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I.
Ava’s body is returned to the Cat’s Cradle two weeks after she’s been sent through the portal. Well, one week and six days, but who’s counting?
In the meantime, she spends those thirteen days wandering around the other side and ignoring Reya’s persistent attempts to get her to talk to her. Ava has no interest in that. Rather, she has no need for that. She knows the Halo has healed her. Kind of. Technically she doesn’t really know that for sure, but she does know she’s not in any more pain. Admittedly, she doesn’t understand why she feels healthier than she did before and yet weaker and more disconnected to the Halo, but whatever, right?
Except, when she thinks about it harder, she realizes she doesn’t feel much of anything.
Oh.
Goddammit.
Ava stops where she’s walking, some stupid endless desert probably conjured by Reya to drive her insane, and settles her hands on her hips.
“Am I dead?” she calls out.
Quickly, irritatingly quickly, Reya materializes. “Well. For a Warrior Nun, you’re a bit slow on the uptake.”
Ava glares at her. “Just answer the question.”
“Yes,” Reya says. She tilts her head to one side. “You’re dead.”
Straight to the point, then. Ava likes that. Hesitantly, her hands drop back to her sides. “And this…” She looks around. “This is the afterlife?”
“This?” Reya repeats. “No.”
“Oh, thank God,” Ava says, breathing a sigh of relief, even though she doesn’t really need to breathe anymore, and that realization is weird in itself. Then she chuckles. “Literally, thank God maybe. I don’t know.”
“You might try to sound a little less pleased,” Reya says curtly. “But, no. This place is just… a holding zone. Like Purgatory, but less torturous. This is where you’ll stay until you choose to pass over.”
“Why wouldn’t I go now?” Ava says, furrowing her eyebrows. Might as well get it over with, right? Michael didn’t say a lot about this place, but he certainly didn’t shout its praises from the rooftops. It was more of, ‘Well, I lived, didn’t I?’ than ‘I would certainly love to spend eternity there.’
At this question, Reya looks confused. “I’m guessing you haven’t been made aware about your reincarnation?”
Ava blinks. “Um, no.”
“Every Warrior Nun is allowed one reincarnation after death,” Reya says. For a moment, Ava thinks she might be pranking her because what the actual fuck? Did nobody ever think that might be important to tell her? But ‘prank’ probably isn’t even in Reya’s vocabulary, and she maintains a perfect poker face as she continues. “It’s a chance to have a life that, in theory, they’ve earned. One that doesn’t involve fighting demons and dying young.”
“Holy shit.”
Reya smiles, a gentle one. “There’s one more thing.”
Ava perks up. “Yeah?”
“You get to bring someone with you,” Reya says. When Ava still looks confused, she adds, “When you choose to be reincarnated. Anyone you want.”
“You’re telling me that not only do I, as a Warrior Nun, get reincarnated,” Ava repeats, trying to make sense of it all, “but I also get to give that to someone else?”
“It wouldn’t be ‘you’ in the way that you are now,” Reya says, shrugging, “but a version of you, and a version of whoever you choose, yes.”
“Beatrice,” Ava says immediately. Her heart stutters in her chest, though how that can be she’s not sure, and she thinks maybe it’s just the memory of how Beatrice used to make her feel. “I choose Beatrice.”
Reya shrugs again, like she doesn’t care one way or another, and she probably doesn’t. “Very well. But if this ‘Beatrice’ is still alive, she has to die naturally to, you know, cash in the prize.”
Ava nods. “Okay.”
Reya just stares at her. Ava stares back. Neither of them speak, and God, this magic lady is really socially inept. You’d think the afterlife would be free from awkward silences, but Ava feels her skin start to crawl as the quiet drags on, and then Reya slowly says, “If there’s no more questions, I’m just gonna—”
Ava frowns, cutting her off. “Well, hang on. What do I do in the meantime?”
“You wait,” Reya says, like it’s obvious. And right before Ava cusses her out for giving the most vague answer possible, she grins. “But I think I can help you pass the time.”
Ava’s eyebrows raise. “I’m listening.”
“You can visit,” Reya says. And the more she talks about literally all of this, the more Ava wonders whether the nuns just decided not to tell her these things for the fun of it, or whether they really didn’t know. “You can take a host body. Kind of like a Wraith demon.”
“Oh, great, thanks. Because that’s just what I wanted to spend my afterlife doing,” Ava says, rolling her eyes. “Haunting people and possessing innocent civilians.”
“It’s not like that,” Reya says, sighing. “You’re just… visiting. You wouldn’t tell them who you are, you wouldn’t make the host do anything weird, you’d just get to see them for a little while.”
“I can’t tell them?” Ava says.
Reya eyes her cautiously. “You can do whatever you like. But whether you should is another story. They’re already going to mourn you once. Do you really want to make them do it again every time you leave?”
Ouch. Ava frowns. “No.”
Reya drifts forward, like she might rest a hand on Ava’s shoulder, but she doesn’t. “For what it’s worth, you were one of my favorites.”
If Ava’s breath could have caught in her throat, it would have. It’s the first time in the conversation that the fact that she’s dead finally catches up to her, and all of a sudden it feels like her foretold life path has caught up to her too. The car accident, being murdered by Sister Frances, the curse and blessing of bearing the Halo, and then now. Her death has always been inevitable, more so than the typical person, and for all the smiles and smirks as she wove her way back into the world, Ava realizes she was a fool for ever trying to run from it.
She swallows. Reya watches her carefully. But there’s no witty comeback, no snarky joke to be made. She’s just dead. Quieter, voice deeper, Ava asks, “What about my body?
Reya shrugs. “I can send it back to Earth. Or I can keep it, if you’d rather not make everyone see it.”
It’s a fair point. Ava considers both options. On the one hand, she really doesn’t think they need to look at her dead body, especially not one that’s thirteen days old. They have enough of those to deal with no doubt. But on the other hand, Ava knows her friends—it’s still weird to call them that, but that’s what they are, aren’t they?—and she knows the Order and, most of all, she knows Beatrice. The body might give them closure. The body might make them stop looking for her. The body might be what they need to accept that she’s gone and move on.
Not to mention the other thing. It tingles in her back even now that she’s barely a person, and even now that the glow has long since faded forever. But it’s important too.
Reya sends Ava’s body back to the Cat’s Cradle neat and tidy. With her arms crossed over her chest, she could be sleeping. Her face is battered and bloody, insides broken and bruised, but Ava hopes that, to the nuns, she looks like she could be at peace. She’s been saved from the effects of natural decomposition, preserved perfectly the moment her heart stopped beating, and is now resting for them to find on the front steps. Which is kind of weird, if Ava thinks about it, but she figures it’s better than being dropped off somewhere more tasteful and secluded because what if they just never find her body until she’s smelly and slimy?
Gross. She definitely doesn’t want them to see her like that.
Nestled on her stomach is the Halo. It’s not glowing anymore, though. There are no supernatural powers. It’s just a piece of metal, the inactive remains of the Halo forged by Reya with elements that can be stable on Earth. Ava was right, and she notes this with a smile: she is the last Warrior Nun. Was. The Halo died with her, and she prays it’s a comfort to the Order to know that.
The first time Ava takes a host form it’s for her own funeral.
She’s a nun, because of course she is, and if it wasn’t such an objectively depressing moment, she might laugh. When peering over the scene to figure out who she should assume the form of, she chooses a Sister she doesn’t recognize, hoping she’s not important enough to get noticed when she’s taken over. No offense to the Sister, or anything.
Beatrice sits in the back. This surprises Ava. Camila, Yasmine, Mother Superion, and everyone else that survived with them are at the front. But it also makes things easier, and Ava tears her eyes away from the portrait of herself at the front of the room to slide into the pew next to Beatrice.
She’s not sure if she should speak. At the rustle next to her, Beatrice offers a small smile, but then turns back to face front. Her back is rigid, and her hands rest neatly in her lap.
Ava turns to face the front too.
The speeches start, one after another. It turns out this is a combined funeral for all the Sisters they lost in the big battle with Adriel, it’s just that Ava gets to be spotlighted because she was the Warrior Nun. This makes her smile, but then she remembers that she’s only being spotlighted in the first place because she also literally died, and that puts a bit of a damper on things.
“You know, she would have hated this.”
Eyebrows shooting up, Ava turns. “Sorry?”
Beatrice turns to meet her, smiling a little. “She would have hated this. Ava, I mean. Four hours of sitting in a church and listening to speeches? Yeah, right.”
“This thing is gonna be four hours long?” Ava mutters. For a moment, her cheeks burn because God Almighty, what a very not nun-like thing to say, but it makes Beatrice smile, and that makes Ava smile too. The moment fades, but before it drifts too far to catch, she speaks again. “Were you close with her?”
“Yes.”
That’s all. Ava never realized how far Beatrice let her walls down for her until now, sitting in the body of a stranger, and being on the other side of them for the first time since they initially met. Beatrice’s face is inscrutable. It occurs to her that while she just thought she’d gotten good at reading Beatrice’s emotions, that can’t have been the case, or she wouldn’t be struggling so much to decode them now. No, Beatrice must have purposefully let her in.
“I’m surprised you aren’t up there with the rest of the talkers,” Ava pokes. She hopes it doesn’t sound judgmental.
“To tell you the truth,” Beatrice says, voice softening, “I almost joined them. I even wrote a speech. It was very long.”
“Oh?” Ava tilts her head to the side. “And you didn’t want to deliver it?”
“That’s the thing,” Beatrice says, and there’s that smile again. Her gaze flickers to the portrait of Ava front and center. “I realized that I don’t need to. She already knows.” And then Beatrice swallows, eyelids fluttering, nodding like she’s convincing herself. “I know she knows.”
II.
It’s a year later the next time Ava makes her way back down to Earth.
She meant what she said when she kissed Beatrice goodbye. She wants her to live her life, she really does, and whether Beatrice is aware of her presence or not, Ava is more than capable of predicting that she wouldn’t be able to truly do that if she was constantly being followed and watched. No, Beatrice needs her space, and she needs her time, and she needs to be happy, and she certainly doesn’t need a girl from a wartime ago tagging along.
So for the most part Ava leaves her to her own devices, but today she misses her a little extra.
London. Beatrice is in London. She’s sitting in a bar, alone even though it’s midnight on a Friday, and Ava slips into the host body of a young woman about to walk in by herself.
Once seated, she flags down the bartender. “Just a water, please. Thanks.”
At that, Beatrice glances over at her. It’s subtle, quick and more with her eyes than an actual turn of her chin, but Ava notices. It must be weird to Beatrice that she's ordering a water, but Ava figures her host can get whatever she wants after she leaves; it’s not her place to put stuff in her system without her knowledge. Hoping upon hope that Beatrice takes the initiative to speak first like she did at the funeral, Ava angles her body slightly over to the left to try and seem approachable.
But Beatrice doesn’t. She just returns to staring at the bar counter.
And in that case, Ava figures she might as well take the time to do the looking.
The first thing she notices is that Beatrice isn’t wearing her habit, or really anything to signify that she used to be a nun at all. She still has that rigid posture, and her bun is clean as ever, but her arms are bare all the way up to her shoulders in a black button up tank top, and her matching black dress pants are long, but more fitted than she might have worn a couple years ago.
The second thing Ava notices is that Beatrice is still just as breathtaking as she’s always been. More so, if that’s even possible. She’s wearing a little bit of make-up now, not much, just some mascara and a tinted chapstick, but Ava clocks it right away. She’s spent enough time staring into Beatrice’s eyes to take note of when things change. It’s only been a year, but Beatrice’s face has matured a lot anyway, slightly more sculpted than it was before, slightly older, and with that same easy, resting pout to her lips.
The third thing Ava notices is that Beatrice looks sad. Her shoulders aren’t just stiff with poise, but rigid with tension, and her neck isn’t just held high out of grace, but braced like she’s holding back a tidal wave of emotion.
Also, she’s at a bar, alone, on a Friday night. Nobody that’s not either at rock bottom or trying not to hit rock bottom would do that.
While it’s not necessarily surprising that Beatrice is sad, it’s disappointing. Ava planned on leaving her alone tonight if she didn’t want to talk to her—which is dumb, because in what universe would Beatrice ever willingly make small talk with a stranger?—but now she just has to know whether this heaviness that sits on Beatrice’s shoulders like the weight of the world, and then some, has anything to do with her.
“Rough night?” Ava says cautiously.
Beatrice looks at her warily. “I’ve had worse.”
“It’s not a competition,” Ava counters.
Surprisingly, Beatrice doesn’t give her a death glare and walk away. She smiles. It’s small, and it doesn’t reach her eyes, but it’s a start. “That’s true.”
The bartender drops off a glass of water. Ava takes a sip. God, that’s delicious. She’s really missed the whole eating and drinking thing. She tries not to moan as she gulps down half of the glass, but she’s not sure she succeeds when Beatrice sends her a scandalized look that reminds Ava that she was, in fact, a nun.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Ava asks.
“Not particularly,” Beatrice says airily. Then she shrugs. “Although, at this rate I’m not sure what harm there could be.”
Ava matches her shrug. “What are strangers in bars for if not listening?”
And Beatrice smiles again, this time creeping up her cheeks. “Well, if you must know, I’m officially estranged from my parents.”
Oh.
Ava pauses. “And how do we feel about this?”
“Angry,” Beatrice says. She closes her eyes, shoulders relaxing for a moment. “Happy. Sad. Scared. But most of all, relieved, I think.”
“Then this is a celebration,” Ava decides. She wiggles her eyebrows. “Shots?”
Beatrice’s eyes blink open, and maybe it’s Ava’s imagination, but she swears she sees the reflection of a Swiss dance floor flickering for a moment. “I’ll pass, but yes, partially a celebration.” She stirs her drink with the little straw. “I’m angry that I cared so much about what they thought of me for so long, that I wasted so many years on it. That I wasted so much time. That I wasted the last… well, the last opportunity for something. For someone. With someone.”
The urge to reach out and grab her hand is overwhelming. This pain that Beatrice is saddled with bites at Ava like a boomerang, ricocheting off and coming back twice as strong. It hisses at her like the burn of a divinium sword on her skin, but the maddening part is that with this she has a cure. With this she can make it better. And she almost does, but Reya’s words come back to her, asking her if she really wants Beatrice to mourn her all over again, and Ava has to force herself to remember that her own pain cannot be made less at the expense of Beatrice’s.
She holds her tongue.
You didn’t waste it, she wants to say. I’m right here. We get another chance.
But she can’t. Intead, she decides to remind Beatrice of the other side of things. “And the happy part?” Ava prompts. “What about the rest of it?”
Beatrice lifts her head. “I’m happy that I have the rest of my life ahead of me. Sad that it took someone telling me to live my life for me to decide to do that. Scared that I have absolutely no idea about what’s to come, or not. And, at the same time, relieved that I don’t know.”
“That’s a lot of emotions,” Ava muses. “You got somewhere to put them?”
“No,” Beatrice says. She gives a half smile. “Not yet at least.”
“Then a stranger in a bar will do just fine,” Ava promises.
“Thank you,” Beatrice says. She tosses a few notes on the bar, grabbing the leather jacket slung over the back of the stool. The final smile she offers is a real one, eyes twinkling faintly, but not like they’re fading, more as if they’re coming back to life. “I hope your week has been better than mine. Goodnight.”
Then she’s standing, and then she’s slinging her jacket on, and then she’s taking a step towards the door. And Ava knows that these moments are fleeting, that they’re not promised and she can’t do anything to disrupt the natural flow of Beatrice’s life, that not everything is about her and that she needs to be selfless, but her heart aches in a way she thinks is only possible because she’s in a human form, and she’s breathless with the grief of all they’ve never had.
Before she can stop herself, Ava reaches out as if to grab Beatrice’s elbow. She catches herself before she makes contact, knowing that while she’s in this stranger’s body Beatrice would probably have her flat on her back in two seconds, and not in a good way. But even as her hand retracts itself, words tumble from her lips.
“Bea, I—”
Beatrice spins around. “How do you know my name?”
Eyes wide, Ava stammers, “I—I don’t.” They stare at each other, Ava the picture of ‘shit shit shit shit shit,’ Beatrice’s eyes glittering with defensiveness and a hint of danger, like she’s just daring Ava to be a threat. Then, “Be safe. I was going to say ‘be safe.’” She gestures to the open door, the glint of the stars not subdued by an excess of street lamps. “It’s dark out there.”
Softening, even if only slightly, Beatrice nods. “Thanks. And you as well.”
III.
Ava gives her a decade.
It’s hard, especially considering time passes differently on this other side. She doesn’t age, courtesy of the fact that she’s dead, not a living human the way Michael was, but it feels like an eternity. It might be, too. She helps other souls pass by, guides humans to find their way, even spends a week assisting a demon trying to find its friend.
Before she knows it, twelve years have passed on Earth. Beatrice is thirty-five, and Ava has no idea what to expect. She didn’t check in on her at all, knowing she wouldn’t have been able to hold back if she gave herself a little, and so she gave herself nothing.
Is Beatrice married? Does she have a wife, maybe kids? Or did she rejoin the Order, and will Ava find her in the Cat’s Cradle? When they’d said goodbye at the bar, it was like Beatrice was perched on the line of a tightrope, one side a streamline into a new life as a new version of herself, one side a regression back to the girl Ava met two years prior, and with equal chances of falling one way or the other. There were, and are, so many options, and Ava lets herself ruminate for ten minutes. Then she flicks herself in the head, muttering about how there’s no use in speculating when she might as well just tune in and find out.
So she does.
It turns out Beatrice is not married, and she’s also not a nun. She’s in Greece, and she works in a coffee shop. Ava slips into the body of a woman next in line to order, and when she does, she catches the tail end of the man in front of her saying something about how he’s shocked at the speed in which the cafe has grown. Ava can’t see Beatrice, but she hears her laugh and thank him and reply about how it’s a dream come true.
Oh. There’s a warm feeling stirring in her chest. This isn't just a cafe Beatrice works at, this is a cafe she owns.
And then it’s her turn, and she’s stepping forward, and Beatrice’s eyes lock with hers immediately. The smile Beatrice gives her is electric and wild, so unburdened, and so utterly joyful that it takes Ava’s breath away. “Yassas,” she says, tongue curling over the Greek expertly. “Kalime—”
“I speak English,” Ava says hurriedly. She sucks in a breath. “So, um, hi.”
Beatrice chuckles. “Hi.”
God, it’s so good to see her like this. Ava is sorry she never got to experience it in life, but she’s just glad she’s able to experience it at all. The weight to her shoulders isn’t there anymore, posture still precise as ever, but in a way that just makes you admire her, not fear for her blood pressure. Just the grin she throws over her shoulder at an employee is deeper and easier than half the smiles she ever shared with Ava, and she’s just so utterly alive.
Of course, Beatrice is older now, there’s no doubt about that. Her skin has tanned and wrinkles are just starting to form at the corners of her laugh lines. Her build has grown up a lot more, filling out and slimming in all the right places. That makes Ava smile too. For some, growing older is a thing to be feared. To her, seeing Beatrice age is a gift.
“Sorry,” Ava apologizes quickly. “Just a latte please.”
“You got it.” Beatrice rings her up, and then slides over to the bar to start on the drink. The Beatrice that Ava knew would have ducked her head and prepared the coffee in silence, but this Beatrice hooks a portafilter into the grinder and looks up. “You’re not American, are you?”
Ava blinks. “What?”
“I mean, you speak English, but you have an accent,” Beatrice says. She slips the portafilter out, shaking the grinds to disperse them. “I don’t mean to pry…”
“No, it’s fine,” Ava says quickly. “I, no, I’m not American.” She wants to say that she’s from some city in Greece far far away from wherever this is, but she has no idea where this is, so she can’t. Instead, she changes the subject. “So, you own this cafe?” Beatrice nods. “What, um, how’d that happen?”
“Let’s just say I’m living life for a lot of people,” Beatrice says, smiling still. The portafilter locks into the grouphead, and Beatrice gives it an extra pound into place with her fist. “I’ve lost some people. Recently, that is. And I’d like to think I’m bringing them with me wherever I go, letting them live their dreams vicariously through me.”
Recently? Ava wants to say, Um, that was almost fifteen years ago, when’s the last time you looked at a calendar, but she doesn’t.
“Oh?”
It’s not her most eloquent.
Beatrice doesn’t seem to mind. “Well? What do you think about that?”
“I think that’s beautiful,” Ava says honestly. She smiles. “And a cafe in Greece? Whose dream is this?”
“A friend,” Beatrice says. “Six months ago almost exactly, actually. Her name was Camila.”
Oh.
“I’m sorry,” Ava says, swallowing.
Beatrice just shrugs. She’s still smiling, but her eyes tell a different story now. They always have. “That’s life, isn’t it?”
Ava shakes her head. “It shouldn’t have to be.”
The tenacity in which the words come out is unintended. Beatrice looks only a little surprised, though. She slides the cup over the counter. “Then you may join me in praying for a better one.”
Ava inhales deeply, and exhales slowly. Just wait, Bea. It’s coming.
IV.
After that, Ava lets herself lose count of how long it’s been. She figures with the luck most Sister Warriors have, active or not, it’s only a matter of time before Beatrice dies. She won’t check in anymore, she tells herself. She got three stolen moments, and isn’t that enough? She shouldn’t be asking for more.
But Beatrice doesn’t die, and it’s somewhere between ten and fifty years later on Earth when Ava grumbles to herself that, alright, fine, this will be the last time, and then swoops down.
She takes the form of a new recruit at the Cat’s Cradle, and the familiar walls around her make her feel like she’s home. She never had a home before, not one that she actually wanted to longed for. Apparently returning is all it took for her to realize how much she actually loved this place. Or maybe she just loved the people. Is there a difference?
Scanning the room, Beatrice is nowhere to be found. New recruits, older Sister Warriors, the seasoned Sister Warrior overseeing the class, more new—
Ava’s head swivels back. Beatrice is the seasoned Sister Warrior overseeing the class, except she’s not a Sister.
The facts come to her, though she’s not sure how. Beatrice is fifty-seven. She’s been established back at the Cat’s Cradle for four years now. She stands at the front with a few other Sisters observing the class. And God, she looks good. Her hair is pulled back in a slick bun, though the piercing dark of her hair is littered with the honor of gray streaks throughout, and her arms are clasped behind her back, but not in submission, more like an easy dominance. Her gaze rakes over her class in approval, nodding as a Sister points to a recruit in the corner and says something. Then Beatrice’s eyes stop on whoever Ava is inhabiting.
Oh, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Shit. Fuck.
Ava goes back to what they were doing before she unceremoniously dropped into the body of this poor girl. Some kind of punching exercise, she thinks. Except from the look her partner gives her from across the row of Sister Warriors, she guessed wrong. Oops.
“Sister.”
Ava spins. “Sister,” she echoes. Then blushes. “I mean, um—”
“Just Beatrice is fine,” Beatrice says. Her face is as stoic as it always was, but her voice now is easy and childish despite the fact that she’s over twice the age she was back then. “How are you liking all of this?”
“I love it,” Ava says, hoping that it’s not a lie. After all, she certainly did not ‘love it’ when she first arrived. She didn’t run away, like, seven times because she was just that overjoyed to be here.
“Not too difficult?”
“Not in a way that’s unwelcome.”
Beatrice’s eyes glitter with approval. “And your Sisterhood?”
Well, shit. Ava doesn’t know the answer to this one, but she makes something up, conjuring a sentence from a few phrases she probably would have made fun of Beatrice for saying at some time or another. “It’s the greatest gift I could have ever been given.”
“It’s a gift you’ve given yourself,” Beatrice corrects. “Never forget that.”
Ava shakes her head. “I won’t.” Then, she quickly adds, “I hope you know how honored I am to be taught by someone like you.”
“I’m merely a messenger,” Beatrice says, stepping a foot closer. She’s not smiling, but the wrinkles from her laugh lines are even deeper now, and her gaze is warm from it. “You’ll soon learn that everything I have to teach you is something I was taught by someone else. That’s the beauty of the Order. Lessons are passed down, and in a way, so are lives.”
“Then whose lives are you passing down?” Ava asks. The Sister next to her gives her a look, which, whoops. That was definitely just a touch out of line for a new recruit to ask.
“Oh, too many to count,” Beatrice says, wistful in a way she would have never let herself show as a young Sister Warrior herself. “Many friends, many Sisters, and many that never quite fell within one category or another.”
“A Halo Bearer?” Ava says, unable to stop herself even though she knows this is getting a little too out of character for the part she’s playing. The recruit next to her seems just one more pushy sentence away from knocking her out if that’s what it takes to get her to shut up. Quickly, Ava adds, “With all due respect, of course.”
That makes Beatrice raise an eyebrow. “Yes, a Halo Bearer. The last, in fact.”
Again, Ava tries to return to the role she’s given herself. She folds her hands together, dipping her head slightly. “Well, then it’s an honor to have the Halo’s lessons taught to me.”
And, again, Beatrice corrects her. “Not the Halo,” she says. “The Halo would be nothing without the person wielding it. And I can promise you that the last Warrior Nun would have been an honor to know whether she possessed the title or not.”
Beatrice’s gaze locks with hers. Sad, guarded, but oh so alive. If nothing else, Ava has that to say for the things she did, the mistakes she made, and the people she knows she disappointed. Beatrice is alive. Does anything else really matter?
Ava smiles faintly. “In this life or the next, right?”
Beatrice looks moderately puzzled, but she smiles back. “Or in the next,” she agrees.
V.
It’s almost time. Ava can feel it.
This thing that she’s been waiting for for so long is at the edge of her fingertips, and for the first time in what feels like, and could be, hundreds or thousands of Earth years, that prickle of excitement in her stomach that reminds her of what it’s like to be human surfaces again.
She returns in the form of a hospice nurse, which means she returns as a nun. Again.
Having lived out the remainder of her working life as a teacher and trainer for new recruits and dedicated Sister Warriors alike, even though Beatrice didn’t technically retire as a nun, her time as one and her devotion afterwards means the Order still granted her the honor of being nursed in her old age. There’s a wing at the Cat’s Cradle dedicated specifically to former Sister Warriors to live out the rest of their lives, an easy, comfortable resting place.
Granted, Ava never knew anyone that was there. Living to old age was hardly a common trait among them, and she figures most of the rooms are, and always have been empty.
But today, at least one room is occupied. Beatrice is ninety-seven. She’s been in hospice for three years now, and she’s been retired for seventeen.
She’s mostly bed-bound, though there’s a rocking chair in the corner, and a wheelchair folded near the door so nurses can take her for walks if she wants. It hasn’t been unfolded in several weeks, though. Ava knows that it probably won’t be used again.
For the first time, Ava slips in and out of her host body for several weeks in a row. Before, she only gave herself single moments that ended on Beatrice’s terms, but now she allows herself to come and go.
She gives Beatrice the privacy and respect of leaving for the more unsavory parts of old age, and comes back for things like mealtimes, bedtime, and mornings. She wants to be the first one Beatrice sees when she wakes up, whether she realizes that that’s who she’s seeing or not, and wants to be the one to help Beatrice eat, a small return for all the moments Beatrice gave to keep her going, and wants to be the one to guide her to sleep, hoping maybe Beatrice will find it in her to dream of a girl from a long time ago.
Based on her file, Beatrice has apparently had three separate death-day prognoses, which she’s outlived each time. She’s stubborn like that. The doctors have since given up on trying to guess, and now they’re just keeping her comfortable.
“Do you want to read this book?” Ava asks, holding up one of the books stacked on the bedside table. From the bed, Beatrice doesn’t say anything, but she nods. “It was one of Mother Superion’s favorites, you know.”
That prompts a response, though it’s not one Ava anticipates.
“Who?”
Ava falters. “Mothe—someone I used to know.”
“Oh.” Beatrice nods. “Okay then.”
It’s not the first time Beatrice has forgotten something. She’s been losing some of the languages she learned later in life, her mouth curling over words that disappear from her mind as she’s saying them until she fades into silence and just tilts her head in confusion. Even the English word for water slipped from the tip of her tongue one day, and instead she asked for a drink after hesitating for a few seconds. Little things. Normal things.
But it’s a reminder that Beatrice is old, and her mind is older, and there are some things that are buried too far to reach. It’s not a sad thing, Ava reminds herself. It should be a fact to be proud of.
And so it continues for several more weeks. Ava watches the leaves turn color outside the window of Beatrice’s room, and then she watches them fall. The Spanish countryside is as beautiful as it’s always been. It helps her keep track of how long it’s been on Earth because the time on the other side between her visits to Beatrice are excruciatingly long in comparison. She phases in and out of the nun assigned to Beatrice’s hospice care, though she takes the form of a few different ones as they rotate throughout a twenty-four hour schedule.
It amuses her to think of another life in which she and Beatrice might be nursed together, and would they share a room or have separate ones?
But while time drags by on the other side, on Earth it flies faster than Ava knows what to do with it. Beatrice is aging, and it’s happening quickly. One day she’s spooning her own oatmeal into her mouth, the next her fingers shake so terribly that Ava is rushing over and saying, “Let me, Bea. I’ve got you.”
Sitting up during the day becomes a strain on her to the point that they keep her lying down all the time, though that creates a separate problem, which is the fact that it puts a lot of pressure on her lungs. Per the doctor’s recommendations, all she can do is move Beatrice between a few different semi-reclined positions, asking her what’s comfortable and making sure to avoid bedsores.
Another couple weeks pass, and soon water becomes delivered not by drinking, but through the things she eats. Ava still tells Beatrice a story every night, but after a couple weeks she’s not entirely convinced that Beatrice is even hearing her anymore.
One night, Ava scoots up a chair to the side of Beatrice’s bed. It’s nighttime, and subsequently it’s storytime.
“I want to tell you a story from my own life,” Ava says, softly. Beatrice slowly blinks at her. “It’s about a girl I was, and a girl I knew.”
She tells Beatrice about her childhood and the things she remembers from back home in Brazil, which at this rate was eons ago. A playground she liked to play at, which had a fruit stand on the corner most days, and her mom would buy her a fruit cup so they could split it on the walk home. She tells Beatrice about her mother and her kind eyes and her soft touch and the words she would whisper to offer comfort that Ava can’t remember in specific, though she can still recall how they made her feel.
She talks about the car accident, and waking up in a foreign country in a foreign bed with a foreign feeling below her neck. She tells Beatrice about the orphanage, choosing the lighter side of Sister Frances’ abuse by highlighting how she would respond to the mistreatment to keep her spirits up. She tells Beatrice about her time as a quadriplegic, describing the feeling of nothing that is alarmingly similar to the way it feels to be dead, and tells about the way Diego made her laugh, the handless high-fives they’d share, and the way Diego would always wake up in the middle of the night to make sure she wasn’t too hot or cold.
She tells Beatrice about the Halo, and how it was given to her first as a curse, and then a blessing, and then a little bit of both. She talks about the path she became trapped in that ultimately was the path that saved her, and the way it feels to miss a girl that’s always just out of reach.
It’s the closest she’s ever come to revealing the truth about who she is. It speaks to Beatrice’s current state of mind that, even after all that she said, she still hasn’t.
“I should probably say ‘the end,’” Ava says, softly. “But I’d rather say ‘to be continued.’”
She looks down. Beatrice has come in and out of sleep for most of the story, and now just sighs gently as it comes to an end to indicate that she’s still awake. It’s bedtime though, of course. If Ava sticks to her usual routine, she will soon be phasing into the next nurse, or she’ll return to the other side and come back in the morning.
But first, experimentally, she stands at Beatrice’s side, gazing down.
“Do you remember a girl called Ava?” she whispers.
At the name, Beatrice’s eyes flutter open and then shut, then open again. It’s clear her gaze is cloudy, and not just because of the dimness in the room. She doesn’t even try to track Ava’s movements, head heavy on the pillow, arms limp as Ava brings the blanket up over her stomach.
It’s quiet.
“I don’t think so,” Beatrice answers softly. When she speaks, her voice is weighted down from so many years of joy and heartache and memories and moments, most of which she probably can’t even recall at this point. “Is that a friend of yours?”
Ava feels her palms start to sweat. Beatrice not remembering things isn’t new, but her not even trying to is.
God, how did Ava not notice how tired Beatrice has been? It isn’t even the wrinkles or sunspots or coarseness in her grayed hair that gives the impression, but the way her chest shudders to breathe, and the way her eyes open like they don’t even care about seeing anymore. Beatrice is tired. It’s that simple. And not for the kind of respite that she’ll wake from in the morning.
“No, but she was someone you loved,” Ava says. Beatrice turns her head just slightly. Their gazes lock. These aren’t the eyes Beatrice knew, but with her fading memory, it wouldn’t even matter if they were. The thought brings some comfort, and Ava reaches down to caress her jaw. Against her palm Beatrice’s cheek is rough and textured, but when she leans her weight into it, consciously or not, for a second Ava swears she feels a youthful face, cradled in her fingers and pulsing with the delight of a first kiss. “And she would want you to rest.”
“Rest,” Beatrice says faintly. “I’ve never done that before.”
Ava swallows. “I know.” There’s a lump in her throat. She can’t remember how it got there.
“Rest,” Beatrice repeats. “That sounds nice.”
“It is,” Ava says. “Are you scared?”
“Of what?” Beatrice asks.
“Of the other side.” Ava shrugs. “Of what comes next.”
It takes a moment. Several moments, actually. Ava almost thinks Beatrice has fallen asleep because her eyes flutter shut, and her breathing over the last few days has become so slow it’s hard to tell when she’s awake. But then takes in a deep, gasping breath, and her eyes open wide with a kind of energy she hasn’t had in months. And she grins. Not a small, close-lipped smile, not a quirk of her lips. This is halfway to a laugh. This is the kind of grin that comes from a young girl dancing in a bar with her best friend, electrified with the start of something sacred. This is a grin from another time, another place, both gone but never lost.
“No,” Beatrice says. “I’m not afraid. Because I think someone is waiting for me.”
Ava laces their fingers together. “You have no idea.”
They stay like that until Beatrice falls asleep. It takes almost an hour, which is surprising to Ava, but she doesn’t mind it. Beatrice drifts in and out, eyes opening every so often, turning to her bedside each time as if to ask Are you still here? To which Ava always offers a smile, and a squeeze of the hand that says I would never leave.
When Beatrice finally succumbs to the exhaustion that’s been chasing her for the last couple years, Ava lets herself drift out of the hospice nurse. She doesn’t need to be the one to find Beatrice in the morning. She knows the body will be cold, and so unlike the warmth of Beatrice’s hugs, knows the eyes will be unseeing, and so unlike the Beatrice that could charm her from across the room with one glance. She doesn’t need to find her like that. She doesn’t want to find her like that.
Besides, Ava has a meeting to get ready for. And she can’t be late.
—
I.
The library is an absolute warzone.
It’s the week before finals, and at a university as prestigious as Oxford, every single student is taking it seriously. In fact, it feels like every student is here. There’s always the typical chatter from a handful of rotating study groups, but today that blanket of noise has risen to something adjacent to a cacophony. Each table slowly fills up, not that there’s been much space left since the morning, and the librarians can’t do much but helplessly stare at everyone.
Charging ports for laptops are battled over and traded for meal swipes or water, textbooks are spread flat and shared by three students apiece, and every table suited for four has at least twelve crowded on, around, and under it. Pairs run flash cards, groups practice for presentations and exhibitions, and the rest try to find a spot to mark their territory with a backpack.
Most that don’t have some kind of earplugs are having a hard time focusing, and the girl in the corner is no different. She should have just stayed in her dorm room, or at the very least not forgotten her noise-canceling headphones that she bought specifically to help drown out chatter in coffee shops and libraries.
Across from her, the girl seated there doesn’t seem to be having the same problem. For the past two hours, she’s been steadily working her way through what looks like all her notes from the previous semester, handwriting perfect, of course, and even though there’s nothing in her ears to block out the noise she hasn’t lifted her head once, not even when someone spilled an entire jug of chocolate milk on the table behind them.
But then someone passes by. “Hey, B. I’m going to go for a run. See you at dinner?”
The girl across looks to her right and smiles. It’s a pretty smile. Delicate, reserved, but her eyes glitter as she waves. “Sure.”
When the girl looks back towards the shared desk, her gaze lands directly on the face sitting in the chair opposite. And that’s the perfect opening.
“B? Is that short for something?”
B tilts her head like it’s sort of weird she’s being asked this by a complete stranger, which maybe it is, but she answers anyway. “Bianca. But my friends call me Bea.”
“Nice to meet you, Bea,” she says, smiling brightly.
Bea raises her eyebrows. “Since when are we friends?”
At first, her jaw drops, and then she blushes, but then she notices an amused glint in the back of Bea’s eyes, and so of course then she blushes harder. Which is almost more embarrassing than being made fun of for real. “Oh, that was a joke. You’re funny. I get it.” A pause. “So, what’s your major?”
“I’m in Political Science,” Bea answers, which is just so of course. She arches an eyebrow. “That is, if I’m able to study well enough to pass my finals and graduate.”
“Right, sorry. Continue.” Except this conversation, however mostly one-sided and a lot like pulling teeth, is still the most interesting thing at the table by far, and if she has to choose between continuing with her notes that she’s barely made a dent in or prodding at this pretty girl to talk to her, she’s going to choose the latter. “Aren’t you going to ask me what my major is?”
The look Bea throws at her is an unimpressed raise of her eyes, not even dignifying the question by lifting her chin. “What’s your major then?”
“Occupational Science.”
At this, Bea smiles a little. “Do you like it?”
“I love it.” Then, “Do you?”
“Do I like occupational science?” Bea echoes.
She rolls her eyes. “No, do you like your major?”
Bea’s posture sags just a little bit. “Not really. But my parents do, so does it matter?”
“Of course it matters,” she says immediately. “We might be dead tomorrow, so might as well do what you love today, right?”
“That’s… oddly inspirational,” Bea says, a smile creeping through the words. “Not to mention rather morbid.” She stares for just a few more seconds, and right when it seems like she’s going to go back to work, she puts her pencil down. “Well, now that you know my name, if we’re going to be friends, I’m going to have to know yours.”
“Avani,” she says, grinning. “But my friends call me Ava.”