we would have told you that Sofia was doing fine. She just fainted. Low blood sugar, I imagine. Sometimes you girls simply don’t eat right — there’s nothing wrong with a little meat on your bones, you know.”
As if the food would let anyone at St. Isaac’s lose weight, Melody thought darkly, hoping Sister Ignatius wasn’t about to go off on one of her famous rants about “maintaining a healthy weight,” which, Melody thought, was at least forty pounds more than she herself ever intended to weigh. But to her immense relief, for once in her life, Sister Ignatius decided not to push her point. “Would you like to see her?”
“May I?” Melody replied, suddenly feeling a little better. If they were going to actually let her see Sofia, whatever was wrong couldn’t be too bad, could it?
Sister Ignatius drew the curtain far enough aside for Melody to enter the examination room, and led her through to the small ward, where Sofia lay sleeping in one of the dozen beds that made up the infirmary. She wore a green hospital gown, her clothes neatly folded on the chair next to the bed.
Though she was asleep, her face had far more color than those of the students in the waiting area; in fact, Sofia didn’t look much different than she always did in the morning.
Not wanting to waken her, but wanting even more to know exactly what had happened last night, Melody quietly approached the bed.
Sofia’s eyes opened as she drew near.
“Hey,” Melody said.
“Hey, yourself,” Sofia replied.
“You okay?”
Sofia nodded, and Melody moved her clothes from the chair to the next bed and sat down as Sister Ignatius disappeared back through the curtains to start tending to her two new patients. “What happened?”
Sofia barely even glanced at her. “I don’t know,” she sighed. “I was in that chapel — the one I told you about — and Father Sebastian was giving me absolution, and the next thing I knew, I woke up here.”
“You mean, like, you just fainted?” Melody was sure there had to be more to the story than Sister Ignatius had told her.
Sofia shrugged. “I guess so. Doctor Conover is going to come see me, and if everything’s okay, they’ll let me out this morning.”
Melody’s brows creased uncertainly. “Weird.”
Sofia spread her hands dismissively. “I guess.”
Melody wanted to tell Sofia what she and Ryan had done last night, slipping into the tunnels after lights out, and seeing her being carried up the back stairs, but with nothing separating them from Sister Ignatius, she couldn’t take the risk. “I prayed for you this morning at matins,” she said loudly enough to make certain the nun would hear. She was also sure the words would elicit at least a rolling of the eyes from Sofia, if not some kind of sarcastic remark, but all the other girl did was close her eyes.
“That’s nice,” Sofia said sleepily.
Melody cocked her head, her lips pursing slightly as she gazed at her roommate. “Sofia?” she finally said, touching Sofia’s arm.
“Hmm?” Sofia didn’t open her eyes, but pulled her arm away.
“I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” Sofia said.
“Melody?” Sister Ignatius peeked through the curtain. “If you don’t hurry, you’ll be late for class.”
“Okay,” Melody replied, her eyes still on Sofia. “You need anything?”
Sofia shook her head.
“Okay, then,” Melody said, standing up from the chair. “I’ll see you later.”
No response from Sofia.
Had they given her a sedative or something?
Melody put Sofia’s clothes back on the chair, and smoothed their imprint from the sheet on the next bed.
“Bye,” she whispered.
Sofia gave no indication that she’d heard.
Melody slipped past the nun, who was now taking the temperatures of the sick students, waved a thank you, and a few moments later joined the throng of students heading for their first period classes.
But she was still thinking about Sofia.
Sofia, who had said she was fine.
But she sure hadn’t acted fine.
In fact, it was almost like Sofia wasn’t there at all. The Sofia she had always known would have told Melody every detail about last night and recounted every feeling she’d had before she fainted. But even more than that, Sofia wasn’t the kind of girl who ever even got sick, let alone fainted, and had always hated the whole idea of the infirmary so much that when Melody herself had been there last year, Sofia hadn’t even been able to bring herself to come and visit. So, if she was “fine,” why wasn’t she demanding to know why she couldn’t get out of the infirmary right now?
Why was she just lying there?
Maybe she should call Sofia’s father. But what good would that do? According to Sofia, all her father ever did was drink, at least since her mother had taken off three years ago.
No, better to just wait until lunch, when she’d be able to talk with Sofia. She and Ryan would tell her what they’d seen last night and Melody would watch Sofia’s reaction to the story.
She would watch it very carefully.
CHAPTER 27
CARDINAL GUILLERMO MORISCO’S stomach grumbled loudly as he made the final entry in his personal log for the day, closed the leather-bound volume, and slipped it into its slot next to the marble bookend. The thin slats of daylight that crossed his desk toward the end of day had vanished hours ago, leaving only the glow of the evening lights of Rome beyond the window. The Vatican had emptied of visitors and most of its employees; all that remained were those who worked too late too often — among whom Cardinal Morisco had been preeminent for decades — and the custodial staff, whose hours might be late but weren’t nearly as long as the Cardinal’s. Still, Morisco enjoyed being in the office after hours, when the quiet allowed him to accomplish far more than did the hum of the day.
But enough was enough, as his stomach had been reminding him for the last hour. Indeed, he could almost taste his favorite wine, Sangrantino di Montefalco, from near his boyhood home in Umbria. This evening he would order a light caprese salad and a grilled bruschetta with a spicy olive tapenade, and go to bed early. It had been a long day.
He was just locking the desk drawer when the fax machine in his assistant’s office whirred to life.
If he ignored it, he could be at Gianni’s within moments.
If he responded to it, he may well be here for another hour.
He heard four pages drop before the machine paused and told himself to leave it until morning even as he found himself drawn to the pages like a moth to a flame.
After all, one quick glance couldn’t hurt, could it? If it were urgent, his phone would have rung. He tried to ignore the image that popped into his mind of a moth burning in the flame that had drawn it, but it was too late.
Then, as he picked the four sheets of paper from the fax machine, the computer on his desk pinged, announcing the arrival of an e-mail.
Certain the messages the two machines had brought were related, Morisco sighed heavily and tried to forget about the Sangrantino. This was how he ended up at the office so late, night after night, and as he carried the pages back to his office he vowed — again — to learn to leave at a reasonable time.
Tomorrow.
