrice had groaned. Since then, Ava always gave it to her to use.
She could take Ava’s comment and look inwards with it, like she had all day. Wonder how she could think that Beatrice could only tolerate her. But, after all, she’d decided — years ago, a world away and as a child who knew nothing — that she’d rather be known as cold and solitary than as perverse and damned. That every time she’d let herself bend her vows in the last few months, let herself hope for something she couldn’t have, that Ava had felt it and seen it. And then, when Ava dared to clasp her weakness in her hands and respond in kind, she’d retreat behind her wimple and her title and her duty .
It wasn’t any wonder that Ava thought that of her at all.
Beatrice put down the mug. “Do you know why nuns, and priests, and monks, and ascetics, all take vows of chastity, Ava?”
She looked at her uncertainly. “What’s an ascetic?”
Beatrice smiled. It was her automatic reaction to Ava asking her something that she clearly wished she already knew — a soothing response to encourage her curiosity. “Someone who swears off all earthly pleasures and riches for God. Or for a reason related to their own religion, if they’re not a Christian.” Ava nodded slightly in understanding, and Beatrice continued, sketching it out on the kitchen table like she did when she explained OCS history, or military tactics, or the meaning of scripture to Ava here, a couple of times a week. “There’s two reasons for chastity. The first is for what the ascetics do. To swear off things that can corrupt. Sexual pleasure without the aim of procreation is considered sinful. It’s entirely self-gratifying and… well. People do stupid things for it. At worst, they can hurt others for it.” She rushed on. “Some Catholics interpret the Bible as telling them that the entire world is sinful, the domain of Satan. Everything material including their own bodies is therefore a satanic creation, and bodily urges are satanic in origin. What’s heavenly and divine is the soul, which can rejoin God after death.”
“Jeez.” Ava got up and filled her own mug from the old teapot on the counter. “They don’t sound like any fun at all.”
“No,” she replied, “it’s an extreme position. It closes them off to all the wonders of God"s creation. To the gift of Jesus’ sacrifice.
“The second reason for chastity,” Beatrice continued, sorting it out in her head, “is about putting God first. About ensuring that you don’t compromise your duty to God for a lover or a companion, or even for a family member like a child you have as a result of not being chaste. It’s in the Gospel of Luke,” she recalled Superion’s reference. “ ‘If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.’ ”
“Jesus, Bea,” Ava said. She was watching Beatrice’s hands, now laying flat on the vinyl tablecloth. “That’s kind of … dark.”
“It is, isn’t it?” She smiled sadly. “It’s a lesson. When it says hate, it means in comparison to God. God comes first, always. And other earthly bonds that threaten your duty to God should be severed. The phrasing is a little bit of a hangover from the pre-Christian view, I suppose. Where God, or the gods, could be cruel and capricious, and people worshipped them in fear of their power. They’d sacrifice animals, kill nonbelievers or innocents for penance. Before Jesus showed God to be love, and forgiveness.”
“Okay,” Ava said slowly. “So no sin, and God first.” She phrased it a bit like a question, obviously waiting for wherever Beatrice was going.
She was getting there. She took a breath, heart beginning to race. It was hard, saying it. “So you see, Ava.” She tried to drain her tea, but she’d already drunk it all. She put the mug down again and gripped the edge of the table, staring into the faded red checkerboard of the tablecloth. “I’d already broken my vows before last night. First, I’d already thought about you … like that. With desire. I’d committed adultery with you in my heart. That’s a sin, according to the Bible, just as much as actually doing it. And second,” it was a conscious effort now, to shape the words, spit them out before she could swallow them back down again, “you already came first to me. You do come first to me.”
She risked a glance; Ava was staring at her wide-eyed and shell shocked. She remembered a similar look, hazy and entranced, from the bar last night. She understood it better now.
“Duty was always simple for me,” she rushed on, needing her to understand, needing to get it all out before it could get twisted and confused again, “it was always self sacrifice and discipline and penance. I’m just a foot soldier in God’s plan. Doesn’t matter who I am, what I am. I give it all up for him. It’s a safe, complete absolution, so long as I give up entirely to his will, discard any wants of my own. And then you came along. And suddenly,” she wiped at tears which were still unshed in the corners of her eyes, trying not to let her voice crack and the growing sob in her throat to escape, “you’re it. You’re his plan. It’s all you. And it’s like you’re a test he put in front of me, to reveal me as unworthy, to make me break.”
Ava reached out to her, something compulsive in the movement, and Beatrice seized her hand before she could snatch it back, anchoring them both with it.
“And I know you didn’t want me to talk about duty,” she said, a soft laugh mixing with the sob, “but if you take away the duty, there’s nothing there. Not even God any more. Just you. And that scares me more than I can say. Because the minute my duty tells me to sacrifice you, I won’t do it. And even if I did, even if I walked away from you as soon as I could, and if we never do again what we did last night, my vow is broken. And I’ll keep breaking it, thinking of you. Committing adultery with you in my heart, wanting you. It’s over for me. I can’t fix that, I can’t take it back.
“So I’m sorry that I hurt you today. And that I was harsh, and unkind, and impatient. Because regardless of duty, I would rather hurt myself than hurt you.” She clenched her eyes closed, letting the last, dark secret crawl its way out of her chest, over her tongue and into the air between them. “I’d rather suffer Adriel to walk the Earth forever than have to see you in pain, or lose you. That’s my weakness. That"s my sin, and my truth.”
She stopped talking, then. There was nothing else to say. She’d put it all out there, a confession unlike any other, and she felt hollowed out by it.
“Beatrice,” Ava said quietly. She looked at her for a long moment, mouth opening and closing again. Her thumb ghosted over the back of Beatrice’s hand, a soothing motion. She tilted her head, eventually, letting out a breath that blew the strands of hair away from her face. There was a little, sad smile there. “Bea, I can’t go after that. It"s not gonna sound nearly as good. I just … I really want to kiss you right now.”
Warmth was radiating from the gentle circling of her thumb. Beatrice knew what that touch was saying. The same thing as the sweetened tea, the warmth of the shower, her hands and mouth and eyes had last night. She didn"t have to say anything else. “Then what’s stopping you?” Beatrice asked. She didn’t know where they were going; whether Ava would take her in her arms again, or leave her alone in her tender grief and her melancholic love.
Ava turned her hand over between them. “I’ve kind of… blown up your life. I won’t take any more from you. It’s up to you now, whether you’ll have me, and when.” Her finger traced an old scar along the edge of Beatrice’s palm, down towards her wrist. “And I want you, more than I’ve ever wanted anything, but I don’t want to make you do anything else you’ll regret.”
Her pulse fluttered against the softness of her touch. “More than anything?”
She smiled again, still tentative, still a little sad. “It’s all you, too. I told you, this morning. You’re the best thing I’ve ever felt. And I don’t want to do this wrong. You don’t want to hurt me, but I don’t want to hurt you either. That seems like a good place to be, right? Maybe we can figure it out from here together. As long as it takes.”
She nodded. They sat there in the low light, the warmth of the apartment, while rain drummed insistently against the outside of the closed and shuttered windows. She thought about it, about gently opening herself up to Ava, one step at a time, easing with her into an unknown future together slowly, tentatively, hesitantly.
Until the fragile peace shattered, as it surely would, and demons descended on them. She thought again of Shannon’s soft, bloodied smile. Mary’s scream of defiance and how it fell to dreadful silence. Lilith’s greying hair and ancient, distant eyes.
They didn’t have months, years, a lifetime to feel each other out. Beatrice took Ava’s hand, and laced their fingers together. Ava looked up at her, sharply, hoping, wanting, waiting.
She leaned forwards, into Ava’s irresistible orbit, and Ava met her there.