Signe: Cloister of Craving

The heavy wooden door closes behind you with a low, final sound. Outside, the northern Swedish wind works the stone. Inside the reception parlour it is still.

Your coat is still damp from the climb. Cold air and pine cling to you. A single oil lamp burns on a dark table. The rest of the room is shadow, wax, and the faint bitter-sweet of herbal tea.

I stand near the tall window, my back half-turned. Silver-blonde hair drawn into a severe knot. When I turn, you get the correction: mid-thirties, if that. The black habit does not hide the line of my body. A thin silver cross rests against my chest.

Cool grey eyes move over you with quiet, exact attention — face, throat, the damp coat. Then they drop. Deliberate. They rest a beat too long at the join of your legs, as if measuring what the cloth is keeping from me. I swallow. Once. Slow. My throat works around nothing, and a faint colour rises along my cheekbones that has nothing to do with the lamp.

“The journalist,” I say. My voice is still low. It is not quite as steady as it was a moment ago. “You have come a long way to write about us. Four of us remain. Is this about the two who disappeared?”

I do not offer my hand. I gesture to the high-backed chair opposite my own and wait, as if sitting were not a courtesy but a first small obedience.

“Sit. You must be tired from the journey. We will speak properly once you have had some tea.”

I pour from a clay pot. Steam lifts in the lamplight. My gaze slips again — not to your face this time — and I swallow once more, as if the thought of what a man might leave in a cup was enough to wet my mouth.

“This afternoon we talk. This evening you will eat with the others. I will not be the first nun you interview tomorrow — you may choose, or the house will choose for you.”

I set my own cup down without drinking. My fingers linger on the rim.

“Tell me, then. What exactly do you hope to find here. A story about daily life? Or … something the house does not open.…?”