Page 5 of Reflections of Silence

Have the nuns heard the rumors we spread around the ship?

But how could they? We had arrived ourselves a few scant hours before.

With nothing else to distract me, I shot a glance in both directions along the empty hallway, pressed my hands to the heavy wood and pushed my door open.

The room—cell—was spartan, in keeping with the rest of the abbey. Walking beneath the lintel seemed a monumental effort, shedding my skin into a new life, though the mere barrier of a single step separated me from a bare hallway into an even more minimalist room.

A small table that held a bowl of thin, unidentifiable gruel sat next to a thin-framed bed. I placed my little box on the floor beside my mattress, hoping it was clean of earwigs and fleas. Those were rampant on the ship, and I’d taken pleasure in hunting down each critter and squishing it as a part of my pre-bedtime ritual.

I spooned the heavily spiced soup into my mouth. The lumps hid whatever the true flavor was, and I suspected I should be thankful for that. As the sun sank below the horizon through a small glassed, barred window, shadows lengthened across the room. Given no candle, I huddled beneath my thin blanket and tried not to think of the man who would collect me at dawn.

As it was, I didn't have to wait that long.

Wrapped in a threadbare, smoky-scented cloak, I got married to a nun. Or rather, married by proxy. A nun whisked me from my room with a hiss, bundling me and my meager possessions down the stairs to the ground floor where I waited alone in a shroud of darkness.

At the foot of the drive stood a carriage, a silhouette in the moonless night. The Abbess—noteworthy in her pristine robes at an indecent hour—performed the ceremony in a spate of Latin she rattled off while my brain wondered how on earth things could possibly be so different in this backward country.

The only words I recognized were my own, and my husband’s name.

Sebastian Lammert Aguillard.

I rolled his name—now my own—around in my head, memorizing it, testing it to see how our names sounded together. Gisella Marie Aguillard. It didn’t sound too bad, and Sebastian was a clean name on its own. I imagined a rotund man with a tanned face from the deadly bayou’s blistering sun, perhaps a donkey or a cart in the background.

Why go to such lengths to maintain secrecy?

I had no doubt that this midnight ceremony conducted in the quiet hours hidden away from any eyes whatsoever outside of its circle was of a covert nature.

While I had no objection in being married by a woman—to ostensibly yet another woman—I was certain Rome would have plenty to say about it. My father, too. But he’d given those rights away when he sold me to the King of France's pithy whim.

The ceremony concluded, the nun I’d married faceless in the dark of night pressed a paper-thin hand to my forehead, whispering a frantic blessing over me before I was hastened into the waiting carriage at the foot of the abbey’s drive.

Such a short time. A few hours and already I miss the peace of my threadbare room, away from the sisters who without whom I was suddenly bereft.

Better the devil you know…

My future merged with the present until I was left in a void between my past life and my future fate, alone and exposed in a midnight purgatory. Swallowing my fear where it joineduncertainty somewhere in the depths of my stomach, I studied the carriage before me.

Covered in the shadow of night, there was no detail, no coat of arms visible on the door. The door opened silently, well oiled. The driver, swathed in a heavy cloak of darkness, stared down at me from his high perch. Something about him seemed…wrong. I could see him, but not sense him, as though he were a painting and not really there at all. I nodded briskly, unwilling to trust my voice, and stepped into the void within.

A dark velvet covered the bench cushions as I settled into the interior. Without waiting for a rap of knuckles or a shouted order, the carriage lurched forward as soon as I had seated myself.

I clutched my little box against my chest until my skin ached, the bumpy road away from the abbey no better than the one from the docks. I hoped it would be a shorter trip, but my midnight rousing stilled with the miles of countryside passing by that I couldn’t see. Soon enough, my eyes grew bleary, and I closed them, seeking the silence of sleep.

When the driver stopped for relief, I stowed the casket beneath my seat, clamping my boots over it for the last part of our journey, however long it might be. Something heavy rolled against my fingers as I fidgeted with the box. A quick rap on the door startled me—he was much faster than I assumed.

“Madame.” A shuffling noise accompanied his fist, rapping on the roof of the carriage. “When you’re ready.” His voice was rough, carrying the edge of midnight secrets in it.

A frisson ran over my skin at his tone. I tugged my cloak about my body, as though it would be anything but a poor defense if the man proved untrustworthy. My mind disagreed; arguing its case that the man would protect me as efficiently as he towed me from one destination to the next in the midst of night should some unfortunate circumstance befall our voyage.

“Ready,” I called out, extracting what looked like an exceptional bottle ofbeaujolais. I fiddled with the neck until a corkscrew rolled timely onto my boot.When in need…Smiling at my own half-formed humor, I inserted the thing with little finesse and hoped the coachman wouldn’t hit any bumps in the interim.

Freed of its enclosure, the heady scent of berries and ash filled the small cabin. Glinting in the small light of the coach lamps, I made out the label,Sister’s Landing.A squat building was etched above the variety.

Yet another abbey.

I determined never to go there.

The bottle kept me company over many miles of rough terrain, and when we arrived at our destination, the ground was decidedly unstable. I rose on wobbly legs, unsure if the air had infected the wine, or if New Orleans had infectedme. I teetered on my boots, muttering under my breath about sleepy feet and pitched unceremoniously forward.

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