The Singing Sisters live a quiet life most days. The pilgrimage to their island is not treacherous but not pleasant, even on the days when the sun did not glisten on the calm, lapping waves.
I made that voyage once, with my mother, long ago. As we arrived on the island, I leapt out of the boat and towards the beach before we had even landed. I can still remember the shock of the cold water on the hot day. How -when I stopped running at the sound of mother’s voice to look back at her- the sand trailed over my feet as the waves rolled in and out.
She told me to watch where I stepped, for rocks and jellyfish and other dangers. I looked down in fear, but through the clear water all I could see was the golden, shifting sand and the tiniest bit of foam from that gentle, lapping tide. A fish passed by my foot, smaller than my largest toe, and I shrieked with joy, for I had never seen a fish so small.
I had never seen a fish at all until we had arrived at the harbor village the week before. We departed from there two days before. I hadn’t liked the big fish in the market, smelling and looking at me with their death, judging eyes. Neither had I liked the dolphins that raced our small boat after one of them bumped against the edge and put the terror of over-turning in me. The fish here had no interest in me other than to avoid me. The fish didn’t smell here, all I could smell was the sea.
The salt stung the scratches on my arms and my legs, but I didn’t care. I could have stayed there, in that in-between space of being in the water and on the shore at one time, until the sun set over the waves. Although my stomach would have fought me on that. Along with the salt of the sea, I could also smell the warm fires from the little huts nearby and something cooking. To such a small girl, it smelled like paradise.
I jumped from step to step, laughing at the slight pull and push of the waves and the way my feet sank if I stayed still for too long. I didn’t see any other fish, but delighted in kicking and splashing. Mother came to join me, splashing me and laughing with me.
I was so happy. It was the first time in a long time I had seen her smile. She had been soul-sick for so long before that that the sound of her laughter was almost as odd and new as that of a stranger's. She caught my hand, glad as I was to be off the boat and away from the deep water with all the terrifying things it hid. We walked out of the water with her pointing out details of the island I might have missed.
“Look at those birds!” she told me, throwing out her hand to point at them. Those are seagulls. Aren't they marvellous? There was a small wooden peer to jump off. Other children I could play with were doing just that, but I stayed with my mother. Next she pointed at the small orchid where delicious-looking orange fruit grew. We wondered together how they might taste. Of course we talked about the abbey.
Strange, it’s a small building really, but it looked so much bigger. I had seen bigger buildings as we travelled. The inn we stayed at the first week away from home had been twice the size. However, it didn't feel like that. Maybe because it is on a small island surrounded by smaller buildings, but it felt like I was looking at a castle instead of a single-story stone church with a bell tower.
The sisters came to greet us, and the others off the boats. They smiled and talked, welcoming us with warm voices and cool drinks. It astonished me at the time to hear them simply speaking. I had expected that they would sing their magic or be silent, in the simple logic of my childhood. One came to me, pressing a clay mug of sweet juice into my hands and asking my name and how I had found the journey.
Although I was only a small child, she spoke to me as if I deserved the respect of an adult, and at that moment I fell in love with the sisters and their long green robes and the white cloths that covered their hair. I loved the tiny glass beads that hung, one after the other, like trailing beads of dew on a flower petal, on a small chain dangling from their ears.
Other people came then, care-takers of the island. I simply had not expected them to exist and said as much to the amusement of the sister who spoke with me. I thought it would be just the sisters and their little island home. The caretakers came to us, taking us from the charge of the sisters with enormous smiles and open arms.
They took us to a square in front of the abbey, where some simple wooden chairs and tables laid out on a large stone mosaic. I thought that the mosaic must mean something but I would learn, in time, that it might have done once but as stone chipped and broke, they replaced it with whatever fit without thought for color or design or original intent. Which makes sense, I suppose. Intent never mattered much to the sisters.
We were each led to a chair by a caretaker who may be an adult or a child, and they rubbed ointment to our hands and feet as the sisters said a blessing over us. My caretaker was a young woman who hummed as she worked. Her hands had rough callouses, and she rubbed my skin in small circles with her thumb in a way that felt nice. It tickled my feet, and she pinched my nose in play when I laughed and squirmed away from her touch. The caretakers stepped back and one sister brought out a piece of the Singer’s silk, the thing they were famous for. It almost glowed under the light of the sun; it was like liquid, like the water of the lapping tide, the way it moved with the fingers of the sister holding it up. The design on it was tiny, intricate and delicate in a way that did not seem possible for a thing made of human hands.
They greeted everyone who comes to the island in these chairs with the same ritual. It does not matter if you are a king or a fisherman, a duchess or a weaver, you sit together on these chairs and they tend to you before showing a piece of the silk. The chairs aren’t very comfortable, and nor is the feeling when it is over and they take the silk away. Even a bright day like that seems duller. I would learn that, too, from my time on the island.
After that, they bring the food out in large trays made from the wood of the orchid trees. I remember being a little disappointed that the chairs and the trays were so plain, so simple, after seeing the beauty of the silk. Having made a few myself in the years since, I appreciate simplicity more. The food was simple too, but there is nothing sweeter than a simple fruit, plucked at the right time, enjoyed with no fuss. They served the fish with honest vegetables and without sauce. The food is honest because it must be.
This is the time for the telling of secret truths. This is the pilgrimage.
They took my mother and the others to the abbey to be heard. I could play with the children, and they showed me their island with pride. I should have known then that I was staying, that my mother was going to leave me. I had a most enjoyable evening playing with the children. The older ones showed me where I could find anything I needed on the island and, knowing what I did not, they told me of their duties and adventures that they could have. My mother and the others came out long after the sun had set.
Almost all of them were still crying. A lot of them were smiling too. I could understand the tears, but the smiles were a mystery to me. It had been glorious, sitting on the beach with the others, eating berries and watching the sunset on the water. I had never seen such colors before. However, I jumped up when I saw my mother and ran into her arms, laughing. She hugged me so tightly then. She did not smile.
The older children took me to one hut, where I was given a mattress and a blanket to sleep. My mother came with me and it was her gentle rubbing of my hair and face that I fell asleep too. She was still there when I woke up, having never let go of my hand. She smiled at me and whispered to me about how good my life was going to be from that moment, how much she loved me. I feel asleep again to her sweet whispers and, when I woke up, she was getting ready to go.
We said goodbye at the docks, with a promise to see each other again. I cried because I didn’t understand why she couldn’t stay with me. I didn't know I wasn't going until the last moment. I held her and cried until someone else, a caretaker, took me in arms and kept me from running into the boat. I screamed and fought so very hard, but I was only a child. My mother cried too, but she did so from her seat on the boat. I started to forget my mother too soon after that, and her laugh once again became that of a stranger’s.
A few weeks after my mother left on a tiny boat, a great ship visited the island. They anchored it in the distance and we could see the men climbing onto the small boats to come ashore. The children were all fascinated by the large sails and the rough-shod men. A few of them tried to sneak their way onto the ship in a dingy. They were bought back and lectured about making others worry, but none of them seemed very remorseful. I had no interest in the ship then; I was too busy being miserable.
A kind elder instructed me to be a good girl and go work in the abbey kitchen with the others. I was too small to cut or to cook, or to carry the heavy trays. So instead I worked with an older boy to pour the juice into the clay mugs and clean the trays before they brought them out. It would not have taken so long had there not been so many visitors. Not all of them were going to the abbey, but they all came ashore for the welcoming ceremony and a feast. It was enough for the entire process to take several days. They came with a prince of some sort, and he was to be seen last of his men because that was the Sister's way.
I wondered if the silk shown then was made from my mother’s sin.
After the last of the trays were taken out to the last of the rituals, they excused me. There was always something needing doing and someone to tell you to do it. I had learned that quickly, so I ran off before they could give me another instruction. I hadn’t minded the work even then, not really. It took my mind off missing my mother. However, I tired of cleaning after spending days wiping trays. The Sisters asked the children not to look at those who were soul sick. An elder caretaker always saw them to during the ritual. It was a rare thing, to be sick in your soul. So it was unfortunate that I glanced him when I was young enough to allow my curiosity to rule me.
He was walking, with one caretaker and one sister, to the abbey. He wore a thin crown of braided leather and his clothes were not fancy, but built for the rough weather of sea travel. He wore a small sword at his hip. His eyes sunken and his cheeks hollow, he reminded me of my mother.
I froze on seeing him, this grand prince who had taken such a large ship and so many men to rid him of his sins. What kind of man was he? What kind of sin required such an effort? Was it adultery (a word I had heard but did not understand)? Did he steal something? Did he kill someone?
I hadn’t thought I had much of an imagination before. I would have said that my father had beaten it out of me along with back-talk and bad manners. I believed I was on this island to pay my mother’s debt, that she had left me somewhere I could do so safe and sweet. The sisters needed the caretakers because their work, I would learn, consumed them as much as it did their time. I would even learn later that the abbey would provide me with a small dowry when I came of age. Or I could choose to join their worthy company and become a Singing Sister myself.
These are the things that should have played on imagination. What would happen if I broke the rules? Would they send me away? I didn’t think about any of these things. I was too young to waste time worrying about consequences. I thought only of that prince, that poor soul. I wondered about the sins of others without the shame that should carry.
I had heard the Sisters’ singing by then. The beautiful music that filled the air and hid the sound of the confession. I knew soon it would cover the sound of the prince’s sins and they would be lost to me forever. I would never know what he had done to make his soul sick.
I couldn’t stand it. I looked around, brushing off my skirts to seem innocent, and saw no one was around to notice me. No one would come looking for me until it was time for bed. We had already eaten, and they would not come looking for a girl they hadn’t developed a habit of seeing yet. I ran behind the huts, through the orchid, to the back of the abbey. There was a garden back here. The others had said that we should start weeding and preparing the ground for planting soon. This, I decided, would be my excuse.
There was a window here that showed into the room where the Sisters worked, spinning their silk. I peaked in and saw the sisters greeting the prince. To my delight, the window was open. I sat under the roof and waited for it to begin.
I could hear the prince thanking the Sisters for agreeing to see him and for all that they had done for his men. To me, as young as I was, he was a man with the authority that entails. However, now that I think about it, he was only a boy. He was maybe twenty, in clothes that were too small, a crown that was too big and with a voice that shook as he thanked the Sisters. I did not dare to look a second time, but I could hear the fear in his voice. I was frightened too, sitting under the window in the dirt, but I could not tell you why.
His sin wasn’t worth the risk I took, if I’m honest. I had imagined it to be this big terrible thing, and it was a simple mistake with a tragic end.
He had mistaken some advice he had gotten and said the wrong area when delivering the order. A simple mistake for a newly crowned man who had not slept for days. The road was meant to unify some of his lands, and instead it caused a mudslide that had killed some of his people. He cried while he spoke, and the Sisters sang.
They did not offer him comfort or speak to him. They simply let him speak as they sang their chorus and did their work. This is how it was for everyone. When he finished, they made him tell them again from the start. Their song was beautiful, but I had heard it before. His confession had left me neither entertained nor enlightened. I wish now, as I often had in the years that followed, that I had been brave enough to peer through the window again and seen how the Sisters spun that silk.
I slunk away, dirty and disappointed for reasons I didn’t understand, away from the song and the tears of that poor boy. I couldn’t listen to his testimony the second time. I paused at the front of the abbey and stood looking at the small community in front of me, not knowing where to go.
“Are you all right?” It was a Sister, coming out with an empty mug ready to be refilled.
“I was pulling weeds!” I said.
I hoped so hard that she would believe me and was so glad when she simply gave me the mug with a request to refill it for our guest.
That was another reason I loved the Sisters, they never gave us orders or demands. They always asked. That was when I first questioned my actions, and the consequences that could have come from them. I did not sleep well that night.
In the morning, the prince said goodbye to the Sisters at the beach. I stayed in one of the little huts that we all shared, but looked out at him from my window. He smiled at them, not noticing me at all. I looked at him and thought that while his cheeks were still hollow, his eyes were not. The Sisters sang another song to say goodbye to the big ship. I’m not even sure if those on board could hear it over the wind and activity of casting off. That’s when I noticed it.
The song was just as sad and sweet as the last time I had heard it, but now I could hear the silent Sisters. Some of them were opening their mouths but not singing, and I could hear their silence and the secrets they were pouring out into the sea air.
I never listened at the window again, but it did not matter. Something about that day had changed me. After that, every time they heard a confession and sang their song, I would hear it too. It didn’t matter what part of the island I was on, I could feel the sins of others leaching into my skin and being made a part of me. I hear the silence everywhere. I hear the betrayals and the secret longings and the lies. Most of all, I heard the truth. And I carried it all.
I have tried to listen to just the words of the song. I have tried putting my head under the water and listening to the motion of the great sea while they sing. I have tried to sing and shout over it myself. Nothing works. The silence followers me everywhere, it wakes me from dreaming.
At first, I was so afraid that I would ruin their silk, that somehow my actions would spoil the monumental works that they did. I need not have. The silk stayed sublime. It went on for years, until my last year, my last season, my last day.
I had been used to this ceremony. I had attended many times. We came of age and they gave us a choice. You had to leave and go into the world, or (if you were a girl) you could join the order. Some of those who left would return later and become the older caretakers. Some of them had families here. However, you had to leave first. Even if you were born there. It was important that we stay a part of the world; that was the reason the Sisters gave us.
I never wanted to take one step away from this life, this island. I loved its shores since I first jumped off the boat and into its clean water. As soon as I learned that there was a decision to be made, I made it. I would become a Singing Sister and aid anyone who came to the island. I would no longer sully their song because I would be a part of it.
It was not a grand celebration. The morning you turned eighteen, they brought you into the abbey. The abbey was open to all of us when there was no confession being heard, but it felt different on that day. The floor I had swept and the windows I had washed all seemed to gleam, as if welcoming me home. The Sisters stood waiting for me, in welcome, as they had done the day I arrived.
Several of them ran forward to hug me, and I hugged them tightly back. They had grown to love me as they grew to love every child. I loved them too and I was proud that I was soon to be one of them.
“This is a special day,” said the one who had caught me all those years ago. She was the only one I had avoided over the years, and it was she that came forward to take my hands. “Today no one will need to do any weeding.”
I froze as she watched me. I wasn’t afraid that she would hit me, but I was afraid.
“It’s all right, dear,” she told me. “We were all the girl under the window once.”
“You knew?” I asked her. She still had my hands, and she gave them this small squeeze and I knew she loved me all the same.
“Everyone listens eventually,” she said. “It’s not a trick, just human nature. It would happen even if we did not create the opportunity.” The Sisters behind her smiled and shared looks amongst themselves. It hadn’t occurred to me before that the Sisters would have their own secrets.
“How do you mean ‘create the opportunity’?” I asked.
“My dear,” she said, “Why do you think we keep the window open?”
“But… why?” I asked. “If the sins cannot be given fully, they cannot be forgotten. You told us that”
“That’s why, dear. So they are not forgotten too quickly,” said the sister.
“And because the Tsarina needs a wedding dress and veil,” said another of the sisters. “And mismatched silk will not do.” They all laughed then and, seeing that I did not, some came forward to hug me again with a mash of apologetic noises and admonishing clucking.
"I do not understand," I said then, feeling foolish to admit it but unable to keep any more secrets from them.
"It is a burden," said another sister, an elderly one. “To carry the weight of the horrors and hopes of others."
They were moving me as she talked, ushering me away from the main hall and into their workshop. There was a chair waiting for me. The window behind it was closed.
The place was always clean, but the air felt heavy in that room. I saw the racks and needles they used for their silk making. The chair they sat me in was one of those for the arrival ceremony. She planted a kiss on my forehead, as was the palm of my hands.
They took their places for their work to begin. They sang.
"Now dear," said one of my dearest friends, "Tell us everything."
I opened my mouth and the sins of others poured out. I started with my hollow-eyed prince, and everyone of them that followed. I did not forget a single person, of that I am sure. I spoke things that might have caused others to recoil in horror or shake with love or scream in anger. I did none of those things. These were not my sins, I had simply borrowed them. I spoke of the man who had abandoned the girl he loved, of the woman who stole from her mother. I spoke of things I will not mention here.
It took hours. I could rest and was provided with a cup of water. I didn't want to rest. I wanted to speak, to be free of it. I felt lighter with each word I spoke. I watched them work, seeing how their hands moved as they sang.
The silk was breathtaking. Which is unfortunate when you need your breath to speak. I tried to only look at it when taking those minor breaks. It danced in the slim beams of sunlight that floated into the room from the windows and beams above them. I desperately wanted to touch it then, to hold it in my hands and see how soft it felt.
The sun was setting when I finished telling them what I knew. I took a breath and a moment to enjoy the lightness of being. I waited for the song to end as I looked out the window at the sun setting over the water as it had done those many years ago.
I finally understood the smiles I had seen years before.
I looked at the sisters in confusion, but they kept working and singing in the darkening room. The older ones didn’t work with their hands, just their voices. The work had riddled their hands and taken their sight a long time ago, but they still sang so beautifully.
"I've finished," I said, "I have told you everything."
"No, dear," said the sister who had greeted me off the beach. "Not everything."
Fear is a funny thing. You can wake up in the middle of night with the idea of a monster. You can spend hours trying to run from the truth, sticking your head under water to avoid other people's lives and lies. But the really scary things are the ones you never think about, the ones you never allow yourself to even whisper into your thoughts or your dreams. That was the fear that I felt then. Unexpected and inevitable.
“-Not yours to carry,” said the sister. “Like all the others.”
I cried then. I cried and screamed and cursed at them. They kept singing. I tried to run out of the room, but they blocked my way. I refused and announced that my resolve would last longer than their voices could hold. They didn't fight me, or comfort me, or do anything other than sing that beautiful, wretched song that I could never hide from. The silence was there as well, and it filled me as much as it did the room. I cried and cried, but eventually it grew too much. The silence weighed on my chest and I felt like I was drowning, the ocean of the sins of others filling me and leaving nothing of my breath, my voice. I couldn't stand it anymore.
My father loved us every day of his life. He bought the puppy after hearing of some raiders along the coast. My mother looked at the paws of the lump that sat in my tiny lap and licked my face and declared he was going to grow into a donkey, not a dog.
I had tensed when she said it, but my father had merely laughed and caught her up in a big hug. He spun her around the room and both of them laughed. The puppy barked at him, making us all laugh harder, and my father declared the dog was already proving protective.
Protective, but not smart. We named him Carrot, because he dug several up the first day we had him. He liked to eat them and complain about the taste the entire time in these funny moaning noises.
Carrot loved me best of all. We went everywhere together. He slept in my room and brought me whatever unfortunate animal he caught when running in the fields. My mother was right. He grew big, up to my father's hip, with shaggy grey fur that had several small and half-hidden spots and flecks of black and brown. His eyes were the warmest brown I had ever seen, and he made the best pillow.
When my father drank and got angry, Carrot would whine and put his body between him and my mother. He often got a kick and booted out the door for his trouble. One night, after my father accused her of turning even the dog against him, my mother asked me to take Carrot into my room or outside if my father seemed angry.
My father was a good man. He played with us. He brought my mother flowers every day during the spring and let me ride on his shoulders to the creek. He brought us sweets whenever he came back from the market. He tucked me in at night and kissed my head and called me his darling. He loved us every day of his life.
Carrot loved us too. He loved my father too. He and my father wrestled and went hunting and ran into the creek water together on sunny days. He was a good dog. He never would have bitten my father had he not hit me.
It wasn't the first time, but Carrot had warned him before in barks and growls. Father had slapped mother over a hole in his trousers that she hadn't noticed. I tried to take Carrot outside, but he whined and pulled me. He was a big dog, much stronger than I was. Father yelled at me to shut him up or take him outside. Carrot barked at him. I tried to take him out, I really did.
I could barely get the words out to the sisters at this point in the tale. They offered me no comfort. Confessions are something you have to do on your own.
This was rare, I told them. My father usually had a lot of patience with us. It was only when he was drinking. It was only when we did something we shouldn't have. I don’t know why I needed them to know that.
Father kicked at Carrot, who jumped away. I lost my grip on him and fell. My father called me stupid and kicked me. Carrot growled at him, but my father didn't hear him over my mother's cry. She was on the corner, bleeding, yelling at him to leave me alone. He looked at her before kicking me again.
He looked surprised when Carrot lunged at him, like the only male anger to be expected in that house was his own. Carrot bit him only once and then backed away to stand in front of me and growl at him. He could have hurt him more. He could have gone for his throat. Carrot was a hunting dog, he knew how to kill.
My father walked out the back door. He came back with his axe.
We buried Carrot under a tree near our vegetable patch. My mother let me pick the spot, and she did the digging. My father had changed his clothes and left after ordering us to 'take care of the mess'. There were flowers on the tree, and you could see the fields leading to the creek where he had liked to catch rabbits and swim.
“I thought he loved him,” I told mother.
I asked my mother if she could bury me there too, after my father killed me. So Carrot wouldn't be alone.
I will never forget how my mother reacted. She didn't cry or reassure me. She just gave me this look. Like she was shocked, but didn't know exactly why. Like I had just named her unexpected and inevitable fear.
"That will not happen," she said. She said it in a whisper and looked at the mound of earth as she did so. She wasn’t talking to me.
She started growing the nightshade the next day. She poisoned my father as fast as she dared, instructing me not to touch his food or the bowl she gave him. He got sick and angry, but never suspected her. He lost his strength before the end. My mother nursed him, and loved him every moment she was killing him. I didn't know what was happening.
We buried him with the dog, so they wouldn't be alone. No one else in the village knew he had died. We started packing for our pilgrimage the same night. She told me then what she had done, why we had to go see the Singing Sisters. My father had taken my protector from me, so she needed to protect me. We were going so I could be safe and happy and she could be free of it. I know now she planned to leave me when she planted the first seeds of nightshade in the ground.
The words hurt me to say. In my mind, memories played of my mother baking pies and tossing the crusts to the dog. Of her and my father dancing and singing. Of Carrot bouncing through the fields. Of my father tucking me in with a kiss. Of all of us, together and happy. My family destroyed by their love and their sins.
The singing stopped. I looked up, having half forgotten where I was and what I was doing. The Sisters paused in their work. All of them came to hug me, to express love and sympathy. This was not the usual end of a confession, but I was not the usual speaker. I was one they had loved, and who loved them.
One of them, the one who washed my feet in welcome, offered a box.
"We usually give each person a choice at the end of a confession," she said. "We offer them jewels and wealth
for the piece of silk they helped us make. Most take it, although some prefer to take the piece of silk with them."
I must have asked why. I do not remember.
"To take out, and examine before folding it up and putting it safely in a drawer," she said. "At least, that is one answer I was given. "
I looked at the work they were doing with what I said. "I don't want it."
She shook her head. "You are mistaken, my dear. We did not make this work with your sins. Nothing you have told us today was yours to hold."
She opened the box. "This is your mother's sin. She did not take it with her, nor did she accept any payment for it. She asked us to keep it, and to keep you."
"To pay for keeping me?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Oh, darling, no. Your presence here has been to us nothing but a joy and a privilege. Your contributions to our little community have been, to us, worth twenty of these boxes. She asked us to hold it for you. To give you the choice instead of her. You can take this, and continue to hold the sins of others, or you can allow us to pay you for it."
She touched my face, rubbing away my tears. "Either way, we will give you a share from your work today. What we have done today will create a gown and veil for a queen. We couldn't have done that without you."
There was something else in the box. A letter, folded and sealed.
"The letter will tell you where she was going, and where she intended to wait for you. The money will allow you to go there and for both of you to live comfortably for the rest of your lives."
She placed the box in my hands and stepped back. The rest of them stood, even the older ones with bad knees, and faced me.
They offered me the choice to stay here with them as a part of the Singing Sisters, or to go out into the world. I had thought that decision made. I was wrong.
I spent the next few days saying goodbye. Some of the other children were angry at me, for I said I was staying. They would understand soon enough. All of those who had gone through the ceremony understood. They asked me to consider coming back one day. I promised to do so.
There was no ritual for leaving. No songs or odd little chairs. No cleaning or feasts. Just declarations of love and hopes to see each other again. It was very simple and it broke my heart completely.
I had to stand in the water again to say goodbye to the island, and to my surprise and delight I saw a little fish in the water. One pilgrim, a young man with an amiable smile, helped me into the boat.
"Where are you going?" he asked me.
I smiled at him and didn't care that I knew nothing of his life or his sins.
