The Shadow of Death by Jane Willan

Author:Jane Willan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

Sixteen

The morning’s funeral was heavy on her mind as Sister Gwenydd walked to the Llewellyn church to deliver a round of Gouda for their weekly soup kitchen. She had hoped a walk in the late afternoon sun would help her calm down, but she had covered the two miles and back, and she was as distraught as ever. Sitting in the church for Jacob’s funeral that morning had made her realize how dangerous it was for her to stay at the Abbey. It was only a matter of time until someone, most likely, Sister Agatha, discovered that she, Sister Gwenydd, was running from her own act of murder—accidental though it was. And then wouldn’t that make her a prime suspect for Jacob’s murder?

She stopped and, taking a deep breath, looked around. The dramatic beauty of North Wales always astounded her. Clouds skidded across a blue sky, and a slight breeze lifted small puffs of dust on the road. The valley below was resplendent in billowing green, dotted with grazing sheep, crisscrossed by stone fences, punctuated by St. Anselm’s spire. Just when she had found a family, she was going to be forced to leave.

She had always known that the time would come when she would leave, slip away some dark night. The Abbey had never been a permanent plan. At the end of the day, she was nothing more than a young woman on the lam, not a postulant. And if Sister Agatha didn’t blow her cover, Scotland Yard certainly would. An image of the police standing in Reverend Mother’s office flashed through her mind. She trembled at the thought. Tomorrow all the sisters from the Abbey were accompanying her to visit the residents at the Pryderi Care Center. They had the clear purpose of seeing to the aging bishop and then visiting anyone else who wanted the company of a few nuns. What could she do? Gertrude never remembered Sister Gwenydd’s name or seemed even to recognize her; yet if Gertrude suddenly saw her dressed as a nun, what would that do to the elderly woman? And what if the staff at the Care Center recognized her and asked why she was wearing a habit? The time had come, perhaps, to leave and go under cover somewhere else. The problem was, she couldn’t imagine leaving.

On an impulse, she turned off the lane leading back to the Abbey, climbed through a meandering hedge of wild gorse, and sat down on the warm grass of a meadow. A small flock of sheep grazed about a hundred yards away, uninterested in the young woman trespassing on their green pastures. Before coming to Wales, she would never have sat on the ground and gazed at the sky. But the sun-drenched valleys, flower-filled fields, and winding country roads of the North were beginning to change her. Although she sometimes longed for the feel of a sidewalk under her feet or the pounding beat of a London nightclub, she just as often found herself stopping

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