Chapter Text
In the ancient, vaguely musty quiet of the Andalusian morning, the hinges of a wooden box sigh softly. The box is small, and it lives on the top of Beatrice’s bureau. In it, she keeps a handful of items that would mean little to anyone else, but mean a great deal to her. A St. Christopher medallion, a handful of French coins from when she studied there for a semester, a silk ribbon that belonged to a girl of whom she had once been very fond. Trifles that she keeps close to her heart, that are secret only because the contents of her heart are secret.
France had been a masterpiece of color and light, and Beatrice had felt romanced by the spring winds themselves, and the beat of shoes against the cobblestones in the French Quarter. She had fallen in love there, mostly with the idea of falling in love; love, she had decided, was not actually a thing meant for her, except for the divine love of God, naturally.
Love manifests strangely, she had learned. The girl, who had been her roommate, had also been guarded and soft spoken, and they understood that they had more in common than they voiced aloud. Beatrice’s eyes would sometimes get caught on that red silk ribbon that the girl used to tie back her hair, that flash of red that seemed somehow so lurid in a world of grey habits and black training clothes.
The red silk ribbon sometimes makes her heart clench up like a fist, even now, as she thinks of the desperate way she would stare at it in the girl’s dark hair, not even knowing what she wanted from it, perhaps jealously wishing she could wind herself through the girl’s hair. But no, not even that. It is safer to let some things remain abstractions.
The box has gained a new tenant today, though. It is a folded piece of thick, creamy paper, covered with neat lines of Beatrice’s flawless handwriting. It is neither harmless, nor abstract. The lock that had long been on the box’s face will be employed for the first time. It reads:
Growth is the raw, new part of oneself that appears when the pain of moving forward peels back that which we no longer need. You, Ava, are every bit that raw, new thing, and I have watched you grow, and outgrow, the self that you began to shed the day the Halo sank into your back. When a flower blooms, the thick green flesh of the bud shrinks, dries up, and falls away, to make room for the bursting bloom that succeeds it. The protective hull is no longer needed. But it is not because the bloom is stronger than the bud that held it; in fact, as you no doubt know, a flower’s petals are easily crushed. It is because the bloom is too beautiful to be obscured any longer, and must be seen and shared, must let the sun touch it, must be known, admired, watered and quenched.
It is nearly a year that I have watched this process, watched you shed that protective casing; the selfish needs, the want for pleasures of the flesh, the food and wine and drugs and sex and all of those elements of the mortal life that you were so sure you needed. They have wilted and fallen away. And now you have become this bloom.
A fearsome bloom, to be sure. What you lack in skill, you have more than compensated for in heart. When you accept my instruction, your focus is singular and entirely upon me; I feel like the sun, shining onto a flower that hungers for more light than I can ever hope to give it. You are vulnerable; I have flung myself into the path of arrows for you, and would throw myself into the path of a hundred more, to keep the incomparable blossom of you from being harmed.
My heart aches to know what it is to be so wildly fragile and beautiful, so open to light, so ready to be watered, and fear of everything else be damned. To watch you grow and shed the confines of what you thought you were is one of the greatest joys I have known. I would watch it again and again, despite the ache in my own heart; it makes me long to burst free of this bud which I have spent a lifetime tending with the intention that it should never be opened.
But what good is a flower that does not bloom, Ava? What good? The longing I feel is stubborn because this question has no answer.
****
Camila tends the roses outside the rectory. It’s not her job, but she loves them. Beatrice has never asked why, and rarely participated in the task.
“It’s the season,” Camila says happily, “they’re all going to be opening in another week or so, I think.”
Today, Beatrice stops and takes up a pair of shears. “Can I help?”
“Really?”
Beatrice nods.
Camila grins and points to a bit of overgrowth on one of the stems. “That one, if you don’t mind.”
They work quietly while Camila hums a little song that Beatrice doesn’t recognize. “Why do you love this task so much?” Beatrice wonders.
Camila murmurs something to one of the roses and pulls a few dead leaves off before answering. “Our lives are the Cat’s Cradle walls,” she says. “It’s nice to cultivate something beautiful inside them.”
Beatrice considers her. “There's a lot of beauty here.”
“Meh,” Camila says. “Statues. But these are alive. They remind me that I’m alive. That we’re all alive. Don’t you think it’s nice, helping something beautiful grow?”
Beatrice smiles. Incautious as she enjoys Camila’s unguarded sweetness, she pricks herself one of the thorns. She frowns. “Do you normally strip the thorns?”
“No. They’re part of what makes it beautiful.”
****
Another letter takes residence in the locked box.
Ava,
Each day that we cross swords I see your skill improving. I wish I could express to you the pride I feel in your progress, but I fear it would go to your head. Or perhaps I fear that what I expressed would be something more than the pride that is permissible under the circumstances.
I am drowning sometimes in the wish to inhabit your skin, to understand what it is to be you; brave you, foolhardy you, dangerous you – kind, caring, loving you. You’ve learned a little about secrecy and subtlety from me, and I sometimes almost wish you would unlearn it. I’ve become fond of your gentleness and humor, but in some respects, I suppose I am more fond of your ragged edges, your unvarnished thoughts, your thorns. I see nothing false in you. It frightens me and yet also enthralls me. I’m envious, fascinated, confused.
You are the only person who ever told me that I was beautiful. But how can you know it when you don’t know what I’m like when I’m open? I don’t even know what I’m like when I’m open. But I come closest to it at times when I’m with you.
I write these letters to understand what I feel. There is nothing in them that should be secret and yet they live in the box with all the other secrets of mine that are not secrets. I am like Camila with her roses; they are not really hers, yet tending to them and helping them bloom and grow brings lightness and joy to her life. And even when the thorns prick, it matters little. It’s always worth the trouble.
When one looks at you, Ava, one can articulate the change in you; you were dead, and are now alive. You were selfish, and now you are giving -- mostly. You were no kind of warrior, and now you can wield the sword as you were meant to do. But me? I know that I am changed for knowing you, that the change is a process still unfolding, and yet I cannot put words to what I am now. Perhaps it’s because I’ve told you my secrets. I was alone, and now I’m not.
****
Beatrice is lying flat on her back for the third time. Mary’s knee is pressed into her chest.
“What the hell’s up with you, girl?”
“Language,” Beatrice scolds. Her mind is in any number of places, none of them the sparring mat.
“You never let me kick your ass like this,” Mary goes on.
“ Language ,” Beatrice says again, more emphatically.
Ava comes flitting through the training space on her way to somewhere else. She stops, sees the tableau of Mary having defeated Beatrice rather soundly, and exclaims, “Oh, shit! What happened, Mr. Miyagi?”
Beatrice lifts her head to call out “language!” yet again, but Ava is already gone. “I give up,” she sighs into the vaulted ceiling.
Mary sucks her teeth and stands, liberating Beatrice and allowing her to breathe properly again. “So it’s like that.”
“I’ve asked her to stop calling me Mr. Miyagi but she won’t,” Beatrice grumbles.
But Mary isn’t fooled by her dodge. “I wasn’t born yesterday, and neither was Ava.”
“She was born again yesterday, though,” Beatrice parries. “That must count for something.”
Mary looks at her sympathetically. “I understand, it’s a lot. She’s a lot.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Beatrice knows exactly what she’s talking about. She flushes, despite herself.
“Okay.” Mary throws up her hands. “Just know, you ain’t foolin’ anybody, including Ava. She’s a dipshit, but she understands more than you think.”
Beatrice takes a breath to scold but Mary scoffs and turns around. “Yeah, I know, language. It ain’t always about the rules, Bea.”
****
Another letter is written:
The odd thing about secrets is that they exist in two states at once. There is a pleasure to keeping them, to having something that is only yours, keeping something close. Thou shalt not covet, the commandments say, and yet there is pleasure in it. Yet at the same time, the secret also burns to get out, sits like a hot coal in the pocket, craving oxygen, aching to catch fire. I’ve learned to live with both these states when it comes to all my secrets; I keep certain things to myself, and enjoy them that way, even as they sometimes grow too hot for me to stand, even as they burn brighter than the Halo in your back.
I write letters, I have come to understand, not because I need to map out what I feel. I know perfectly well what I feel. It runs deeper than mountains and taps oceans older than the world. It glows with the light of the divine, and draws me to you, inexorably. I write these letters to make these secrets tangible so they can live in the place where I keep such things. It brings them one step closer to the light, one step closer to release.
There are so many kinds of sin, Ava, and I have studied them all. Perhaps I was looking for a loophole. But I cannot tolerate any longer the sin of lying, for that is what secrecy is, at its core. It is withholding truth. This is the reason that secrets burn to be shared. Because that in itself is a sin.
Yes, call me a sinner, then. I have kept my secrets, or tried. But I expect you know already. At times I feel you look at me in a way that reflects back every longing I have ever felt for you, every urge I have ever struggled with to share this burning coal in my pocket. I ask nothing of you, but I cannot abide this one sin, the sin of you not knowing, not receiving confirmation, of the love that has grown in my heart for you all of this time. My frame of reference for such feelings is limited; I hardly even know what I want it to mean. I only know that I am more alive when I’m with you, I’m growing, I’m opening, and I could not stop this process if I wanted to.
But I don’t want to.
I want you to be my secret, yes, and to know that you are my secret. I want to keep you greedily in my heart and beside my body and know you in ways that no-one else does. I want to translate you into a hundred languages that run off my tongue like a psalm every time I say your name. I want you to be the alpha of my morning and the omega of my night. I want you to cradle every whisper of mine inside your chest and I want you to want the same of me, as desperately as I do. I covet you, and yes, it is a sin, but it is not a sin to tell you so.
Perhaps I’ve said too much. As you say, a bad habit.
****
This last letter is placed in the box, in chronological order, tied together with the red silk ribbon. Beatrice leaves the box on Ava’s bed while she’s out on a scouting trip with Mary.
She doesn’t know what will happen. She’s not sure it matters. She has committed to the idea that she loves Ava desperately and that the words needed to be said. She has no idea what she wants from it, what else she expects to come after it, what Ava will say. She trusts that Ava won’t hurt her, even if she doesn’t feel the same. That trust has grown over time, and Beatrice feels clear, confident in her decision. The secret, she decides, is the sin. Not the love.
She sits in the sanctuary as the evening creeps in, swaddled in her habit, listening to Camila play a pretty little hymn that she’d heard once before:
“And love will hold us together
Make us a shelter to weather the storm
And I’ll be my sister’s keeper
So the whole world would know that we’re not alone…”
Oddly content, Beatrice listens to Camila’s singing and watches the sun go down through the west window. She knows Ava will be back eventually, and that whatever happens, it will be alright.
“It’s waiting for you
Knockin' at your door!
Every moment of truth
When your heart hits the floor…”
The view from the Cat’s Cradle overlooking the countryside has never been more beautiful, the sunset touching the hills with orange and gold.
Ava’s footsteps come thudding across the floor of the sanctuary. She stops in front of Beatrice’s chair, breathing heavily, and drops a folded piece of paper in her lap with a little smile, and stomps away.
Beatrice opens the paper. It says, in handwriting like a fourth grader's:
Jesus, Bea, it’s not fair, you know I can’t write like that! Yes, I love you too. No, I don’t know what it means either. Let’s figure it out. I want to.
And by the way, bad habit was my pun first. How dare you.
Meet me in your room.