"Jesse, do you have the key for the lower storage room in the cellar?" Agnes asked while taking me aside after breakfast. He did not want to break the silence in front of the others before supper.
"Do you mean the room just past the print shop on the right?" I asked. "I haven't been in there in years and didn't know it was locked."
"Yes," he replied,"I had Bouncer put a lock on the door last year when I stored my trunk in there. I was ... ah ... afraid the men who service our furnace might stumble in there. Or other tradesmen."
"I didn't know, Agnes. About the lock or your trunk," I said.
These monks from Fermoy are strange contemplatives, I thought. They smoke, wear rather fine robes and now I learn they travel with steamer trunks! Most of my colleagues travel with paper shopping bags.
"I suppose we can manage to get you into the room," I said.
"Oh, I hope so," he said. "I have important documents in there."
It's strange having Agnes back. No one wants to speak to him. I don't think they hold anything against him, but no one knows quite what to say to him. I wasn't surprised by this behavior, but when a week went by and he continued to be seemingly shunned, I began to question the brothers individually.
"How do you feel about Agnes coming back?" I asked Bouncer.
"OK with me," he said, "not that you brought it before us for our opinion."
"The hospital needed an immediate answer and I wasn't about to turn down a brother, our former abbot," I said.
"Like I said, OK with me," he replied.
"Why doesn't anyone speak to him?" I asked.
"Look, Jesse," he said, "It's difficult. What do you say to a former abbot who's come back disgraced?"
"Agnes has come back sick. Dying," I said.
"I know," said Bouncer. "I'll try."
Mike is 14 years old.
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