Sweet Salvation

by Lily Miles

  “Go, child. May the Lord walk with you,” Mother Antonia answers, smirking as the young woman dashes out of the room. “And don’t forget the promise that you have made to Him in this office. You must look after Sister Margaret for her own good.”

  “It’s for her own good,” Eva answers with a nod, smiling brightly.

  The door swings heavily behind her, smacking against the doorframe as Sister Ruth and Mother Antonia gaze at one another in contemptful silence. The pair have never seen eye to eye.

  “Sister Ruth,” Mother Antonia begins after allowing the silence between the two to stew for a while longer. “As I reminded Sister Eva, I am the one in charge of this place. I am the one tasked with keeping everyone walking the line of piety and reverence. Don’t make me doubt your place here, or I will send you to another convent.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, Reverend Mother,” Ruth hisses back, her cheeks flaring red with restraint.

  4

  Margaret

  Catherine grabs me, whirling me around so that my back smacks firmly against the convent’s stone wall. My cheeks flame red, my eyes darting towards the now closed doors hiding Trevor from view.

  That face when he was looking at me … what had that expression meant? It was the kind of look I’d never once seen in my life. It was a look that made my veins suddenly feel as though my blood had been replaced with fire; I don’t understand what that could possibly mean. These feelings, that expression, it’s all too confusing. I may not be able to grasp what all of it signifies, but one thing’s for sure: it feels like trouble.

  I fear I’ve gone against my oath of purity to the Catholic church.

  “Was he watching us?” Cat whispers, her voice strangely hungry. She bites her lower lip, eyes wide and dilated.

  Why does she look like that? My head spins and I press my body roughly against the stone wall in an attempt to make everything go still once more. This time yesterday, I had none of these conflicting emotions surging through me. How was it that a man could lock eyes with me and flip everything on its axis?

  There was only one thing to do now and that was pray—I had to pray these strange urges away. I had to forget Trevor and the dirt under his fingernails and the way his eyes had been burning right through my cloak when I noticed him.

  “Of course not,” I answer swiftly, though my entire body is tingling, and I know better.

  I suck in a deep breath and the shifting of my robe over my nipples ignites the fire in my veins even further. I give a grunt as though in pain and double over, hands on my knees, squeezing my eyes shut.

  This is surely just like any other illness. With time and rest it will pass.

  The gardener had been looking right at me—through me, in fact—his eyes like emerald lasers. It was like he could see all of me, even though I'm wrapped in my habit from head to toe. When I blink, I can still see his strained expression etched onto the backs of my eyelids.

  “Are you alright?” Catherine asks, taking my hands in hers and pulling me away from the cool stone.

  I nod and lean against her. “I want to go to the library. The private one. I need some quiet meditation. Maybe we can work on our mission idea as well.”

  Though Catherine wasn’t normally one to go to the library without argument, she nods. Her arm wraps around my own as we hurtle through the halls of the convent. Our shoes slap loudly against the floor as we rush on, but I don’t care about how much noise we make: it’s still early in the evening and no one will be trying to rest. We’ll probably have interrupted one of Grace’s constant rituals, but at least she doesn’t speak enough to complain to the mother superior.

  We slip past one of the barricades that marks a secluded portion of the convent and make our way towards the private library. This is a library solely for members of the Holy Church, though no one except the convent nuns have made use of it for generations.

  Sometimes I like to go to the library all by myself and lose myself among the aisles of books, inhaling the scent of furled, yellowed paper. I like brushing delicate fingers across the faded titles, and imagining the hundreds of women who have taken the same steps I have around the library, or who have carefully handled the same books I do. There’s something almost magical about that connection, a connection I’d always been looking for while growing up.

  The Catholic Church has always played a pivotal role in my life. My parents, both former missionaries, are still intensely involved in the Catholic world, and it only made sense that in my own way, I would join them. At times, it was clear to me that they loved the Church much more than they did me, and even perhaps each other, but I thought that was just the way it worked. Your connection with the Holy Spirit was the only one that mattered: no other human bond could compare. Perhaps there was a part of me that thought my parents would finally love and value me if I followed this path, but I haven’t even spoken to them since arriving here. They’d dropped me off, my father shaking my hand and my mother patting my cheek, briefly greeted Mother Antonia, and then left without looking back. I stared after them, feeling the very first twinge of uncertainty.

  But when I conveyed those concerns to Sister Ruth, she’d laughed and told me that every nun had a doubt here and there. The most important thing was to let the Lord take care of it. Push it from your mind and pretend it isn’t there, and eventually, it will fade. This has proved true—for the most part.

  I’d first heard of a nunnery when I was eight years old and my mother mentioned that there was a special castle where the purest of girls went to devote themselves to their faith and their God. That appealed to me, of course, because I always fancied myself a princess in one way or another, and she worded it in such a fantastical, mythical way. After learning of this magic castle where I could go if I stayed pure, I threw myself into the biblical teachings of the church. I told everyone I met that I wanted to be a nun. I had meeting after meeting with my priest and my parents, grilling me on whether or not I could actually follow through on this desire. I committed myself to learning everything I could about the church at my all-girls Catholic school. Of course, I rebuffed any man that ever even glanced my way. And through it all, I memorized the Bible frontwards and backwards.

  Eventually, I got my wish.

  But I didn't understand until I set foot in the convent, just what it meant to give up everything in order to become a nun.

  This isn’t an enchanted castle. I don’t get to spend my days with my nose in the Bible, studying the teachings there. Instead, I'm hounded by Mother Superior and lashed on my hands every time I speak out of turn. I enjoy the evenings when we all come together after dinner to sing hymns and pray together, but the rest of the time I live in fear. I'm glad that I have Cat who makes this entire lifestyle bearable, but what will I do if she leaves the convent? I can’t imagine her staying her forever.

  Though when they come up, I am able to will my doubts away, the questions persist and I feel that I can no longer bring them to Ruth; I feel like I can’t bring them to anyone.

  Will I make a misstep in my pursuit of salvation? Will I make my parents proud? Am I making the right choice? But, even if I did decide I was making the wrong choice, it’s too late now: I’ve already made my vow, I’m already a part of this convent. Renouncing the cloth is not an option. This is the rest of my life, forever.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Catherine muses as we walk in through the great doors of the library.

  I take in a breath, inhaling the comforting scent of the dusty books. A stained glass rosette window is carved high up on the wall looking down upon the library; I can see wisps of white clouds floating by through the shimmering glass.

  “About what?” I murmur, one hand finding my heart over the black cloth. Its beat is stilling—I’m returning to normal.

  I give a relieved sigh and shake my head. I’ll just have to avoid the gardener. I don’t know what it is about him that sets my heart racing, but it can’t be healthy for my faith. Only the Lord should make
me feel that way.

  “That you’re right,” Cat continues breezily as she parts from me.

  We walk down two aisles separated by one huge bookcase, though she drags a loose book free to stare at me from between the pages. “He wasn’t looking at us. He was looking at you, Maggie. He was looking all over you. Like he wanted you. Like he was imagining what it would be like to peel the layers of your habit away until you were bare in front of him.” Her blue eyes gleam as she speaks, widening with that same hungry expression she had earlier. She rambles fast, trying to get in the words before I plug my ears and sing a devotional hymn to drown out her scandalous claim.

  She thrusts the book back into place and giggles, letting her laughter bounce over the walls as though no one else could possibly be in here. I gather up my black skirt in my hand and rush around the side of the bookcase to confront her, glaring.

  “Don’t say such blasphemous things, Sister Catherine!” I whisper, my nervous eyes flitting over the large room.

  My ears strain, listening for any hint of feet swishing over the creaking floorboards, but there isn’t so much as a breath of noise to be heard. There’s only the groan of the ancient building as it weathers the same warm, early spring winds it has for decades.

  Catherine brushes aside my anger with a cavalier chuckle. She never takes anything seriously, but doesn’t she remember how I was abused this morning? Words such as hers could garner me an even worse punishment. Or perhaps it would be her with her palms extended next.

  “Stop it, Mags, there’s no one else in here, I promise,” says Catherine as she continues to smirk. “If anyone is in here then it’s Gracie, and that girl doesn’t talk enough to tell anyone what we’re saying, anyway.”

  “Sister Grace has taken an oath of silence. Just because she dedicates herself to something doesn’t mean you have to be negative about it,” I shoot back, keeping my voice quiet and careful so that anyone who may be listening may not take negative things back to the mother superior.

  It’s not Sister Grace that I'm worried about. It’s Sister Eva. She longs to be the nun equivalent of a teacher’s pet and she’s always eager to inch closer and closer to the reverend mother. She would absolutely love to take snippets of this conversation back to Mother Antonia to get my hands lashed again. I wince at the thought, hazarding a look down at my palms. The aloe from the gardener had helped quite a bit, but I’d still wrapped clean socks around my hands to keep from getting dust in the cuts. My palms hurt every time I stretched my fingers, however, and reading my Bible had proved difficult. It was going to be hard to come up with a suitable mission, while I was struggling to turn the pages of the most holy book.

  Catherine slowly wets her pink lips, her head tipping to the side. Strawberry blonde silk escapes her cap, gliding in silky strands towards her shoulder. It’s like her hair has a will of its own to break free. No matter how tightly I braid her hair beneath her veil, it always manages to spring free. She’d gotten rebuked for it so many times by Mother Antonia that I’ve lost count now.

  “Have I ever told you about my life before I came to the convent, Maggie?” Catherine asks after a few minutes, dragging a finger over the dusty shelf and inspecting the long smear.

  Of course she had, at least a dozen times. Laying in our cots at night, she would gaze at me from across the shadowed room, her eyes glowing blue, and she would tell me all about where she came from.

  “You didn't come here because you wanted to devote yourself to your faith. You came because your parents forced you,” I recite quietly, biting my lip.

  She nods and inspects her perfectly trimmed fingernails. “I got sent here because I was a naughty girl, Maggie. A very naughty girl indeed.”

  As she speaks, her eyes slowly turn to slits that gleam a pale, perilous blue.

  I’ve seen this expression on her face before, usually before she makes some off-color joke that makes me blush. But this time she stares directly at me the same way that Trevor had. Again that same, strange simmering begins to lazily churn through my core. She takes my hand in hers, lacing her fingers with my own. Her thumb trails sluggishly over the back of my hand. I almost try to pull away, but there’s something paralyzing about the way Catherine is looking at me.

  She licks her lips slowly, pink-tipped tongue dragging over her upper lip. I look away and clear my throat.

  “If you're struggling with your virtue, then this place is definitely for the best,” I answer haltingly, my throat dry. “Here you can be free of plight and temptation and you can focus on establishing a love of the Holy Spirit.”

  This time it’s me blurting out my words as quickly as possible. My heart keeps fluttering in my chest and I can’t seem to control it.

  “I'm definitely struggling,” she giggles, voice dropping to a breathy hiss as she leans in close. “Because I know what it feels like to have a man touch me. I know what it’s like to have my clothes ripped piece by piece from my body, his mouth on mine, our arms around each other … have you ever imagined that? Have you ever wanted to taste the salt of a man’s skin?”

  “No!” I cry out, jerking away from Catherine and putting ample space between us. “Of course not! My vows are made to the Church and I have no intention of ever breaking them!”

  “Sweet Maggie, that’s because you haven’t experienced anything else. But when his body rubs against yours and you can run your fingers down his chest, and press your cheek over his heartbeat while his fingertips slip slowly past your navel, then you’ll have a different point of view.”

  “Catherine, you can’t talk like that in this place!” I cry out.

  I don’t know why she’s torturing me like this. I don’t know what sort of game she’s playing. All I know is that the room is spinning again, so fast that I feel like it’s going to hurl me right out through the stained glass rosette. My face feels flushed and hot, the same way it did when I came down with the flu last winter.

  “Why?” she asks innocently, batting her long lashes. “Because it’s turning you on? That’s what that feeling is. That twisting inside of you like a stretching rubber band begging to be snapped. Think of Trevor’s face buried between your thighs, his breath hot on your—”

  “Stop!” I shriek, refusing to acknowledge the twisting tendrils of heat that have slowly begun to coil below my belly, making something between my inner thighs ache. I press my legs hard together and will the warmth to stop.

  I don’t want to hear anymore. It’s too confusing. And it can’t be holy, that’s for sure.

  There’s a faint shuffling of noise behind us, and we both whip around to see Sister Grace Sabina emerge from among the books. She gazes at us, plump, pink lips set in a line, narrowed brown eyes cloudy with irritation and hunger. Though our habits are designed to conceal, the cloak hides little of Grace’s curvy, hourglass figure. Though she’s petite and slender, she has a tiny waist and an ample bust and hips. With every movement she makes, her hips languidly roll side to side with a sensuality that she’d never be able to see in herself. So when she catches men staring at her as she passes in town, she always assumes they’re gazing at her cross necklace, and not at the swell of her breasts that the chain nestles between.

  “You’re supposed to be quiet in a library, sisters.” She swallows hard, trying to pretend she hadn't heard a single disgraceful word of what Sister Catherine had been spouting.

  “What?” gasps Cat with mock astonishment. “You don’t say?”

  Grace frowns at Catherine’s tone. “I hope you two know it’s your fault our fasting got extended,” she says with a sigh. Her voice is fragile, delicate, virtuous.

  “You’re talking now?” Cat prods with a roll of her eyes. “I thought you were never going to talk again or whatever. Isn’t that what a vow of silence is?”

  “I choose to dedicate my energy more to my studies than my speech, but I never said I wasn’t talking anymore. Maybe if you paid as much attention to your surroundings or your Bible as you did to torturing eve
ryone else around you, you’d know that,” Grace continues.

  “Sister Grace!” I gasp out. “That isn’t kind.”

  “I guess good little Gracie isn’t as good as she pretends to be,” mocks Catherine.

  I throw up my hands, separating them. Everyone is on edge, but I'm almost grateful for their disagreement, because it’s distracted me from the gardener and the heat welling between my thighs.

  “We’re all irritable because we’re hungry,” I say gently. “That’s all. Once we’re able to break this fast, everyone will go back to being much more even-tempered.”

  Sister Grace bites her lip and nods. “I do apologize for my curt tongue, Sisters,” she says softly, returning to her demure nature. “I haven’t had anything but water in a week and it’s getting hard to stay focused and to remember compassion.”

  “Mags and I tried giving you chocolate,” Catherine notes, earning another harsh look from Grace.

  “We’re supposed to be fasting,” Grace responds. “And I don’t partake in sweets to begin with. It’s just another form of temptation.”

  “And what did you say about the fast getting extended?” I ask, interrupting their bickering and pressing my hands on my belly. I’ve never been this hungry before.

  I’d done plenty of occasional, much briefer fasts growing up, and then there was Lent when I always deprived myself of good food and lived off little more than breadcrumbs, but I’d never gone this long while only sneaking bits here and there. I’d made it four whole days before caving after watching Catherine take down a whole Hershey bar that she’d somehow snuck into the convent. Catherine was always managing to get prohibited things inside the fortress walls. Chocolate, magazines, even wine once.

  “I ran into Sister Eva on my way to the library. She mentioned that we would not be having dinner tonight … again,” Grace murmurs with a grimace. “Mother Superior ordered it because she feels we haven’t been diligent enough in our worshiping lately. Apparently, the reverend mother also believes there are some among us who have broken their fasts early.”