Chapter Three
Samantha was loath to admit it, but two more weeks of Esther's constant company leaves her different than before. The initial discomfort at being associated with a Sister wears away, and the gut-wrenching reaction to her innocence and insistent holiness simmers. The nun could find a way to be pleasant with truly anyone, a skill which Samantha grows to respect, if only for how useful it would have been in the upper echelons of society. Sure, Samantha had found ways to fake polite respect, but she had never achieved what Esther seems capable of: not faking it. The woman, through some mysterious machinations of her inner soul, actually seemed to believe what she professed. She saw the good in people. Samantha found the bad.
And then, a little bit more of Esther's carefully manicured righteousness peels away to reveal the dynamic woman underneath. Get her tipsy, and she'd be willing to make a few snarky comments about obnoxious parishioners or annoying children at the orphanage. It never ventured into any level of true hostility, and she always counter-balanced it with compliments leveled at the very same targets, but it was enough for Samantha to accept she must be more than just a naïve woman of god.
She was growing to trust Samantha, and the former noblewoman found herself also growing to trust Esther. Esther asked her of her mother, and Samantha would share nearly anything and everything the nun wished to hear. Samantha, on the other hand, would poke around to find what mischief her past life was filled with, and Esther found herself able to give Samantha what she wanted.
Which is why, as the two of them lay down upon a picnic blanket just outside of the city, nestled away on a hilltop where they might find some peace and quiet that would make such a hike worthwhile, Esther is saying:
"Rebecca? Oh, she was beautiful!" She lets out a chirp of laughter, feeling free and easy-going in the shade of the large oak tree at their backs, protecting them from the early afternoon sun. "Everyone always joked that she was a princess in disguise," she adds with a puff of nostalgia, "And sure, I loved that about her. But truly I was far more interested in how much she adored skinny dipping."
Her hands flick up to her chest, holding her palms tightly before her and reveling in the salacious detail revealed. Her laugh is almost lower than her voice, full-hearted and booming, and it usually has a habit of pulling a mutual smile out of Samantha as well. She doesn't let herself be quite as boisterous as Esther is when she feels delighted, but she relaxes into the moments a little more than before. Years and years of scrutiny amongst the gentry taught her to hold her cards close to her chest, and she'd only just begun letting Esther peek at them now and again.
Esther sits up, gazing out over the green hills around them. Early spring wildflowers have popped up through the tall grasses, giving the walking trails through them an extra pop of wondrous color. Esther continues, her hair removed from its veil and braid and floating with the soft breeze.
"It was so scandalous, but I must've gone with her five or six times. She always wondered why I was so eager," she recalls fondly, then sighs out to the air around them, "Ah, Rebecca..."
"I will never tire of your honesty," Samantha rolls over onto her back, gazing up at the leaves above which were just finally coming back from the winter. "It is remarkably easy to pull stories from you that I would never utter aloud to anyone."
"I was a different person then," Esther shrugs. "I cared for little and believed myself less than nothing." Her head inclines over her shoulder as though to assure herself Samantha was not mocking her. "It is a miracle no one proposed marriage to me - I was so eager for approval I would've accepted anyone's ring." She faces back towards the city and says, "Pelton was a very different place than Bellchester."
Samantha sits up, joining her in surveying the large city sprawling around them. It wasn't the biggest city in the country, by either size or by population, but industrialization had sent the city bursting forth in the last century. Plumes of smoke rise over the area she knew to be the railyards and the factory districts, separated by a surprisingly pleasant downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. She can't quite pick out the bell tower of St. Bartholomew's, but it was there, somewhere.
"In what way?" Samantha asks.
"It was tiny, and there was hardly anything to do," the nun pulls her legs in and crosses them over one another. "Naturally that meant my predominant past time was getting into trouble, solely because it was at least some excitement. Bellchester is bursting with people! I adore it." She stretches her arms out, holding them as though she could fit the whole of the city before them between her palms. She releases a satisfied breath. "And, there are others like me now."
"I imagine all you had there was a tiny parish," Samantha presumes. "There are far more Sister's here."
"And I've even met some other twice-born."
She says this like it was a fact Samantha had already known, but the noblewoman finds herself tending to a surge of surprise in her chest. Her head whips over to Esther, studying her quickly, and she utters, "You're...?"
"Twice-born?" Esther's lips open into a smile. "Oh, yes."
"You never told me. I had no idea."
"You didn't ask," Esther says simply.
"I'm not in the business of asking every person in my life if they are twice-born," Samantha complains.
Esther flops back down onto the blanket, throwing her hands up behind her head as she watches Samantha with a furrowed brow. "Your former-lover-turned-roommate was twice-born. I didn't think it mattered."
"It doesn't," Samantha replies quickly. "I simply didn't expect it."
She finds herself cataloging every twice-born individual that she had met in her life, quickly going through the short list. There was Annette, who Samantha had the most intimate interactions with. There was Bill, the barkeep of the Faery who's wife owned the bar, whom Samantha had spoken the most with. And there was the young Judith Velore, one of the children at St. Bartholomew's orphanage. And now, Esther.
"I imagine Annette would be excited to meet you upon her return," Samantha says after a few moments. "And Judith."
A flash of recognition flitters through Esther's eyes. "Oh, how I adore little Miss Velore!" She releases a long exhale, likely recalling her own interactions with the young girl. Once satisfied, her face grows more serious, though it retains its typical warmth and familiarity, and she adds, "My aunt has told me a great deal about Miss Baker. In a way, it seems that she and I are cousins, though not by blood. Connections such as that truly make the world feel such a small place, don't you think?"
"Is that why Sister Pullwater is so supportive of the twice-born?" Samantha wonders aloud. "Because of your rebirth?"
Esther shakes her head. "She was supportive before either Annette or myself were born. I didn't know her well then, but she came by to visit my mother when I was six. While there for a few weeks, at some point she made some comment about the twice-born, I can't remember what it was." She pauses for a moment to think, then shrugs and continues. "Anyway, I'd never known rebirth was an option before then, but I leapt up and declared, 'That's what I am!'"
Samantha can nearly picture it, Esther, then just a small boy, announcing forth her identity with the same trumpeting honesty that was so characteristic of her now. She smiles a little as she imagines the moment, then allows Esther to continue her story.
"My parents hated that," Esther recalls, "but Sister Pullwater lectured them for hours and hours about their duty to God and the necessity of rebirth for those who were called to it. It was awesome - which is to say, terrifying for anyone on the receiving end of such a lecture from her. I didn't see her very much after that trip, but she would write and check in upon me every now and again." She runs her hands through her sunny brunette hair, readjusting the strands so they flow out from the top of her head against the ground like she was under water. "I didn't know until recently that a few years later, she took on a twice-born girl a little younger than me as something of a daughter."
Samantha doesn't even realize she'd been caught thinking silently until Esther pokes her and remarks, "You've gone quiet."
