The Unworthy

A poisoned wind descends on the Sisterhood, and the women rush to cover their faces and seal cracks in the windows and doors. It makes the narrator vomit blood, and some of the servants faint. The Superior Sister claims that it is a test. He appears in the shadow of the doorway to the dining room and says that the Enlightened will not protect “mistrustful, skeptical, inconsiderate bitches” (34). The narrator looks at Lourdes, wondering why she hasn’t been made Chosen or Enlightened yet. She looks pure, but she must have some internal contamination. The narrator thinks that her plans for the funeral might fail, and this brings her “overwhelming joy.”

The wind dies down and is replaced by a “fragile relief.” The Superior Sister sends the narrator out to the trees to find mushrooms for the funeral pastries. On the way, she sees a Diaphanous Spirit, head down, listening to the earth. The Diaphanous Spirits can hear everything when they look at someone, from “the bitter, lurking sound of sickness” to “the slow absorption of bone tissue” (37). The Diaphanous Spirit opens her mouth, and the narrator sees emptiness where her tongue should be; Diaphanous Spirits can communicate only through writing.