She could not have been properly poisoned. I wager it was the slightest envenomation at best.
Or likely some trickery, some feigned debilitation.
Or perchance the Daughter smiles darkly upon the child.
Or it could have been the Son’s bright blessing. Didn’t I hear that in the depth of her slumber, she cried out to the moon and—
This last conversation had been cut off by the arrival of Prioress Ghyle, who sent the pair of monks out with an exasperated roll of her eyes and a stern frown at Nyx—as if she had done something wrong.
But Nyx’s survival was not the only miracle hidden away in this room.
She rubbed her tender eyes, knowing her lids were bruised from the constant attention paid to her returned sight. Every time her eyelids drooped in exhaustion, someone would pry them back open.
Nyx had paid extra attention to any attempts to explain this particular miracle, a wonder that had still left her unmoored. It was as if she had come out of the darkest cave into the brightest day. While she should have been grateful, a part of her still wished to return to the comfort and familiarity of that cave. Even her first attempt at walking this morning, supported on the prioress’s arm, was as if she were a babe new to this world. She wanted to attribute it all to the weakness from being bedbound for so long, but she knew part of it was her adjusting to her eyesight. After so many years, her shadow-riven blindness was writ deep upon her spirit, on her bones, on how she moved through life. Now her mind struggled to balance who she was in the past with this newly sighted person today.
Ghyle seemed to innately understand. “You will find your equilibrium,” she had promised.
Nyx stared at the cane in the corner, the length of elm wood she had abandoned in the astronicum a lifetime ago. She still needed it, even with her sight miraculously returned to her.
With a sigh, Nyx placed a palm over both eyes.
Darkness still felt more like home to her.
“Awf, I’ve gone and overstayed myself,” her dah said. “Look at you rubbing your eyes and all. You must be tired. I should leave you to your rest.”
She lowered her hands, a smile on her lips and an ache in her heart. “Never, Dah. You could never overstay.”
She stared at the man who had rescued her from the swamps and offered up his home and all his love. In just one day’s time, her newfound sight had revealed details both subtle and profound in the world around her, but it had offered nothing new here.
Her father’s face was as she had always known it to be. Over the years, she had traced his every line, his every bump and scar of his past. Her fingers had combed through his hair as it had thinned. Her palms had felt the skull under his skin. More so, by now, his every smile and frown were as familiar to her as her own. Even his eyes were the color she had always imagined: a muddy green, like the quaggy bottom of a bright pond.
She didn’t need sight to know this man.
In this moment, she recognized how mistaken she had been a moment ago. She stared deeply at the man who mirrored back all of her love.
This is my truest home.
Her dah stirred, plainly readying himself to stand. “I should go.”
An objection came from the doorway. “Mayhap not yet, Trademan Polder.”
Both their gazes turned to the doorway. Prioress Ghyle stepped inside, leading Physik Oeric behind her.
“I would like to ask you about the day you found Nyx in the swamps, a babe abandoned in the fen.” Ghyle waved Nyx’s dah to settle back on his stool. “It could prove fruitful to understanding what has happened. Mayhap even in her care from here.”
Her dah yanked off his cap and nodded vigorously. One hand smoothed his bog-stained summer vest, as if ashamed to be found in such a state. “Most certainly, your prioress. Anything to help you or the lass.”
Irritation flashed through Nyx at her dah’s humbleness. He had no reason to bow or scrape before anyone at the Cloistery.
Ghyle crossed and sat on the edge of the bed with a tired sigh. The prioress nodded to Nyx’s dah, the two of them now eye to eye with one another. “Thank you, Trademan Polder.”
Her dah’s shoulders relaxed. Nyx realized she had never seen the prioress in any other posture but one of straight-backed authority. Her manner now was warmer, one of invitation versus command.
Physik Oeric joined them, but he remained standing with his arms crossed over his thin chest.
“What do you all wish to know?” her dah asked.
“As I understand, Nyx was a babe of six moons when you found her.”
“Aye, that’s right.” Her dah smiled, relaxing even more, happy to recount his story, one he gladly shared with anyone willing to hear it. He told again of hearing Nyx’s cries in the swamp. “’Course ol’ Gramblebuck heard her first. All but dragged our sledge straight to her.”
“And you saw no one else about?” Ghyle asked. “No sign of who left her?”
He shook his head. “Not a footfall or broken reed. ’Twas as if she fell straight out of the sky and into a floating bed of fenweed.”
Ghyle glanced at Oeric, who shared a silent pinched look, then spoke up. “And young Nyx was blind even then?”
Her dah’s smile faded. “Truth. Poor thing. The surfaces of her eyes were already clouded and blued over. Not clear as polished crystal like now. Maybe that was why the baby was abandoned to the swamp. It is hard enough to eke a living in the deep fen. But their loss was my gain.”
Nyx again wondered about her true parents. An old bitterness sharpened inside her. She was not as forgiving as her dah. She cleared her throat, wanting to turn the conversation from such a prickly subject.
“What does any of this have to do with what’s happened to me?” Nyx asked.
All gazes swung to her, but the prioress answered. “Physik Oeric and I believe you were not born sightless.”
Nyx flinched at such a claim. “I have no memory of ever—”
“You might not remember it,” Oeric said. “But plainly you always had the ability to see. It was the bluish haze across the surface of your eyes that hid the world from you.”
“And now it’s cleared,” her dah said. “A miracle. A true blessing of the Mother.”
Nyx kept her focus on the prioress. “What do you think happened to me, what blinded me all those years ago?”
Ghyle looked to Oeric, then back again. “We believe something in the swamps tainted you. A poison, perhaps. Maybe a pall of noxious air.”
Her dah nodded. “There be all manner of nasties out there.”
Oeric stepped closer, his voice sharpening with interest. “It could also be an ill reaction to something you encountered. I’ve read treatises about how the dust in ancient rooms can bring about a phlegmonous catarrh. It’s often ascribed to hauntings or to the presence of trapped daemons. But others believe it might be related to a similar affliction that strikes many in the springtime, due to the casting forth of a flower’s must during the blooming season, what those in the Southern Klashe call Rose Fever.”
Her dah’s confused expression matched her own. “But what does that have to do with Nyx’s blindness?”
Oeric answered, “Usually, if not proven deadly, such reactions fade on their own. But sometimes they can leave lasting debilitation.” He waved thin fingers at Nyx’s face. “Like blindness.”