But no, the shadow was moving. It was not my imagination: a black silhouette was climbing the scaffolding, moving very slowly and steadily up towards the stunted tower. It appeared to be a hunchback. I watched, transfixed. At long last, it reached the top and emerged onto the moonlit platform, and I saw that it was not a hunchback after all, but a thin figure bent under the weight of something carried on its back. It set down this bundle and opened it. Bricks. The apparition was stacking bricks onto a large pile that already awaited the mason’s trowel. I did not remember noticing these when I arrived. Having added its bricks to the pile, it then did something even more strange. It bowed low to each of the four corners of the earth in turn. Having performed this priestly rite, it descended again and, upon reaching the ground, disappeared into the darkness. After some moments, it appeared again, hefting another load on its back.
I cannot say how long I stood watching the repetition of this. Or how long before I understood what I was witness to. No sudden spark of perception but, rather, a slow-growing recognition that it was Xenia.
She was climbing again. Once onto the platform, she unloaded her bricks, no more than eight or ten, for this was all she could carry. I might have gone and fetched more to help her, but I did not. Nor did I think to interrupt her work. The need I had felt so urgently to speak to her had left me.
The quiet gathered. It was very deep, this silence, as though the woods and the church were sunk beneath water. I allowed myself to rest into it, to let the silence close over me. My mind also became still and soft. It was like being on the floor of a sea, like being in the drowned city of Kitezh.
Again, she bowed low to the east and held there. In the bleached and shadowed moonlight, her bent figure was like stone. Then she prayed to the west and again to each direction. I imagined the prayers floating up, not only hers but innumerable others, a city of prayers. The air was filled with them. I imagined the waters rising above our waists and then our shoulders and heads. And how I would see this but not panic. I imagined descending into a perfect quiet and letting go all my fears.
I bowed to Xenia, though she did not see me. I thought to myself how she is accustomed to excusing herself when she leaves by saying she is needed. This, I have come to think, is what it means to be blessed.
Upon rising, I wrapped my headscarf more securely and knotted it beneath my chin, feeling grateful for my good boots and for the sturdy feel of my stick against my palm. The moon lit the way out from the cemetery. There was nothing to do but follow the path, to put one foot in front of the other until I reached home.
Acknowledgments
For all the talk about writing being a solitary endeavor, I was hardly lonely while writing this novel. I had a lot of help.
For assistance in my research, I am indebted to Professor Sara Dickinson, Universita degli Studi di Genova; Sister Ioanna of St. Innocent Religious Community in Minnesota; Professor Derek Offord, University of Bristol; and Professor Christine Worobec, Northern Illinois University. For the gift of their perceptive early reads, I am grateful to Lynne Barrett, Debra McLane, and especially to my dear friend Kyra Petrovskaya Wayne for her help with all things Russian. What errors and infelicities remain are mine alone.
I am beholden to Claire Wachtel, a truth teller, for insisting that it must be better and then waiting another year while it got that way; and to the rest of the folks at HarperCollins who have turned a bunch of bytes into an
Everything I write is read first by my husband and in-house editor, Clifford Paul Fetters, and then improved immeasurably by his insights. There are not words enough to thank him for his patience and his commitment to what we do.
And lastly, in loving remembrance of my dear spaniel, Leo, a wise and holy fool in his own way. The muse lying under my desk during the writing of this book, he died peacefully the night before I sent out the completed manuscript.
About the Author
DEBRA DEAN’s bestselling debut novel,
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Credits
Cover photograph © Grant Faint/Getty Images
Cover design by Robin Bilardello
Copyright
THE MIRRORED WORLD. Copyright © 2012 by Debra Dean. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Epub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012
ISBN: 9780062198921
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dean, Debra, 1957– author.
The mirrored world : a novel / by Debra Dean. — First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-06-123145-2 (Hardcover)
