At midnight she again met the Master. He was in the founders’ cemetery. His afflicted eye gleamed and winked at Berthe like a shoreline fire guiding her inland. She went to him, dazzled by the playful way he had reconfigured the brittle headstones, presumably just for her. Each marker had been lifted from the soil and made to balance with unnatural grace in a new structure, one that seemed to change depending on Berthe’s vantage of it. From one angle the headstones were arranged like a great marble rose that bloomed from a stem of dense shadow. Yet a mere step to the left transformed them into a cloister, the kind Berthe had seen in books about the great cathedrals overseas.

It was while the gravestones held this latter formation that the Master regaled Berthe with revelations about the Kingdom that sat beneath this world. His voice ran across Berthe’s ears like silk.

It was all too much for her. It was not nearly enough. She swore to do whatever was required to experience the hidden world he described. The Master proceeded to instruct her in whisper.

The chain of empathy that bound the two of them together grew stronger.

III.

Berthe was awoken by a persistent jabbing against her back. She opened her eyes to find herself lying, dressed but dishevelled, in a horse stable.

“Why you restin’ in my pappy’s hay, Berthe-girl?” The voice had the squeak of male adolescence and the tarry drawl of the region. It was an unharmonious mix.

Snapping upright, Berthe saw a rail-thin silhouette standing on the opposite side of the stall. The young man held a pitchfork. Was this one of the gravehands come to watch over her, she wondered?

No, this was the Abban boy. She must have ended up on their property. Berthe struggled to sift memory from dream. Clearly, she had spirited back to her body sometime in the wee hours, but how had she ended up in the Abbans’ barn? The Master had warned that until she grew accustomed to moving out of body, things could easily go awry. She must have drifted back to her bedroom after the Master’s lesson at the founders’ graves, then somehow slept-walk out of the house, across the meadows, to here.

Berthe pulled herself to a standing position and sputtered a blend of apologies and ill-conceived explanations. Rushing from the barn, she turned back to see the Abban boy pointing a stubby finger toward her.

“…ain’t right,” he hollered as Berthe ran. He was a simpleton whose thoughts moved like poured molasses. Nevertheless, Berthe was panicked.

IV.