Laura Lovic-Lindsay - Brothers Three

     This stone bench is cold and Brother-beside-me and I, we shift uncomfortably. We cannot see Brother-behind-us, but he speaks and we do as he says.

     "Nearer the door," he commands, and we shuffle our feet until we have moved us closer to their door.

     From inside, I hear a whisper ask what is to be done with us three, now the Abbess has been Gathered Unto God so tragically.

     "Sister Claire is asking the others about us," I tell them, as my ears are now closest.    
     "And there is fear in her voice."

     "We put them OUT," Sister Mary Agnes spits, and though we cannot see her, we know that her face is red, her eyes angry and tight. The flab of her neck shakes when she speaks. 
     "They should have been dropped in the towns ages ago."

     Because she thinks we cannot hear her, she adds, "Or in the well." Some Sisters snicker at this.

     Sister Mary Agnes told us many times she had counseled the Abbess to leave us in the snows that surrounded this mountain monastery at our birth nine years ago.

     "Oh, but perhaps they were meant to teach us. How like the Holy Trinity they are -- three boys in one body," timid Sister Margaret dares. "The third just showing forth behind the other two, so spirit-like."

     "And yet," snaps Sister Mary Agnes, "Not a one of us can bear the sight of them, yourself included, Sister Margaret. It is a pity the Abbess wasted so much of her strength caring for them."

     Sister Mary Agnes will meet her end easily out the tallest tower in a fortnight, we decide. She is even older and lighter than the Abbess was.

     We smile holy smiles as the Sisters file from the room.

Laura Lovic-Lindsay left Penn State University with a literature degree in hand in 1993, having written no more than a few poems at that point. She has won poetry and fiction contests (PennWriters Poetry Contest, writerstype.com, writersweekly.com, Writing Success writers' conferences), had pieces accepted for publication (Fireside Fiction, Fine Linen Magazine, Boston Literary Magazine).

Laura lives and writes in an old farmhouse in a small Western Pennsylvania town, but her heart roams realms both real and imaginary.