Life on the outside, so to speak, had been strange at first. When Madeleine had left the convent, she hadn’t drunk alcohol in years outside of the rare feast day. Nor had she worn secular clothing, gone grocery shopping alone, or slept in her own room. Strangest of all had been the excess of time, when once her hours had been full of fellowship. At first, she’d cried so often from loneliness that she’d wondered if she’d made the worst mistake of her life.

Becca had helped with that too. After they’d had a couple of weeks to get used to each other, she’d proposed some “retail therapy,” and they’d gone to Goodwill. It had been surreal to don a form-fitting sweater, to say nothing of a pair of jeans. She’d spent decades basically pretending not to have a body and hadn’t realized how it would feel to see it again. Madeleine, with only two skirts and three blouses to her name, had looked at herself in the mirror and seen a woman with shapely limbs, pleasing curves, and a head of short, dark, wavy hair. For the first time, she’d thought, Maybe this can work.

Now her hair was long enough to fall just past her shoulders, and she’d expanded her sweater collection considerably, along with other items. She even had a couple of necklaces that weren’t crucifixes.

The server dropped off their beverages, and Madeleine raised her pink margarita glass into the air. “I’ll miss you.”

“Just me? Not a word for Booster?”

“Don’t let him throw up hairballs in my room while I’m gone.”

Becca grinned and raised her sangria. “I’ll miss you too. To your adventure. May the next month be life-changing, but in a nice way.”

Madeleine’s heart gave a little thump at the thought. She’d wondered so often if returning to Orkney would change her life, if anything would actually happen—or if it had already happened.

Maybe the…visitation she’d experienced had just been meant to show her that she wasn’t living the right life. It had been so painful to leave the Daughters of Grace, but years later, that pain had lessened. Her new life had its satisfactions, she still went faithfully to mass, and she wasn’t living a lie anymore. Maybe that was the whole ball of wax.

No, that couldn’t be right. Madeleine had realized she wasn’t meant to be a nun, but it couldn’t stop there. Not when she’d actually been ordered to go back. Return to me.

They clinked their glasses and drank, but then Becca’s expression turned solemn. “You’ll be careful, right?”

“Of course I will. I’ve been planning this for ages. I didn’t come this far just to get myself in a pickle at the last minute.”