Free The Quick and the Dead (A Sister Agnes Mystery) by Alison Joseph

with studied thoughtfulness, ‘I do think it’s so important to accept the challenge of releasing one’s own potential,’ and allowed her gaze to alight, charmingly, on Nic. And then it was Agnes’s turn and she muttered something about being interested in other spiritual paths whilst pulling at the sleeves of her worn grey shirt.
    And then she wasn’t really sure what happened. They all lay on the floor and did relaxation and breathing, and Agnes thought she must have dozed off for a while. She seemed to have a dream about a child sitting in the window seat of a large and beautiful house, gazing out at a car in the drive. She remembered the detail of the child’s dress, made in layers and layers of fine cotton, with little violets embroidered at the hem. Something about the violets made her want to cry. Then Nic was talking to them gently, and Agnes came out from the dream with an overwhelming sense of relief. She noticed that he’d pulled down the blinds to block out the bright sunlight. Lynne told some kind of story, murmuring about carrying a large weight on her back, a basket, and she has to take it across a river, it has food in it, and the weather is cold, so cold, and the eggs will spoil. Nic was gently encouraging her, and Agnes, watching her, was struck by how happy she seemed, lying curled on her cushion, recounting bits of an altogether different life. When it was Patrick’s turn, he simply said, ‘So it is you. It is you,’ in tones of radiant discovery, and Nic was talking to him, too, in a low voice.
    Agnes noticed that Athena was lying artfully across a floor cushion, her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted. She opened her eyes briefly to check where Nic was in the room, then seeing he was next to Agnes, she closed them again.
    Nic said to Agnes, ‘How’re you doing?’
    Agnes looked up at him, and felt like bursting into tears. ‘There was this girl, this child,' Agnes began, and then stopped.
    ‘Go on,’ Nic said gently.
    ‘It was just a dream,’ Agnes said.
    Nic said, ‘Has it upset you?’
    ‘No,’ Agnes said.
    Nic considered this. ‘It sounds like you’re resisting this person.’
    ‘It was only a dream,’ Agnes said.
    ‘Or a memory,’ Nic said, watching her.
    Agnes thought about the embroidered violets, so real she could taste them.
    ‘I think I’ll go home now,’ she said. She stood up, found her bag, and without looking back left the room. As she went out through the reception area, she was amazed to find that the sun was still shining brightly. It was ten past one.
    Agnes drove home, went straight into her tiny kitchen, put eggs on to boil, opened a tin of anchovies and ajar of olives and assembled something resembling a salad niçoise. As she laid out a fork and a plate, and poured herself a glass of mineral water, she realised she was angry. Very angry. She sipped at her glass and wondered whether she was cross with herself for leaving. Or with Nic, for allowing all those people to feel those disturbing, illusory things. Or with the others, for having so little sense that they were happy to be there, these Lynnes and Andys and Phoebes with nothing better to do than breathe themselves into a state and then witter on about their other selves instead of concentrating on the one they were stuck with.
    Agnes put the salad out on a plate and began to eat. At least I’ve got my faith, she thought. At least I don’t have to do that, experiment with other ways of being. At least as far as I’m concerned it’s between me and God, and that’s all, she thought. Yes, that’s all.
    She took an olive stone from her mouth. She knew what it felt like to wear that dress with the embroidered violets. She knew that when she looked out of the window of the large and beautiful house, on to the drive with the waiting car, it would be raining.
    She washed up her dishes, changed into her scruffiest clothes that still smelt of wood smoke, and set off for the camp. On the M25 she pulled