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in the distance, shimmering through the waves of heat rising off the land, someone approached. She waited, her hands pressed against her chest. The black spot drew closer, it was a team of horses – no, a single horse pulling – what? She waited again, saw that it was a buggy, not a wagon, that another horse was tied to the back of the buggy. Not Pierre then, but maybe – yes, it would be news of him.

Chapter Two
    Spiritus Sanctus
    I t was a morning like all the others she could remember, although it did not occur to her to try to remember; at six years old every morning was an astonishment, every quicksilver birdsong heard through her bedroom window the first. She lay, her eyes open, watching the play of tree-shadows on the ceiling, hearing the creak and clink of a wagon, the muted hoof-falls of a horse drawing it down the street past the house. The starched white curtains billowed into the space near her head and were sucked back with a slap, as if Antoinette were angry at the wall and slapping it hard with her flattened palm. Soon she would come swiftly through the door, her skirts whispering their morning melody as she hurried to Sophie’s bedside. Up would go the window, or down, whichever it was not, for sometimes her grand-mère or her brother Hector would come in while Sophie was sleeping and change it.
    Watching with interest and something that might be a touch of fear how briskly the maid attended to the window, she had once asked Antoinette why up or why down every single morning. She was still far too young to know that duty, honour, thoughtlessness required many things of people that they could not explain had it occurred to them that perhaps explanation was required. She was a maid, Sophie was in her care, therefore, she opened or closed Sophie’s window to establish her authority, to insist on her very presence. One day Sophie would remember this and think how all her life she loathed in women such mindless bustling, as if to say, without me this world would collapse.
    Her bladder pressed; she climbed from her bed, pulled out the chamber pot, sat, then, finished, her feet freezing on the cold floor, climbed back into the high bed, pulled up the feather quilt, and waited, patiently, with interest, to see what the morning would bring. No one, not Antoinette, not grand-mère would let her out of bed until they said she could get out of it. Except for the need of her bladder to be emptied. Sometimes, as she lay on her back singing softly to herself a made-up song she wondered if her mother were not in heaven, would she let Sophie up when she wanted to be up? It was a question for which she had no answer. Mothers were gifts from God, were they not? Maybe they did not have to answer to God every single day as Sophie did.
    As she waited she wondered if the rhythmic thudding on the hard-packed dirt road had been, perhaps, the bishop arriving. This amazing thought drove her up to a sitting position; forgetting the stricture, she was throwing back the quilt so as to run to the window, just as the door opened and Antoinette entered.
    “Is it the bishop?” Sophie cried, as Antoinette, pushing down the window in its sash, said “Up already, little one? My, my, my!” They stopped talking simultaneously, looked at each other, Antoinette, shrewdly, into the little girl’s eyes, Sophie holding her breath, her eyes open so wide she could feel cold air on their surface and had to blink. The maid laughed; Sophie plunked herself in her flannel nightgown onto the edge of the bed letting her bare feet dangle, and rubbed her closed eyes with both hands.
    “No bishop, Sophie. Only le curé Deschambeault. Are you ready for today?”
    “I’m thirsty,” Sophie said, petulant suddenly, remembering… something, but what?
    “No water,” Antoinette said. “If you drink, you cannot take Communion. You will have to wait another year. Your grand-mère et grand-père would be so angry.” Sophie considered, a reckoning that