Turn 2 of 7

Ask Ammet what she knows

You climb down from the ladder, slow and deliberate, and cross the damp grass toward her. She watches you come the way a hare watches a shadow pass overhead — still, alert, ready to bolt. The ledger is held so tightly against her chest that the leather binding creaks. When you stop in front of her, she does not step back, but she does not meet your eyes either.

"Ammet," you say. "You were here before me this morning."

It is not a question. She was sleeping in the linen closet again — you saw the blanket folded there two days ago, and the pillow pressed flat against the shelf. She blinks, and her mouth works as though she is rehearsing and discarding several sentences at once. The mist is thinning around you both, and the first real light touches the top of the garden wall, turning the stone the colour of warm bone. Somewhere beyond the cloister, you can hear the other sisters stirring, feet on the flagstones, the low murmur of the Office beginning.

"I came out before the bell," she says. Her voice is low and very steady, the steadiness of someone holding themselves in place by force.

"I saw the stems. I saw the count. I — I did not take them, but I knew you would think I might, because I was here first, and because —" She stops. She presses her lips together and looks past you toward the tree, and her jaw tightens.

"Because I know something I should have told you yesterday."

You wait. The silence between you is not hostile — it is full, the way a vessel is full before it tips. Ammet shifts her weight from one foot to the other and opens the ledger to the last written page, holding it so you can see. The votes are recorded in her careful hand, each sister's name, each allocation, each date. The final entry is last night's: a routine tally confirming sixty-four fruit on the tree, signed by Ammet and countersigned by Ilde. The page below it is blank, which is correct — no vote has been called. But in the margin of the previous page, in pencil so light you nearly miss it, someone has written a small, careful mark beside Ilde's name. Not a word. Just a dash, like a tally kept by someone who did not want to be caught keeping it.

"I did not write that," Ammet says. "But I saw it yesterday evening, and I did not report it, and I should have. I know I should have." Her voice cracks on the last word, not with tears but with the effort of saying something she has been carrying alone. She closes the ledger and holds it against her chest again.

"Ilde has been coming to the garden after Compline. Three nights now. I did not see what she did — I only saw her shadow on the wall from the dormitory window. I told myself it was pruning. I told myself it was nothing."

The bell for Lauds rings again, longer this time, and you can hear Sister Breta's voice beginning the opening antiphon inside the chapel. Ammet glances toward the sound with the reflex of years, her body already turning toward the Office, but she does not move. She is waiting for you to decide whether this is enough, whether she is forgiven for the delay, whether you will go to Ilde now or pray first. The tree stands behind you in the strengthening light, its branches heavy with gold, three empty stems turning slowly in the morning breeze.