CHAPTER 15

“–money.” Sophia sighed and dropped back on her chair. “And she’s gone.”

“She’s a restless one, isn’t she?” Meredith chuckled. The mirth made her entire plump body jiggle.

“She’s impossible! When she isn’t taking a nap, she won’t stand still unless she’s eating something. And sometimes not even then!”

“That sounds like a kid.”

“Sometimes, she feels like it.”

Silence fell in the room, during which a ruffled Kora hopped off the table and flew out the window, flying in search of a less energetic napping spot—one that would not suddenly roar and run away.

Meredith eventually set her teacup down. “Now that your friend is gone, will you tell me what’s on your mind, love?” She had seen the troubled look in her granddaughter’s eyes, but she was also perceptive enough to know Sophia did not wish to discuss it in front of Sam.

“She’s not…” the young priestess started in exasperation but stopped, sighing—something she did with increased frequency. She met her grandmother’s gaze and took a deep breath. “Grandma, she’s a demon!”

“Is that so?” Instead of falling over herself in shock as Sophia expected, the old woman merely refilled her cup with tisane and hummed quietly, “I thought it was weird to see an oni outside of their homeland, even a half. They’re not a people for travel.” She looked at her flabbergasted granddaughter. “What? Did you think I would lose my shit or something? It’s not nice to wish your nice elderly grandma a heart attack.”

Sophia was so shocked she failed to bring up the vulgarity. “But she’s a demon!”

“I heard you the first time, girl. I’m senile, not deaf.”

“But she’s a demon!”

“Oh my, I think you might be having a stroke. I have some faun brandy that might help with that.” She made for a cupboard, flipped a fake back panel, and came back with a thick amber bottle. Popping off the cork, she added a large swig to her tisane. “Want some?”

“No!” Both of Sophia’s hands slammed on the table. “How are you not alarmed by this?! There is a demon, here, on Fair Isle!”

“Precisely. This is Fair Isle. And as you’re coming straight back from the Temple, I assume Goddess Rachiel is aware of this state of affairs, hmm?” Somewhat reluctantly, Sophia nodded. “Then, I see no need to be alarmed. If Her Gloriousness has allowed this demon by your side, then she must be very peculiar demon indeed.” She swallowed a mouthful of her spiked tisane. “Ahhh! That’s the stuff. It’s so hard to get quality booze in this pious hole, you know?”

She glanced at her granddaughter, waiting to see if she would react, but Sophia was staring mutely into her own cup. Meredith sighed kindly, put the alcohol and infusion aside, and leaned over the table. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really troubling you?”

“Could Her Gloriousness be wrong about this?” Sophia blurted out.

“Is that what’s bothering you? You are doubting Our Goddess?”

“No! I mean… I don’t know… maybe?” Sophia licked her lips nervously, searching her words. Meredith did not push her, leaving her to put a voice to her thoughts. “I know… I know our goddess has our greater good first in her heart, but… what if she’s making a mistake? Some of the things she told me… I don’t know… I don’t know if I have it in me to put my full trust in her judgement anymore. I feel lost, like someone snuffed off the light I’ve been following all my life. It’s been keeping me up at night. I’ve barely slept yesterday. I’m afraid to close my eyes and find myself in the dark again. And I can’t help but feel like I’m letting Her Gloriousness down, like I’m failing her by doubting her, after everything she’s done for all of us, after what she’s done for me. I feel like such an ingrate!”

Once the words started coming, they tumbled out of her mouth in an avalanche. Sophia ended with her face in her hands, silent tears rolling down her cheeks—something else that happened alarmingly often recently.

“Oh, my girl.” Meredith stood and walked around the table to embrace the crying woman. Sniffling, Sophia buried her face in her grandmother’s ample chest. Meredith gently rubbed her hair. “Faith is a beautiful thing, Sophia. But it’s quite different from blind devotion, no matter what the dull-witted, dogmatic and sycophants might tell you. You’re allowed to question the answers you’re given. I’d say you should, even. You cannot embrace your faith truly until you’ve decided to believe in its goodness for yourself, and not because someone else told you to.

“It’s all part of growing up. A child will only know right and wrong from what their parents taught them, because their young mind trusts their parents implicitly. As the child grows older, these beliefs are tested through trials, temptations, and suffering. It is only when they have examined those teachings through the lens of experience, and found those answers correct, that the child finally becomes an adult with morals, beliefs and faith truly their own.

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“It’s alright to have doubts. Because when there’s no doubt, there can be no real trust—only a child’s naïve devotion.”

Sophia’s had been listening intently, and her tears had calmed down. Without looking up, she asked, “Did you have doubts?”

“Me?” Meredith snorted. “Hah! I was such a bundle of insecurities I wouldn’t even trust me to be myself.”

Sophia frowned. “What does that even mean?”

The old woman’s voice became quiet and reflective. “For me, it means I felt I had to put up a mask to interact with people, because I thought the real me wasn’t worth their time or attention.”

“But that’s not true at all!” Sophia thought of the grandmother she knew, the woman who always seemed larger than life and let no one for her hand, who made sailors blush with her words alone, and scared the townsfolk out of sickness with just a glare.

“Hah! I know that now,” Meredith snickered. “But little Merry Hale from Fair Isle, who knew nothing and thought she had nothing genuine to offer, that lass had no idea. She thought she had to act out to make herself interesting. But the more she acted out, the more she felt rejected by her family and neighbours, who had no idea how to handle her. So one day, she marched into the temple, demanded to see the goddess, and she told Rachiel the Fair, right to her fair face, that she thought she was full of shit.”

Sophia’s eyes widened to saucers. “You did not!”

“I sure did.” The old woman laughed. “I told her all these grand talks of virtues and sins were empty blabber that served only to make empty people feel good about themselves—though, in a great many more words than that. And you know what she told me?”

Sophia shook her head, hanging to her grandmother’s every word.

“She told me of an empty crate that would be mistakenly brought onboard the Hydrangea, which set sail off the island in three days. She told me of the daughter of the captain, who had taken ill, and how the man wouldn’t report a stowaway who convinced him she could heal his daughter. She told me that if I thought her answers were ‘bullshit’, as I’d put it, then I was free to search for my own answers elsewhere. And she told me I would always be welcomed back if I chose to return.”

“She’s the one who told you to run away! I never knew that!”

“Because I never told anyone, except you… and Hemah.”

“Mama?” Sophia asked in a voice that sounded almost childish. Her hand crept to the pendant that never left her: the symbol of Her Goddess and her mother’s last birthday gift to her.

“Yes. We liked to discuss these matters of faith and self. Your mother had a knack for getting people to talk about themselves more than they intended to.”

“Why, though? Why wouldn’t you want people to know the truth?”

“Why?” Again, the old granny guffawed, her entire cubby body rippling with her laughter. “But because it’s much more fun that way, of course! I do have a reputation to uphold, after all.”

“But didn’t you say it was an act?”

“Ahhh,” Meredith exhaled wisely. “At what point has one’s mask been worn for so long that it becomes part of them? Hahaha. Well, that’s a fancy way to say it. The gist of it is, over the decades I spent away, I figured out which part of my ‘act’ I actually enjoyed and which I could enjoy, and which were fallacy and self-destructive madness. As I said, this is all part of growing up. Never feel ashamed to doubt, not even in yourself, and don’t be in too much a hurry to shut yourself in a role you think is yours.” She pushed Sophia back slightly and looked into her eyes that looked so much like her son’s. “Got it?”

The young priestess wiped her eyes and nodded solemnly. She was taking her elder’s words to heart like she would the wisdom of the scriptures, and she promised herself to meditate on them later.

“And remember, doubt is not unbelief. You don’t need to abandon the goddess’ teachings just because you question them. Keep those doubts close at heart, and cautiously follow the path the goddess gave you. Tread carefully, see for yourself the consequence of that path, and then decide if you trust in Rachiel.”

“Did you?”

“Well, I’m here, ain’t I?” Meredith smiled wryly. “If it wasn’t for trust, why would I force myself to endure a six-month delivery time at an exorbitant rate for some Emerrose brandy? If that’s not a fucking vow of abnegation, I don’t know what is.” She made a disgusted grimace, which turned to a smirk when she got an embarrassed laugh out of her granddaughter.

“Never change, grandma.”

“I’m too old for that, kid. …but does that mean you’ll approve of me fucking the blacksm–”

“GRANDMA!! We were having an emotional moment!”

“Bah! Never was one for sappiness.” She reached for her cup of alcoholised tisane and downed half the content in one go. “Ahhh… Are you sure you don’t want some? Ain’t no one who makes brandy like the fauns of Emerrose, that’s for sure. Come on. Just a lick. We can toast to your oncoming journey of self-discovery.”

“We shall not!” Sophia sat up, her face pinched in full High Priestess mode. “For one, because alcohol is a vice that turns even the most respectable men and women into complete scoundrels. And two…” She averted her gaze, and her voice flattered into a barely audible mumble. “I’d rather not have my faculties impaired around Sam.”

“Mmh?” Meredith put her hand around her ear. “What was that last part? Something about a sexy demoness?”

“Nothing!” The young priestess abruptly stood. “Err… Has there been any new patient in the past week?”

The older priestess made a sour face. “Tsk. Actually, yes, there’s one I could use your help with. Some paltry cretin from the Beatrice fell off the gangway and broke his leg. I’d take care of him, but the bone would never be set before the ship set sails tomorrow.”

“Perfect! I’ll go see him right away!” Sophia tried to bolt out of the room before Meredith could embarrass her any further, leaving behind the old woman rolling her eyes.

“Maybe banging a demon will pull that stick out of her arse…”

“I can still hear you!!”

Sophia closed the door of the apartment just a little harder than strictly necessary, and she marched down the hallway to the only room marked as occupied. Still preoccupied with her own embarrassment, she barged in without knocking.

The two men inside straightened abruptly, one in the bed, the other on a chair left in for visitors. Both had the looks of foreigners, and the visitor sat with his legs spread out and his feet firmly planted on the floor as if he expected the room to pitch. Sophia had already decided these were the sailors from the Beatrice, but she still thought polite to ask.

She smiled at the man in the bed. “You’re the cret– I’m sorry. You’re the man who broke his leg?” At his nod, she continued. “I’m Sister Sophia. I’m a magical healer. If you’d let me take a look at your leg, I’ll have you climbing up the masts in the hour.”  

“Aye, Your Grace, we’d hoped you’d come.”

The man’s chapped lips hooked up onto a wide grin, revealing rotten gums and several missing and broken teeth.

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