Sweet Salvation

by Lily Miles

  “Where is it?” Catherine demands, earning a bewildered blink of Monica’s eyes as Catherine kneels in front of the redheaded nun.

  “What?” Monica asks, confused.

  Grace clasps her hands, plump lips moving in prayer, her breaths short and shallow. She doesn’t even appear to hear the other two girls conversing.

  “Erik told me what you stole,” Catherine shoots back sharply, grabbing the young nun by the shoulders. Monica pales and glances around shiftily.

  “I'm sorry, Cat,” she begins to sputter. “I didn't realize you would want berries, too. Next time I’ll beg him for two bowls and I’ll bring you some.”

  “Berries?” Catherine repeats irritably. “No, Monica. I'm talking about the gardener’s notebook. What did you do with it?”

  “Notebook?” Monica blinks. “I'm sorry, Cat. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I never took a book.”

  Catherine eases back, staring at Monica in bewilderment. If she hadn't taken the book, then who had?

  Sister Eva, who had been listening curiously to the exchange from around the corner, slips back into the shadows and makes her way down the hall. Though Catherine is usually more quick on the uptake, it’s Eva who’s figured this mystery out first.

  She makes her way up the stairs towards the large convent library, where she can hear muffled voices from under the doors. Whenever anyone has something to hide, they come here first. Eva throws the doors open to find Sister Isabelle and the twin girls, hunched together on the floor and staring down at the pages of a crumpled book.

  “I wish I had that kind of hair,” Sister Lucy murmurs, appalled at her own flat, silky locks in contrast to Sister Margaret’s thick, dark curls bouncing down over her shoulders.

  Sister Genevieve rolls her eyes.

  When the three women notice Eva’s approach, the twins blanch and quickly gather themselves up, murmuring something about being late to breakfast. They rush off, avoiding Eva’s scornful glare.

  Isabelle remains, slapping the book shut and folding her hands on top of it.

  “Hand it over,” Eva demands, folding her arms across her chest.

  Isabelle, the only one besides Catherine not afraid of Eva, stubbornly lifts her chin. Isabelle is the oldest of the young group of nuns, and she isn’t afraid of making an enemy of treacherous Eva.

  “No,” Isabelle replies coolly.

  Isabelle isn’t particularly interested in protecting Sister Margaret, and it really was obvious it was Margaret’s body drawn on the pages of the wrinkled paper. She didn't know who’d drawn the picture, but it was masterfully done. What Isabelle is interested in is depriving Eva of anything she wants.

  “If you don’t give the book to me now, I'm going to show Mother Antonia the sketches that you’ve made. Do remember how irate she was at Monica’s little doodles. How do you think she would feel if she saw what you were drawing?” Eva replies smugly.

  Isabelle’s face falls, a fatal mistake when dealing with Eva. Eva wiggles her fingers, beckoning for the book as an expression of victory lights up her face.

  “You’ll still tell, won’t you?” Isabelle mutters, relinquishing the book and promising herself that she’ll get rid of the evidence of her transgressions as soon as she’s able.

  Eva just grins shallowly, the high overhead light casting shadows over her unattractive features. Never beautiful at any given moment, Eva’s face always became downright ugly when distorted with cruelty. “Why would I do that, Sister Isabelle,” she coos, “when I can just use it against you anytime later—at perhaps a far more advantageous moment to me?”

  Eva then turns on her heel, leaving the library in a flurry of delighted, gleeful steps, as upbeat as Isabelle is down.

  28

  Margaret

  No matter how long I sat on that window sill, I could not seem to come up with a magical, perfect answer that would tie this all up with a neat bow. I never had an epiphany that solidified my decision. I just sat there thinking about Trevor and my faith and my vow to the church until my brain was throbbing and my heart was heavy.

  Only when I realized that breakfast was starting soon, and I shouldn’t be late and call more attention to myself, did I force myself to my feet and slowly begin to make my way through the winding halls towards the dining room.

  I had no appetite whatsoever, but Mother Antonia would notice if I wasn’t there, and I didn't want to give Eva any more reasons to tell the mother superior what she’d seen. Catherine had been trying to comfort me by saying Eva had no proof, but Mother Antonia wouldn’t need any evidence of my sin to punish me: she was an “act first, think later” type of disciplinarian. I shudder and inspect my palms, which are now mostly healed but still have faint red lines across them from when she’d struck them.

  “Sister Margaret,” a kind voice draws me out of my reverie.

  I tip my head up to see Sister Ruth walking through the hall towards me. She smiles gently, placing a hand on my shoulder when I force a smile and greet her back.

  “You look pale as a sheet,” she says softly. “Go lay down and take a rest. I’ll tell the reverend mother that you’re ill.”

  “Are you sure?” I say in surprise, but the elderly woman nods and winks.

  “I’ll even bring you some soup later. Go rest, child.”

  Grateful to escape everyone for a while, I turn and walk the opposite way down the hall. When I pass by the stairs leading to the room I share with Cat, I catch sight of someone else running late for breakfast.

  Sister Grace kneels in front of a large stained glass window, adorned in the rainbow of light pouring through the pane. It seems to turn her habit gold. I look up the stairs, considering going to my room, but then approach her instead.

  As I kneel down next to her, her soulful, dark eyes flutter open and she turns to look at me.

  “Good morning, Sister Margaret,” she says with a smile.

  The pious woman’s cheeks are pink and flushed, the same shade as her supple lips. For a moment, I'm captivated by her delicate beauty. When I concentrate my thoughts on last night, I can still taste Trevor’s rough, hot mouth on mine. Now I wonder what it would feel like to kiss gentle Grace.

  “Morning …” I murmur distractedly, clasping my hands in front of me and turning my face towards the stained glass.

  I’d prayed endlessly over the situation with Trevor, and then Eva, and whether or not I was making the right choice in choosing my vows to the Catholic Church. Now something about Grace’s calm vibration had drawn me to her. I couldn’t tell her anything that was going on, but being near her was comforting.

  Her eyes drift shut again, hands clasped in front of her chest. “I saw you earlier and it looked like you have a lot on your mind. Like you would need prayer. The kind of prayer that Sister Catherine can’t help you with,” Grace adds, cracking open one eye to glance at me from the corner of her vision.

  So true. Catherine is great at many things, but she isn’t the best prayer partner. She will put up with it for a while, but then she gets bored and fidgety and starts pestering me to move on to different topics, namely gossip.

  “You’re right,” I sigh, clasping my hands tighter. But when I close my eyes to pray, my mind wanders away from holy words and thoughts, drifting towards the sight of his body under the rain, and the way it felt to be clutched against him so tightly.

  Grace continues to look at me and I hesitantly turn towards her. I try to organize the whirlwind of my emotions and thoughts into something that makes sense, but I'm having a hard time focusing.

  “Why did you become a sister, Grace? What brought you to the convent?” I whisper urgently.

  Grace sighs. She opens her eyes and pensively stares up at the beautiful stained glass, as if searching for an answer that she’ll find in the window; after a while, she looks back at me and her pretty face breaks into an easy smile. She looks so very content, her peaceful state of mind really emphasizes just how lost I am.

  “I became a
sister here at the Blessed Virgin convent because I felt a call, Sister Margaret.”

  I lean a little closer. “A call?”

  Before, I’d thought I’d felt that, too. But the call I feel to escape back into Trevor’s arms is even greater than anything that came before. Is it momentary, fleeting lust? Or is it more?

  Grace gives an eager nod. “It was this deep, rooting feeling in my soul that I was meant to come here to be among my sisters and to spread the Holy Spirit around the world.”

  She settles down from where she was perched upright on her knees, easing into a seated position. “Have you been reconsidering your oath, Sister Margaret?” she presses carefully, unwilling to make an assumption before I say anything.

  I don’t answer, my jaw gritting and suddenly terrified of her scorn, though Grace is always sweet-tempered—except when she’s been deprived of food for a week.

  Mulling the unsaid question, Sister Grace gently begins to speak. “The call is yours to follow, whether it’s within the Church or not. If you stay here when you’re not meant to, then your relationship with your faith will get strained, don’t you think? Maybe you need more freedom than you believe. Pray on it, Sister Margaret, and I'm sure the answer will come to you in time. I’ll pray for you, too, that you find clarity.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper, sudden gratitude rolling through me like a tide.

  I’d forgotten how nice it is to talk to Grace. Though quiet and shy and beautiful, she has a way of thinking that makes me feel more secure. While Cat is quick to judge and quick to make a decision, Grace takes her time.

  “Mags!” Catherine calls from behind me, lurching forward. She falls to her knees next to us, chest heaving. “I’ve been looking for you. You need to come with me right now. I need to tell you something I found out …” Cat trails off, frowning at Grace, who closes her eyes and returns to her prayer.

  Thanking Grace one more time for her kind words, I push myself to my feet and allow Catherine to take my hand and pull me towards the stairs. Cat is slightly prone to dramatics and you can never be too sure when she actually has something important to share, or when she just wants to gossip.

  “I went down to the kitchen to talk to Erik, when I heard Trevor in there,” Catherine whispers quickly, pausing to suck in another breath.

  The gardener’s name is like an arrow to my heart. I immediately flinch, closing my eyes and waiting for my racing heart to slow down. But it won’t oblige and continues to throb wildly, as I long for him more and more.

  “I don’t want to talk about Trevor, not right now. I have a lot on my mind and thinking of him is only going to make me more confused,” I interrupt firmly. “For a little while I'm just going to focus on me and my prayers until I sort out how I'm feeling. I don’t know if it’s normal to be as conflicted as I am, but I need more time to decide.”

  Cat stops mid-step, her hand tightening on my arm. Her eyes are serious when she looks up at me.

  “You don’t have time, Maggie,” Catherine exclaims urgently. “Trevor is leaving the convent. You have to make a choice and you have to make it now.”

  29

  Trevor

  I slink back into the shadows, eyes shifting from corner to corner of the locked room high up in the convent.

  If I’d thought it was creepy on just the lower floor of the nunnery, up here it was like being in a haunted house. The entire fortress-like convent creaks and groans and every stair and floorboard seems to squeak in protest. Of what, I wouldn’t know. Maybe the plight of women who’ve been stuck in here for decades.

  The passageway from the kitchens had led up to a winding staircase and a small door that I’d been able to unlock. When I peeked out, I found a room covered in dust with windows draped in grimy, gray cloth. But with the sun shining, at least, the room isn’t as bleak as it might be. I also found a trail of footprints leading back and forth many times over from a door at the front of the room to one of the windows.

  Erik hadn't exactly been forthcoming on any details regarding Cat’s use of the passage. He’d simply said that she was the type of woman who occasionally needed privacy, and she’d convinced him to share the key to the top room: he had the keys to the passage and all the doors in it. I’d asked what the other doors led to, but he’d been tightlipped about that as well.

  After a few minutes, I hear the sound of footsteps approaching and flatten myself back against the wall, just as two women in robes open the door.

  “Cat, I don’t understand why we’re up here. We’re not allowed …” Maggie trails off, when suddenly Catherine points at me through the darkness and pushes Maggie through the doorway.

  Without a word, Maggie rushes forward, throwing her arms around my neck and crashing against me. She clings to me like she’s holding onto a life raft for dear life.

  “You two have a lot to talk about, but you don’t have a lot of time. This is basically the only place in this prison where you can have a private chat, but you need to make it quick. Got it?” Catherine blurts out, excitedly.

  “Yes, Cat, thank you!” Maggie gushes.

  I give my thanks as well and Catherine closes the door quietly behind her. Beyond the doorway, I can hear Catherine take a seat on the stairs outside to make sure we aren’t interrupted.

  Maggie and I hold each other for a moment, basking in delight at being able to be in one another’s arms yet again, if only for a few minutes. Even though she’d claimed when I last saw her that I wouldn’t again, her eyes are shimmering with joy as she gazes at me, her pupils dilated. I press a tender kiss against her forehead and she clings to me, her body shapely even with the thick robes separating us. I instantly feel aroused.

  No matter how hard I try to focus on the woman in front of me, just feeling the heat of her breath on my neck as she embraces me makes my vision hazy, electric desire curling through my core. She’s so close and so beautiful, I'm longing to taste her lips again.

  “You’re leaving the convent?” Maggie gasps, clinging to me. “Why didn't you tell me?”

  I brush her veil back off her forehead so I can sweep my hands through her curls. She doesn’t object and my finger traces down the curve of her pale cheek.

  “I wanted to but the time wasn’t right earlier. You sounded like you made up your mind about wanting to remain at the convent,” I answer.

  Her plump, delicious lower lip is sucked beneath her upper teeth as her brow furrows in concentration. “At the time I was sure … but the thought of you leaving and me never seeing you again … I don’t know if I could stand that. It’s all so confusing. I don’t know what the right choice is.”

  “All I want is for you to be happy, Maggie,” I answer, my voice pained. “That’s all. Whatever choice you make, it’ll be your own, I won’t pressure you. But if you asked me, I would take you away from here in a heartbeat. You’d never feel trapped or isolated every again.” My nose brushes hers as I speak, my arms tightening around her body.

  Her fingers slide through my hair, knotting against my scalp. I feel her pillowy breasts pushing against my chest.

  “If I choose to let you go, I may never feel your touch again. I want to feel it now,” she murmurs tenderly. “I want to memorize your body so that when I remember you, I can see it and touch it and taste it again …. I want you to touch me, too. Know me. Feel me. So you can remember me.” She gazes up at me imploringly, and it’s impossible to deny her.

  I swallow hard and brush my fingers over Maggie’s body, taking my time. I swirl my hands over her breasts, tracing my fingers over her nipples; they harden as I tweak and tease them lightly. She moans and puts a leg up around my ass—I can tell she wants me inside her. I slip an arm under the leg that’s around me and pull her other leg up so that now I’m carrying her, her body straddling mine. With her arms holding tight around my neck, Maggie’s lips passionately press my own. This time, she welcomes my tongue into her mouth, responding with her own while we kiss deeper and deeper. Our bodies begin to grind toge
ther. She gasps, feeling the bulge of my cock pushing insistently against the thin fabric of her panties.

  Even though it’s inside my pants, when she tentatively strokes my swollen erection, it’s almost too much to bear. I’ve been fantasizing about this moment for so many days that it makes stars burst in front of my eyes. My breath hitches and, still holding her, I kneel down on the floor, then sit on my haunches. Maggie’s straddling my lap as I shove aside her habit so it’s draped over her thighs behind her.

  I moan as we continue our deep kissing and she knots her hands in my hair. I clutch her against me, our hips grinding over our clothes. We collapse back and I pin her down on the dusty floor.

  “How do I know which call is the one I should follow?” Maggie asks suddenly, gazing up at me with eyes glazed with lust as well as uncertainty.

  I wish I could tell her to come with me. I wish I could make that choice for her. But at the end of the day, she has to make that choice herself because it’s she who must live with the consequences. To follow me and give up the veil, or to keep the veil and lose me?

  “Would you even want me?” she asks suddenly, our bodies going still.

  We’re still completely dressed, but her hand is between my legs, rubbing my swollen cock over my jeans. Her pupils are dilated with desire.

  “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life,” I answer, grabbing her face and pressing my forehead against her own.

  Her eyes burst into tears and she clings to me, hiding her face in my shoulder.

  “Now, now,” I say soothingly, and nudge her head up so she’s facing me again. She looks so sweet, I just have to kiss her. Our mouths explore each other ravenously again as she grabs her habit and drags it up around her waist.

  I momentarily take in the vision of Maggie, her smooth, flat belly, those long, white legs, and in between, heaven itself: that white lace-covered triangle. I swirl my fingertips lazily over the lace mound, making her emit little shrieks of pleasure. Stroking harder over her panties, I locate her clitoris under the fabric and rub it vigorously up and down. She begins to gasp, her breath coming in small pants. When it’s clear she can’t take another second of this, I push her soaked panties to one side, my hand plunging between her thighs and cupping her pussy. Maggie moans, quivering under me, as my fingers slip between her inner lips. I glide one finger up and down over her hot, drenched slit, biting back a feral groan of my own. My cock is so swollen that the pressure of it on my jeans makes it throb with desire. As she grinds against my hand, eyes rolling back, I slowly push one finger inside of her and start pumping it in and out. This is as much as she can stand, and she throws her head back, her spine arching as my thumb swirls around her clit.