Matrix by Lauren Groff

Author:Lauren Groff [Groff, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Out in the woods between the cathedral and the almonry, the new public path begins as a feint, they have made it unpromising, muddy and a squeeze, the width of a bridle track. Through it she sets the horse at a fast walk. The hours pass. The sun rises in gold, the day warms. As she rides, she is struck again and again to wonder; how lost a stranger who has not dreamed up the plans herself would become, and how soon the stranger would give up and turn back to the town. The road hardly looks as new as it is; the trees have grown thickly around it. At the first bend, even her own sense of direction begins to snarl. But the day is pleasant enough and she relaxes, she knows she will sleep in her own bed in the abbey tonight. She sees the few bare spots where the forest has been disturbed by the work, but the other roads are well hidden, and when the trees and shrubs are grown at last to full height and thickness, in two or five years, she thinks with satisfaction, the labyrinth will be unbreachable.

But midmorning comes and she is still in the first lobe and wind blows cold through her scapular and hood. She passes the time by telling herself stories as the horse walks on.

In time the horse’s rhythm rocks her to sleep; and when she wakes she sees by the slant of sun through the split canopy that it must be at least the time for Terce. She finds she has lost where she is. Her stomach rumbles in hunger. She feels a creeping unease that night will set in soon with its wolves and its dark and its hostile mysteries to find her winding along the endless path still hours from her nuns. She urges the mare to a canter.

The horse senses Marie’s fear and her ears stiffen and point forward.

But with the increasing pace, the anxiety in Marie also increases, this is bad, the road is darkening, the sun has snuffed itself behind a cloud, the trees themselves are staring at her with sinister shadows, the branches above are meaty arms paused in downward swing, something is moving in the shrubs like dark and hidden beasts slithering forward swift on their bellies to keep pace with Marie.

She senses the presence of the devil, the great evil is here, now, with her, she remembers the stories, the pack of glossy black dogs and the enormous spider leaping from the trees to sink a hellish death of venom into the earthly body, the burning eyes, the goat’s horns.

And she sees for a moment her vast sin, for which she will be punished, because she has pressed it into the labyrinth, this once-pure gift of the Virgin: her hunger for her name to rebound in fame through time.

The horse hurtles forward over the road and it is as though a door opens inside her, and out of it pours a real prayer, from the deep and quiet parts of her, in her own language, in simplicity.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.