Hare Moon Read Free Page A

staring off into space in the middle of mundane tasks, and she’s late for services more than once. As punishment she’s tasked with spending nights alone praying in the Sanctuary for the Midnight Office and Matins.
    Her eyes begin to look a bit hollow, the bones in her cheeks a little sharper and her jaw more defined. There are confusing moments when she thinks she almost feels the comforting heat of God in her deepest prayers, and she stumbles to her bed muddled and hazy.
    She’s so lost in her thoughts one afternoon that she doesn’t realize at first what it means when she comes across a large key while dusting the shelves and stacking papers on the desk in the oldest Sister’s chambers.
    She holds the key in her hands, feeling its weight. Something warms in her chest, loosens along the small of her back. She slips the key next to Patrick’s letter in the binding around her breasts and spends the rest of the day itching for the time to pray.

    She’s standing in the middle of the Cathedral, staring at the altar and trying to decide if she believes in prayer, when a little girl comes and stands next to her. The girl’s name is Anne, and Tabitha recognizes her as a friend of her little brother’s.
    Anne stands next to Tabitha quietly for a moment, and then she shyly looks up at her. “Are you praying?” she asks.
    Tabitha thinks about this for a moment and answers, “I don’t know.”
    The girl looks puzzled. “Why don’t you know?”
    “Because I don’t know what to believe in right now,” she answers.
    The little girl takes a short breath and then shoves her slightly damp hand into Tabitha’s, squeezing her fingers. “I know what to believe,” she says. “My mother told me and her mother told her.”
    “What’s that?” Tabitha asks.
    The little girl scrunches her face. “You won’t get me in trouble for saying?”
    Tabitha shakes her head.
    The little girl motions for Tabitha to bend down and she obliges, getting on her knees so that she’s face to face with the child. The girl leans forward, her dark hair falling against Tabitha’s cheeks. “My mother says there’s a world outside the fences. She told me about the ocean, and when I get older, I’m going to find it. If you want, you can go with me.”
    The little girl pulls back, her eyes shining and her little body almost trembling with energy. Tabitha thinks about telling her that it’s true, that there’s something greater beyond their gate. That she’s touched the very edge of it. But when she opens her mouth nothing comes out.

    Tabitha starts the Midnight Office early and races through the words, baldly reciting them hot and fast without thought to their meaning or significance. After the last Amen she slips from the pews past the altar and toward the secret door.
    She’s just pulling back the curtain when she hears the whisper of feet over stones. “I thought we would keep you company tonight,” Ruth says, carrying a candle into the Sanctuary, a yawning Ami at her heels. They pause when they see Tabitha and the hidden door.
    Tabitha’s heart beats fast and wild. There’s a certain thrill, she realizes, in getting caught. “I finished early,” she says.
    Her two friends drift closer. “What’s that?” Ruth asks.
    Ami tugs on her sleeve. “It’s not our place to know if they haven’t told us,” she says. The whites of her eyes almost glow in the darkness.
    “Where does it go?” Ruth asks Tabitha.
    Tabitha grasps the key tightly in her hand, its dull teeth digging into her palm. “I don’t know,” she says.
    “Ruth?” Ami’s whine is tinged with anxiety. She glances over her shoulder, as if expecting someone to come upon them at any moment.
    “You’re going to explore it?” Ruth asks. Tabitha recognizes the hint of a thrill in her voice. Knows that Ruth is like her—that she craves the knowing.
    Tabitha raises her chin. “I am.”
    “Ruth …” Ami is now close to panic, scrabbling at her friend’s arm.