Free The Ruins of Lace by Iris Anthony

paid.
    “When will it be done? Two weeks? Three, perhaps?”
    I straightened. Or tried to. “…three. Weeks.” My voice it seemed had gone rusty from disuse.
    She nodded.
    My heart thrilled. I could feel it thumping in my throat. She had spoken to me. And I had a second reason for happiness this day. Today, my sister would walk the four hours from Kortrijk to come and visit.
    I worked as quickly as I could until the noon meal. When Sister clapped, I noted in my memory the place in my pattern and then rose from the lace and followed the others down the stairs. This time, we could put our hands to the walls. It mattered not if we soiled them on the way to the refectory. They would only get dirtied with food. After, we would wash them once more before we returned to our work.
    We ate quickly, as was expected in the ten minutes provided. It had been difficult to learn to eat so swiftly when I had first come, but a hollow stomach is an effective teacher. Far better to spend our time washing. Once washed, our hands were inspected. I looked for Mathild, thinking she might join us, but she did not.
    Perhaps tomorrow.
    Back at the workshop, I worked through one petal. Then a second. A third. And then it was time to begin my deceit. I raised my hand.
    “ Ja? ”
    I inclined my head toward the stairs.
    “Go.”
    I arranged my bobbins to mark my place before rising and laying my pillow on the bench. I descended the stairs, hands out. Without others in front of me, it was difficult to know where the stairs were. It would not do to stumble to my knees.
    Hands could be washed.
    Aprons could not… least not so easily.
    I peered out the door, though in truth, if someone was watching from the abbey, I would not have known it. Swiftly, I walked toward the privy house. And then, once I had reached its door, I walked beyond it, behind it, and lowered my head to a gap in the stones.
    “Heilwich? Are you there?”
    There was only silence. And then some shouting. That woman accusing Pieter of making a mess of things again.
    “Heilwich?”
    Nothing.
    I waited.
    “Heilwich?”
    The woman had done with her shouting. A door scraped. A dog barked. But no steps came near across the cobbles. No cough sounded to let me know she was there. I waited some moments more, standing in the rain, and then I walked around to the front of the privy house and washed my hands with water from a pail. But before I returned to the workshop, I bent to the gap again and spoke her name one time more.
    “Heilwich?”
    “ Ja .”
    “You are there!”
    “Is it not Tuesday? And do I not always come on Tuesday?”
    “Thank you. For coming.”
    “Here. Take this.” A hunk of bread pressed against my nose. I inhaled its moist, yeasty scent for a moment, and then I stood and pulled out my prize.
    “And there’s an egg pushed up inside it.”
    “Thank you!”
    “You’re the thanking-est girl I’ve ever known. Just eat it.”
    “I am.” Or I would when I discovered where the egg was. I probed at the bread with my fingers then held it up to my nose to see it better.
    “Let me have a look at you, then.”
    I bent once more and pressed my face to the gap.
    “I want to see more than just your eye. Stand away.”
    “But then I can’t see you.” And seeing her face was one of my greatest treasures. It enlivened the words she spoke to me. I recalled them together, her words and her face, in the days between her visits.
    “For shame. Of course you can.”
    I could see a shadow where I presumed her face to be, but I could not truly see her, not when I stood away. Not clearly enough to distinguish her features.
    “Can’t you?”
    “I can tell you’re there.”
    “And what color are my sleeves?”
    “They blend…with the color of the stones.” There now, when she moved, I could see them.
    “With the stones? For shame, they do not! Eat now and leave me to think a minute.”
    I ate. And with pleasure. The last egg I had eaten was the one she had brought me the