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The nun standing before the chest was the oldest Nona had seen. Quite possibly the oldest woman she had ever seen. Nana Even’s older sister, Ora, had died a year back. Nona’s mother claimed the woman had seen eighty years come and go. Yet lying there on the pyre in the square before Grey Stephen’s stone-built home old Ora had looked young compared to Mistress Path.
‘Take a seat, Hessa.’ The ancient nun had a surprisingly young voice. ‘You too, novice …?’
‘Nona.’ Nona took a chair, little more than a stool really, the back a single narrow plank.
‘Knower?’ Mistress Path came a step closer, leaning in.
‘Nona!’ Clera all but shouted it.
‘Ah, Nona.’ The nun clapped her hand to Nona’s shoulder. ‘Like the merchant-queen?’
Nona wasn’t alone in offering this last question a blank look, though she caught Clera nodding.
‘No matter – no matter.’ Mistress Path moved off, shaking her head. ‘It was long ago and her sons are all gone to dust.’
‘We’re all gathered now?’ Mistress Path looked around the room, her eyes so pale as to be without colour, the whites creamy with age. ‘Two new girls, yes?’
‘Yes, Mistress Path.’ A loud chorus.
‘I’ll do my introductions then. I am Sister Pan. Within these walls, Mistress Path is my name.’ She paced towards the front of the class and, with an exaggerated sigh, settled herself upon the great chest. Nona noticed that the woman’s right hand, that she had thought lost in the sleeve of her habit, was more lost than that, the arm ending at the wrist in an ugly mess of scar tissue.
Sister Pan lowered her head and tapped her fingers on the lid of the chest. She was quiet for so long that Nona wondered if she had dropped into a doze, but a moment later she looked up, eyes bright. ‘In these lessons we study the Path. For most of you this will be a journey to serenity, to states of mind that can help you with patience or with concentration. Or perhaps they may help quiet your fears, or put sorrow aside for a while until you have time for her visit. For those few of you who might have it in your blood to see the Path clearly rather just sense it as an idea these lessons are the first steps to discovering hidden worlds, the boundary between them, and the power that may be won by those who dare to venture in such places.’