Post by Janice Olivia Monroe on Dec 17, 2010 1:39:57 GMT -6
To Live
I had never forgotten how, it is only that I was too lost to do so for a time. Like all things of great import, however, I have risen again.
I had never forgotten how, it is only that I was too lost to do so for a time. Like all things of great import, however, I have risen again.
"Reverend Mother..I..."
"We are alone, my child. Please.."
"Aunt Eunice...I know there is something out there for me, but each reach..every time I come that much closer.."
"You do not seem one who shies from a path just because God lengthens how far you will walk, child. Imagine the view from the top of the mountain when you do reach it at last. When women suffer, we are carried closer to God. Eve's sin, did it damn us? I should like to believe that every generation of her daughters as mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters atone for her shortcomings and uplift what was good in her. A curiosity, that, when not devil taken, was for the innocent wonders of living. You still have the chance to see the world with some sense of that child-like wonder. If you remain here, we would all be pleased. We would all benefit, but who would lose? In the absence of your mother it is my duty to advise you in truth, no?"
Janice carried the words of the Reverend Mother with her from behind the abbey walls. She had stopped to look at the mist curling over the stone wall. She heard the sounds of animals just beyond the gate. Life. The Valley became France and for a time she became the child in the body of the gangly thing becoming woman. Out there was not only misery, torment, and loss. There was beauty, vitality, knowledge she didn't yet have a chance to touch. How could she leave the world for the island was too small to pretend the distance would remove her completely from what had cut her fingers. The blood of her tasks, though, were self elected. She had been an apprentice, but to return would no longer be so. She would be deemed one who had the knowledge to practice on her own. Journey. It was all a journey. Janice Olivia would always be eternal student, but she could be Master. In this world she was daughter, sister, friend. Even lover, no matter where he had gone. Wife. Janice had become woman in this world. Sometimes, it takes loss to remember the beauty in everything you still held even if you couldn't touch it at the moment.
*
Her time in the convent had not been so long by the reckoning on a calendar, but long enough for the heart. She had fluctuated between St. Laurence's keeping and prolonged visits to the abbey until the day she elected to stay for what she imagined at that moment would be for good. Silly Janice. When God has a use for you, he calls you out again. Now it was in the keeping of St. Laurence once more, but only for a place to reside. All of her actions to the completion of intent were her own now. She hadn't enjoyed so much personal freedom before, pride in carrying out an agenda from start to finish in the great matters her beloved Master had worried over. No one thought her capable by way of the gentleness in her heart, nor did she feel it was fitting.
All of the unfinished texts were finished with a new vigor, personally delivered by the translator herself. This thrilled her associates to no end! Slowly but surely, Janice was remembering the reason that she could stand on her own two feet. There were times when the delivery of a text was for a purpose, a darker purpose. She never drew blood from those who's time had come. It had only been a handful of people by the coming of the snow, but each of them slipped in to a serene posture from which they never arose. A man sat in his chair, his last sight the first snow. Another, against a tree leaned as autumn leaves fell around her. They were already endowed of a familial tendency to weakness, which she exploited to her advantage. Some came to say that she was the angel, giving them the last earthly thing they wished, a book, a scroll, the warmth of a smile. While their own hands were sullied, she still gave them the peace any heart craved. She became known among the Order as the Lady Compassion, or the Most Gentle Death. At the same time given whom taught her, what she held in the highest esteem as the keeper of the texts, no one wished to ever anger the Most Gentle till it became hell bent, either. Claramae did not confer to her the honor of journeymen, no, she had a much higher esteem in mind she had no thought to confer of yet. Yet, at the same time, in seeing the grace at which Janice executed her art she knew that it was the work of a Master.
It was in first days of December as men prepare for the birth of the Savior through Mary that Claramae had Janice on her arm. The pair of them walked through the quiet gardens of Northampton, so artfully designed that the Duchess had only to put in a few things the architect would not have known she favored. "It is time to confer an honor to you, my dear," she began with Janice turning a soft flush of pink, "It is an honor I never thought to have, the title of journeymen. Though you said so after my return from Spain so much occurred I was afraid I had humiliated myself beyond repr..." In place of speech, she merely looked at the finger pressed on her mouth with no lack of confusion. "No, my dear. It is a day I had not thought to see come so soon, if e'er at all. Yet I must say it feels me with no lack of familial pride. The daughter of my own master, the Grandmaster. You will wear that title now. Master, not journeymen. You may elect to use Mistress if the distinction of being female suits you better." Janice lowered herself to her knees in shock. Claramae laughed, a sound Janice heard so rarely over the years she forgot the woman did so more freely now. "It is my command and my most heartfelt desire. You, are not like others. To this day you will never be as others. But I believe that in you, God grants us the chance to remember compassion and forgiveness in this task he has set us too. You, child, are indeed an angel of mercy come down to those who have known a last hour. Those whom have gone from this earth at your hand in their well times did not deserve what you give, yet you give it freely. I would be lying to say that at least a pair of them were contracted to die by their own families, yet they revere you still. I think a more fitting name for you is Lady Grace, instead of Compassion or The Most Gentle, but we all have our names" Her own were far more frightening, the one that remained to this day was Madame Death. Janice did not reject it, merely wrapping her arms around Claramae as they watched the snow begin to fall over the Duchess' peace in this world. Her time of such exploits had diminished, and now her legacy would go on though not as expected.
All that had made the young woman sad, scared, and hollow now filled her. She was, as she approached her twenty-second year, more elegant, beautiful, and worthy of any adoration than at any year prior.