Jai's first morning at the Abbey was a sunny one. We usually have beautiful weather in spring. In autumn the First Mother combs her hair and storms lash at the island. At those times we hardly dare go outside for fear of being dashed against the mountainsides. But that morning the warmth was returning. Our island, Menos, had not yet put on its cloak of spring flowers but the pastures were lush and green, much to the delight of the goats.
When we had all risen, made our beds, and lined up, I opened the dormitory door. Sister Nummel made sure we were all present before leading us out to the central courtyard. It was still so early and chilly that the stones were dark with dew. Sister Nummel led us through the sun greeting. We always do the sun greeting as the sun rises up over the sea in the East, granting us her warmth and life. Before I came here I did not know that the sun was so important and that no life could exist without her. I am glad I know now, and I was always glad to greet her together with the other novices. I longed for the day when I could welcome the sun with the other sisters up in the Temple Yard. You can see the sunrise and sunset better from up there than down in the central courtyard.
I showed Jai how to do the movements and whispered to her what they meant. We are not usually allowed to talk during the sun greeting but Sister Nummel made an exception because Jai was new. I looked around to see whether anybody noticed that this time I was the one who was allowed to break the rule, instead of the one everyone else could correct. Joem gave me a look and turned up her nose. She never lets on that she is impressed with anyone.
When we were done Sister Nummel led us through the central courtyard and up to Body's Spring, where Sister Kotke was waiting for us. She is in charge of Body's Spring. The vapor rising from the water means her skin is always slightly puckered and makes her clothes damp so they cling to her round body like eel skin. The stone door is too heavy for one woman, so the sisters opened it together.
I helped Jai get undressed. She hesitated until she saw all the other novices doing the same. When I got her shirt off I understood why. She had ugly scars all over her back, as if she had been beaten with a whip or a cane. She is not the only one.
There are many reasons why a girl might come to this island. Sometimes poor families from the coast lands send a daughter here because they cannot provide for her. Sometimes a family notices that their daughter has a sharp and inquiring mind and want to give her the best education a woman can get. Sometimes sick or disabled girls come here because they know the sisters can give them the best possible care. Like Ydda, who was born shorter than most and whose family could not look after her. When she was sent here, her twin sister Ranna refused to be separated from her and so followed along.
Sometimes a rich man invests in his daughter by sending her to the Abbey and paying for her education. Maybe he does not think she can get a husband because she is ugly or for some other reason. A woman who has spent her childhood at the Abbey can always find a place in the world.
Take Joem, for example. Her father sent her here because he wanted her to become an expert cook so that it would be easier for him to marry her off. Joem has four sisters who are more beautiful than her and married long ago. I wonder if this was why she seemed so bitter at times.
Sometimes girls come here as runaways, mainly from Urundien and the surrounding states, or one of the numerous Western lands. Girls who show a thirst for knowledge in cultures where women are not allowed to know or say anything. In these lands rumor of the Abbey's existence lives in women's songs and forbidden folk tales told only in whispers, away from enemy ears. Nobody talks openly about our island, but most people have heard of it anyway. Ennike is one of those runaway girls, as is Heo, the little black-haired Akkade girl from Namar, the walled city on the border between Urundien and the Akkades' land. They have marks on their bodies like Jai's. I had suspected that Jai had gone through something similar in her past, but now I knew for sure.
Jai followed me down the smooth marble steps into the warm bathing pool. The water comes from a hot underground spring. We walked hand in hand through the pool and to the steps at the other end. Lots of the novices can swim, but not I. Jai did not seem scared of the water but she moved through it anxiously. Almost as though she were trying to shield herself from it as it swirled around her.
From the hot bath we went down to the cold one, and my word is it cold! Sometimes I wish we did it the other way around and warmed up in the hot bath last, but on a hot summer day it does feel wonderful to cool off before getting dressed again.
After we had washed, Sister Nummel led us out through the stone doors to let the sisters have their turn. They bathe after us because they have morning rituals to perform first. Then it was time for breakfast in Hearth House. When Jai sat next to me I understood that she had decided to become my shadow. That is what we usually say when a new novice latches onto someone who has been around longer. She follows her like a shadow until she finds her place. It was the first time I had had one and it was not without a certain pride. I stretched and smiled at Ennike, who was sitting opposite us. I used to be her shadow. She reminds me of my sister Náraes because she has the same curly hair and warm brown eyes. It took several weeks before I was brave enough to let her out of my sight. She did not get annoyed with me even once. I made up my mind to be just as patient and generous toward Jai.
That morning we finally got fresh bread again. Sister Ers and her novices had celebrated Havva's festival the day before, and now the oven was cleaned and blessed and we could bake again. After several moons of nothing but porridge it was a feast to sink my teeth into salty bread warm from the oven. I grinned at Ennike, my mouth full of bread, and she laughed.
"No one loves spring bread quite as much as you, Maresi!"
"Yup, and there is only one thing I love more than spring bread." We looked at each other, giggled and shouted, "Nadum bread!" in one voice.
It is easy to laugh with Ennike. It is one of the things I like about her.
Jai sat and picked at her food. She had eaten some bread but left the pickled onion and smoked fish. I pointed at her plate.
"Just wait until summer! Then we get a cooked egg with the bread and a thick wedge of goat's cheese. And once the Spring Star has gone back into slumber, we get honey!"
"You should see Maresi at autumn breakfasts," said Ennike. "They bake nutty, seedy nadum bread in the kitchen and Maresi waits outside the Hearth House door before anyone else, sniffing like a hungry dog! We get cheese and bright-red nirnberry sauce in autumn too."
"They make the sauce with mint and honey. Sister Ers always says it is good enough to offer to the First Mother herself." I licked my lips at the thought.
Ennike looked curiously at Jai. "What kind of food did you get back home?"
Jai closed up like a mussel, hunched inward with a far-off look in her eyes. I shook my head at Ennike and quickly changed the subject to distract Jai from Ennike's question.
"If it were not for autumn breakfasts I do not think I could put up with the never-ending winter porridge," I said. "Porridge, porridge, porridge, day in day out. You know what I dream about all winter long?"
Jai did not answer but Ennike smiled and nodded. "Moon Dance! After the dance we have a huge feast up in the Moon Yard."
"Then we get koan egg in spicy sauce. The koan bird is the symbol of our Abbey and we only eat its egg after Moon Dance. Sister Ers serves it with delicious crispy meat pies and sesame biscuits sprinkled with cinnamon." I had to swallow. The thought of all that tasty food was making my mouth water. Ennike took a sip from her cup.
"And we get to drink something other than just water. Strong mead and sweetened wine!"
"The steps down to Novice House feel very long when your belly is full of food!"
We laughed. Ennike and I, that is, not Jai, but she seemed to have opened up a little. I was pleased that I could help her relax. I got up from the table.
"Come on. It is lesson time."
We offered the last of our bread to the Hearth, walked down Dawn Steps, across the central courtyard, and up Eve Steps to Knowledge House. Knowledge House is the oldest structure on the island. Sister O taught us that it was the first and probably the most important building that the First Sisters built after they sailed here in the ship Naondel.
It is my job to stand by the cracked wooden door to the junior novices' classroom, making sure they all sit still until the sister arrives to take their lesson. Jai followed Ennike to our classroom while I ushered in the late girls, the last of whom is always Heo. That morning I found her sitting under the lemon tree out in the Knowledge Yard, stroking a gray Abbey cat that lay on its side purring. As I approached she looked up at me, and it occurred to me that her slanting eyes always look as if they are laughing.
"Can't I take him with me to class, Maresi?"
"You know you can't. Hurry up, Heo. Sister Nummel is coming soon and you do not want a scolding, now do you?"
"You get plenty of scoldings," said Heo as she stood up and put her little hand in mine. "I want to be like you."
I kissed her white headscarf. "Choose my good points and not my bad."
Hand in hand we hurried to the junior novice classroom and Heo just managed to sit down before Sister Nummel came sailing in, rotund and cheerful. She would never give Heo a scolding, and Heo knows that well enough.
Once the junior novices' class had started I ran to my own. I am the only one who is allowed to come late to the lesson. The door to the senior novices' classroom is made of old, cracked wood, similar to the junior novices' door but darker. I always close it very carefully behind me, afraid that if I slammed it the cracks would give way and the whole door would collapse.
I slipped into my spot on the worn wooden bench where we all sit along a large table. Sister O conducts the class from the front of the room. Only the oldest novices who are soon to become sisters do not come to lessons. They learn about their duties instead.
I love our lessons. We get to learn about history; mathematics; the First Mother; how the world works; about the moon, sun, and stars, and much more besides. The junior novices have to learn to read and write, if they cannot already, and lots of other things.
That day we were continuing our study of the history of the island.
"Do you remember how the First Sisters came here?" asked Sister O. I stood up at once, and she gave me a nod.
"Maresi?"
"The First Sisters decided to flee from a land where a wicked man had taken all the power and treated his people very badly," I answered. I had just read about it in a book in the treasure chamber. "He would not let anybody else have knowledge. The First Sisters refused to be his slaves so they stole as much knowledge as they could and sailed here in the ship Naondel."
Sister O nodded. "Their voyage was long and arduous. They came from the land far East, so far away that we no longer remember its name. Nobody has come to the Abbey from the Eastern lands since the First Sisters. It was a miracle that the boat did not smash on the rocks when a great storm heaved Naondel onto our island. Instead, the place where the ship landed marked the spot where the First Sisters were to build Knowledge House."
Ennike got up. "But how is that possible, Sister O?" She pointed out of the window. "Knowledge House is so high up the mountain. Not even the strongest autumn storms could throw a ship all the way up here."
Sister O nodded. "Indeed. But so it is written in the oldest texts. Perhaps the storms were worse then. Or perhaps the text should be interpreted in a different way."
I saw that Jai was listening intently. She sat leaning forward, her eyes transfixed on Sister O.
"Knowledge House conceals all the power the First Sisters brought with them," I recited from memory. "Sister O, why do they talk about power and not knowledge?"
"Because knowledge is power," said Dori.
Dori is Sister Mareane's novice and helps out with the animals. She is a few years older than me, but so absentminded and dreamy that she often seems younger. Dori is of the bird folk, and when she came to the island she brought one of their sacred birds with her. It is as big as a dove, with red and blue feathers, but the blue ones change color according to the light: sometimes green, sometimes black, sometimes golden. It usually sits on her shoulder, pecking and pulling at her black hair and jutting ears. It does not have a name, only Bird, and it seems to understand Dori when she speaks to it.
Sister O smiled at Dori and it was one of those rare moments when a smile softens her thin lips and dark eyes. "That is right, Dori. Knowledge is power. That is why it is so important that novices come here and take the knowledge back out into the world once we have taught them all we can, especially Sister Nar's novices, because they can share their knowledge of herbs and medicines all over the world."
"But other knowledge is important too," I interjected. I wanted to impress Sister O with how much I knew, even though I am younger than Dori. "Arithmetic and astronomy and history and … and …"
I could not come up with anything else.
"Cleanliness," Joem filled in. "Farming. How to feed many on little. To help prevent starvation."
"Animal care!" said Dori enthusiastically.
"Architecture," added Ennike. "How to build bridges, calculate durability, erect large buildings."
I was disappointed. I had wanted to come up with all of that myself.
"That is absolutely right," said Sister O seriously. "Any knowledge you can bring back to your homelands is important."
"But surely it is important that some novices stay here? To keep the knowledge alive and pass it on to the new novices?" I asked.
"Yes," said Sister O. She looked at me with a solemn expression. "But our Abbey must not be used as an excuse to hide away from the world."
I did not entirely understand what she meant, but asked no more questions. All I knew was that on the island, with its warm sun, cool wind, and fragrant hillsides, amongst goats and bees and sisters and novices, I was home.
During the break Ennike and I went to our favorite place under the lemon tree. Jai came with us. We ate our bread, drank cold spring water, and gazed over the wall out to the silvery-blue sea, which shone so brightly it hurt our eyes. The air was filled with the sharp, sweet fragrance of the herbs and flowers Sister Nar grows in Knowledge Garden. Birds hovered on the breeze above us, sometimes alone, sometimes in flocks of gleaming white wings. A black cat with gray paws sat on the low garden wall grooming itself. Ennike leaned back against the trunk of the lemon tree and stretched her legs.
"I hope I get called to a house or a sister soon. I cannot take Sister O's lessons anymore."
"But they are fascinating! We learn something new every day!" I gaped at her and she smiled.
"You can soak up knowledge like a sponge for days on end, Maresi. But I need to start doing something. Just think, if Mother called me as a servant to the Moon! That would be such an honor."
"You are the oldest novice on the island without a house. Of course she will choose you." I lay on my back and looked up at the tree's foliage. Small white flowers shone here and there amongst the dark leaves. The black cat jumped down from the wall and strutted toward us. Jai stretched out a cautious hand, and the cat rubbed its head against it and started to purr. Then suddenly Jai tensed up. I sat up and followed her gaze.
A little white boat with a blue sail was making its way into the harbor below.
"A fishing boat," I said softly, "coming to sell its catch. Look, there is Sister Veerk and her novice Luan. They handle trade. Now they are going out on the pier, see? They will fill their baskets with fresh fish and then pay with copper coins or beeswax candles or maybe some healing ointment prepared by Sister Nar. She is the one who takes care of us when we are sick. She knows everything about healing and herbs. The fishermen usually tell us what they need so Sister Veerk can have it ready next time they come."
Jai still could not relax, so Ennike and I exchanged glances and got up.
"Lessons start again soon. Come on."
