Sr. Agatha was on the warpath. She had just about had it with the foolishness of her crazy young priest. She had found the bloodied and soiled clothing, the stained and rumbled bedding in the infirmary, the bandages and the rag and dirty water used to treat him. She knew he was up to no good. These young men and their delusions of martyrdom! His superiors should know about this!
She had tried to talk to him about it herself, but he was clearly not of a mind for reason. She wasn’t sure if the insanity was the result of his long fever and illness, or whether he had always been crazy, as she suspected, and it had just taken a different turn.
First it was the ranting and raving about the druids and the demons and the sinners in the village. Then it was the strange mutterings in German while he was ill. And now he had developed some fixation on one of the trollops at the brothel. When he wasn’t staring into space or writing wild sermons, most of which, thankfully, never made the pulpit, he would sneak to the caves and practice his skills with a large and very ugly sword, or would go to the water behind the abbey and pray for hours.
Yes, he needed help. With his state of mind, the abbey would soon fall to disrepair. Something had to be done.
As she completed her morning journal at her desk in the classroom, she could hear him talking in the library. She quietly rose and tiptoed to the door to look in.
There was no one there except the father. He appeared to have fallen asleep at his desk and was mumbling something in his sleep: “You can’t have her,” he kept saying, over and over.
The good sister shook her head. This had to stop, and had to stop now. She returned to her desk and took out her quill and paper and begin to write a letter.