Page 59 of Saint
“We won’t mind at all,” I tell him as he opens an unlocked door on the far end of the guesthouse, and we walk into the cool, shaded hallway. “And I’m happy to help with anything you need when it comes to the harvest.”
“We may accept your offer, because there is always so much to be done,” Brother Luc says. And then he adds, “How do you feel about bees?”
“Bees?” Elijah repeats warily.
“Bees,” Brother Luc confirms happily as we walk. “They pollinate the lavender and then we harvest their honey and sell it. We use it in the beer too. Ah, voici! The room is all ready for you, and the one down the hall is ready as well.”
I step into the cell he indicates and can’t help but smile. It is furnished as sparsely as one would imagine a Trappist cell to be, with a narrow wooden bed, a small desk, and a crucifix on the wall, but somehow, it’s still like the rest of Our Lady of the Fountains. Bright with sunshine pouring in, everything clean and fresh and pleasant beyond belief.
Elijah wheels his suitcase into his room and returns as Brother Luc hands us a small hand-drawn map of the abbey and points out the refectory, brewhouse, apiary, and the other outbuildings.
“The rest of the brothers are having a meeting now,” Brother Luc explains, “so we won’t be able to greet you properly until after dinner. And I must warn you that during the harvest, we keep the little hours on our own—stopping to pray wherever we are and then getting back to work. So I’m afraid you’re visiting at a time when our daily rhythm is less...” he seems to search for the right word in English. “Traditional.”
“We’re very modern men,” Elijah says smoothly. “Is there anything you’d like us to do before dinner? Or after?”
“You are completely free,” Brother Luc says. “As are all visitors here. I imagine Brother Patrick would like to pray the major hours with us, but they are not compulsory for guests. In fact, Abbé Bernard told me to tell you that he wishes for you to feel like a—oh, what is the word? Observer? Very new—before a postulant. And here, our observers are not expected to be so strict with their attendance; they are invited to spend their days discerning if they are meant for this place. Or rather, if this place is meant for them.”
Brother Luc glances at his watch and then flashes us another wide smile. “There’s plenty of beer stocked in the refectory if you’d like some to cool off with. The grounds are yours, and we’ll see you in a couple hours for dinner.”
Brother Luc leaves with a clasp of hands and a swish of his black scapular layered over his white Trappist robes, and then it’s just me and Elijah.
“Want to explore?” he asks at the same time I say, “Want to get a beer?”
* * *
We do both,and with cold, unlabeled bottles of beer in hand, we wander out to the lavender fields. Bees buzz everywhere, fat and fuzzy, and a faint breeze nods the purple heads of the flowers as we walk down one of the unnervingly straight rows. In the distance, I see monks milling around a stone farm building that looks older than the country I’m from, and up in the hills, I see the roof of a medieval chapel built over one of the springs that Our Lady of the Fountains is named for, according to Brother Luc.
Elijah follows my gaze up to the hill, coming to stand next to me. His fingers around the neck of his beer brush against mine, and even here in the July sun, even this close to the Mediterranean Sea, I shiver.
“Were any saints beheaded up there for those springs?” Elijah asks, nodding toward the hill. “Or perhaps a singing fish led a parched hermit to the water or something?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. “The Virgin Mary appeared on that hill to weep over a sick child. The springs appeared as her tears fell to the ground, and the child was healed by their waters after.”
“I can’t imagine why I didn’t guess that,” Elijah says, taking a drink.
“Let’s go up there,” I suggest suddenly. “It doesn’t look like too bad a climb, and we still have plenty of time before dinner.”
“All right,” Elijah agrees, which is how we find ourselves at the top of the hill twenty minutes later, panting and sweaty and also smelling of all the thyme and rosemary we crushed on our way up the hill.
But it’s undeniably worth it. Guarded by a mix of umbrella pines, white oak, and a few rogue beeches, the chapel overlooks the purple seam of the valley and reveals the craggy, tree-choked hills rumpling the landscape all the way down to the sea.
And then when we go inside the chapel itself, we are greeted with a shock of cool, cool air. A well was built around the holy spring and it now burbles sweetly in the corner of the chapel, leaving the place temperate and damp even in the bright heat of summer.
There’s an altar made of stone that looks like it hasn’t been used in at least a hundred years, but the wooden pews are solid and untouched by rot, and set on a windowsill, there’s—what else?—a small box for donations.
“You think they say Mass up here?” Elijah asks.
I watch as he runs a long finger along the edge of the altar. “No,” I say absently. “It’s been deconsecrated for some time. The abbey says it’s simply a place for contemplation for visitors these days.”
Elijah turns and looks at me, his lower lip catching between his teeth as his eyes trail down to my chest and shoulders and then back up to my face. “Do you think we have it to ourselves?” he asks softly.
I swallow. “Yeah.”
I move first, but he’s just as quick, and suddenly we are caught up in each other, my hands in his silk blend T-shirt, his in my scapular and then in my habit, and our mouths together, seeking and hot. And this is why I couldn’t properly pray last night, this is why excitement has been thrumming under my skin all day.
Because somehow I knew this would happen.
I knew we weren’t ready to stop.
