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gosorsomething · 7 months

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The Book Of Josephine - Chapter 8

The next chapter of my Warrior Nun spin-off fanfic is finally on Ao3!

An excerpt from John 21:3 - "So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing." [Genesis, Part VIII]

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“Sorry.” Joanna says quietly, walking slowly around the table, her eyes welded to the fifty-two playing cards laid out for her to memorize.

“Have you got it?” Helena asks, watching the girl stand for a moment to chew a fingernail.

“I think so. You just want me to know where they are?”

Helena nods.

“What now? Do I flip them over, or something?”

“Oh, no. That wouldn’t be any fun.” Helena stands up with a groan and bends across the table, collecting the cards. Once neatly gathered into a stack in her hand, she squeezes, causing them to bend, and releases the entire deck into a fluttering mess that settles across two tables and several square feet of floor.

“Why.” Joanna scans the littered cards with a frown.

“Joanna, dear,” Helena ignores her, holding her hands innocently behind her back. “I seemed to have dropped my playing cards.”

“No shit?” Sister Gregory strides into the room, arms full of what appears to be many different hues of grey, black, white, and navy cloth. She hops awkwardly around the cards on the floor, careful not to disturb them.

“Oh, good,” Helena is distracted from the cards by her assistant’s sudden entrance. “Your clothes. We can get to that later.” Her statement is punctuated by the plop of Gregory dropping the clothes into another chair toward the far side of the library. She grabs a book from the few shelves dedicated to leisure reading and sits several feet away.

“Don’t mind me.”

“Okay, well, now, Joanna. Pick the cards up, please, and lay them back on the table in the array you studied.”

“Sure, I guess.” The girl stoops pick up cards from the floor.

“Aht! Stop!” Helena exclaims. The girls head turns quickly.

“What?”

“One at a time. Pick up one card, bring it to the table, then grab another.”

That seems inefficient, but alright, the girl shrugs. She grabs the eight of spades, places it on the table, then bends to grab the two of clubs, and so on. Some cards lay face down where they landed, others pile on top of each other. After about twenty minutes, she stands in front of the completed arrangement, straightening their rows.

Helena snores softly, slumped over in her chair.

“Uh, I’m done?”

The old woman jolts back into the land of the conscious.

“Yes, hm? Yes. Good.” She doesn’t spare even a glance at Joanna’s arrangement. She hops out of her chair and pads eagerly toward the pile of clothes Gregory had brought in. She starts to fold each piece, setting aside a few garments that Joanna assumes to be what she will wear first. But the girl’s task seems unfinished.

“Um.” She raises her hand. Sister Gregory looks up from her book to smirk.

“You don’t need to raise your hand, passerotta. What is it?” Helena continues folding.

“Well, it’s just that you didn’t look at the table? Did I put it back right?”

The old woman pats a wrinkle out of a dark blue tunic.

“Would you have put it back incorrectly?”

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