Tracing the Shadow by Sarah Ash Page A

Klervie anymore. They’ve changed my name to Celestine.” It was a pretty name, even if it felt like wearing borrowed clothes.
    “
Celestine,
” echoed the spirit in a voice like a shimmer of clear raindrops.
    “Are you really a Faie?” Celestine asked wonderingly. Faies could grant wishes, or so the tales Maman used to tell her said. And Celestine felt her heart swelling with the desire to make a wish. A wish so strong that her whole body trembled at the very thought of it.
    Bring them back. Bring back my papa and maman.
    “
I do not know the word ‘Faie.’ I know only that your father charged me to look after you.
”
    “You cannot grant wishes?” The words were barely a whisper; her throat had tightened with the strain of trying not to cry. “Not even one?”
    “
I am bound to the book,
” repeated the Faie, and its translucent eyes seemed to brim with tears, mirroring Celestine’s disappointment.
             
    “Is this the new girl?”
    “What a pale little mite she is.”
    “What’s your name, mite?”
    Celestine stared, mute with apprehension, at the gaggle of curious girls surrounding her bed. She wanted to pull the sheet up to cover her face but it was too late to hide.
    “Give the poor child room to breathe!” called a woman, and Celestine recognized Sister Kinnie’s voice with relief. “She’s still recuperating.” Out of breath, Sister Kinnie came bustling up, shooing the girls away from Celestine’s bed so that she could sit next to her. “Now, girls, this is Celestine, our new little sister. I want you to teach her about our daily tasks. She’s well enough to move out of the Infirmary into Skylarks. So, Angelique, you will help her with her things; Rozenne and Katell, you will take her by the hand and bring her to the dormitory.”
    “I’m Rozenne,” announced a brown-eyed girl, seizing Celestine’s right hand in a firm grip and marching her toward the door.
    “Wait,” wailed a thin-faced girl with dark plaits. “Sister said me, too.”
    “You’re too slow, Katell,” said Rozenne, laughing. “Keep up!” The other girls laughed too as Katell hastened after them, plaits flying like streamers.
    But Celestine kept looking over her shoulder, anguished that she had been separated from her book.
    “What’s the matter?” demanded Rozenne.
    “My book.”
    “
Your
book?” echoed Katell punctiliously. “Our book now. We share everything at Saint Azilia’s.”
    “This old tome?” Angelique, tall and willowy, with curling hair the color of spring catkins, cast a disparaging glance at Celestine’s most prized possession. “It’s just a boring
Lives of the Holy Saints.
”
    “My papa gave it to me.” Celestine was on the verge of tears again, yet felt ashamed to weep in front of the older girls.
    “Don’t worry. We won’t take it if it means so much to you.”
    The staircase wound endlessly upward and Celestine, still weak from fever, began to imagine that she would never reach the top. At last, breathless, her legs wobbling from the effort, she stumbled into the dormitory. Though the room was sparsely furnished with two rows of beds, light poured in through tall arched windows set beneath a high, sloping ceiling supported by thick wooden beams.
    “The sisters call us the Skylarks, because we’re at the very top of the convent,” said Rozenne.
    “Only the youngest novices sleep up here,” Angelique said. “When you’re twelve, you move to the Novices’ dormitory on the floor below.” She tossed her fair curls. “We Novices sing in the evenings as well as the mornings, so we’re not supposed to wake you little ones when we return. You need your sleep to grow.”
    “This will be your bed,” said Rozenne kindly, “next to mine.” She took Celestine’s book from Angelique and laid it on the little bed. “Katell, fetch a sheet for Celestine’s bed.”
    “How old are you?” Katell asked, suddenly swinging round on her heel to stick her face into