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[1]
Beatrice is fifteen the last time she shares a bed with another girl. Back then, she doesn’t realize what the pounding in her chest means, or what her sweaty palms and anxiously beating heart betrays, only that she has to hide it and her not-so-subtle stares.
When the realization strikes (like a train, like an elephant, like her parents catching her with her best friend) that is the moment she is sent away. Then she had realized what it meant and when the pounding in her chest made her reckless (foolish) enough to act. It’s her first and last transgression but it is an unforgivable sin. She carries it in her chest like a rock in the bottom of her shoe. It leaves a sour taste in her mouth and lingers at night.
It’s agony again. Beatrice is no longer fifteen. She’s an adult and she finally has a way to manage those dangerous impulses: the feelings she could not control in her adolescence. She has her sisters and the church to act as a buffer against her own desires. Or she did, before the Vatican. Before Shannon’s murder, Father Vincent’s betrayal, and Adriel’s return. Now she’s left with the worst parts of herself.
They have been in Switzerland for one week. She and Ava fought to take the couch (Beatrice won, naturally), but it isn’t long until Beatrice is coerced (too easily) into joining her on their one bed. It’s large enough for two, Ava says smiling, and we’re friends, Bea. It’s enough to fold her in half.
Ava is clingy in the worst (best) way. Beatrice has never taken up much space, preferring to sleep on her side facing away from the wall (defensible and sensible), but Ava curls into her back in her sleep like a koala bear. Beatrice curls her hands into her sleep shirt and prays.
The cycle continues. They both get jobs at the local bar. Each morning Beatrice rises with the sun and makes tea in the small kitchen area.
Their small apartment in the Alps is old and falling apart at the seams, but it’s the first home Beatrice has had since the convent and Ava is enamored with the small space.
Beatrice, despite vows of poverty, is also enamored with the plaid couch and the way the water comes out of the kitchen faucet with a sound Ava described as “wraith-like”.
They train in the Swiss mountain air. Ava gasps and wheezes the first week: “Please, take the halo. You don’t need to torture me first.” Finally, she enters the final stage of grief, she says, accepting that Beatrice will force her out of bed to run around the mountain trails.
“It’s healthy. You can’t only rely on the halo’s power.”
Ava gives out a wheezy puff. “I’d scream if I could.”
After training, they return home. Beatrice smooths down the bed sheets as Ava showers before her shift. She will follow afterward, focusing on carefully smoothing down the bed sheets until all that is left are sharp creases and corners. Anything to avoid hearing the slap of water from within the bathroom as Ava bathes.
–🌻–
[2]
There is one other bartender at their place of employment, a tall man named Hans. His eyes flash upon seeing Ava and Beatrice can’t help but scowl. Out of concern for the halo bearer, of course, but this is why Ava will make a good bartender. She is pretty, kind, and gregarious, all the things a bartender needs for tips. But it sits inside her stomach wriggling like a worm on a hook. Beatrice cleans tables and in her free time reorganizes the bottles upstairs.
“Is that one of your many skills, bartender nun?” Ava jokes, the day after she secured jobs for them here.
“No,” She says, fighting the smile that always wants to surface when Ava is around. “But I’m sure you can learn the ropes quickly.”
Her eyes dart to Hans again and she knows he will be more than willing to show Ava the ropes. It’s almost a relief that her duties take her upstairs.
The upstairs is dusty, as the man who owns the bar, an old silver-haired man with a walrus mustache named Ernst, has been a hands-off owner for years. Beatrice coughs into her sleeves as dust rises up and swirls in the midafternoon sunlight as she makes her way through his alcohol collection.
Forgotten and gathering dust while life continues on. There’s something poetic in that, but Beatrice will not examine it closely.
Downstairs Ava bonds with Hans. Her grasp of German is conversational and not always grammatically correct, but she’s growing leaps and bounds by the day. Hans and the regulars stay orbiting in her presence. And Beatrice stays close by, up the stairs and fixing the ledgers. She’s not immune to Ava’s orbit or the smile that pulls at her mouth as Ava’s laugh and voice carry up from the stairwell.
All too often she finds herself downstairs too, near Ava, in her line of sight as she works the numbers at a close-by table. But she makes sure to keep moving. To stay busy. She cannot allow herself to get drawn into Ava’s gravity.
Men and women flock to the bar, flirting and smiling, and Ava smiles and jokes and glows in a way that is different than the halo but just as holy.
There’s a broad-shouldered man at the bar, blond and conventionally attractive enough, Beatrice thinks. The kind her parents would have approved of bland and uninspiring. He becomes a regular, drawing Ava’s attention. And Beatrice feels the jealousy, that dark thing inside her soul she prayed the church would fix and never did, curl like vines around her chest. It sours in her stomach.
She isn’t sure which is worse: the jealousy or the sick joy leaping into her throat as Ava’s eyes meet hers across the bar.
The man, Miguel, draws Ava’s attention back and Beatrice swallows around the broken glass in her throat.
–🌻–
[3]
“Bea! Beeeea!”
Ava sways on the spot, smiling that bright smile, but too bright. It’s glinting and scalding. It’s blinding enough to take her a second to realize half her hair is missing.
“Ava.” Beatrice has about fifteen different thoughts in her head, each fighting for prime position on her tongue. “What…happened?”
This is the last time she takes a late shift at the bar.
“I’m cutting my hair. I can do it.”
“I’m sure you can,” Beatrice agrees. Ava can do anything. Sober.
She takes the scissors from Ava. “Can I even this up?” She asks, looking at the uneven lengths of hair in front of her.
Ava nods too enthusiastically. Keep still. Beatrice finds where the hair is shortest and portions the hair in sections. The chops are uneven but Ava surprisingly didn’t do that badly of a job. It’s giving more ten-year-old going through a rebellious phase than five-year-old on a terror.
Ava’s eyes grow heavy in the mirror. Beatrice can’t help the small smile that blooms on her mouth, tucking it back under her teeth.
“Sister Francis would cut my hair. She gave me a bowl cut.”
Ava says it suddenly and it pauses Beatrice’s careful fingers.
“That’s…unfortunate,” she says drolly. What else is there to say: I’m sorry for the crimes committed against your hair?
Her stomach further sinks, her thoughts spinning downward like water in a draining tub. I’m sorry you’ve never had a choice. I’m sorry you’ve been abused at the hands of those who were meant to care for you. I’m sorry that you still do not have a choice.
“I want it short,” Ava says firmly, beginning to nod her head in earnest before Beatrice gently course corrects.
“Of course.”
The hair is cut as evenly as Beatrice can manage. She suggests Ava gets it evened further tomorrow morning at the local salon.
Ava glows in the dim bathroom light. It should be impossible to look so pretty under fluorescent light. “I’m tired.”
She pulls Beatrice with her to their adjoining bedroom. Without a care, she shucks off her pants and crawls into bed in just her underwear. Ava makes grabby hands.
“Bea, come.”
Beatrice slinks off to change into her pajamas and then settles next to Ava in bed.
Ava huffs and snuggles into the blankets.
Ava is young. Yes, she’s nineteen, but there’s something innocent in the way Ava skips through life, wiggling to a beat no one else can hear, unburdened and unshackled by the paralysis of her youth.
Beatrice in comparison feels ancient, what life she has lived has felt much bigger than her twenty-three years. She has lived through demons, wraiths, and deaths — more near-death experiences than she can count.
Beatrice can’t help but feel something predatory, a feeling of taking advantage, as Ava leans into her for comfort. She stiffens, but there’s the part of her, the dangerous part she buried with her vows, that relishes being the one Ava turns to. She aches for the contact but knows she should turn her away. That luxuriates in the feel of Ava’s hand in hers and her lips against her cheek.
Goodnight.
Beatrice lays on her back, hands pressed together on her stomach and staring up at the ceiling. Ava thrashes and turns, flipping her pillow for the cool side and wriggling her somehow too-cold toes into Beatrice’s calf.
Ava’s breaths slowly even out, a small whistling snore between deep sighs.
Beatrice stares at the flickering shadows on the walls and ceiling. The small strip of streetlight shines in from the improperly closed curtains.
–🌻–
[4]
Ava is so smart. Beatrice wonders if somehow the halo is augmenting her in ways it hadn’t with Shannon, but that feels wrong. Like she’s demeaning Ava.
Ava learns with a voracious appetite. She’s reading, and not only in English and Spanish, but German. Their weekly pilgrimage to the library ends with Ava collecting tomes about science and art.
“I want to know everything, Bea.”
There’s hunger. Hunger for knowledge, for life, and for experiences. Ava flourishes in their small Swiss town, but Beatrice knows she’s too big for it. Ava is all-consuming. She would thrive in Paris, Madrid, or Rome. A thriving metropolis where she could eat different foods and visit museums and soak in all that life has to offer her.
She’s meant for more than Beatrice, in their small apartment, in the middle of the Swiss alps, where fine dining consists of one French bistro.
More than the monotony of their life here: train in the morning, an hour of free time, work, dinner, free time, bed.
Ava hunches over the sudoku book Beatrice bought at the train station in Rome. Ostensibly it started as her sudoku book, but somehow she got roped into teaching Ava and now it’s Ava’s full stop. Her tongue is between her teeth as she prods her lower lip with the eraser.
Beatrice sips her tea and a side of toast. It’s Saturday, their day of rest, and she just watches Ava. It’s only a matter of minutes before Ava starts getting antsy. She’ll want to explore the town and check out the market, even though it’s always the same. Or she’ll go for a swim in the public pool, where she likes to float.
“What do you want to do today?” she asks.
Ava looks up from her book. She starts wiggling in her seat. “Hans said there’s a fondue festival nearby. We could go?”
They don’t have a car, so that means traveling by bus, and festivals mean people. Lots of people.
But Beatrice can’t stand to watch that buzz of happiness leave Ava’s body, the way her wiggles cease and the smile begins to fall.
“We’ll make a day trip of it.” Ava’s smile is back in full force and outshines the sun.
Soon enough, sooner than Beatrice would like, they’ll be called back. She’ll do all she can to make sure Ava gets to live. She deserves more than this, and Beatrice will make sure Ava enjoys the time they have left together. She owes it to her.
–🌻–
[5]
Beatrice is a little stunned at how well they work together.
She liked Ava almost at once. There’s something about Ava that’s always drawn Beatrice’s eye. She’s a beautiful woman, but Beatrice couldn’t have become a nun if she is easily distracted by the physical.
Somehow, and Beatrice doesn’t understand really because they’re so dissimilar at first glance, Switzerland and this shared space has been the best experience of Beatrice’s life. She’s never had a partner, someone who understood her humor and bounced off of her. Beatrice has always been too standoffish, too serious, and too dry.
Ava laughs at her jokes and pushes back at her. Beatrice likes to think she helps provide Ava stability. She can rely on Beatrice because she’s spent her life making sure she’s useful in any situation. Beatrice never thought of Ava as a burden. Never. But she didn’t expect Ava to give Beatrice so much in return.
She’s happy. It’s the strangest thing, and it hits Beatrice as she’s balancing the books. Her parents would be outraged: all her education and skills wasted in a small town bar, but Beatrice has never felt happier. It’s not the bar. It’s not Switzerland. It’s sharing a small apartment with Ava, waking up to Ava’s sleepy expression in the morning and her sleepy smile at night.
It’s looking up from the books and knowing Ava will be there, that her eyes will shift towards Beatrice and her smile will turn that much more bright. It’s knowing she has someone who cares for her. Ava is her best friend.
Ava is the Warrior Nun. And she is Sister Beatrice. But here they are just Ava and Bea, two friends from university.
It’s something she never knew she wanted. It’s selfish to want more, especially as Beatrice took vows and Ava…Ava is discovering herself. This partnership was thrust upon her and Ava will have a bevy of options once Adriel is defeated. She’s just Beatrice and it’s never been enough before. She won’t be today.
–🌻–
[1]
There’s a funeral in Ava’s eyes. Ava takes a step forward and then another.
“That's the warrior nun's job. Right?”
Beatrice cannot understand, will not understand, what Ava is saying with her eyes. Or the words coming out of her mouth. She will not accept everything her instincts are telling her, that Ava would– that Ava is–
“They die so everyone else can live.”
“Ava, don’t–”
Ava’s mouth twitches, a sad facsimile of a smile, but her dark eyes glitter in Adriel’s cathedral.
“I'm doing this so you can live your life.” As she speaks, she walks closer. Within arm distance. “So live it. Okay?”
“I won’t. I can’t,” she swears.
“You can.” Ava’s eyes drift down and Beatrice can’t do this.
“I can’t.”
She moves. Moves to Grab the Crown with her right hand, and sweep it onto her head. Quick and clean, get Ava out of here before…
Ava counters, twisting Beatrice’s arm gently. She misses and Ava swings her around until they are pressed together. It’s a move Beatrice taught her during those halcyon days in the Alps. The breath rushes out her lungs, Ava’s grip firm but not painful on her wrist.
Beatrice’s eyes are wide, staring into Ava’s unfathomable ones, closer. Closer.
She’s... Ava is…
The thought malfunctions her brain, reboots, and rewires the synopses.
Ava kisses her and Beatrice’s eyes close. She stops thinking.
She presses forward, a hand reaching up to touch Ava’s cheek, so warm and soft underneath her fingertips. It’s a delicate thing, Beatrice’s heart beats an angry tattoo inside her chest and it’s beating Ava, Ava, Ava.
She cups the jaw she’s dreamt of each night, her thumb stroking against her cheekbone.
The kiss breaks and Beatrice doesn’t know what to do with her hands. She cannot open her eyes. This isn’t happening. She’s asleep or in limbo. Somewhere between heaven and hell where she finally kisses Ava only to send her off to die.
No. She strokes her face with her thumb. No.
Ava’s face moves and her lips ghost over Beatrice’s forehead. She opens her eyes.
The corners of Ava’s eyes sparkle and Beatrice smiles without permission. How can she do anything other than smile at Ava? The woman she loves more than anyone and anything.
“In the next.”
Beatrice’s chin wobbles.
Ava phases through the floor and leaves her behind.