floor against the wall of the novice dormitory, next to Sister Winifred’s pallet and, on the other side, Sister Christina’s.
In our pitch-black room, we would find the habits folded and placed at the side of our pallets hours before, and dress quickly. Within minutes, a yellow light would seep under the wooden door: the approach of the lighted lantern. The twenty-four nuns of Dartford would walk past our room, two by two, on the way to Lauds. We’d wait for the last pair to pass before taking our ordained place at the end of the line and walking down the stone stairs to church.
But this morning, the bed was deep and wide as my fingers reached for the edge. And not just that. A thick, warm light weighed on my eyelids. The sun had already risen, yet that was impossible. No nun or novice of Dartford Priory ever slept through Lauds. If we were sick to our bellies, if our throats were on fire, if our loins cramped with the courses of the moon, we still walked the stone passageway to first prayers. Otherwise, we’d face the sternest of punishments at chapter.
I wanted to rise, to learn what had gone amiss, to make amends, but a strange heaviness held me. I could not open my eyes. It was as if the bed itself were pulling me in. Part of me fought it, but mostly I longed to submit to this sweet black nothingness.
After a time, the nothingness parted, and people on a dirty field, shoving and laughing and cursing, their faces red with drink, surrounded me. I was at Smithfield again. “You are dreaming,” I said out loud. “Nothing can hurt you.” And indeed, this time my feet seemed to float above the mud. I was drifting, darting. Unobserved.
Then I saw her, and it pulled me to the ground. She moved ahead, but I knew that proud walk so well, her way of pulling back and squaring her shoulders when displeased. I wanted to see her, to touch her, but I was terrified, too. I no longer felt safe in a dream. This had become real.
I called for her, but she didn’t hear.
“Mama, help me,” I screamed. “Don’t let them take me to the Tower.”
My mother turned around; her gaze settled on me. “You promised,” she said, unsmiling. “You promised her you’d never tell anyone the secret.”
I tensed. “Who do you mean?”
My mother’s black eyes flashed. “You know who, Juana. Era una promesa sagrada.”
Now I was the one to shake my head. “No, Mama, no. You couldn’t know about that. You weren’t there. You were already dead!”
It was as if by saying those words I cast a spell to send her away, for she melted into the crowd, replaced by Sir William Kingston.
“I don’t want to go back to the Tower,” I said.
“You’re not.”
More hands on me, and then I was being thrust to the top of a small hill of branches, with a stake soaring in the middle. They tied me to it, circling my waist with scratchy ropes. Soon the men were gone, and orange flames licked at the twigs below my feet. A circle of jeering people surrounded me, cheering my death as they’d cheered Margaret’s.
I pulled against the ropes, but they were too tight. The smoke rose to form a column around me. In seconds I would be in agony.
“God, please help me!” I screamed. “I beseech you—forgive me, save me.”
The smoke parted. A figure floated down: a beautiful man, wearing a breastplate of silver armor. He glided closer. He had curly blond hair and porcelain skin and blue eyes. Atop those curls was a golden crown. With a shock, I knew him. The Archangel Gabriel, God’s messenger, had come down to fetch me.
“You won’t feel any pain,” he said.
The flames crawled all over me. My arms and my legs, even my hair, were consumed, but it was nothing to me. I laughed, my relief was so great. I knew that was impertinent, to laugh in the presence of the mightiest archangel, he who laid waste to Sodom, but Gabriel laughed, too. My ropes fell off, and I floated up. We began to twirl together; we danced in the sky.
Someone else shook me. I couldn’t see the hands, but I felt them.
The luminous blue sky I twirled in began to darken, the Archangel Gabriel to tremble. “No,” I cried. But everything broke apart, like a ship dashed to pieces on the rocks. My angel left me;