Even when he pried his sleepless eyes open, there was nothing for Yeonaixho to see.

The emptiness of his cell’s dismal ceiling stared back at him in the misty, melancholic pre-dawn. If he squinted, he could just make out the repeating, parallel patterns of the woodboards laid out above them. In his twelve long years spent in that cell, he’d memorized those woodboards, so much that he could recognize each even in the dark. He would’ve known them even with his eyes closed. The long lines of grain, the swirling knots, the finger-thin gaps between each board. He knew which boards creaked when the people upstairs walked over them. He knew which ones came loose enough to pry open. There was one in particular, one that came to its terminal end at the far left corner of his tiny cell. When he’d gotten tall enough- three summers ago, to be precise- he’d discovered he could push up the loose end of that ceiling board, and open up a tiny space between the rafters of this floor and the one directly above it. That tiny space proved itself to be a far better hiding space than his previous spot, the tiny crevice in between his bed frame and the wall. It’d been almost three-and-a-half years, and the Hall Abbot still hadn’t found his contraband.

The Morning Bell always rang far before dawn, especially in the colder, longer winter nights, but Yeonaixho had woken before it. While his fellow dedicants continued to toss and turn in their fitful sleep, he stared blankly at his ceiling, waiting for the call to rise. The other dedicants- second sons of wealthy, landed gentry, who wanted to prove their worth in the realm of religion while their brothers prepared to take their fathers’ government roles- were not used to the early mornings and hard labor required of a temple initiate. When the Morning Bell eventually woke them, they’d inevitably yawn and complain, and curse their fathers for sending them to temple in the first place. To Yeonaixho, it was a luxury. For years, he’d grown up waking half-an-hour earlier with the rest of the temple maids and stableboys. Still, he relished that half-hour more of peace he got before his duties and day started. He did not fill it with sleep- no, not after years of life as a dedicant had his body adjusted to the new sleep schedule. He savored those precious moments for what solitude they brought him- solitude so hard to come by in his life. For half an hour each day, he could relax in his own solitude, with nothing but his own company. For half an hour each day, he could mourn properly.

Moving as quietly as he possibly could, Yeonaixho rose from his cot and traveled to the far left corner of his cell and pushed up the loose ceiling board. Only last winter, he’d had to crouch awkwardly on the end of his bed and reach precariously to the loose board, and only a few times had he been so precarious to nearly topple to the floor, crash, and alert the Hall Abbot of his nefarious activity. Such days were now behind him- Yeonaixho was tall enough now that if he stood on the balls of his feet and strained, he could reach the ceiling board on his own. With the very tips of his fingers he pried the board open, he nudged forward the small box stored carefully above his ceiling, and he caught it in his hands when it fell. He was lucky he’d reflexively held his breath throughout the process, or he’d have yelped and awoken his neighbor.

The box was black lacquer, only as long as the palm of his hand and about one-and-a-half times as wide. Its lid was decorated with an ornate, artistic floral pattern, all done in gold and red, but the lacquer was wearing and chipping away. The small box had no obvious opening mechanism, but when Yeonaixho pressed down on one of the cherry-red, fruit-shaped embellishments on the lid, it silently popped open.

The box only contained three objects: a small silk handkerchief, his mothers, which still smelled like her at least for the first few months; his father’s seal of governance, not the official one but one of the copies, the only memoir of his father that Yeonaixho owned, other than his visage; and a gold pendant. His mother’s gold pendant.

That was the most valuable of the objects in his secret box, and the most contraband. As a dedicant, he was meant to forsake all earthly possessions, including valuable jewelry, but that was not the end of his transgression. The round pendant had been molded into the shape of a fig tree- the most sacred symbol of the southern pagan tradition. Yeonaixho knew his mother was no pagan, nor a southerner, yet she had carried such a symbol on her body till her death. Now, Yeonaixho carried it, since it was all he had left of her.

In the dim, he ran his hands over the cool metal of the pendant, feeling each branch of the twisting tree. He’d memorized its form years ago, and yet found comfort in the repeating spirals of the tree branch. Every branch led into the trunk. Everything returned to the same, in the end. This was the beginning and end of Yeonaixho’s knowledge of the pagan tradition, and of his mother’s involvement in it. Though he knew it was wrong, he found some comfort in it.

Abruptly, the Morning Bell rang- a horrible, abrupt clanging that startled Yeonaixho out of his blasphemous musings. As it clanged on and on and on, he scrambled to his feet- haphazardly tossing the items back in the lacquer box and returning it to its rightful, hidden spot above the loose ceiling board. Once it was back in place, he had to make his bed twice as fast, lest the Hall Abbot get onto him for slacking. At least now, the noise of the other waking dedicants would mask his clumsy, noisy movement.