Vow of Obedience Read Online Free

round to the front of the building. The sunshine had been deceptive. The light was beginning to fade and the joined shadows of Lilith and herself were long and thin on the grass. When she rode to school she had a special dispensation to wear jeans under her habit, but at this hour it was scarcely likely that she would meet even a casual walker on the moor.
    She urged Lilith into a jog, sensing her mount’s pleasure at being out again. A gentle walk up and down the lawn on a leading rein was the most she could have expected to get from any of the other sisters.
    The moor was brown at this end of the year. Unlike Dartmoor with its high, wild crags Bodmin had a brooding, secretive quality of its own. It yielded its beauties reluctantly, like a veiled woman holding back jewels. Here and there a late clump of heather clung to the turf, and the fronds of bracken were tipped with the pale gold of late autumn.
    The schoolhouse lay ahead, its walls and roof softened by shadow. She drew rein and dismounted, thinking with real regret of the months she had spent teaching here. She had grown to love the children, had even managed to weld into one class the dark-eyed Romanies and the more stolid offspring of the farmers. She liked to think they had liked her too, but she was too clear headed to imagine she had had any lasting influence on them. They would move on into other schools and forget her.
    ‘One of the hardest things you will ever have to do is cultivate detachment,’ her novice mistress had warned. ‘Detachment from all save the things of the spirit. Detachment does not mean coldness or not caring, but it does mean the ability to set oneself apart from all yearnings for transient things, all possessiveness, even in the end from the very prayers and devotions so dear to our hearts. These are only the finger pointing at the moon. Don’t spend all your time looking at your finger.’
    She had forgotten to bring the key to the school. Sister Joan wondered if that could be attributed to detachment but decided wryly that it was more likely to be absent-mindedness.
    Leaving the placid Lilith to graze at her ease she approached the door and gave it an experimental push. Sister David had evidently been remiss since it swung open with aprotesting creak. Within, the cloakroom on the left and the classroom on the right were shadowed and shuttered. There was no electricity in the school. She had brewed tea for herself and hot soup on chilly days for the children on a primus stove. She went into the classroom and opened the shutters, letting the last of the late afternoon sun illumine the desks and blackboard and the shelves where the children had kept their projects.
    Sitting at her desk, surveying the room, peopling it with remembered children, she permitted herself her moment of nostalgia.
    ‘So, goodbye and God bless, my dear pupils.’
    She spoke the words aloud into the sighing silence. No sense in lingering here. Later on, when it had been decided to what use the building could be put, she would ask if she might take a few of the books. There were other books in the cupboard behind her. She glanced round and frowned slightly. The shelves from the cupboard had been lifted out and leaned against the blackboard. Sister David had evidently started clearing out ahead of time.
    ‘And as my deputy she has a perfect right,’ Sister Joan told herself firmly, rising and pulling open the door.
    The girl wedged awkwardly into the shadowy corner wore a white dress and had a garland of fading leaves on her head. She looked as if she were asleep but, of course, she wasn’t.
    * See Vow of Chastity.
    * See Vow of Silence.
    * See Vow of Sanctity.

Two
    Sister Joan had seen dead bodies before. Death itself held no terrors for her, but the manner of dying did. As she knelt to lift the drooping head she saw the thin, purple line cutting into the neck like the rehearsal for a beheading.
    She had seen the face already that day. Valerie Pendon, missing