All the pieces snapped into place.
There was no Gray or home here. I was at the monastery.
I’d been dreaming of Ben and me when we were kids. At the beach house. It was a place apart, like it existed outside of everything. A place I could always go and find Ben. I hadn’t wanted to leave the dream.
Blowing out a sharp breath, I checked the clock on the stone monastery wall. It was near ten in the morning.
My thoughts switched back to Gray. He’d have found my note by now.
What was he thinking? Was he ever going to be able to forgive me for this?
The other women were gone, and the hexagonal room was still, except for the metronomes. I watched them ticking back and forth for a minute, wondering what the purpose of them was—each one on an otherwise empty shelf above each bed.
Remembering the eyes in the wall suddenly, I anxiously glanced around the room.
Nothing.
Still, I couldn’t help but watch the walls as I rose and padded across the floor. I wore a hooded outfit of loose, cream pants and shirt that I’d been given by Brother Vito last night. All of the program participants were to wear this gear for the whole week.
Poking my head around the open doorway, I realised I had no idea where to go.
Had the challenges started yet? I’d be left behind. I dashed into the bathroom first—at least I knew where that was. I peered into the dim mirror as I washed my hands and face. I looked strange in my monastery gear, my eyes so large and uncertain.
Running my fingers through my hair, I headed back into the silent air of the corridor. The monastery seemed as if it were in twilight, though it was morning outside.
I made a wrong turn into a small, dead-end recess. On the floor beneath a forbidding, winged statue, some child had once painted a small court for a hopscotch game. Immediately, I pictured Willow and Lilly and made a mental note to teach them the game.
I jerked my head up sharply at the sound of scuffling on the other side of the wall. Maybe I’d found the others already? I just had to find the door for the room on the other side.
Running out of the recess, I almost bumped straight into someone—Brother Vito.
“There you are.” He smiled, one eyebrow quirked. “What were you doing?”
“Getting lost.”
“Ah, let me help with that,” he said with a short laugh. “Come.”
He led me along the hall to a library stuffed with ancient-looking books. He indicated a framed piece of torn, yellowish parchment illustrated with thin, hexagonal lines. “These are the original plans of the monastery, from the twelfth century. Shame it’s not all there, but you’ll get the idea.”
“Wow, so old.” Constructing the missing half in my mind, I surmised that twenty-four rooms encircled six rooms—all hexagonal and all exactly the same size—with a large gap in between the outer and inner rings. Yet another twenty-four rooms ringed the outside. “Why the odd-shaped rooms?”
He nodded, frowning as though the answer was complicated. “The monastery was built with the purpose of taking in the mentally ill and giving them work and lodgings. It was thought that the hexagonal shape of the rooms would give rest to the afflicted. Squares were thought to be too sharp and threatening. Circles roll too fast. Hexagons were the best compromise, apparently. When you step inside the monastery, you’re meant to be stepping inside an ordered mind.”
I gazed back at the dimly lit hall outside the library, thinking no one would willingly want to be inside the mind of this monastery. But then I considered the mentally ill who once lived here. “Did it work? Were the people helped?”
“Well, that’s lost to history, I’m afraid. But it is a nice thought.” He touched the map with a forefinger. “I’ll give you a quick run through. Here at the top right, we have the old hospice—which we now call the dormitories—and the infirmary. And this is the library—where you are now, along with the scriptorium and the treasury. Next to the hospice, you’ll find the balneary, which is where the bathrooms are located. At the top is the refectory, which is what the dining hall is called. The kitchen also is located here. At the bottom left of the map, which has been torn away, are the old monks’ dormitory, which is where the mentors and long-term residents stay. The chapel is located in that quarter as well. Guests are not permitted to venture down that way.” He paused, looking back at me.
“What if we want to go and pray?” I quipped.
His face broke into an easy grin. “You don’t need a chapel in order to pray. We have wonderful gardens here if you find yourself needing a moment to commune with a higher power.” It occurred to me again that Brother Vito was a handsome man. I knew my mother would think so, and he looked about her age.