Free Vow of Chastity by Veronica Black Page B

been aware of the creeping presence of anything.
    ‘You should have come to look at the new calf, Sister,’ Sister Joan said. ‘It was so sweet.’
    ‘I’m afraid that I always get a guilty feeling before anything else when I see small creatures,’ Sister Margaret said. ‘Before I entered the religious life I was quite partial to the occasional lamb chop. Even now I do occasionally wonder if we ought to eat fish, but then I read an article once that said lettuces scream and eggs faint when you start preparing them. So I reckon we have to eat something.’
    They had turned on to the track that ran towards the area of the moors known locally as the greenway, an area where bracken and ling gave way to deep, soft earth and a natural windbreak formed by a deep and wide dip in the landscape through which ribbons of tiny streamlets watered the fertile ground. The light had quite faded, but the scent of wild verbena drifted through the open window of the car.
    ‘Is that where the Olives live?’ Sister Margaret gestured ahead to a dark bulk set back from the flowering grass. ‘It’s the old Druid place, surely? Thatwas before your time, dear, but a brother and sister owned the place. Quite reclusive in their ways, so it was generally rumoured they were exceedingly rich, and a nephew – or was it a niece? I forget which and it really doesn’t matter – he or she started coming over to visit the couple, hoping for something, I daresay, but when they died – influenza, the virulent kind – they found out there was no money at all. The place stood empty for years and then the niece – or was it nephew? – sold it and it’s passed through a series of owners since. Funny, but despite the land being so fertile and rich nobody’s actually got down and cultivated it properly. But it’s a beautiful spot, and it is rather refreshing to see somewhere that hasn’t been tamed for commercial purposes.’
    It looked lonely, Sister Joan thought, as they stopped the car – Sister Margaret having heroically refrained from speeding along the deserted track – and walked up to the sprawling mass of stone with its Victorian additions in the shape of cupola and turrets outlined against the evening sky. The black stone loomed against the dark night and the square of light in the windows did nothing to dispel the sudden and disturbing impression that the house crouched on the flowerstrewn moor like some wild beast waiting to spring.
    She frowned impatiently at her own foolishness, deciding that while a vivid imagination was all very well in an artist it was out of place in a woman vowed to the religious life. And the impression had been erroneous anyway, since the main door opened as they neared it and a flood of cheerful light illumined Samantha’s small frame.
    ‘Do come in, Sister. I was afraid that you weren’t going to come,’ she invited.
    ‘I hope we’re not too late. This is Samantha, Sister. Sister Margaret is lay sister at the convent.’
    By the time she had finished the introduction they were in a square, panelled hall and Mrs Olive, her slender figure enhanced by tight black trousers and awhite shirt, was on her way down the stairs with outstretched hand and a manner very different from her previous languid one when she had first brought her daughter to the school.
    ‘Sister Joan, how pleasant to see you again. Sister Margaret, how do you do? I was beginning to think that Samantha had got hold of the wrong end of the stick but she insisted that you’d be coming.’
    ‘Only a brief visit, I’m afraid.’ Sister Joan glanced at the small steel fob watch pinned to her belt. ‘We had other parents to see and overstayed our welcome.’
    ‘Oh, surely not. I can’t imagine your outstaying your welcome anywhere. Come into the warmth and sit down.’
    The long drawing-room was warmer than would have been comfortable in the depths of winter. Both the nuns flinched slightly as they were met by a blast of hot air from