Chapter Fourteen In Which Nothing Is Fine
Inside, the community center was a swarm of frantic activity. The nuns rushed about through the building, looking harried and anxious.
“Excuse me,” Daphne called out to someone who, judging by their age, must have been a novice. “My friend here is looking to purchase some custom—”
“We’re not open to visitors right now,” the novice said quickly. They bowed, then power walked away, disappearing down the sunlit corridor. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut. It hadn’t been like this when they’d visited yesterday.
“What do you think is going on?” asked Zada.
“Not a clue.”
They watched the pandemonium in silence. Daphne narrowed her eyes, clearly intent on nabbing a novice to ask them what was going on.
“Miss Chambers and Miss Fallow,” called a hearty and cheerful voice. It was Sister Patience, with Sister Justice on her heels. “Good morning! What brings you back here so soon? Don’t tell me you’ve decided to answer the call and join our order.”
“I was hoping to put in an order for some lace,” Zada said. “For, ah . . .”
“For her wedding train,” Daphne supplied. “Is this a bad time? What’s going on here?”
Sister Justice waved a hand at the pandemonium. “Oh, all that? Emergency training,” they said cheerfully. “In times of trouble, people look to us. We run drills every month to stay prepared for any and every calamity.”
Across the hallway, someone burst into tears.
“Some of our sisters take it very seriously,” Sister Patience added.
“Should we come back at a different time?” Zada asked. Daphne elbowed her. “Although, this is an urgent request, so if you have a moment . . .”
“Of course,” said Sister Justice, “we can discuss in my office. Right this way.”
Sister Justice and Sister Patience led them down a series of corridors, turning left, then right at different points.
Occasionally, the corridors seemed to slope downward, and at other times, Sister Justice would open a door revealing a short flight of stairs.
There was very little sound isolation here, and voices carried through the vents as they hurried deeper and deeper into the bowels of the community center.
Eventually, they came to a small room. Inside were several overstuffed chairs, a small table, and absolutely nothing else.
At this point, they had to be underground again. Despite the circumstances, it was still a novelty. Given the hard granite mountain beneath them, construction tended to trend upward instead, until it almost brushed the top of the biodome that New Ionians called home.
Aside from the mottled walls and the lack of windows, being subterranean felt like being anywhere else.
“Wait here,” said Sister Patience. “Make yourselves at home.”
Zada and Daphne stepped inside, and Sister Justice and Sister Patience disappeared down the hallway, door clicking shut behind them.
“They left us alone awfully quickly,” said Daphne.
“Do you think it has anything to do with their ‘emergency training’?” said Zada. “Because something is definitely up.”
“Right,” said Daphne briskly. “I think that’s our cue to snoop.”
Daphne held up a hand, counting to five twice, and then gestured for Zada to open the door.
The hallway was empty and lined with identical-looking doors. Zada hovered in indecision for a moment, then picked a door at random. It was locked.
“Not to fear,” Daphne whispered, brandishing her lockpick. But when she tried inserting the wire into the knob, nothing happened. “What—” said Daphne. “This always works.”
“Apparently not.” Zada was already attempting to open the next door down. Nothing.
Daphne duly tried another knob, with the same result. “Do you think they have some kind of secondary mechanism?”
“How could they?” whispered Zada. “They’re nuns. They don’t have tech. Maybe the lock itself is just different.” She paused. The faintest mutter of voices filtered through the still air. “Do you hear something?”
Daphne shook her head.
Zada listened closely. It was coming from a vent near the floor, she realized.
She cast around for a stairway door, which would surely have to be marked, for fire safety reasons if nothing else. Finally she found one and motioned for Daphne to follow. They crept down the stairs, doubled back, and found themselves approaching an alcove.
Zada belatedly recognized the sounds of Sister Patience and Sister Justice having a tense conversation. Daphne and Zada stepped behind a support post and held their breath.
“—going to find it,” Sister Justice was saying.
“We’ve had everyone searching the place from top to bottom.” Sister Patience’s voice was quieter, but still clear enough to make out.
“One of the novices probably filed it wrong. It’ll turn up.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am.”
“Because if it’s missing, if it got into the wrong hands, or hell, into the right hands—”
“I know, I know.”
“Then anyone who gets taken in for Counseling will lead them right back to us, to all of this. The whole operation.”
Zada widened her eyes at Daphne. The Sisters of Perpetual Reflection were obviously up to more than archival work and quiet lives of service. This had to be why the whole community center was in a state of panic.
“Hey, it’ll be all right,” said Sister Justice. “It’s not over till it’s over.” A pause. Then Sister Patience grabbed Sister Justice’s hand and kissed them soundly on the mouth.
Daphne gasped. Zada clapped a hand over her own mouth. Sister Justice turned, glancing over their shoulder. Sister Justice’s hand was still clasped within Sister Patience’s, their fingers intertwined. Zada pulled them both out of view, heart pounding.
“Probably just mice,” said Sister Justice. “Let’s hope they didn’t get into the samples.”
“Nothing ruins the luxury of a good Chantilly like having to brush the mouse shit out of it,” said Sister Patience. “I just don’t see why we have to store them so damned far away.”
“It was your idea,” said Sister Justice mildly, and they swept out of the alcove, blessedly heading in the other direction.
Zada waited until their footsteps faded down the hallway.
“Did that just happen?” Zada blurted in a whisper. “An entanglement? Between nuns?”
Daphne smirked. “Yeah, they sure looked entangled to me.”
“Oh my,” said Zada. She could feel her own face heating at the thought. The Sisters of Perpetual Reflection weren’t subject to the Heartsong program. Did this mean they were all in entanglements of their own choosing?
“On the bright side,” said Daphne, “it seemed like they were going to be a while. We just need to figure out where to start.”
“They mentioned that their missing something had been misfiled,” said Zada. “Sounds like maybe something in the Archives?”
“Do we really think they filed their illegal pamphlets?” Daphne pointed out. “What, under T for treason?”
“They’re missing something archived,” said Zada. “And it has this place in an uproar, so it must be at least a little scandalous.”
“They only showed us one wing of the archives anyway,” said Daphne. “Maybe we start back there and poke around?”
Zada sighed. “If we can ever find it.”
“It’s two lefts back and then a right,” said Daphne. Zada stared at her. How in the world had Daphne remembered? Daphne, who was now giving Zada a very quizzical expression.
“Nothing,” said Zada quietly. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” said Daphne. “Let’s go.”
The Archives room looked the same as ever, with its whitewashed walls and densely packed shelves.
Instead of slipping off to the side room of recorded interviews, Zada headed straight for the books.
She tugged one volume off the shelf and read the title: Logbook of Lighthouse and Buoy Tenders, 1886–1947.
The next book was nothing but census records from the 1950s.
“Nothing,” she announced. “It’s just a bunch of old files.”
“Well, yeah,” said Daphne. “Because whatever was important enough to cause that commotion is missing.”
“There has to be more than something here,” said Zada. “They hurried us to the recordings room awfully fast, don’t you think?”
Daphne and Zada searched the shelves at random. They found more census records, a yellowing book of old maps, and one folder that was just page after page of old death certificates.
“This is a bust,” groaned Daphne. “Nobody would ever curate these. They’re too boring.”
Zada hummed. Flora had taken an elective on library science at one point.
She’d come away raving about how libraries were designed to be as user-friendly as possible.
Maybe the trick was to think like a user of a criminal library.
Keeping contraband with the rest of the collection wouldn’t just be dangerous, it would be inefficient.
A person looking for illegal pamphlets wouldn’t want to wade through all of the legal, respectable titles—
She stood up straight. “What if there’s another archive?” she said suddenly.
“Only you could get a thrill from a sentence like that,” said Daphne.
Zada frowned, thinking. She reached out and tapped the wall.
“What are you doing?” said Daphne.
“My mother always says the best way to store things is to put like with like,” Zada explained. “So if there’s another, secret archive, it could be around here.” She walked a few paces and tapped again.
“What, behind a secret passageway?” said Daphne. “You read too many novels. Anyway, that’s an exterior wall. If there was anything, it would be over here or over there—”
Zada crossed the room and tapped again. Nothing. She tried a different spot. It was a distinctly different sound this time. A strangely hollow thunk, as if there was empty space on the other side. Empty space like some kind of room.
“I guess the nuns read novels, too,” said Daphne breathlessly. “Where do you think the mechanism would be to open it?”