Except how was one supposed to watch over someone who must not know she is being watched? Dear God. The girl had been out of her sight for—what, five? — maybe ten minutes at the longest. Zuana’s skirts catch on brambles and she has to wrench them free, feeling the material snag and tear. Had the abbess herself known something when she said that? Suspected, even? In which case, who is not trusting whom here?
In the gloom she misses her step and almost trips. She forces herself to slow down. Running within the convent is strictly forbidden except in the case of fire, as the very act gives birth to panic. More important, she cannot afford to sacrifice the light of the taper, for the dusk is fast turning to night.
The brick façade of the storehouse comes up ahead of her, the convent walls rising behind it. At the doors she bows her head. Dear God, she begins again. Dear God, I give myself into Your— But the prayer is interrupted by what is definitely the sound of something moving on the other side.
She slips the key into the hole and feels it bite against the lock, then turn heavily. There is a flat clunk as the bolt moves and the door cracks open. The noise sounds enormous. She pushes the door farther and steps inside. The yawning gap reveals only darkness. She stands for a moment, registering the silence. She feels stinging like a thousand needle pricks running through her body and knows it is fear. If there is someone in here—
On the ground nearby comes a sudden scrabbling, something heavy scuttles fast over her feet, and it is all she can do not to cry out. An animal—it is only an animal running, Zuana, she tells herself. Most likely a rat. Was that what she had heard? Has she come all this way just to trap a water rat, gorging itself on convent supplies? She brings the taper to the candle and is pleased to find that her hand is steady as she lights it.
The flame jumps up into the darkness to reveal a room that is already mapped out in her mind: one wall stacked with crates and sacks, another with wine barrels and a salt container, and at the back a locked door, which leads to the outside storeroom and from there to the river itself. Everything is as she imagined it. Except for one thing. The door in the back wall is not locked. Indeed, it is not even properly closed.
She takes a few steps toward it. Her sandals are soft on the floor, but not so soft that she can conceal the rustle of cloth over grit and straw. As she stops, so does the noise. There is no sound anywhere. But there is something stronger than sound now. There is feeling. Someone has been here. Is here now. She knows it.
She reaches the door. It opens inward, and as she pulls it quietly she lifts the light so that she sees everything at the same time. The room is empty save for a few crates. But straight ahead, the double doors that give out onto the river are open. She can hear the slap of the water and the thud of the convent’s old rowboat bumping against the small dock. And in the middle, in silhouette, is the figure of a woman dressed in full skirts, tucked bodice, and piled hair. The missing donated courtier’s costume, no doubt, out of fashion already but wealthy enough to denote status on the body of a young woman, one with such a fine head of long hair that if anyone were to pass her on a Carnival street it would never occur to them to see her as a fugitive from a convent.
The figure is already turning as she crosses the floor.
“Serafina!”
“Aah!” The wail she lets out echoes out over the water.
“What are you doing here?”
“No! No! Stop. Don’t come near me!”
And such is her anguish that for a second Zuana hesitates.
“Be careful. Step away from the water’s edge. What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” Her voice is all spit and panic. “I am getting out. He is come for me. He is taking me away.”
He? Zuana glances quickly around her. But the room behind is empty and there is no one on the dock. The girl is clearly alone.
“Who? Who is come?”
“He will be here directly.” She waves her hand wildly. “I can hear the boat. It is coming. Don’t move, I tell you. Just go away, go back now, and nothing bad will happen.”
But instead of going back Zuana walks toward her. Close to, the water is choppy, butting angrily against the wood. If someone is out there, he will still have to negotiate the way to the wharf and moor in the semidarkness. And if there is no one, surely she will be able to pull the girl back.
“Don’t move. I told you—if you move, I’ll …I’ll jump.” And she shifts her weight closer to the dock’s edge.
Zuana stops. How long has the girl been standing here in the darkness waiting, half an hour? No, by now surely it would be more. There is a wind building and the air smells of rain. “Serafina, Serafina,” she says, and she keeps her voice gentle. “Listen to me. It doesn’t have to be like this. At the end of the year you can—”
“I will never make it to the end of the year. And even if I d-did, no one would listen to me. You s-said so yourself. Not the abbess, not the b-bishop.”
“But what you are doing here will only bring catastrophe upon yourself. You cannot live alone outside. The scandal—”
“I don’t c-care about scandal. I don’t care. I can’t stay here. I’ll die in this place. Don’t you see? I am not like you. It will k-kill me.” The depth of her terror is sending stammer tremors through her voice. “He is coming. He—he—he will look after me.” She stares out quickly over the black water, but the truth is that there is no boat to be heard or seen anywhere. “He—he is coming,” she repeats. “He is coming. He is waiting on the other b-bank”
She moves toward the old rowboat.
“No!” Zuana steps forward instinctively. “There is nothing for you out there. Only disgrace.”
But the girl is crouched already, fumbling with the ropes. She is probably only three or four arms’ lengths away.
Zuana stretches out her hand to her. “Come. Take my hand. It will be all right. I will help you.”
The girl glances up at her, and in the flickering candlelight her eyes for that moment shine out. “I can’t. Don’t you see? I can’t,” she hisses. “Please, leave me, just turn and go away. I will never tell a living soul you found me. Even if they c-catch me and put the screws on me and break all my fingers I will never tell them. I swear. Just turn around and go.”
“And what if you drown?”
“I don’t care.” And now suddenly the girl’s voice is calm. “Whatever happens, it is better than slow death in here. Please. I beg you.”
Zuana stands paralyzed. She knows she should move, take hold of her, bring her back, but …
The moment stretches out around them.
The girl smiles. “Thank you,” she says simply.
She turns her attention to the ropes—and as she does so there is sudden movement behind them.
“Get hold of her. Stop her—now!”
It is the voice of the abbess.
Zuana responds involuntarily, throwing herself across the wood, grabbing the girl’s arm, pulling her back while she flails and kicks and yells. Within seconds the abbess is with her, grasping the other arm, wrenching the girl’s fingers off the ropes, and then both of them are dragging her away from the river’s edge, back from the boat toward the open doors, inch by screaming inch, until they cross the storeroom threshold. Anyone within listening distance will be hearing bloody murder now, though being Carnival it might be mistaken for overenthusiastic courtship.
“The keys. Give me the keys, Zuana.”
The abbess lets go of the girl to lock the doors behind them.
“Noooo!” the girl howls in the darkness, breaking free of Zuana again and throwing herself toward that disappearing sliver of freedom between the closing doors. But the abbess is there, blocking her way, and Zuana grabs her again.