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    Under the Abbey's Angels
    Under the Abbey's Angels
    Under the Abbey's Angels
    Ebook61 pages50 minutes

    Under the Abbey's Angels

    By Ben Mason

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Cecily's life at the abbey is a mixture of chores and beatings. Her only joy: climbing the walls to visit her stone angels.

    But things change when a  stranger comes to the abbey under the cover of night, bringing a secret...and danger.

    A short story of around 14,000 words.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBen Mason
    Release dateSep 7, 2016
    ISBN9781533790606
    Under the Abbey's Angels

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      Book preview

      Under the Abbey's Angels - Ben Mason

      1

      Cecily enjoyed scaling the walls of the white abbey because they made her feel as if she was one of the angels perched up top; fitted with wings and a smooth, pale face instead of a hard body the color and complexion of dried clay. Below her in the ravine roared the sweeping river, drowning out the sounds of the sisters prayers in the chapel on the other side. The prayers went on for hours giving Cecily her time to scale the wall.

      Her dark brown eyes furrowed as her thick fingers dug into the cracks of the wall, finding the grips which were sometimes no more than a finger’s width. In the beginning she had climbed not caring whether she rose or fell. Her parents hadn’t cared when they had chosen her to be a servant of the abbey. Not a sister, she wasn’t worth the small donation, but a servant.

      More like a slave.

      Cecily saved her anger, the hatred she felt, for her climbs. Each time a new slight or old grievance came to her, she used it to dig her grip in firm. The few times it rained or during cold winters, she was known to turn dark, her sunburnt face turning harder. Her time away from the angels was never long, even under those circumstances.

      Sister Avice had tried with strikes and hard words to make Cecily compliant long after she had tried to get the girl to smile. Of course, Sister Avice never shoveled sheep shift, what with her thin, bony hands. It was hard for Cecily to think of Sister Avice now, with the blue sky and its white, calm clouds drifting above her, the sound of the river coursing below, and the sun baking on the other side of the wall while she hung in the shade.

      Cecily glanced up again and saw she was reaching close to the top point, right where the wall ended, meeting the other at an angle like the edge of a table. Above it, on a pedestal, leaning over the wall into the abbey alley’s corner, watching the courtyard, was one of her four friends. The angels of the abbey.

      Reaching the top, Cecily pulled herself up, and then extended a hand on either side for balance, walking one foot in front of the other, her bare feet and toes latching on to their holds. Today the old crone was going to speak; Sister Adri. She was known for going so long even the more devout sisters started to pray over the next meal instead of the homily.

      After having finished her chores, Cecily decided she had enough time to visit the far rightmost angel, her favorite. The one with the half-cut face.

      Maybe it was storms or time which had destroyed the angel’s looks, but Cecily found she preferred it to the better preserved ones. There were cracks in its face, and half of whatever eye or mouth it had once been given were broken into tiny pieces. Standing in front of her, positioned over the inside corner, it sat, its grey tunic rumpled, its two sets of wings unfurled, its head half-turned as if to listen for a far off enemy while keeping vigil over its flock.

      Let the sisters have the Lord of Light or his Sister of Shadowed Mercy. Cecily had long stopped praying to either, never having been given an answer. The sisters had their Lord and Sister; Cecily had the angels.

      And she did pray to them because, despite where she was, despite the life she was going to have, she still believed.

      Finishing her walk, Cecily hugged the angel, one foot on the pedestal, the other on the walk, making sure not to put too much pressure on the cracked, aged pedestal. At one time her legs had shook to keep balance. Now they were still like a deer in the forest, after it heard a twig break.

      The smell of the stone greeted her, a mixture of morning dew and the constant change of a hundred years mingled into the crevices, along with the heat of the sun, burning her hands. She whispered the same prayer she whispered each time: Please give me your wings.

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