Hilde looked at the time. A quarter past one ... She had forgotten all about the time.
Maybe it wouldn't matter so much that she cut school on her birthday. But it did mean that her classmates wouldn't be celebrating with her. Oh well, she had always had plenty of well-wishers.
Soon she found herself receiving a long sermon. Alberto had no problem slipping into the role of a medieval priest.
When she read about how Sophia had appeared to Hildegard in visions, she turned once again to her encyclopedia. But this time she found nothing about either of them. Wasn't that typical! As soon as it was a question of women or something to do with women, the en-cyclopedia was about as informative as a moon crater. Was the whole work censored by the Society for the Protection of Men?
Hildegard of Bingen was a preacher, a writer, a doctor, a botanist, and a biologist. She was "perhaps an example of the fact that women were often more practical, more scientific even, in the Middle Ages."
But there was not a single word about her in the encyclopedia. How scandalous!
Hilde had never heard that God had a "female side" or a "mother nature." Her name was Sophia, apparently--but she was apparently not worth printer's ink, either.
The nearest she could find in the encyclopedia was an entry about the Santa Sophia Church in Constantinople (now Istanbul), named Hagia Sophia, which means Sacred Wisdom. But there was nothing about it being female. That was censorship, wasn't it?
Otherwise, it was true enough that Sophie had revealed herself to Hilde. She was picturing the girl with the straight hair all the time ...
When Sophie gets home after spending most of the morning in St. Mary's Church, she stands in front of the brass mirror she took home from the cabin in the woods.
She studied the sharp contours of her own pale face framed by that impossible hair which defied any style but nature's own. But beyond that face was the apparition of another girl.
Suddenly the other girl began to wink frantically with both eyes, as if to signal that she was really in there on the other side. The apparition lasted only a few seconds. Then she was gone.
How many times had Hilde stood in front of the mirror like that as if she was searching for someone else behind the glass? But how could her father have known that?
Wasn't it also a dark-haired woman she had been searching for? Great-grandmother had bought it from a Gypsy woman, hadn't she? Hilde felt her hands shaking as they held the book. She had the feeling that Sophie really existed somewhere "on the other side."
Now Sophie is dreaming about Hilde and Bjerkely. Hilde can neither see nor hear her, but then--Sophie finds Hilde's gold crucifix on the dock. And the crucifix--with Hilde's initials and everything--is in Sophie's bed when she wakes after her dream!
Hilde forced herself to think hard. Surely she hadn't lost her crucifix as well? She went to her dresser and took out her jewelry case. The crucifix, which she had received as a christening gift from her grandmother, was not there!
So she really had lost it. All right, but how had her father known it when she didn't even know it herself?
And another thing: Sophie had apparently dreamed that Hilde's father came home from Lebanon. But there was still a week to go before that happened. Was Sophie's dream prophetic? Did her father mean that when he came home Sophie would somehow be there? He had written that she would get a new friend ...
In a momentary vision of absolute clarity Hilde knew that Sophie was more than just paper and ink. She really existed.
The Enlightenent
...from the way needles are made to the way cannons are founded
Hilde had just begun the chapter on the Renaissance when she heard her mother come in the front door. She looked at the clock. It was four in the afternoon.
Her mother ran upstairs and opened Hilde's door.
"Didn't you go to the church?"