Patron Saint of Dykes by Audrey R. Hollis

The patron saint of dykes knows you’re queer. Just knows. There isn’t a femme alive who is invisible to her.

Pray to the patron saint of dykes for pronouns that fit like your skin never did. Pray for your softball team to win next Sunday. Pray that it won’t rain the day you marry your girlfriend. Pray that your coming out goes safely, this time and the next time and the next time and the next.

The patron saint of dykes—Saint Odulphus, or, as you affectionately call her, Saint O—was born in 1356. 1356! Or perhaps 1374 or 1331. They weren’t always stellar about records back then. Especially for the girl children.

This was the dark ages, darker than the shadows of the walls that kept out the sea, darker than a bat’s eyes, darker than charcoal. And yet.

Saint O knew by her wandering womb that she was destined for bigger things than drawing water from the well, making flat breads, and hauling flour to and from her mother’s home.

The patron saint of dykes hails from darker times. She’s a breath in the convent, a whisper in the prison, a weighted look among the washerwomen. She has gone by Hysteria and Witchcraft, Vapours and PMS, Inversion and Monstrosity. She is stronger than any charm brought to bear against her.

Once, during your own dark ages, by which you mean middle school, you called on her to assist you. You didn’t know, back then, that the woman you called on possessed a name or a history or even any power. You wore a uniform and shrank into yourself during gym and your confirmation saint had been worse than useless.

You had the nebulous sense that the problems before you were not vulnerable to the charms of Saint Anthony or Francis of Assisi. No. You were going to need a bigger boat.

Your problems, which seemed so monstrous then, have since become routine. You ask the Patron Saint of Dykes to bless your Tinder and your sports teams and your haircuts.

Back then, you had been cast in Peter Pan. As Peter, of course—you couldn’t see yourself in Wendy, had never possessed that sort of patience. In any century, you would not have been able to pretend to such a paragon of womanhood.

The Patron Saint of Dykes bestows her blessings upon nonconformists everywhere. Did you imagine she was well behaved? Whatever they may tell you about the meek, they do not obtain sainthood.

The casting itself was electric. They had seen some hidden quality in you, you were convinced, some secret thing that made you perfectly suited for such a role. Or simply a penchant for acting, honed by thirteen years of acting straight.

You were good at it! Nearly impeccable, detectable only to those who would have a reason to look. Your straightness, that is—you were a rather indifferent Peter Pan.

You remember standing in front of the mirror, straightening your ragged green shirt, your favorite part of the costume. Telling yourself, it is not weird, how much you love this. The costume, the flying, the feather-light touch of your Wendy, when she bid you goodbye.

Then and there, you sent up your prayer. A paradoxical thing, to ask to be hidden at the very moment you stepped on stage. But you believe Saint O draws a curtain over the ones she can protect, the ones who are not yet ready.

That prayer, so simple and so sincere, went like this—please do not let them see what you really want. Please do not let them see what you need. Please do not let them know who you really are.

Who has not uttered this prayer?

You turned from the mirror. Your lines were jumbled into a chaos in your head. Wendy waved to you just before she stepped onstage. Good luck, you mouthed, but she had turned too early and did not see.

In 1378 or 1339, the Patron Saint of Dykes asked the first of her jezebel loves to accompany her to the well to draw water. You had asked your Wendy nothing, had only stuttered at her attempts at conversation.

Statues weep blood and springs bubble from the ground and illness flees the body but you did not ask for such a pronounced miracle. You heard your cue from the stage and straightened, throwing your shoulders back, striding with the long steps you used when you imitated the boys.

You entered to a hush. It was then that Saint O threw her cloak over you. You could almost see it, a heat-ripple between the audience and yourself. Your parents, your English teacher, your soccer coach, they still talk of the way you flew during the second act. The harness cut into your legs and you didn’t trust the boy from props, who held the ropes, and Wendy’s fingers tangled with your own.

They couldn’t see the way she met your eyes. The way she held on. The way you hung, after the curtain went down, suspended, and felt something settle within you.

Saint O, like all saints, frowns on kings and smiles on revolution. She kept you hidden but only that you might come back stronger. Saint O held your hand as they lowered the ropes and your feet hit the floor and you stood, resolved.

You still have the green shirt hidden at the back of your dresser. You stole it from the props department, the first of many thefts. Sometimes, you’ll come across it by accident, your fingers brushing that rough fabric and you’ll resolve, that day, to be just a bit gayer, just a bit louder. And somewhere, Saint O is flying.

Audrey R. Hollis, 2018 graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, is a Los Angeles-based writer. Her fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Lunch Ticket, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, among other places. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @audreyrhollis or visit her website www.audreyrhollis.com.