And All the Stars Shall Fall Page 11

  “All I’ll say for now is that I have defied the Federation in several ways over the years. Ueland knows some of these ways, but I don’t think he knows about the existence and the extent of this one. But you’ll know soon if all goes as planned. I have a feeling that you’ll all be surprised and delighted at what I’ve done.” Blanchfleur smiled and sat down a moment to rest.

  “If the Federation hasn’t found and destroyed the place, our hiding place should be waiting for us under the ruins of the old monastery nearby. We will try to visit later tonight if conditions allow.”

  Chapter 21:

  The Monastery

  “When we travel out there in the open, we won’t want to look like moving human beings to the eyes in the sky,” said Mabon just before they set out into the darkness from the small service building on the outskirts of what had once been Queenstown. “We will want to look like individual wild animals or a pack of them, so we will spread out and move fairly quickly, varying our rates of speed. Watch what Lucky does and the way he moves.”

  Mabon knew, by the sparse light seeping in through the small windows in the long-unused building, that night had arrived on the outside, and if they showed no artificial light they should not be visible to the casual passage of the orbiting eyes. There was no reason for the Central Council to pay serious attention to this region. If everyone was careful they would be of no more interest than any of the creatures of the wild.

  He had heard many stories from the old ones of the wild creatures living in the abandoned places far away from cities like Aahimsa. The wild outside Aahimsa that he and Nora had known as Adam grew to nine years of age would likely fill with more and more creatures as it reverted month after month to its more natural state now that it was no longer manipulated and exploited by humankind. Already he was imagining how they might live much as the old ones had in their hidden valley before the final attack of the Rangers that had been ordered by Blanchfleur, their fellow traveller. It pleased him, in a way, to imagine how he and Nora and Adam might show the city people how to live off the land, show them many of the skills they had been taught by the old ones.

  Blanchfleur knew how to get to the monastery, which had been built into the side of a large hill constructed in a densely forested area in what had been Queenstown. It was close to where the original establishment had stood and had access to most of the lower floors and basement areas of that former building complex. She had visited regularly and brought along a few of Ueland’s trusted engineers and builders to oversee the work. Ueland approved of their absence from the Manuhome but was never to be told the details of the work they had carried out in Queenstown.

  These workers had been implanted with the same monitoring devices that had controlled the Rangers all those years without fail — except in the isolated case of Mabon, and that failure had been a freak accident due to Minn jumping to her death from the wall and accidently causing the cleaner to strike his neck against the jagged side of a metal wheelbarrow, extracting and destroying the device.

  But Blanchfleur’s last visit to the monastery had been a daytime event, when she was still in the good graces of the Central Council of the Federation and not a sought-after criminal. She wasn’t used to managing a trip through the wild at night, so after providing the couple with a rough map, she had asked Mabon and Nora to lead the delegation on their outing to the monastery.

  Lucky would travel with them, and Adam as well. When Tish learned that Adam and the dog were allowed to travel ahead of the others, she insisted on staying close to her grandmother. Originally she was to hang back with Alice underground, where she would be safe in case they encountered problems. After Tish insisted, Alice reluctantly agreed that they would all travel together — she had no intention of staying down in that dark tunnel all by herself.

  Mabon offered everyone some of his bug repellent salve. Ueland, Adam, and Nora took dabs of it and applied it to face and neck and exposed skin. Blanchfleur took a bit and smelled it, then copied the others.

  “I don’t like this stuff,” said Tish. “It stinks. Just like before. Will someone show me the right way to put it on?” She glanced over at Adam as Mabon extended the jar toward the youngster and she took a blob of paste on her finger. Adam lifted his finger and wiggled it, pretending to wipe paste on his palm and rub his hands together. He nodded at Tish, who rubbed her paste onto her hands. Adam pretended to rub his hands on his neck and then the rest of his exposed skin and Tish did the same. Reluctantly, Alice approached Mabon and took a dab for herself and carefully, with Tish’s assistance, applied it like the others. Mabon put the jar away and they made their way outside.

  The exterior air felt cool and clean and they tried to imitate wild animals as they moved, according to Mabon’s instructions. Tish was excited by the brightness of the sky overhead and whispered to her mother and grandmother that they ought to look up. All paused to admire the amazing show of stars, moon, and planets overhead. Such a sight was impossible in the city, as artificial light extinguished most of the visible night sky.

  As they stopped in their tracks, a few night insects found them and buzzed about their heads, but Mabon’s salve seemed to stop them from landing and biting. Still, Blanchfleur and her family found their buzzing disturbing, and they were happy to get moving once again.

  After what seemed a long trek crunching along a gravelled pathway that wound through a dense jumble of mixed hardwood trees, brush, and wild grasses, they came to a clearing where they found the remnants of several broken and fallen statues. The moonlight didn’t allow enough light for them to properly inspect the shattered stone, but here and there were recently tended beds of fragrant flowers that contrasted with most of the wild tangle of green through which they passed.

  “We’re almost there,” said Blanchfleur. “If you’ll wait here, I’ll make sure the path is safe and clear. Ueland will remain with you, and Mabon. Nora, if you’ll be kind enough to join me, I’ll be very pleased.”

  “Why me?” asked Nora.

  “Politics, my dear. I don’t want Adam and Mabon thinking I might be about to spring some nasty surprise on them. I want and need your complete trust. So come along and be a witness to all that passes. If my old friends are still here, I don’t want to alarm them. They have survived this long by being wary of strangers. So we, too, must be wary for their sake.”

  The others watched as Blanchfleur led Nora toward the ruins of a large stone building. They stopped at a heavy wooden door and Blanchfleur pulled a key from her large black purse, inserted it in the lock, and opened it, and the unlikely companions disappeared inside, closing the door behind them.

  “Is it all right if we stay real close together?” asked Tish, her voice frightened.

  “If we’re close enough we’ll seem like a large animal,” said Ueland. “Won’t we, Mabon?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Time passed slowly and the evening grew much cooler as clouds began to obscure the bright heavenly bodies overhead.

  “Will they ever get back?” asked Alice after a long, nervous interval of standing in the deepening dark. And just then, as if in response, they heard a single set of footsteps approaching on the gravel path. They hardly dared breathe as Nora appeared out of the gloom.

  “Come with me,” said Nora.

  “Who is in there?” asked Tish.

  “You’ll see,” said Nora. “Blanchfleur is with them. She’s been explaining everything to the ladies.”

  “Ladies?” said Tish.

  “You’ll see,” said Nora, and she led them back in the direction she had come.

  They followed silently, whispering nervously and brimming with curiosity.

  Part 4

  Chapter 22:

  The Meeting in the Monastery

  They were greeted at the door by a very tall, elderly, deep-voiced woman with a generous grin who wore a dark grey, floor-length habi
t and black shiny leather boots with short flat heels that laced up the front. She wore a black cotton veil over a white starched linen coif that framed her large, moist, red face. On a black cord around her neck, made almost invisible by the black cotton veil, was suspended a silver cross that rested upon her matronly bosom. Her hands were fat and her fingers stubby and white as snow. She worried a large set of clear glass prayer beads on a silver chain that hung from her belt. She lifted the silver cross on one end of the chain to her lips and kissed it as she smiled, bowed her head, and curtsied.

  “We welcome our new friends to our sacred community,” she said. “Come inside, please, and wait until I open the inside door. Then you’ll meet the others.”

  The travellers entered the completely darkened space cautiously, huddling together in nervous silence.

  “Have you properly closed the outer door?” asked the large woman.

  “Yes,” said Mabon. He felt awkward here in the darkness with this strangely dressed insider. He wondered where Blanchfleur had gotten herself to. He hoped everything was all right. Ueland had entered beside him and he felt Nora and Tish and Alice pressing close to him. Lucky also pressed close. Mabon could smell his dog’s damp fur here in this warm, close, dark place.

  The dog began to whine quietly and the insiders pressed even closer as the inside door was yanked open and all were temporarily blinded by the sudden intrusion of brilliant light breaking around the silhouette of the strange old woman who had welcomed them moments before.

  Soon, though, they entered a large, comfortably furnished vestibule decorated by a variety of marble statues, some of which were of a young woman with a placid expression dressed somewhat like their greeter. The air was cooler and drier and smelled of fresh-cut flowers. There were other statues of a young bearded man dressed in like fashion and others of that same man suspended on a large cross, nails piercing his hands and feet, his bruised and bloodied head punctured by thorns.

  Ueland recognized the images, and he knew this old woman represented something from the distant past. He knew about nuns and monasteries, and he knew about the old religions that had been traditionally practised by most of the people, or their ancestors, before the great transformation. This whole experience was startling, though. Blanchfleur had kept as many secrets from him as he had from her. He wondered if this whole religious sister thing was real or a cover-up. All could be revealed soon enough. Perhaps.

  Everyone in his party was huddled closely together, already much more comfortable with one another, together in not knowing where they were going or what to expect when they got there. The old woman in her strange clothing stood at the far end of the room, where polished corridors, tiled in marble, led off in two directions.

  “Are you all coming, then?” she asked.

  “Who are you?” asked Alice.

  “I am Sister Thomas of Providence,” she said. “We are the Sisters of Providence. We are living out our lives here in the service of those who need our help and in the service of our Saviour.” She paused. “But come along, please. The others will be curious and worried about what is keeping us. Blanchfleur is waiting with the sisters.”

  “Can Lucky come with us?” asked Adam. He had been looking around and taking everything in. This is really weird, he thought. But Adam had grown up living in what would have been a weird place to most of his new companions, surrounded by a group of strange old ones in a hidden valley. He hoped this would be another happy time. He waited for an answer from the big woman.

  “And who is Lucky?” Sister Thomas asked with a knowing grin.

  “Lucky is our dog,” Adam said.

  “Can you lead him over to me?”

  “I’ll try. He’s really nervous of you,” said Adam. He stepped toward the woman and said, “Come on, Lucky.”

  The dog hesitated but reluctantly followed. The old woman carefully bent enough to ruffle his greying ears. Lucky’s tail began to wag as he licked the old woman’s hand.

  “We’re friends already,” said the old woman. “All friends who come in peace are welcome here. I hope we will all be good friends soon. Follow me, please.” She began to walk down the hallway leading to the right and all followed in silence until they came to a door marked “Cloister. Silence Please. Out of bounds to all visitors.”

  Sister Thomas opened the door and, after herding people and dog into the dark space, threw a switch that clothed everything in darkness, then paused to close and lock the heavy metal door behind them. Lucky whined momentarily and then the lights came back on. They were now standing in a large room containing deep shelves of bedding and stacks of starched linen and dark shoes and stockings, and rows of black-and-white garments hanging from wooden hangers from suspended lengths of metal pipe.

  “Come this way,” Sister Thomas said as she slipped between rows of hanging black tunics and ducked under white cotton veils. Then she pushed something at eye level that caused a section of the back wall to slide to their right and allowed them to enter yet another large corridor. This one sloped gradually downwards. Once again she flicked switches and the room behind them darkened while the lights of the long corridor switched on and they began to walk swiftly behind Sister Thomas. They passed a couple of narrower corridors on their left and Lucky ventured a few metres down the next one they came to.

  “Come, dog,” Sister Thomas said, and Mabon ordered Lucky to come. Lucky knew enough to obey Mabon’s voice. Adam was his best friend, but Mabon was the dominant force in his life, his first human friend, his clear master.

  As Adam passed that corridor he wondered what Lucky had been attracted by down along that dark hall they had just passed. As the dog responded to Mabon’s command, Adam thought he heard faint voices in the distance, young voices. He had never heard children playing, but what he heard was somewhat how he imagined the voices of children at play might sound. But children in this place…no, not possible.

  Sister Thomas took the next corridor, this one to their right, and shut off the lights to the hall they had vacated. Next came a set of stairs that went down once again. The temperature had grown cooler as they descended, and so they were surprised to enter into an immense space rich with the smell of growing things and suffused with suffocating, moist heat. The room glowed under the bright, high ceiling.

  As their eyes adjusted, they saw that they were standing inside a giant greenhouse. They recognized tall vines from which huge tomatoes were suspended, and all around them grew hundreds of flowers of many colours and varieties and plants of every description. A few dozen women dressed in a variety of tunics and robes worked at picking flowers and fruit and trimming vines.

  So far they had seen no sign of Blanchfleur.

  Sister Thomas clapped her hands firmly and all the young greenhouse workers stopped what they were doing, put down their gardening tools, and, picking up their full baskets, filed past the visitors and left the greenhouse. Sister Thomas followed and held the flimsy metal and glass door as the visitors, including Lucky, followed the young workers up one more corridor and into a large assembly hall. Sister Thomas stood with them until the workers took their seats, then directed the visitors up onto a small platform at the front of the hall, where Adam calculated there were more than enough chairs to hold them, facing the audience.

  Adam took the time to let his eyes sweep across the hall and was astonished to realize that more than a hundred young women were there, most wearing the same clothing as Sister Thomas. Only the younger workers in front wore tunics that were less complicated and mostly white in colour. As he began to count the number of women in a single row and the number of rows to get a more exact number, Blanchfleur came out to join them, led by another elderly sister. He stopped counting and waited.

  Sister Thomas allowed them a few moments to greet one another then gestured for all to take a seat. She went to the podium down front and was joined by the elderly nun who had brought Blanchf
leur to the hall.

  The meeting was pleasant and brief. Sister Thomas introduced Mother John the Baptist, who as it turned out was the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Providence. Mother John the Baptist welcomed everyone to the underground Queenstown Convent of the Sisters of Providence. She asked Mabon to stand, and then Ueland, and this prompted a polite round of applause. Adam came next and there was a much more vigorous and rousing round of applause and some gentle understated, nervous cheering. Nora brought polite applause, as well. She called Lucky, who stood on his hind legs, front legs on her shoulders, to lick her face, and introduced him. The nuns responded with happy laughter. When Blanchfleur was introduced and brought forward to the podium the house rang with sustained applause and cheering and the entire audience stood.

  Nora and Mabon and Adam were amazed, as were Tish and Alice. Lucky simply barked loudly and excitedly. This woman tried to kill us and was responsible for the deaths of the old ones, Nora thought, and these women are treating her like a hero.

  Mother Superior turned the meeting back over to Sister Thomas, who dismissed the audience, which returned once again to silence as they filed in an orderly manner out through the doors of the assembly hall. Sister Thomas turned to her guests and invited them to go with her.

  Soon they were seated in a comfortably furnished lounge with soft chairs and a thick wool rug on the floor. They were served tea and sandwiches and, after a few minutes, Mother Superior returned. She and Sister Thomas announced that there would be time for questions and a discussion of future plans in light of a visit they had had a few days ago from another group of women who had been fleeing Aahimsa.