That night a while after we’d all gone to bed a soft rapping came to our door. Grafton woke up first. “Francis,” he whispered, “someone is at the door.” I forced myself awake. It was strange, indeed, to be woken at night. I got up and let Brother Eustace in. He held a candle in his hand and looked ghoulish in his nightgown.
“Sorry to disturb you, but Norton is gone again.”
“What?” I was incredulous. Grafton lit a lantern and the room glowed. We cast long shadows on the stone walls.
“Where could he have gone?” Grafton asked. “Back to the woods?”
Eustace shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know. Will you help me find him? I’d rather not disturb the abbot at this hour.”
So the three of us in our nightgowns searched the halls up and downstairs. The tight staircases wrapped around. Eustace was tall and had to stoop so as not to bump his head. Norton was nowhere to be found.
“We are going to have to look outside,” I acknowledged. Grafton huffed but followed us outside where the crickets were chirping. “Shh…” I held my index finger to my lips. We all stopped and listened. I could hear something past the bugs. “I think it’s coming from the garden,” I whispered.
We kept a garden full of medicinal herbs: hellbore, lady’s mantle, monkshood, nightshade, pennyroyal, sage, soapwort, thistle, thyme, vervain, woad, wolfsbane, yarrow, and the like. Brother Ignatius was the head gardener, and Edmund, the alchemist. I helped them with my bees. I saw something white floating through the dark garden and for an instant mistook it for a ghost. The abbey had its share of wandering spirits before the Pestilence. Afterwards we were a virtual zoo of spooks for a while until Mother Agatha and Sister Sarah set most of them free. None of us scoffed at ghosts. Grafton held up the lantern.
“Is that him?” Eustace asked softly. He stepped quickly towards the white figure and we followed behind timidly. Neither Grafton nor I were up for ghost hunting. As we closed in I noticed it was indeed a living being, Norton, and he seemed as if he was under a spell or in a trance.
Eustace shook his shoulder. “Norton?” His mouth was hanging open and his pupiless eyes shone in the night, rolled back in his head. “Norton!” He shook his shoulder harder this time, which seemed to have some effect as it looked as if Norton was waking up.
“He’s asleep,” Grafton was flabbergasted as were we all.
“Sleep walking, somnambulism, my little brother used to walk in his sleep and scare the hell out of us.” I revealed.
“Yes,” Brother Eustace was relieved. “Let’s get you back to bed. Thank you.”
We nodded and all went back to our rooms. Once in bed and the lantern extinguished Grafton looked over at me. “That was a damn scary thing.”
“Yes.” I rolled over and fell back asleep. I dreamed of the wild girl in the woods again. This time she was playing a flute and beckoning to someone.
