The room is tiny, the ceiling low. Against the far wall is a cot, an old faded quilt tucked tightly around it. To my right is a narrow desk, a thick book that could only be the Scripture resting on top of it surrounded by unlit candles. On the other side of the room a large tapestry hangs on the wall, His holiest words woven through it, a thin and well-worn pillow resting beneath it for kneeling and praying. In the center of the room a round braided rug that seems to be made from old Sisterhood tunics covers the floor.

I am stunned by the ordinariness of this room, as if it were any other Sister's quarters in the Cathedral. As if it were a mirror of my own upstairs. I step farther into the room, my footsteps muffled by the rug. I trace a finger down the smooth fabric of the tapestry, wondering how many other hands have touched these words, have sought solace in their presence. The pillow on the floor is dented where two knees would have rested for hours.

I sit on the bed and it creaks slightly beneath me, disturbing the dreamlike silence around me. I pull my feet close and lean back, wondering who was the last person to sleep here. Gabrielle?

Travis when he was so ill? A Sister facing some sort of punishment?

Restless, eager for answers, I move to the narrow table and light the candles that surround the Scripture. Though I am facing the thick book with its cracked binding, my gaze is unfocused, my thoughts turned inward. Absently I flip it open, flick through the pages, the sound of them turning like the hush of fall leaves settling to the ground. But I'm not looking at the words written on the page, I'm staring past them, lost in my own world.

Until I realize that the words on the pages look wrong. That the pages themselves are too thick with writing. I bend closer and realize that all the margins, every blank space on every sheet, is filled with cramped writing. The words are so small that I can barely make them out, the ink from the other side of the page casting shadows, making the words essentially indecipherable.

I flip back to the first page and struggle with the cryptic handwriting, blue ink on onionskin-thin yellow pages. In the beginning, it said, we did not understand the extent of it.

I pull a candle closer but the rest of the writing is lost to me. I flip back through the book, watching as the handwriting changes, as the ink turns black, grows thicker and harder to understand.