The Death Tax by S.A. Hogan

Author:S.A. Hogan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction & Literature
Publisher: Histria Books
Published: 2023-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

***

The week that followed was a much-needed respite, pushing the happenings of the previous weekend so far away as to almost make them seem an aberration. As she saw it, he had satisfied his curiosity; maybe they could move on now. Maybe their relationship could return to the way it was, she tried to sell herself, all the while realizing the impossibility.

Once your eyes are opened…, she thought.

On Thursday night of that week, she dreamed, and the dream was so vivid, so unlike any dream she’d ever had, it felt like there was something to it:

She dreamed of olden times when men and women wore heavy, shiny clothing that looked better than it smelled. Most of the time it was too chilly to bathe, easier just to mask body odor with another layer of powder and perfume. Her father was a king, wearing an English crown. Everyone spoke English, and it wasn’t the soft, friendly American English that she had grown so accustomed to, but the clipped British English that sounded like someone announcing a public flogging.

Young men noticed her, and she gazed into a mirror with a beveled edge and saw why. Her parents scolded them away, and soon she realized they had other plans for her: the convent. There her unmet physical needs roiled within her, assuaged somewhat by the peace she felt among the sisters, by the way the gray light of dawn sifted through the chapel windows during lauds, bringing out bits of the woodwork that soothed her with its feeling of permanence. She came to see the convent, the spirituality behind it, as an anchor in her life. It and the birds she befriended gave her an ever-greater pleasure through the years. The power she felt within her grew on two fronts, leading her to found her own abbey and to control the birds she loved so. She thought, she prayed — and the birds… did things. She was sure of this (awestruck, in fact) when a lack of rain had all but ruined the crop, and the farmers, trying to protect what little they had left, asked her to intervene against the crows. She stood in a field, extending her arms like the most beautiful of scarecrows as her habit billowed in the breeze, visible to all among the broken sheaves of corn.

“Heavenly Father, You who minister to the crows as You minister to us all, feed them with Your manna so Your crops may feed our children. In Your mighty name, I pray, amen.”

She smiled as she finished the shortest prayer she had ever prayed — and the crows departed as if blown by a great wind.

Her dream followed the nun’s life to its end. Many mourned her when she died, the word “Saint” carved on her crypt.…

Millie awoke with a shudder and a sense of determination. It was Friday morning, and she was leery of the weekend that lay ahead. The dream made her feel special, that there was more to her than she was aware of.

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