Matrix

Emme dies after a long illness, and Marie is made the new abbess. Her consecration involves an elaborate feast, to which the male seniors of the church are invited. Marie senses their disapproval of the feast’s ostentation.

Marie’s symptoms of menopause end, giving her a new, more lucid outlook: “She can see for a great distance now. She can see for eons” (98). This is also the beginning of her divine visions. One evening, after church service, she sees the Virgin Mary in the sky, surrounded by swirling rose petals. In the center of the rose petals is a broom flower, topped with a small moon. Once this vision recedes, she rushes to her abbey apartments to write it down in a notebook. Documenting the vision enables her to understand it.

She understands the moon and broom flower to be the abbey, while the swirling rose petals are the chaotic world surrounding the abbey. She understands that it is her duty as abbess to keep her nuns safe from this world. Thus, she resolves to construct a labyrinth from the abbey to the nearby town, which will make travel to the abbey difficult. Her abbey will, therefore, be “an island of women” (101).