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"What did I say?" I asked, honestly terrified of the answer

"It doesn’t matter now" She tucked the covers in around an used to do "All you need to do is lie there and rest and--"

"What did I say?"

"Crazy things" The girl’s voice was a whisper "A lot of it we didn’t understand The rest--between us all--we pieced together"

"Like what?" I gripped her hand tightly, as if trying to squeeze the truth out

"Like you go to a school for spies"

The woray eyes She was followed by a young nun with red hair and a Hungarian accent, and a pair of twins in their late forties who huddled together and spoke Russian, low and under their breaths

At irl nobody sees But not then Not there The sisters who surrounded ht into lass of water and instructed me to sip it very slowly It was the sweetest stuff I’d ever tasted, and so I downed it all in one long gulp, but then I started choking--ers looked at me as if to say, Told you so

I don’t knohether it was the habits or the accents or the stern order that I should lie perfectly still, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d found myself surrounded by another ancient and powerful sisterhood I knew better than to go against them, so I stayed where I was and did exactly as I was told

After a long ti eased toward me and took a seat at the foot of my bed "Do you knohy you’re here?"

Where’s here? I wanted to say, but so ina sort of project for school I had to split off from the others I must have…lost my way" I felt my voice break and told myself it was okay Even the Mother Superior couldn’t blame me Technically, it wasn’t a lie

"We’re a bit worried about that head of yours," Mary said "You s we can’t do here And soht about my mother and my friends, and finally, about the Circle of Cavan I looked down at my broken body and wondered if maybe I’d already been found Then I studied the innocent faces that surrounded e of panic: What if the Circle finds me here?

"Gillian?" Mary said It was an e to me "Gillian, are you okay?"

But I was alreadyoff the bed and across the rooo"

Six days I’d been in one place, defenseless I didn’t kno I’d coer I stayed, the closer the Circle would be to finding me I had to leave And soon

The Mother Superior, however, didn’t seeanizations She had the look of a wo it on

"You will sit," she spat in heavily accented English

"I’m sorry, Mother Superior," I said, , and I couldn’t stay any longer Suiven myself until the end of the summer to follow in my father’s footsteps, and I didn’t dare waste a rateful to you and the sisters If you will give me your name and an address, I’ll send you money…payment for your services and--"

"We do not want your money We want you to sit"

"If you could direct me to the train station--"

"There is no train station," the Mother Superior snapped "Now, sit"

"I can’t sit down! I have to leave! Now!" I looked around the sown that wasn’t ers "I need my clothes and shoes, please"

"You don’t have any shoes," Mary said "When we found you, you were barefoot"

I didn’t want to think about what that nore the evil that ht have followed me to their door

"I need to leave," I said slowly, searching the Mother Superior’s eyes "It would be best if I left…now"

"Impossible," the Mother Superior said, then turned to the sisters "Wenn das M&auehen lassen würden, dann ist sie verrückt"

My hands shook My lips quivered I kno Ifor , now You aren’t in any trouble The Mother Superior just said--"

"Snow" I pulled aside a curtain, looked out on a vast expanse of white, and whispered against the frosty glass, "She said snow"

"Oh, that’s nothing" Mary took the curtain fro it back to block the chill "These parts of the Alps are very high, you see And, well, we’ve just had a bit of an early spell"

I jerked away fro to myself, It is June It is June It is--

"Tooing to be sick"

Mary grabbed me by the arm and helped me limp down the hall, past crucifixes and frosty s to a bathroom with a cold stone floor