A woman approached me named Ninya. We shared our introductions and pleasantries and she was quite open that she was a convert and Neo-Artesian, but even more so one of the secret members of the sisters. They had thrived and maintained a vibrant network of chapters scattered in each city and township spanning to the coastal provincial. In the capital they operated in the open and maintained their own offices in the local Politiburo.
She was trained by her mentor who was in turned trained by Anna, the founder of the sisters. It was believed her mentor was one of Anna's surviving daughters. She had adopted several girls over the years and raised them as her own and indoctrinating them in the sisters when they were of age. The old woman had known of my interactions with my teacher and had assigned Ninya to me. She was hand picked as she possessed many of the qualities that would make me vulnerable.
The color of her hair, her height, build, shape of her eyes, even her impish smile. Everything, I could have ever wanted in the embodiment of Ninya. And she used it to her full advantage to completely disarm me, but with the skill of a master so as not to be overtly obvious in her intentions and just enough to make me believe it was by own free will, but knowing her presence heavily influenced everything.
She pressed her hand on mine, but we joked as neither of us felt anything. It was not like how Ninya had pictured when she said of Anna touching my teacher's hand and quivered as if she was touching the hand of Knut. I was neither Knut, nor my teacher.
Knowing full well the reputation of the sisters, I shared my journal. She read it dutifully and thanked me for being open. She felt we would have a fruitful friendship and would be open with me as it was the way of all sisters.
We began our many dialogues and conversations discussing in detail what I had collected in my thoughts. She was able to correct and explain quite a bit and I asked if any of Karl Knutmudsen's writings had survived. None of it survived, but the sisters all gathered what they could remember and through sheer determination were able to reconstruct what they could into an almost complete representation. They found the journal useful in adding a bit more context and some details that they would never had known.
Still, we all accepted that it would be an imprecise replica and were careful that some important wisdom or passage would be missing or transcribed improperly to make profane Knut's vision.
I wondered and she already answered that they did not wish to disturb my teacher after Anna's death. It was a wish held by many of the sisters to honor her by allowing him to live out a long and quiet life. They always kept careful watch and he was never found wanting.
By some great fortune, my seeking him out was a godsend. They did not influence this in any way and allowed it to unfold as it did spontaneously. They were even more intent and curious and waited for this moment to complete Knut's work.
I then felt the same unease that my teacher had warned me. It was a terrible sensation as I then felt the long hand of someone who I only knew of through others. Ninya's embrace was much more soothing and pleasant, but it was still that thought that I had given them something he wanted buried.
She knew I lied and while the journal was truthfully everything I could transcribe, there were a few loose recollections and memories that I had yet to take to pen. She would work to ferret them out and I knew eventually they all would slip. She was quite generous and patient with me.
To my surprise in our discourse, she let slip that Anna so loved my teacher she was willing to grant his wish to allow Knut's legacy to die. All of the sisters were appalled at her decision, but many obediently heeded her call. And it was the nearest they ever came to realizing that dream.
It was only by sheer circumstance that a few sisters who were set to return home were delayed and left stranded. They gathered, regrouped and became what Ninya knows of the sisters today. Some bitterness lingers and while they worship Anna still and Knut and even my teacher, they feel a sense of wanting what had been there's all along and in many ways betrayed. My journal was some form of solace and compensation for her transgressions.
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