As they headed toward the great garden, fear wrapped like a collar around Anna’s throat. Sisters Helena, Irene, and Rachel had been collecting herbs when the marauders attacked. At the entranceway, Ruth paused to take a deep breath. She then lifted her torch and proceeded into the room. A hazy light filtered through cracks in the roof. When Anna’s eyes adjusted, the sight before them yanked at the back of her tongue. She dropped to her knees, gagging. Ruth helped her back to her feet. She pressed a small seed into Anna’s palm and told her to suck on it. “It will strengthen your stomach,” she said, her voice hoarse with shock.

When Anna faced the room again, the first thing she noticed was the wide, empty space above them. The men had hacked down the great sycamore. It leaned, awkwardly, on its side like a great fallen beast.

The air smelled of blood and freshly cut greens. With their blades, the men had slashed every vine, tendril, and sapling. Entire plants had been torn up by the roots. Containers of seedlings trampled.

The bodies of Sisters Helena, Irene, and Rachel lay in tangled heaps among the greenery, their blood mixing with the shredded leaves.

Behind them, the spring bubbled water into the ruin.

“Stay here,” Ruth instructed. She knelt to touch each body and whisper a blessing. She struggled to hold down her stomach. It was not that she was unfamiliar with the sight of violence. But it had been a long time. She stood before the jagged trunk of the sycamore. She could see milky sap leaking from the gashes left by the blades. She held her tears and let her mind move forward. In her vision, she saw the Sisters’ bodies returning to the soil and their life force being drawn up by the tree’s great roots. From this exchange, she could see bright green shoots rising from the broken trunk and running up toward the sky. Then she saw the bees returning. And the birds. The Sisters, she knew, embodied in the tree, would rise again—world without end.

But what of her and Anna?

“Let us go from here,” Ruth said.

Despite the silence, more horrors awaited them in the passageways. Fallen bodies lay around every bend. Bracing, Ruth led Anna through the tangle of arms and legs. Beneath them the Sisters’ plum-colored robes were darkening with one another’s blood.

After what seemed to Anna an eternity, they arrived at the scriptorium. The door had been heaved open and the entire room plundered. Every jar had been smashed and every manuscript burned to ashes. Ruth knelt and ran her fingers over the broken shards and shattered inkpots. Anna expected her to break down sobbing. But she did not. Instead, she rose and said, “They were only words. We must remember that the knowledge and Spirit still live within us.”