I found a downed tree but it was too heavy to move. Another limb placed against the wall proved too thin to balance upon, and it cracked when I got half its length under me. Surely, there would be a gate in this wall. I began to run along it. The pain in my side grew until I slowed to a walk. I would return for Patience; I must make my escape while there was a chance. I went until I came out of the thicket of maple and entered low brush. The sun baked upon my head and I pulled off my cap and used it to wipe my brow.
I found myself but ten paces to a vineyard. I stopped at the first row of vines and ate an entire bunch of grapes, though they were tart and afterward I felt a terrific thirst. Across the vineyard I spotted a square place in the gray wall. It must be a gate! I started through the rows. My side gnawed at me. I tripped and fell, then rolled and sat in the shade of a vine. I would catch my breath. I meant to rest a while, but when I awoke the sun was low, the sky painted with pinks the color of the inside of a conch shell. I ate more grapes. I looked toward the gate but the shadows were so deep I could not see it. It took me until night fell to make my way across the vineyard in the direction I believed the gate to be. Crows fussed at me as if they meant to give away my escape.
Darkness fell without a glimmer of moon. I stopped at the last row. Something moved nearby and I sniffed for the scent of bear. An owl swooped from a tree and called, his wings catching the last of the light that lingered in the air and taking it with him, leaving me in darkness. I jumped at his call and felt a sharp stab. A nail protruded from the framework built to hold the grapevine over the ground in an awkward shape. It caught my left arm just above the wrist. Blood gushed from the ragged wound and I pressed my hand against it. I sank by the vine. The thing’s branches were forced with cords into unnatural bends over the wood frame. Crucified, I thought. The wretched things had all been crucified.
I would wait until moonrise and continue, I decided, so I curled my arms about my knees to wait, pressing the bloody wrist against my skirt. The touch of a leaf upon my cheek brought me awake as if it had been a slap. I heard voices and peeked from my place toward the sound. The moon was so bright! “There! I see her!” I heard a voice from behind my head. It was not the moon but the sun! My heart sank. I lay upon the earth as if I were dead, wishing the ground would cover me there. Sister Joseph and Donatienne followed a priest, their skirts held high, revealing their little feet at my eye level, running so they seemed as puppets. I started toward the gate, trying to escape with them on my heels. Donatienne reached my side, her face red and wet. “Oh, Marie, you are safe!” I sank to the earth in a heap.
The priest raised me to stand. Behind them was Reverend Johansen. My face lit up with joy but he did not seem happy to see me. He turned on his heel, picked up a hoe, and left the three of them to walk me back to the convent. I felt overcome with emotion for myself and sorry for Donatienne, then. “I went for a walk. I got lost,” I said.
Sister Joseph sat on the ground and pulled me toward her, hugging me, hugging Donatienne with me, squeezing us together the way Ma sometimes did with Patey and me. She murmured. She took me by the shoulders and gave me a shake. “You would not lie again, would you, Marie?”
“No. I will never lie again. I was not running away. I was lost. I am sorry,” I said.
“I know you are sick for want of your home.”
“I was lost. Must I be punished?” I asked Sister Joseph.
“Yes. Severely,” she said with a frown. Then she smiled. “I think you must say a hundred prayers. Let us go and eat some breakfast.”
*
Two days later, Sister Agathe called me from my work and said I was to go to the sick ward. Patience had been delivered of a baby boy. She added that it was important that I see my sister and kiss her good-bye, for the priest was with her.
I went to Patey’s bedside. “La, Patience, you are so ill,” I said.
She opened her eyes for a moment. “Ressie. Sit by me.”
I pushed myself onto the narrow bed and she moaned. The others about us gasped as if I had hurt her. “I am sorry,” I said.
“Do not leave me, Ressie. Please stay with me. Hold me. I am so cold.”
I leaned toward her and laid my face against her neck. “Patience. Do not die. I need you so. The baby is well,” I added, to cheer her. “And handsome.”
“It is not my baby. It is Rafe MacAlister’s baby. Tell the nuns to find him and charge him with the child’s keep.”
“How can he have aught to do with your baby?”
Sister Agathe put her hand on my shoulder. “Father is going to give her Extreme Unction. It will forgive her sins.”
“Patience has no sins. I am the one who sins.”
“You would not want her to go to hell. Step back before she dies.”
I looked upon my sister with wariness and fear. Her face was indeed more pale than ever I had known, her eyes sunken and filmed worse than when she had had scurvy on the ship. “No, no,” I whispered. “May I not stay with her?”