

The entire town is awestruck by the incomparable beauty of the spiral staircase, but the carpenter vanishes without even collecting his pay. The carpenter is finally permitted to finish his work, and the kitten, against odds, regains its sight. The carpenter offers many words of gentle comfort to Lizzy and soothes her wounded kitten. As the wait lengthens and tempers flare, Lizzy’s roommate and nemesis cruelly blinds Lizzy’s kitten.

The other students resent the carpenter, however, as they await the appearance of a staircase through a miracle of St. Lizzy convinces the Bishop to hire the carpenter to build a badly needed staircase for the new choir loft. The girls ostracize her, so she finds friendship with an odd assortment of people, including a homeless, old carpenter in need of food and shelter. While many of the girls seek visions of the Virgin Mary, Lizzy is a nonbeliever and without affectation. With a healthy sense of irony, Lizzy often finds the convent ways absurd.

After the untimely death of her mother, Lizzy’s father leaves her in Santa Fe at a convent school. Set in 1878, Rinaldi’s latest work of historical fiction is at once enlightening and highly engrossing.
