Page 3 of Unforgotten
It was a breathless afternoon in late summer. It wasn’t the kind of weather that Ella liked, for it reminded her of another day many years earlier. A black moment. One she had tried her hardest to forget.
There wasn’t the slightest breeze to cool the orderly patchwork of vegetable beds inside the abbey’s sturdy walls. The air this afternoon smelled of warm earth and grass, and the heat had brought out the noises of surrounding insects and birdlife. Crickets chirped in the nearby herb beds, while somewhere in the hard blue sky above a skylark trilled. Bees buzzed by, traveling from flower to flower, for the nuns had planted roses and lavender around the perimeter of the garden.
A bumblebee droned by Ella’s nose then, as she straightened up and wiped her sweating brow with the back of her wrist. She’d been weeding the onion bed for a long while and was pleased with her progress. She had nearly finished. However, her back was starting to ache. The sun was ferocious this afternoon; she could feel its heat burning into her skin, even through the material of her veil and habit.
“Sister Ella!”
A call drew her attention from the neat lines of onions and leeks that stretched before her toward the eastern wall of the abbey. Ella glanced back over her shoulder at where a small figure, garbed in black, hurried toward her. Sister Leanna’s habit swamped her. Like Ella, a white wimple framed her face and a voluminous black habit reached her ankles, in the style of the Cluniac order. The young woman’s delicately featured face was flushed, her hazel eyes gleaming with excitement.
Ella rose to her feet, grimacing as her joints protested. She had been crouched over weeding for far too long this afternoon. She wasn’t old, not like Sister Magda or Sister Fiona, but at thirty-six winters she found that her body sometimes protested at the demands of life in the order. And after hours of gardening on her knees, now was one such time.
“What is it?” Ella asked. “Did I miss the bell to Vespers again?”
It did happen. Sometimes Ella got so immersed in gardening, so lost in her own contemplation, that she even failed to notice the bells calling the sisters to prayer at regular intervals throughout the day.
Sister Leanna laughed. “No, it’s too early for that.” A smile curved the novice’s mouth. “Ye have a visitor.”
Ella went still.
For eighteen years she had resided within the walls of Kilbride, this Cluniac abbey upon the south-western shores of the Isle of Skye. In all that time, she’d never once had a visitor.
Ella’s mouth flattened into a thin line. She didn’t welcome the news. A visitor meant someone from her old life, and that life was dead to her now. It had been for nearly two decades.
“Who is it?” Ella forced herself to ask the question.
Suddenly, she didn’t feel well. She was sweaty and incredibly thirsty. Not only that, but her forehead now ached dully, the result of spending too many hours out here in the sun.
“A tall man with blond hair. I caught a glimpse of him … he’s handsome.” Sister Leanna’s smile widened. She’d been at Kilbride just over a year—not long enough for the outside world, and men, to lose their appeal. “I know not his name,” Sister Leanna continued, seemingly unaware that Ella had gone rigid. “But Mother Shona bid me to fetch ye. He awaits ye in the chapter house.”
A wave of nausea swept over Ella.
Tall and handsome with blond hair.
Don’t panic, she counselled herself.That could describe many a man upon the isle.
Ella swallowed, struggling to keep her face composed. “How old would ye say he is?”
“Mature,” Sister Leanna replied with a wave of her hand. “At least yer age, Sister Ella … possibly older.”
Ella’s mouth curved into a brittle smile.Mature. Had she once viewed anyone over the age of thirty in the same way? Even so, Sister Leanna’s last words made Ella’s heart start to hammer.
No, it couldn’t be.
“The abbess bids ye to come now,” Sister Leanna said, her gaze turning questioning. “Are ye well, Sister Ella?” She asked with a frown. “Yer cheeks are flushed.”
Ella drew in a deep, steadying breath. “I fear I’ve taken too much sun,” she muttered. Brushing off her dirt encrusted hands against her skirts, she walked down the path leading between the rows of vegetables, toward the complex of buildings at their back.
Sister Leanna fell in step next to her.
Ella didn’t converse. Instead, she fought the tide of panic that rose within her.
He wouldn’t come here. He wouldn’t dare … not after all these years.
“It’s nearly time for archery practice,” Sister Leanna said, breaking the silence. Ella heard the excitement in her voice. “Mother Shona says I am improving swiftly.”
It was true. Ella had seen the novice wield a longbow. She had a steady arm and keen eyesight.
“Do ye think she’ll let me go out hunting soon?” Sister Leanna asked, impatience tinging her voice. “I want to be able to bring back deer … to feed the abbey.”
