Sister Agatha

Agatha left her cell before night prayers ended. The chill in her chest still rattled when she breathed, and the fever had not broken yet, but she stood anyway. She took the torch from the gatehouse bracket herself.

Sisters Margaret and Magdalene, housed in the neighboring cells, met her at the postern without being told why. Bernadette and Beatrice followed a moment later, carrying lanterns of their own. No postulants. They agreed they would not risk the younger ones.

They did not speak while they crossed the orchard. The late-autumn ground was hard, and the leaves underfoot were dry as old paper. When they reached that tree line, Agatha raised her torch higher.

”She is in there,” she said. “The witch that marked the chapel walls. That has the abbess's ear. That almost killed little Agnes and keeps her entranced to this day. It ends tonight.”

They walked into the bare wood. The torches threw long, jumping shadows between the trunks. Their five cloaked silhouettes were soon swallowed by the blackness of the woods, where moonlight dared not touch.

They found Duessa in the grove. Still flat on the ground, half-turned away, hair dull with leaf-litter.

The sisters crossed themselves at once upon the sight of the dejected enchantress.

Agatha stepped forward until only a few paces separated them. The other sisters spread out behind her, torches and lanterns held ready, their faces hidden under the hoods of their cloaks.

“You will leave this land,” Agatha said, her voice hoarse but steady.

Duessa lifted her head to look up for a moment, then lowered her head again.

“What are you on about, girl?” the fae asked, sounding both bored and annoyed.

“Rise and meet eyes with me, witch. You will stop whatever hold you have on the child and on our abbess. Or we will burn the grove with you and everything that lives here.”

Duessa looked at the torches, then at the dry undergrowth, then back at Agatha.

”You would set fire to the last living wood that still heals you?”

”Our Lord heals us. I would rather see these profane woods burn to ash than leave a demon free to roam and corrupt what remains.”

“You raze these woods,” Armando stepped out from behind the shadows, holding Hauroth’s dead elk’s skull hanging from a leather cord between his teeth. “…and you leave me no choice.”

“Demon!” Agatha declared.

”Stand down, Armando,” Duessa snapped.

”I shall summon Hauroth and the rains again. And your pestilence will also know floods and famine,” Armando warned.

”I will burn this profane forest to kindling first,” Agatha assured him.

”Do this, and our woodlands will burn, yes. But they will only recover and be renewed by the fury of fire. In turn, your settlements will only know disease and death…in greater numbers than they do already.”

“Away, you dark spirit!” Agatha screamed, raising her torch.

A breathless Ignatius ran in, drawing a sword.

”Sisters!… Why are you here?! Are you hurt?”

”It’s him! It’s the handsome Templar Knight!” Margaret and Magdalene gushed. “He has come to rescue us!”

“Rescue you? You came here to threaten us and our forest!” Armando accused.

“This is no place for you,” said Ignatius. “Sister Agatha, you should be in bed. And there’s a quarantine for the rest of you. I need you all to return to the cloister at once.”

“So you… you also take part in this heresy!” Agatha accused, aiming her torch at the knight.

”Do you see what you have done?!” Duessa shouted at Agatha and her companions. “My husband is about to resurrect Hauroth! After I already killed him once! Insolent girls!”

“Put down the skull, Armando,” Ignatius warned. “I don’t want to fight you.”

”I fought by your side, but I owe you no allegiance, knight.”

”You almost perished fighting Hauroth too! You’d summon him again?!”

”I summon a thousand Hauroths before I see this forest harmed!” Armando shouted. “And you will quickly learn I don’t share my wife's misguided mercy for your villages or your cities. Do not try me.”

For a long moment neither side moved as the flames hissed. A single dry leaf drifted down and landed near Agatha’s shoe. She shifted her weight as if to lower the torch toward it.

“Enough of this…” Duessa said, slowly rising from the earth in one fluid motion. The green in her eyes caught the firelight and held it.

Upon speaking these words, a cold wind seized Sister Agatha.

“Your lungs are already struggling, Agatha,” Duessa warned. “Ending your life will take no effort at all on my part.”

“You’ve brought corruption to our land and to our order,” Agatha gasped out loud.

”Release her now, or I will unleash this fire, so help me!” Bernadette said, raising her own torch, prompting the other sisters to do the same.

”I. Dare. You.” Armando snarled.

”Sisters, please…!” Ignatius pleaded.

Armando growled even more loudly as Agatha began to gasp for air.

“Duessa,” said a little voice. “Stop.”

At that same moment, Little Sister Agnes stepped out calmly from the darkness between the trees. She was still in her little black cloak, the little wicker basket in hand. She walked straight and calmly into the open space between Agatha and Duessa.

”Put out your torches,” Agnes ordered.

But Agatha’s arm did not lower, despite the chill caught in her throat.

”Little Sister, step aside,” Agatha said between broken breaths. “This does not concern you.”

”It does very much concern me, Sister.”

Agnes’s voice was small, but clear in the cold air.

“You are ill. You are frightened. And you think burning this woodland fae will make the sickness stop. It will not. You will only burn the herbs we still need. And you will die for nothing.”

The air continued to chill around Agatha, who could barely catch her breath now.

Margaret’s torch trembled.

Beatrice looked at the ground. Duessa had not moved, but the air around her had gone perfectly still.

Agatha’s eyes were fever-bright and filled with angry, shivering tears.

”I know the stories. She took you from your mother. Spirited you away. Marked the chapel. She threatened me. The abbess hides it. You hide it-….”

”I know,” Agnes said. “I am still asking you to put your fire out. I have your sage right here. Let’s go back to the convent, and I will make an infusion for-….”

“I…don’t need you to do anything for me,” Agatha declared through broken, gagging words. “Not one thing.”

Agnes paused as color quickly drained from Agatha’s face.

“Even now. You defend this pagan priestess and these demonic apparitions. To the point that you almost died. You almost…”

Her voice drifted off into silence.

“Sister Agatha…” Ignatius began, but Agnes put her hand up, and he was silent.

“Duessa, I will not ask again,” Agnes said. “Release her. If you hurt her or any of my sisters again, this is the last time you will ever see me.”

Duessa rolled her eyes, and the fog slowly dissipated. Agatha was able to catch her breath in sharp, coughing spasms.

Agnes then took a slow step forward.

”Forgive me for frightening you,” she said. “It is not what I intended.”

Agatha still said nothing, while seeming unconcerned by how much she was still struggling to breathe.

“I just…came here to get your sage,” Agnes said.

The silence stretched.

Agatha looked at Agnes for a long time. Then, slowly, she turned the torch and drove the burning end into the damp earth at the edge of the grove until the flame died.

One by one, the other sisters followed.

No one spoke. Duessa remained where she stood; Agatha wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, turned, and began walking back toward the convent without looking at any of them again. The other sisters joined her.

Agnes stayed a moment longer. She set the sage down, walked over to Duessa, and simply stood beside her in the dark until the last of the torchlights had vanished between the trees.

Only then did she pick up the bundle and start home.

Ignatius followed her.

After everyone was gone, Duessa and Armando were once again alone in the grove.

“She needs to stop bringing people here,” Armando said.

Duessa frowned.

“I suppose it is too much to ask to be left alone to wallow in one’s self-defeat,” she said. Then she looked over at the skull of Hauroth, which had been dropped on the ground.

“Why haven’t you buried that?”

“In case we need it,” Armando said.

“When would we ever need a dead head?”

“Just now. Were you not paying attention?”

“We are not keeping a dead carcass.”

“What, I can’t have things now…? I am perfectly within my rights to keep whichever spoils of battle, I… Duessa, what? What is that look?”

“Nothing. I just feel hungry all of a sudden…”

✨✨✨

Agnes and her sisters walked forward, led by Ignatius’s torch.

No one said anything at first.

”Was that stag really her husband?” Bernadette asked.

Agnes answered eventually.

”Yes.”

“How you keep such tenebrous company, I can never understand,” Margaret mumbled.

”She was in bad humor today, but Duessa is quite kind,” Agnes said. “Well, not kind, but…amusing. She was imprisoned once. For witchcraft. It did not go well for that executioner.”

”Why was her humor sour?” asked Beatrice.

”Because she almost died fighting the evil forest spirit, thinking it would drive away the pestilence. But the pestilence came back,” Agnes explained.

”She fought that dead head?” Magdalene asked.

Agnes hesitated.

“It’s…complicated.”

”She does have a beautiful dress,” Bernadette remarked.

“Oh, yes. It was so lovely,” Margaret agreed.

”You must come back to see her when her mood improves,” Agnes said.

“And…what do you think of Duessa, Sir Ignatius?” Magdalene asked, testing the waters while Margaret giggled.

Ignatius looked up at the two besotted nuns.

”I think you all violated your quarantine, and I will be admonished for it.”

“Oh! Then we will have to make it up to you with a custard! Mine is quite famous, you know.”

”I shall be the judge of that, Sister Margaret.”

”He knows my name!” Margaret swooned, while she and Magdalene giggled.

“I hear the apothecary is out of danger,” Bernadette remarked, while walking alongside Beatrice.

“He seemed to like the infusion I prepared,” said Beatrice shyly.

”Did he know it was you? Do you think it healed him?!” Bernadette asked.

”I don’t know. Not for sure. But Plague Doctor Lorenzo says I show promise making electuaries. He thinks I should apprentice with Alaric since his helpers never returned. Plague Doctor Lorenzo is… quite kind.”

Agatha still walked ahead, without saying a word, so Agnes quickened her pace so she could walk to catch up to her.

”Do you need a handkerchief?” Agnes asked.

“No,” Agatha said, then discreetly wiped her runny nose with her sleeve.

Agnes said nothing and simply continued to walk in step with her.

“Do you think Abbess Elinor will recover?” Agatha asked then, still clutching her cloak and looking sour. “Like the apothecary?”

Agnes looked up at her.

”I don’t know,” she said.

”From what I can tell, the pestilence has found itself a formidable opponent in your abbess,” Ignatius said then.

Agnes smiled and giggled when Ignatius patted her head.

“You gave us quite a fright tonight, Sister Agatha,” Agnes said then.

“Good. Now you know how it feels,” Agatha mumbled back.

The path continued to stretch in the darkness as they walked together. Then, despite her serious face, Agatha took Agnes’ hand in hers.

Agnes looked down and gave a little smile of pure delight.

“This is quite the track,” Sister Margaret lamented.

“I’m thirsty,” Sister Magdalene remarked.

”Me too,” Sister Bernadette joined her.

”There’s a stream nearby if you don’t want to wait for the convent,” Ignatius pointed out.

”No. We will all have ale,” Agnes declared.

“But, Lady Sister Agnes, the isolation,” Ignatius declared.

”We will have it outside, in the garden,” Agnes said. “Ale is safer than water.”