Chapter 6 #5
She held up a finger to silence him. “And I am sure you have done… something right in all your years of life.”
“Well, I—”
The finger became a hand. “But your old age is clearly now a reckoning of regrets.” She leaned her whole body forward in her chair, and her voice grew deep and quiet, so that they had to strain to hear her. “I am not angry. But I am very, very Disappointed.”
The last word landed on Ruben like a stack of holy tomes and knocked the breath out of him. Mrs. Chrysler and Katherine winced. Ruben visibly withered in his cowl, and his eyes, searching desperately for some comfort, darted to the pair next to him. They avoided his gaze.
“You two,” Sister Agatha redirected. “Did you know about this? That you had brought the forger into my midst?”
“Not a clue, ma’am,” Mrs. Chrysler told her hastily. Katherine shook her head vigorously.
“But, I—” Ruben said.
“You will not speak,” Sister Agatha fumed, “until I am ready to listen to you.”
That could be ages, said the disembodied voice of Tilly, whose puffed purple tail was now squeezed between Ember and Mr. Scruffles, as they huddled together tightly under the table for comfort.
Ruben adjusted his robe with ragged breath, and Katherine took a sip of her water just to have something to do.
So, this man had not only ruined their last job, but had been involved in the reason for it, too?
Maybe Splint didn’t think his crimes against a convent would ever catch up to Ruben, or maybe he just hated Ruben’s guts.
“So.” Sister Agatha finally broke the silence and returned to her soup, which was by now quite cold. “Now we’re all caught up.”
Mrs. Chrysler gave Katherine an uncertain look and replied, “After that day, then, ma’am… what happened?”
“Well, what do you think? I spent every moment I could at Splint’s ruined offices, demanding justice.
He filed a restraining order. I was barred from the dragon breeding grounds, and he claimed he’d take the convent as well if I didn’t comply with the terms of the contract.
By this point, I believed he could do anything, with the paper-worshipers on his side.
Our sisters were evicted from the bog, and frankly, I expected Eagle Heights to just rip it all up.
” She stirred her soup aimlessly and spooned a bit without bringing it to her face.
“But, no. They had to twist the knife just a bit more deeply. After they began to build on it… we began to sink.”
“Sink? Just like that?” Katherine furrowed her brow.
“I don’t know exactly why,” Sister Agatha said, a faraway sound to her voice.
“They did something. They changed something. The land has always been rather moist here, you know that. But it’s been stable.
For the hundreds of years Saint Percival’s has been here, at least. But, not anymore.
They built the Eagle Heights Active Adult Living Community, made it out to be some high-end luxury resort with all manner of modern amenities, convinced people that it was a lot better and safer than ‘Sinking Saint P’…
and…” She waved the remains of her bread in a sign of inevitability. “People believed it.”
Now it was Katherine and Mrs. Chrysler’s turn to squirm in their chairs.
“We did lose a few of the outbuildings,” Sister Agatha continued wearily, “before we started to get the sinking under control, and we were forced to downsize. So, what they said, to an extent, was true. They got the land, they got our guests. They got everything.”
An uncomfortable pause followed, and lingered longer than it was welcome.
“But you’re not sinking right now,” Mrs. Chrysler said hopefully. “Tin-Whistle Todd was explaining outside—”
“Yes, he’s been very helpful.” Sister Agatha closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“His efforts to bring the marsh here into some semblance of balance have been admirable. Drainage, plantings, I don’t really know the details…
But every time we seem to stabilize, the sinking starts again, worse and faster every time. ”
“Er, you’ve still got a lot of the dragons?” Mrs. Chrysler said.
“A lot. But not nearly as many as we did.”
“And, um, you’re still carrying on your ministry?”
“Barely.” Sister Agatha dusted her hands over her soup bowl. “Our budget has been at a deficit since this whole debacle with Splint began, and soon our funds will run out completely.”
Katherine shot Mrs. Chrysler a nervous look. “How soon?” she asked.
“Very soon,” Sister Agatha said. Her features briefly contorted into a sharp wince, as if a deep shame had suddenly forced its way to the surface.
“I might as well tell you. Not that you can do anything about it. The coffers are nearly empty. The dragons will have to be sent away, all of the remaining guests too. We won’t be able to support them, or the ongoing appeal. ”
“Appeal?”
Sister Agatha met Katherine’s gaze, her face stern again.
“After your failure, I have been using the only available option left to me: appealing the Pim clerks’ office.
It is a protracted, and not inexpensive, process.
Our case is about to set a record for its time in processing.
” She raised her brows mirthlessly. “It is extremely difficult to unbind what a Pim bureaucrat has decreed is binding, but every lawyer I’ve had has assured me it is possible. ”
“Um, how many have you had, Sister Agatha?”
The nun massaged her temples. “Five. They tire of the inexorable roadblocks almost every decade and recommend someone younger and more energetic to take up the case.”
“Well, youth isn’t necessarily an asset,” Katherine muttered.
Sister Agatha nodded almost imperceptibly. “Our case does, however, require stamina. And, after all this time…” Her voice dropped until it was barely audible. “The latest impediment… is that the clerks demand that I present my birth certificate. I… do not have one. And I cannot explain why.”
Mrs. Chrysler and Katherine exchanged concerned and quizzical glances. “Not even to your lawyer?” Mrs. Chrysler asked.
“No.” Sister Agatha closed her eyes and said no more.
The table fell quiet again, but this time a soft, burbling chatter broke the silence.
Several dozen nuns were wandering into the dining hall now.
They were accompanied, in pairs and trios, by other elderly-looking people, some trailing walkers or being steered in wheeled chairs, but all seeming decently happy.
They chatted carelessly, laughing occasionally, and their cheeks were rosy.
A few of the smaller dragons were with them, gently padding alongside the slower residents as they wound their way to their seats.
The eager little blue dragon was there too, begging to be petted and getting affectionately underfoot.
Katherine felt oddly steeled by the new arrivals; they were a lot more cheerful and lively than the catatonic residents they’d seen at Eagle Heights. Maybe with them here, Sister Agatha would be less inclined to shout.
“I don’t know what we can do now,” she said tentatively, “but we really do want to help.”
Sister Agatha didn’t open her eyes, but raised her brows in a mocking way. “How?”
“Get the people back, maybe?” Mrs. Chrysler said. “Convince them that Saint P’s is really the better place to be?”
They’re prisoners there, though, Tilly said. At Eagle Heights. I don’t think an advertising campaign is really going to accomplish much.
Mr. Scruffles washed his whiskers thoughtfully. Too right, he said.
“Or maybe, somehow, we could get the land back?” Mrs. Chrysler suggested.
“And how do you propose to do that?” the nun asked, massaging her temples.
“We-ll…” Now Katherine was thinking aloud. “We could try again with getting the gold and the forged contract back—try reasoning with Splint’s kids, show them the… errors of their father’s… ways…” Even to her, the idea sounded weak.
“We could recover the original contract, have the forger come clean, now that he’s got nothing left to lose.”
Sister Agatha opened her eyes, and the three women turned to face Ruben. He cleared his throat and flushed.
“What did you say?” Sister Agatha asked him.
“I-I kept it.”
“You kept what?” she asked again, apparently just to be sure.
“The original, the one you’d signed about the one acre. To practice the signature. I needed it.”
Now Sister Agatha’s mouth fell open.
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“You wouldn’t let me talk?” he said meekly.
Her nostrils flared, but she didn’t reply.
“Ruben,” Mrs. Chrysler said carefully, “where is it now, the old contract?”
“I thought you didn’t have any possessions?” Katherine said. “Nothing to go back to Eagle Heights for.”
“My nephew has everything I owned. I didn’t get to take anything but the clothes on my back to the… place… when he tossed me in there. So, the contract would be with him, with all my other things.”
“If he still has any of it,” Sister Agatha muttered.
“I don’t see why he wouldn’t. He’s a greedy little pack rat, he is.”
Rat? Mr. Scruffles awoke from his daydreaming with a start, leaping to his feet.
No, dear, Ember soothed him.
“Give us a few days, Sister Agatha,” Mrs. Chrysler said. “We’ll visit Ruben’s nephew. We’ll straighten this all out.”
“A few days,” Katherine echoed. “We promise, we’ll come up with something and we’ll be back.”
“It would have to be no more than a few days,” Sister Agatha said, “to do us much good.”
Katherine frowned. “What do you mean by that, Sister Agatha?” she asked.
The nun sighed, lowering her eyes. “The next payment to my lawyer’s office is due at the end of the week.
Once I’ve made it, the convent is broke.
Those trunks you saw, they aren’t just in case of evacuation.
If you can’t help us get the land back within the next four days, if I have to make that payment to keep my appeal alive as long as I possibly can, Saint Percival’s Home for Moribund Old People will be forced to close. ”
Mrs. Chrysler gave Katherine a thoughtful look before replying. “Does that four days include today?” she asked.
“Yes.” And with that, Sister Agatha rose to her feet and invited them, with an open wrinkled palm, to leave.
After they had been guided outside again in chilly silence, had taken their leave of the kindly Todd, and were well out of view and earshot of the convent, Mrs. Chrysler stopped Ruben in his tracks and shook him.
“Ruben! You incomparable, marvelous idiot! You meant what you said back there, didn’t you?
You’ve got the original, and you’re willing to vouch for it? ”
“Yes.” He straightened his glasses and readjusted his scarf, which had been knocked off-kilter by Mrs. Chrysler’s enthusiasm.
“I have to do something, don’t I? She’s going to put in a bad word for me with the people upstairs.
And gods know, my life has been so incredibly blessed up till now.
If it’s even remotely possible, I’ve got to try to redeem myself, somehow. ”
“You’re not religious, are you, Ruben?” Katherine asked, eyeing him appraisingly.
“I didn’t think so. But that nun could probably make me believe pretty much anything.”
Katherine and Mrs. Chrysler shrugged their brows. She did have that effect on people.
“So, your nephew, what’s his name? Where does he live?”
“Tucker Hoode. Goes by Tuck. Lives on a potato farm north of here. It’s a long journey, though. It’ll take at least a day just to get there—if we can find a carriage this afternoon going that way.”
“Oh, it’ll take far less time than that.” Mrs. Chrysler waved a hand dismissively. She and Katherine exchanged knowing grins. “But first”—she paused, and Katherine nodded—“we’re going to the library.”