by Lily Miles
Once you step inside the convent, the air is dusty and slightly damp, the scent that comes from generations of use. This building is probably older than some countries, and that’s intimidating. I don’t want to be the one who bumps into some ancient artwork and ruins it forever—that would certainly be my luck.
Again, a feminine giggle drifts towards me; I curiously peer around the other side of the wall to catch a flurry of black and white fabric and the flash of a pair of ebony eyes.
It’s her. The beautiful nun. I can’t help but watch her, transfixed by the way she moves.
“Hush, Cat!” the dark-eyed nun cries, though she has a grin on her face as well.
“Oh, Sister Margaret,” Catherine answers with a dramatic intonation and a roll of her eyes. “Are you to tell me this mirth won’t amuse the Lord? Psalms whatever, whatever clearly states that every laugh grants an angel its wings.”
Margaret. It suits the black-eyed beauty.
I watch them, creeping along the outer wall just to keep my eyes on her a little longer. I know I shouldn’t follow them like this, but there’s something so captivating about the woman there. I want to know more about her. I want to hear her speak.
“Don’t make fun of the Bible like that, Cat,” Margaret sighs, her laughter ebbing slightly.
The girls flop unceremoniously onto a patch of green grass near freshly-planted daisies; Margaret reaches out a pale hand to stroke the flowers. She’s wrapped what looks like thick black socks around the wounds on her palms.
Had someone hurt her? Or had it been an accident? I’d wanted to ask her, but the conversation had been too brief and I doubt, judging by her tone, she would’ve even answered me. She’d looked more like she wanted to escape from me than speak to me.
“Maggie, do you want to work together on this mission thing that Mother Antonia’s demanding?” Catherine continues, laying back in the grass so that her black cloak and cape sprawls out around her.
“I don’t know if Mother would allow that, Catherine,” Margaret answers. “And besides, I know that would mean me doing the entire thing for you!” she laughs.
They chat a little longer about whatever mysterious project they’ve been given, but I don’t care about any of that. All I want to do is watch the way Margaret’s perfectly rosy lips form each word as she speaks and the way that occasionally, not knowing she’s being watched, a brazen smile brightens her entire face. I’ve never seen any fruit as lush and sweet-looking as the red lips on that beauty there. I lean my cheek against the stone wall; it’s cool against the heat rising within me.
It’s wrong to desire a nun—you don’t have to be religious to know that—but I can’t help myself.
After a few minutes of watching them from where I'm crouched behind the building, Margaret’s black eyes suddenly lock on mine.
She’d been in the middle of telling some story, but she freezes abruptly, her eyes widening, her lips going still. One of her hands is still lifted in an animated gesture, but is suddenly immobilized by my gaze. My heart races in my chest when our stares collide, but I'm unable to even remind myself how to move, until the one named Catherine pushes herself up onto her palms to see what her friend is looking at. Only when both of them are staring at me do I turn and rush back to my waiting flowers. I fall to my knees in the dirt, trying to pretend like I was only scoping out the grounds for my next task, but my ears burn red and my heart thrums in my chest.
She’d caught me staring at her, trying to imagine how her hair would tumble over her shoulders if I pushed back the white and black veil from her pretty face.
There’s a slight fluttering and the two women get back to their feet and pad back into the hall, their quiet voices drifting after them. I glance over my shoulder to catch just the last glimpse of their habits before they disappear. Then I groan while turning back to the rose bushes I’d been hurriedly pretending to prune. In my haste, I’d messed up and now the bush is lopsided and the flowers sag on their stems. I pluck a few of them, running my fingers over the smooth, velvet red that reminds me so much of Margaret’s lips. I drop the flower with a faint sigh.
Margaret is truly a rose among daisies.
I know I can’t have her. I know I should stop even looking at her … but what’s the problem with admiring a flower in a vase from a distance?
3
“I think those are enough tears, Sister Eva,” Mother Antonia Humilitas sighs as the young woman perched in the chair before the mother superior’s desk dabs at her eyes and gives a choked wail. “No harm came to you.”
“My habit is going to smell like cat urine for a week!” whimpers the young woman, jerking forward to grasp another tissue and bury her face in it. She acts as though she’d been severely tortured, instead of just having a few foul-scented leaves buried in her habit at some point this morning. “I'm telling you it was Sister Monica. Or perhaps even Sister Catherine, that girl is the devil’s spawn herself. She doesn’t even like being here.”
“You aren’t one to judge why the other women around you have chosen to join the convent. Only the Father above is able to do that,” Mother Antonia answers.
“And you,” whispers Eva, beseechingly. She raises her long, gaunt face to the mother superior, her dark eyes—beautiful in a more conventional face—fawning in an attempt to gain favor. Her high cheekbones, always too prominent, are now particularly jutting from the fast; Mother Antonia stares at her, considering how Eva looks more like a skeleton than usual.
But enough of this drama. The reverend mother rolls her eyes, glancing up gratefully when the door opens and Sister Ruth Ellen steps in to interrupt the scene. Mother Antonia had no time for tears. It soured her mood even more than usual, and Eva was one of the most tear-prone nuns within the convent walls.
“Oh, Sister Eva!” gushes Ruth, who liked to think of herself as somewhat of a mother hen to all the clucking little chicks of her congregation. “Why are you crying?”
The elderly woman hobbles quickly forward and gives the young woman a comforting pat on the shoulder. But even though Ruth did love to tend to her fledgling nuns, she wasn’t going to coddle Eva, because it would only make her cry harder and wail louder to get her way.
“Because of this nasty prank that has been played on me!” Eva cries, after loudly blowing her large, slightly hooked nose. “I’m being targeted by someone jealous of my bond with God. This heinous act has clearly been done by someone struggling with their own sacred vows.”
Sister Ruth again pats the young nun’s shoulder, only to be shaken off—Sister Eva had no use for anyone who wasn’t the mother superior. Mother Antonia was the only one in the convent who struck fear in nearly everyone’s hearts, and Eva wanted to get as close to that power as possible. Before joining the convent at eighteen a couple years prior, in her life Eva had felt a powerlessness that still haunted her dreams. She’d vowed while taking her sacred covenant that she would never feel that way again. What she found she enjoyed, however, was making those around her feel that lack of control she formerly felt. She wanted docile Sister Margaret and annoying Sister Catherine and even virtuous Sister Grace to suffer like she had.
“Now, now,” Ruth chides gently, silently noting the wicked wrath in the young woman’s eyes. Nuns, Ruth knew, were not impervious to human emotion; just because they took the veil did not make them less prone to earthly temptations than any other person. “I’ve cleared up the whole mess. It was all just a silly misunderstanding. A mistake, even.”
Ruth had struggled with how to share what she’d learned from the young gardener regarding Monica’s involvement in the stinky leaves prank. She’d ended up deciding that there was no way to prove Sister Monica had done it on purpose, and so it was safe to assume that Monica had only wanted the leaves for tea and nothing more. There didn't seem to be any reason to drag Monica under the mother superior’s vengeful eye. Or Eva’s, for that matter.
“It was Sister Monica, wasn’t it?” demands Eva ferociously. “I could feel her doing somet
hing under my skirt while we were all bowed in prayer. Before Sister Margaret was punished.”
Sister Ruth winces. Punished, indeed. And for something young Margaret had no part in. But the reverend mother has strict rules and if they are not abided by, no one can prevent her from doling out punishments she feels are just. Ruth just hoped that Margaret’s hands weren’t badly injured. She’d wanted to look them over, but Sister Catherine had whisked Margaret away before any further harm could come to the girl. Though Catherine likes to claim she is disinterested in her own religious vows, she cares for Margaret like a younger sister and Ruth saw that; but, then again, Ruth sees most things. Margaret and Catherine had all but become inseparable since Margaret arrived a few months after Sister Catherine. While most of the girls were here because of their own personal beliefs and choices, Catherine was an exception to that rule.
What Catherine was not an exception to was that she ended up here because she was searching for something. Eva sought dominance. Grace sought purity. Even Sister Monica was here for a reason of her own, as was Catherine. But Margaret was a different story to Ruth. Just what did that young nun seek?
“We have no proof it was Sister Monica,” Ruth answers with a firm look at Mother Antonia, who was disinterested in the trite tiff and was only seeking an opportunity to serve swift justice on a sinner. “Especially because the new gardener told me he believed one of the nuns was going to make tea with the leaves. I have a feeling that the bag was simply dropped and there was no ill will involved.”
Eva sniffles, looking both unconvinced and disappointed that she wasn’t going to get someone in trouble. Ruth again pats her shoulder and turns back to the reverend mother.
“Is this meeting over with then, Mother Antonia?” Ruth asks, eager to leave the room.
The Mother Superior’s office was not a place that anyone, even Sister Eva, enjoyed remaining in for long. Plus, Ruth always got nervous when standing in front of the giant crucifix on the Mother’s wall. While most depictions of Christ filled the old nun with bittersweet feelings of love and sorrow, this one just made her skin crawl: it was just too morbid.
“Sister Eva …” Mother Antonia begins, ignoring Sister Ruth’s question. That meant none of them could leave.
Ruth rests her hand on the back of Eva’s chair, trying to mentally warn her against saying anything at all. When you dealt with the reverend mother, everything was a double-edged sword. No matter how you thought you were speaking of someone else, you were undoubtedly getting yourself embroiled in the trouble as well.
Mother Antonia locks her eyes on Eva’s, all but mesmerizing her. Eva straightens, swelling under the attention of the older woman. “Do you agree that your sisters have been more … lax lately with their cloistered duties, Sister Eva? Have they been sticking to their fast, for instance? Skipping bedtime prayers? Anything else I should be aware of? The Lord may be omnipotent but I, unfortunately, am not.” The mother superior speaks slowly, leaning forward on her elbows and narrowing her faded, gray eyes on the young woman before her.
Sister Eva swallows and hesitates for only a fraction of a second before nodding. Ruth’s hands twitch, almost curling. Eva never hesitated to throw one of her sisters under the bus, especially if it meant saving her own skin. She wanted to slap a hand over the young woman’s mouth and quiet her, but instead Sister Ruth tucked her chin against her chest and prayed that Eva would have no useful information, though she knew that would be a stretch.
Eva had the ability to soak up information like a sponge: anywhere she went, she was listening. Some were skilled in carpentry, or calligraphy, or singing. But Eva’s talent was snooping. And she was a dangerous snoop, at that.
The mother superior smiles one of her ghastly smiles that made chills go up the elderly nun’s spine. “Do tell, child.”
Eva blinks her round eyes. “Well, for starters, I am almost certain I saw Sister Margaret eating chocolate the other day, Your Reverence. I caught her trying to wash it off her lips afterward in the bathroom. I asked what it was and she just turned the brightest shade of scarlet I’ve ever seen.”
Mother Antonia leans back in her chair and folds her arms over her chest with a slow and condemning shake of her head.
“Sister Margaret is one of the ones that I am most concerned about,” she sighs. “There’s something in her countenance that worries me regarding her oath to the church. I think if we’re not careful with her she may shed her vows and live a life of damnation instead. We wouldn’t want that, would we?”
Ruth straightens, her mouth opening to say something, but one sharp look from the mother superior and she quiets down once more, shaking her head. This pleases Mother Antonia, who ruffles slightly like a preening bird.
“We certainly wouldn’t,” Sister Eva agrees eagerly, chomping at the bit to be of use to her mother superior.
She observes the tension between Mother Antonia and Sister Ruth and then bats innocent eyes up at the elderly woman behind her chair. While Monica and Catherine could charm snakes with their feigned virtue, Ruth found Eva much more transparent.
“Don’t you think it would be prudent to help Sister Margaret before she falls out of touch with the Lord?” Eva asks, prodding Ruth into disagreeing with the mother.
“It’s always good to support our fellow sisters,” Ruth responds, her tone strangely dry. “But perhaps more of a gentle touch rather than a punitive one will work better with Sister Margaret. If her state is as fragile as you believe, then it wouldn’t do to frighten her off with harsh severity.”
Sister Ruth inhales a shallow breath and risks a furtive glance towards the mother superior. She’d seen a lot of things in the last decade since Mother Antonia came to power at the convent, and each one frightened her more than the last. Even this simple clashing statement may be enough to sic Mother Antonia on Ruth.
The mother superior leans back in her chair, her arms still folded over her chest. She rocks, the chair creaking under her body. Each second that scrapes by makes Ruth’s throat go dry.
“Are you implying something, Sister?” Mother Antonia asks, emphasizing the title to make her point.
Though assistant mother superior, Sister Ruth Ellen is still just a simple nun under Mother Antonia; despite her long tenure at the convent, it is Mother Antonia who makes the rules. Now she’s reminding Ruth of her place.
“I would never be vague with you, Your Reverence,” Ruth answers softly, ducking her chin.
Meanwhile, Sister Eva looks on silently as the two women speak, her eyes flashing delight at the tension between the two older nuns. Only when the reverend mother looks back at the far younger nun does Eva blanch slightly—she’d forgotten just how terrifying Mother Antonia’s cold, gray eyes could be.
“I believe a strict hand is always best,” Sister Eva offers hopefully, longing to earn a bit more favor with the reverend mother. Despite Eva’s best attempts, though, Mother Antonia always remained unfeeling towards the young sister.
Mother Antonia nods, her eyes drifting back to the cross perched on the corner of her desk. In the light of the candle, flecks of dried and peeling red stains are still visible. She smiles to herself, reliving that moment again—the crack of wood on the tender palms, the slow bubbling of red on white flesh. That type of domination pleased Mother Antonia Humilitas. Her nuns would be perfect, Christ-like creatures who lived and breathed their sacred vows. The little lesson from earlier had been merely a taste of what she could do and would surely keep Sister Margaret on her best behavior, at least until she could figure out a way to control her better. That’s what this entire convent was about—control.
These young women, Mother Antonia believed, have no self-control whatsoever.
They’re flighty and wicked at heart and prone to disastrous temptation. Mother Antonia has no problem disciplining them in any way that will keep them firmly on the most righteous path. There’s nothing the mother superior wouldn’t do to keep control of her flock of disobedient sheep in black
robes. If they stepped out of line, she would crush them back into place.
It made no difference to Mother Antonia whether or not Sister Margaret had been the one to actually steal the chocolates off her desk. In fact, the mother superior knew full well that it was Sister Monica who’d not only stolen the chocolates, but had played this prank on Sister Eva as well, and she also knew Monica’s punishment would come. But Mother Antonia was also not concerned about Sister Monica losing her path; she could play her artless tricks. Margaret’s soul was the one that worried her.
“I don’t trust our fresh round of sisters, Sister Ruth,” Mother Antonia continues after a long moment of silent contemplation. “We need to be sure that they each remember their places in the church and that they remember that it’s an eternity spent in heaven or hell at risk here. Sister Eva, perhaps you could keep a closer eye on Sister Margaret? Make sure she’s sticking to the holy word. Keep an eye on her for transgressions that need to be punished. Can you do that?”
Sister Eva practically squirms in her chair with delight. It’s the first time she was actually given a direct order by her superior, and she is eager to prove her value.
“Of course, Mother Superior!” gushes the young nun, “I would be honored to do such a task for you. I’ll find Sister Margaret and do an extra devotional with her tonight before we break our fast at dinner.”
“Break our fast?” chuckles the reverend mother as Sister Ruth’s grimace turns even more grim. “Oh, Sister Eva, surely you wouldn’t suggest such a thing during these trying times? You young nuns need discipline, and I feel that fasting for at least another twenty-four hours will bring you closer to the Lord.”
“But, Mother …” Eve starts to whisper, her jaw falling slightly. One of her hands creeps towards her empty, starving stomach.
“You question me?” Mother Antonia snarls, and Eve quickly shakes her head and scrambles to her feet.
“Of course not. You’re right. We need the extra trial of further fasting to strengthen our faith,” she croaks. “I will still find Sister Margaret to aid her in strengthening hers.”
