Sisterhood - Temptation Ch. 01

Katharina followed suit and leaned forward to look at the cover of the book. It looked old, though well preserved. It was about the size and dimensions of a comic book or small newspaper, and was quite thin, the leather binding accounting for most of its thickness. At the corners, the cover was reinforced by small triangles of shiny metal. "So, what are we reading?" Katharina asked.

Vera put her fingers to a stiff card bookmark that protruded from between the pages. She pulled on it and flopped the book open somewhere near the middle. "Well," she said, turning again to Katharina, with an excited expression on her face, "You tell me. What do you think it is?"

Katharina had been learning the language of the old Sisterhood for just under a year, and she had put in enough time in the library that reading the script had slowly started to become automatic. But still, she had to take a moment to orient herself before approaching a genuine old text rather than one of the simple training books given to novices. She looked over at the right-hand page, nearest where Vera was sitting. "This page, right?" she asked.

"Good," Vera nodded.

It was a problem that had tripped Katharina up a number of times. The really ancient texts all read from right to left. But some of the more recent ones, beginning perhaps around the medieval period, read left to right, as if some writers had adopted this convention from European languages, but only patchily. Worse, a few texts even mixed the old and new conventions, such that the pages of the book read from right to left, but the written lines went from left to right, or even alternated directions.

Katharina scanned at first. The old writing system was based mostly on a strictly phonetic alphabet, with each symbol representing a sound, but the most important words were written as whole symbols of their own, and Katharina found that if she picked out as many of these as she recognized, it gave her an initial clue as to the general nature of the text. Here, she saw symbols indicating conditions, or things that were permitted or forbidden, and some representing the status of different Sisters.

"So it's rules of some sort?" she ventured.

"I think so, too," Vera replied, "Rules about what?"

There was one symbol, a sort of curlicue about a vertical line, that Katharina felt she might have seen before, without having learned its meaning. The text was difficult to decipher without it, since it appeared several times on the page, and all of the phrases that Katharina was able to read referred to it in some way. She pointed to the first occurrence, "This word... I'm sorry, I'm not sure. What is it?"

Vera answered after a brief pause, "It's related to the word for 'decision', in particular decisions made by more than one person. But here in a more formal sense, I think."

"Ah, I see now," Katharina realized what it was that had been familiar about the symbol. The old writing system had a certain haphazard logic to it such that symbols for related concepts often shared some elements. The symbol on the page in front of her had the same or a closely similar pattern of curlicues as another symbol that had the meaning Vera had just referred to. Though Katharina had always translated it slightly differently. "Consensus," she said quietly to herself.

"Yes," Vera sounded pleased, "Perhaps that's a better term. Well done."

"So what's...?" Katharina began. Then she stopped herself. She could feel the familiar rush of discovery. She looked over the page again, trying quickly to decipher it in the light of what she had just learned, before Vera filled her in. The gist of the text now fell neatly into place. The lists of rules were guidelines about how a decision should be reached under various circumstances in which Sisters might disagree, and the rankings of Sisters by status were orders of precedence, determining whose decision was final.

"Yes?" Vera prompted.

"It's about voting, isn't it?" said Katharina, "For when the coven of seven has to come to a decision."

"That's right," Vera said. Beneath her composure, there was a hint of the same excitement that Katharina felt. "So who has the final word?"

Katharina looked the page over once more. Towards the bottom, there was a small inset panel, with a heading that a few other parts of the text referred to. This seemed to be the crux, the part that detailed what was to be done if the other voting procedures resulted in deadlock. Katharina's heart sank when she saw yet another symbol she didn't recognize.

"Um... Are you asking me as a test? Or...?" Katharina refrained from completing the phrase. To suggest out loud that Vera didn't know something felt like a step too far, somehow presumptuous.

"No," Vera sighed, "Unfortunately not. I really don't know. No more tests. You're past that now."

"So it's this symbol that... you're not sure about?" Katharina placed her finger on the page.

"Yes," Vera replied, "I was hoping you might have seen it before."

Katharina looked again. She tried this time to decompose the shapes, pick out any that might be components shared with more familiar words. The tantalizing prospect of helping Miss Vera, even finally surpassing her in some small way, lent a particular desperation to her efforts. There was a small flourish at the foot of the symbol, like the curl of a pig's tail. It was the only part Katharina even vaguely recognized. "Weakness?" she said hesitantly.

"Because of this?" Vera pointed to the same curling line that Katharina had noticed.

"Yes," Katharina replied, relieved to have been able to offer something, at least, "But it doesn't really make sense, does it?"

Vera sighed again, "No. Not really. But we might not even be on the right track anyway. It could mean something completely unrelated." Then her face suddenly brightened, and she smiled at Katharina, "It's exciting though, isn't it?"

Katharina nodded enthusiastically, "Finding things out, you mean? Yes."

"Kind of like being attracted to a girl for a long time and then finally being invited to her bedroom," Vera continued, grinning. She looked back at the page, "So Katharina, would you like to try and solve this one for me?"

"Find out what that means?" Katharina nodded at the mysterious symbol.

"Yes," Vera leaned back and removed her glasses, set them back down on the table, "I don't mean right away. If you want to prepare for the ball. Just whenever you next visit the library. You could try and look it up."

Katharina had already instantly made Miss Vera's little quest her number one priority. She was mentally laying out the route down to the library even as Vera finished speaking. She felt anxious imagining the possibility that somebody else, or Vera herself, would supply the solution before she had seized her chance to make herself useful.

"I might take a quick look now," Katharina said offhandedly, "Just in case there turns out to be an easy answer."

"Well that would be great," Vera looked very pleased with the suggestion, "Sooner would of course be better. Before coven, ideally. And unfortunately I have a few things that will tie me down here for a bit."

"Okay," said Katharina, standing up. She paused and looked at Vera for a moment, just in case there was something else. In case it wasn't Vera's intention that she set to her task immediately.

Vera looked up at her, "If you happen to find anything already just now, you can drop by and let me know."

"I will," said Katharina. She made for the trapdoor and lowered her foot onto the topmost rung of the ladder.

"Good," Vera smiled brightly. Then she turned back to the table and took the book down from the lectern. She clapped it closed and held it out towards Katharina, "Here, you'll need this."

"Oh, of course," Katharina winced inwardly. She had been so eager to get going, she had forgotten she would need to have the text with her in order to search for other instances of the symbol. She leaned out to take the book, and clasped it to her chest with one arm. "Thanks," she said, then lowered herself through the opening of the trapdoor, taking care not to step on the hem of her gown as she made her way down the ladder.

Once her head was through, Katharina paused and looked down, half expecting to see Mari looking up at her. But Vera's room was empty. It looked even more disorderly from above, with all the clothing spread out on the floor and on top of the furniture. She reached the foot of the ladder and walked briskly back out into the main room. There, she looked around her again, for any sign of Mari. But it was quiet. She could hear the faint tick of an old clock that sat on a shelf above one of the dressing tables. It was a clunky antique, a metal clock face set into a block of marble, the hours shown in Roman numerals. Just after half past six. The ball wouldn't begin for another hour and a half, and it would be another hour after that until the welcome address and the inaugural dance, the first moment at which Katharina and the other novices were expected to be present. Of course, she had to factor in a bit of time to get ready, to shower and dress, and to get from one part of the house to another. But she probably had time for at least an hour in the library. She hurried out, clutching the book under her arm.