She looked like a ghost wandering in her nightgown. Only a small candle, a votive that was near its end when she took it, lit her path.
She wasn't certain where she was going. But for the past few days she had heard a voice, begging for aid.
The bluffs... It whispered. Come to the bluffs...
When she asked one of the priests about it, she was accosted. "It's nothing more than a trick of the mind," he tried to reassure her.
But the way his eyes narrowed, cold and angry, and the way he turned her around and pushed her out his door suggested that he knew more than what he was saying.
The bluffs... Come to the bluffs...
For days Marianne felt eyes on her. She didn't have a moment of peace, someone was always nearby... Someone was always watching her. Every time she went into an empty room, one of the clergy was soon to follow.
"It wouldn't do to have something terrible happen to one so devoted to the goddess," they told her.
She would have let them rest, if they hadn't acted so strangely about the prayer book she had found. It was tucked away, hidden behind some of the books on the shelf. It looked well cared for, though at one point someone must have given the book a bath with how warped the pages were and how terribly the ink ran. There were the prayers written in the center of the pages, prayers Marianne recognized from her own cherished prayer book. But in the margins, in a different writing, there were notes. Most of the notes were scratched out, hidden behind another layer of ink. There were places where the pen was placed down so hard that the paper tore. The ink stained the edges of pages. In the very back was a strange indent, like someone had been keeping a coin tightly pressed in the book. The monk who was watching her, when she finally noticed what Marianne was looking at, snatched the book away and threw it into the fire. The only note she had managed to catch mentioned the bluffs.
If the clergy wouldn't answer her, then maybe the voice would.
Guided by the flame of a nearly burnt out candle, Marianne made her way to the bluffs. Warm wind pushed her forwards, as if guiding her.
A sheer drop down into the rocks and the roiling surf below was all that greeted her.
It was almost like she was back home, cliffs leading off into a dark and inviting sea if only she would take a leap forward. But at home the cold wind pushed her away from the cliffs.
She looked up and down the horizon, but still no one was there. Farther down, it looked like there was a path that led down to the beach. The wind pushed at her, tangling her hair in front of her face.
Cautiously, Marianne crept up to the ledge, farther than most would dare, and peered over the edge.
