All the Ever Afters by Danielle Teller

Author:Danielle Teller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

I had to wait two days for an audience with Abbess Elfilda. The overcast sky sent down a constant, halfhearted drizzle, but I spent my time outdoors, walking restlessly around the compound. As I passed close to the fishpond, sleek frogs leapt from the grass by my feet and splashed into the jade water. The lavender had gone to seed, but there were frowsy blooms left on the rosebushes, nodding their heavy heads in the wind and rain.

I had been little more than a child when Fernan and I had strolled through those grounds and flirted in the garden. I had allowed his brown eyes to become the whole of my world, allowed myself to believe that I would be there to witness the blooming of roses every spring and to collect petals from their fading coronas every autumn. Since then, eight years had passed, more than a third of my life. I was a mother, a widow, an alewife. I felt incomparably older, but the gardens that had bloomed in my absence still beckoned to me. My romantic vision had shifted: I wanted to hold my daughters’ little hands and show them the frogs and flowers, hunt for wild strawberries, recline on the grassy banks of the pond to sing songs. The nobility imagine that we peasants are too brutish for fanciful dreams. They should ask themselves why, then, are fairy tales so popular with the masses?

I saw Sister Marjorie, and a few other familiar faces, but they did not recognize me. My sorrow made me shy and apathetic, and I could not bring myself to approach them. Besides, I did not want to answer questions about my years in Old Hilgate. I had built my life on lies, and I was not proud of it.

The sun broke through the clouds as I made my way to the chapter house on the third day, and I chose to see the change in weather as a good omen. I fiddled with my veil, hoping that I had selected the best clothing to project competence and respectability. Although my name was toward the end of the list of petitioners for the day, I arrived early, having nothing else to keep me occupied. I watched the anxious faces of other petitioners in the anteroom, wondering who would leave successful that day. The expressions on their faces as they left the chapter house told me who had received a favorable response and who had not. I prayed silently that I would be smiling when I left. The afternoon stretched on. My stomach grumbled and I felt light-headed, for I had been too nervous to eat.

When my name was called, I squared my shoulders and forced myself to walk with a firm step. The chapter house had not changed, except that there was now a desk beside the lectern, and this was occupied by an officious-looking nun with a scroll and quill. Jeweled light splashed momentarily across her parchment as the sun darted from behind a cloud and disappeared again.

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