Chapter 36 Maeve
Maeve
They planned to leave for the Abbey at first light.
Maeve sat in front of the mirror in her room, running her brush through her damp hair from roots to end. Slowly, methodically, letting herself sink into the motion. The familiarity.
She examined her face, scouring each faint line, each freckle and crease and shadow for changes.
Something that reflected the upheaval she felt within.
But her face looked the same as always. Dark eyes, large in her pale face.
The gold of her hair smoothed into cornsilk by the brush.
She’d decided to indulge in one of her nicer silk chemises for her final night in Jude’s home, one she wouldn’t dare wear out of her bedroom.
Gently, she pressed the pad of her thumb under one eye, then the other. Slid her forefinger down her nose to her lips. Her gaze bored into her reflection. She’d sat and examined her face in a mirror recently, hadn’t she? With the sound of the waves in her ears and limestone surrounding her.
Maeve closed her eyes.
She couldn’t remember.
What could she remember of the Abbey? She was used to recalling everything with the clarity of a painter: the play of light and dark, the roughness of stone or the fragile glide of silk.
How the corridor outside the kitchen smelled in the early morning when the bread was baking or how the kneeler felt digging into her shins.
The shape of the Abbey was still there. Of that, she was certain.
The specifics, however…
She set her hairbrush on the table and dropped her head into her hands. A shiver coursed down her spine. A part of her had noticed the subtle fade of memories over the past few days, but a larger, louder part had demanded she ignore it. She didn’t want to think about what it could mean.
A quiet knock on her door stirred her thoughts.
Maeve sat up. There was only one person it could be. ‘Come in,’ she called.
Jude entered a moment later. He held up a silver razor with one hand, gliding his palm over his head with the other. ‘Would you mind?’
‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ Maeve replied with a huffed laugh as she took the proffered razor, gesturing for him to sit on the stool. His gaze lingered on her as she moved, pulling away just as quickly. A blush reddened the tips of his ears.
Maeve glanced down. She’d forgotten about the chemise. The silk was fine enough to show every contour beneath the thin fabric. Clearing her throat self-consciously, she caught Jude’s eye in the mirror. ‘What would you like?’
He felt around the back of his neck, sliding his fingers through his short hair. It was beginning to hold a curl at the ends. ‘Just short enough that it can’t be grabbed.’
Grabbed?
She swallowed her questions, gently moving the razor across his scalp.
Fine, reddish-black hairs dusted his shoulders in her wake.
It wasn’t as hard as it looked to get his hair back to the length it had been when she arrived.
She ran her thumb up the nape of his neck, following the pattern of gooseflesh. ‘Cold?’
‘No.’ Jude tilted his head so she could get around his ear. ‘Are you packed?’
‘Mostly. I’m leaving my painting things here.’
‘Are you planning on returning?’ His eyes flicked to hers in the mirror, leaving just as quickly. ‘For your supplies?’
Maeve carefully ordered her words. She didn’t want to give him anything but the truth, as fragile and uncertain as it was. She coasted her hands over his head to loosen any cut hairs. ‘I don’t know. I just… I don’t know what to expect when we return.’
‘You said the winter intercession would be happening, correct?’ Jude asked.
They had discussed their plan last night after cleaning up the icon’s burnt remains.
Once they’d obtained the requisite robes and enough materials for a significant, and hopefully fast-catching, fire, they planned to sneak in disguised as pilgrims. If they timed it correctly, they should be able to burn the icons, and potentially the entire Abbey, in between the hymns when the basilica was empty.
‘Yes,’ Maeve replied. ‘It takes place over a week. If we leave in the morning, we’ll arrive on the evening of the second-to-last day. The intercession ends with the Call of the Sun.’
‘What’s that?’ he asked, brow furrowed.
‘A ritual at the end of the eighth and final hymn,’ she said, moving the razor close to his temple.
He tipped his head back, throat stretching long.
‘A saint is present to hear the prayers. It’s said…
’ she hesitated, fighting past the headache blooming behind her eyes.
‘The elders tell us that any prayer asked during the Call goes directly into the saint’s mind.
When they lift their hands and direct the sun into the basilica, all the prayers will be answered. ’
Jude kept his eyes downcast as he listened, lashes casting long spikes down his cheeks.
‘I remember a little of it, I think. I’ve tried to pull more of the memory up since you burned my icon.
’ His eyes rose, skimming over her body before they refocused on her face.
‘I was in the basilica. There was a… man. A saint, I believe. He was standing under the rose window. People surrounded him. All wearing habits. They were reaching for him. Like they wanted to, I don’t know…
pull him off the altar. Like he was a sacrifice. ’
‘I remember something similar, but not much more,’ Maeve replied. She set the razor on the table, scrubbing her hands over her eyes and taking a deep breath.
Each hymn during the intercessions had a meaning. Calls for prayers, for alms, for acts of service and displays of penance. Each designed to bring both acolytes and pilgrims closer to the pulsing heart of the Abbey. Towards something like devotion.
Her memories of the intercessions were hazy at best, buried in the malleable soil her mind had become. Trickles of chanting came through if she really focused. The burn of incense in her nose.
The faint but unmistakable tinge of violence.
How could she plan to face something she couldn’t see clearly? How would she know what to expect when they arrived at the Abbey midway through an intercession?
‘I don’t know what we’ll face when we arrive,’ Jude continued, echoing her thoughts. ‘I can’t… can’t promise safety. I wish I could.’
Maeve nodded. ‘I know. But we can’t wait any longer.’
She played with the seam of her chemise, rubbing the fine material between her fingers.
‘Lately, my memories – you know what you were saying earlier? About your body not feeling like your own. About how you felt eroded. The headaches and the nausea.’ Jude made a quiet noise of assent. ‘I think it’s happening to me, too.’
He stilled. ‘What?’
‘I wasn’t sure at first. Maybe I didn’t want to be sure. But I can’t deny that it’s getting worse.’
‘Maeve…’ Jude murmured, anguish in his eyes. He reached out and took her hand, curling his fingers tight around it.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to continue. ‘Ever since we burned your icon, since we decided to go to the Abbey,’ she shook her head, ‘it’s all I can think about. And if we thought your symptoms were because I was painting your icon, that can only mean—’
‘There’s an icon of you at the Abbey,’ Jude finished.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I can’t think of anything else it could be.’
Jude pushed to his feet. ‘I think we should leave now.’
Maeve blinked. ‘Now? It’s—’ she glanced out the window at the pitch-black sky. ‘Jude. It’s nearly midnight. We can wait a few hours.’
He linked his fingers behind his head, pacing to the window and looking out.
His breath fogged the glass. ‘You’re a saint.
An iconographer. They want to control you.
Look at Siobhan.’ His voice thickened. ‘If I hadn’t introduced you to her, if I hadn’t gone poking around her memories…
the Abbey would’ve been content to let her live out her days alone and forgotten.
Safe. If they have your icon, they’re closing in on you.
We can’t wait, Maeve. We need to leave now. ’
The weight of his words settled heavily over her. She stood, crossing the room to lay her hand on his shoulder. He turned to her, the guilt painted across his features unbearable.
‘We’re better off confronting them directly than lying in wait,’ he continued, searching her face as he spoke. ‘If they want to isolate you from me, if they want to use your icon to harm you, we can’t just wait for them to do it. I can’t keep you here; I can’t have something else be my fault.’
‘Jude,’ she whispered, moving her hand up to cup the side of his neck, tracing his pulse with her thumb.
He exhaled heavily, eyes falling shut. ‘You cannot blame yourself for their actions. You didn’t kill Siobhan.
The Abbey did. You were a friend to her, someone who understood what she’d been through.
The fault lies with the Abbey, and the Abbey alone.
Not you. And if… if something happens to me, it won’t be your fault either. ’
The crease between his brows cinched tighter even as his eyes remained closed. ‘I can’t let it happen to anyone else. Not to you. Not to Elden.’
Despite her earlier vow to speak only truth to him, Maeve found a lie forming on her tongue. ‘It won’t. I promise. A few hours aren’t going to make a difference. And I want to enjoy the time we have left here.’
Jude’s eyes flicked open. He studied her for a long moment, closely, steadily, like he was memorizing her features. Beneath her palm, she felt him swallow roughly.
His eyes dropped, sliding down her neck, lingering on the low dip of her chemise before trailing down her body.
The shift in his focus felt deliberate in a way nothing between them had before, as though he was allowing himself to fully look his fill for the first time.
Like he wanted to see every part of her, to brand his gaze into her skin.
A lungful of air after a lifetime underwater.
Every laboured breath scraped the silk of her dress over her pebbled nipples in a way that nearly hurt. The tension threatened to consume her, obscene, almost, in its power. In that moment, Maeve knew she would’ve given him anything, anything, he wanted.
Jude took a short, quick breath. Then, he moved.
Stepped closer. His hand rose, fingers skimming the fine material of her dress, coming to rest lightly against her waist. She felt the fine tremble of his fingers against her skin.
The heat was unbearable, both on her skin and from the heavy weight of his eyes on her body.
She squeezed her thighs together to alleviate some of the ache.
His gaze dropped, following the movement. His damp lips parted on a low exhale as his thumb brushed the underside of her breast. She bit back a whimper, the sound slipping free to break the silence.
With a rough jolt, Jude stepped back. His hand left her.
Maeve’s vision blurred as she swayed on her feet like a newborn colt, trying to orientate herself around the sudden break in contact. When she met Jude’s eyes, he looked just as strung-out, just as wrecked.
His gaze dropped to the floor as he cleared his throat. ‘I don’t mind you lying to me, you know.’
She tried to clear her mind, to remember what they’d been speaking of. She’d promised him nothing was going to happen to them, hadn’t she?
A promise she intended to keep.
‘I’ll try to do it more often, then,’ Maeve replied, voice hoarse.
Jude chuckled. Like a moth to a flame, his eyes rose once more to move down her before he turned to the window, visibly gathering himself.
Maeve wished he wouldn’t. She wanted to see him unravelled, wholly and completely.
He reached out a hand, trailing it over the wooden frame of the window. ‘I never imagined what it would be like to leave,’ he said. ‘Even when I wanted nothing more, when I was sent here alone and confused, it wasn’t something I allowed myself to picture.’
‘And now?’ Maeve asked. A new kind of ache welled up inside her at the pain in his face. The longing.
‘Now,’ he replied. ‘Now, it’s… different. Unbearable in a different kind of way.’ His smile was soft and drowning as he turned to face her. ‘As you said, morning’s only a few hours away. You should sleep. We have a long walk ahead of us.’
They’d decided to go alone, hoping Elden wouldn’t follow.
He was safe here, safe from what waited for them at the Abbey.
It would just be the two of them tracing their way across the moors to the Abbey.
Back to the place of their creation. The prospect of return felt like an impossible mountain, the summit hidden far beyond sight.
Jude’s fingers ghosted around the shell of her ear as he tucked a piece of hair behind it.
Then Maeve watched him go, the mark of his presence fading slower than his whispered goodbye. Lingering, gnawing at the tender spaces between her ribs. She only wished she had time to indulge in the softness between them before the fear was back to swallow it whole.