Chapter 3
SISTER BENEDETTA
Three Days Later
The convent settles into its nightly silence like a great stone heart slowing after poignant and meaningful prayer.
The dinner bell has long since faded, leaving the scent of lentil stew and baked bread lingering faintly in the air. We eat in silence, as always, the scrape of spoons against bowls the only conversation allowed.
Afterwards, we wash the dishes in the communal scullery, Sister Alba humming beneath her breath and Sister Teresa chiding her for it, then file one by one through the dim cloister, heads bowed, the soft and reassuring slap of sandals echoing between the arches.
I pause before the statue of the Virgin at the end of the corridor, the one that survived the fire.
Her marble skin is still blackened at the hem where the flames licked her robes, a relic of the other convent.
The one we lost after hastily abandoning it to an unquenchable blaze.
I carry the memory of smoke in my lungs even now, though I hardly remember that night.
Only heat and confusion, the sound of shouting, and hands pulling me through darkness.
We were told it was a miracle that any of us survived.
The fire began in the laundry, spreading faster than any of us could react. They moved the remaining sisters here, to Santa Maria delle Nevi, a little over a year ago. Everything that burned was declared lost, including the precious archives.
I tell myself that maybe it’s for the best. That all that matters is that we all made it out alive.
But in my quieter moments, I can’t help but wonder, even while I chastise myself for it, if it was far too convenient.
Or if the Lord, in His infinite wisdom, means to keep anyone from telling me where I came from.
How I ended up in a convent for the last six years.
After Compline, I retreat to my cell, a narrow room with whitewashed walls and a simple crucifix above the bed.
It’s colder here than at the old convent; the wind seeps through the shutters in an insistent whisper. I light a stub of candle, kneel by the little table that serves as my desk, and begin my nightly ritual.
Brush hair. Fold veil. Check the hem of my habit for loose threads. Say a prayer for humility. Another for forgiveness. And one more – for memory.
That last one feels like blasphemy.
The doctors said the fire damaged my hearing and stalled my healing for a while; the heat concussed me. But that’s not why I lost pieces of myself. That was before. But the nuns insist it’s all divine will. That God took what He deemed unnecessary, and in His mercy, left me enough to serve Him.
I believed them. At first.
But lately, I’m not so sure.
There are moments, small but with sudden, blinding flashes that make me doubt. A smell, a word, a sound. Sometimes when one of the younger sisters laughs, I see light through stained glass and someone turning towards me.
Or when the gardener’s son laughs and I see a figure, a man’s outline maybe, wild dark hair, blurred by the sun’s shadow.
My stomach twists when it happens, a rush of something that feels like joy and pain tangled together.
I try to ask questions, careful ones. ‘Did I have family before the convent?’ ‘Where was I found? Is Benedetta my real name?’ But the answers are always the same.
‘Be patient, Sister Benedetta. The Lord only reveals what we’re ready to bear.’
Patience, they say, is the virtue of saints.
But saints don’t wake in the night trembling from dreams of faceless strangers. Saints don’t feel the sharp stab of wanting to know who they were before God remade them.
I hate myself for doubting. I hate the small, bitter corner of my soul that wonders if faith alone will ever be enough. So I pray harder. Louder. Longer. Until the words blister my lips and the stone floor numbs my knees.
Tonight, I polish the small wooden cross that hangs at my bedside, praying the repetitive motion will sooth and ground me.
It’s cracked from years of devotion, the grain darkened by the oils of my fingers. My throat clogs and tears film my eyes as I whisper over it like an apology.
‘Forgive me, Father. For thinking I might have been someone else.’
Silence deepens and the wind rattles the shutters in answer.
Across the corridor, the bell in the chapel tolls once – a soft, hollow note.
The last of the sisters shuffle to their rooms. I blow out the candle and crawl into bed, pulling the blanket to my chin.
The sheets smell faintly of lavender and smoke.
I stare up at the shadow of the crucifix, trying not to think about the world beyond these walls.
In two days, I’m meant to meet with the Madre Superiora.
She’ll explain the next stage of my noviciate, the one I’ve dreaded since I first heard of it. Every novice, before taking her final vows, must spend six months living beyond the convent. A trial of faith. To test one’s strength against faith and temptation.
The idea terrifies me, hollows my belly in a way that won’t let me catch my breath.
I have no memory of the world outside these cloisters. No family to write to. No friends to visit. Only the faint, flickering fragments that come to me unbidden.
I told Sister Teresa once that I fear I wouldn’t know how to find my way back if I left. She smiled kindly and said, ‘Then you’ll have to trust God to lead you home.’
That terrified me more than I could say. Because what if He doesn’t?
What if the world is waiting to swallow me whole again, like the fire almost did? Or the fractures in my brain worsen until there’s nothing left of me worth salvaging?
I close my eyes, fold my hands beneath my cheek, and force the thought away.
‘Deliver me from doubt,’ I whisper. ‘Deliver me from sin. Deliver me from myself.’
Outside, the wind sighs through the olive trees, carrying the scent of salt from the distant sea. The convent creaks and finally settles. I listen to the heartbeat of the old, sturdy building… the slow rhythm of peace… and let it soothe me.
In a few nights, I’ll be sent out into that same world that has already taken so much from me. For now, I have this. The quiet. The certainty. The illusion of safety.
My last thought before sleep finds me is a prayer, fervent and trembling:
Let me not fail You, Lord.
Let me not succumb to temptation.
Let nothing pry me from the safety of these walls.
I exhale the words like a vow.
And somewhere, far away, unseen fingers press a single key, setting a different kind of vow into motion.
* * *
The bell above the dormitory door rings once but it’s too sharp, too soon.
My eyes snap open.
For a moment I think it’s a dream, another echo from the fire, until I hear it again – a metallic clang that doesn’t belong anywhere inside a convent.
Then the dogs down by the orchard start barking, and the night fractures.
Whispers rise, much more fervent than we’re allowed, along the hall.
Feet shuffle and the hinges of old doors groan open.
I slip from my cot, my own bare feet finding the cold stone.
Sister Teresa appears in the corridor the second I open my door a crack, her candle trembling in one hand, her other clutching the rosary at her throat. Her usually steady gaze swims wide with apprehension.
‘What is it, Sister?’ I whisper, and I don’t miss the thread of fear I can’t hide in my own voice.
Before she can answer, the lights go out.
The corridor drowns in blackness. The only sound is the pounding of my heart… and then, beneath it, a rhythm I don’t recognise. Footsteps. Boots. Heavy, coordinated, deliberate.
Not the light treads of unassuming nuns.
A door slams downstairs and someone cries out. It’s a short, startled gasp that’s cut off too quickly. Teresa’s candle wobbles, almost snuffing out.
‘Back to your room,’ she breathes. ‘Lock the door.’
‘But shouldn’t we go and—?’
Her stern gaze is harsher in the candlelight.
I nod and obey, stumbling into my cell, closing the wooden door and pressing my weight against it. But the bolts here are old and small, meant to keep out curiosity, not violence.
The sounds, though a little muffled now, multiply.
Shouting now, interspersed with low, male voices speaking in a language too clipped to follow. That in itself is a huge worry, since men – save Matteo, the ageing gardener, and his son – aren’t allowed within the confines of the convent.
More doors open, a few more urgent shouts, then I hear the scrape of boots getting close. Closer.
The hollow thud of something hitting a wall, then glass shatters somewhere near the refectory. I jump from the door, staring unseeing into the darkness before, pivoting, I sink to my knees beside the bed.
The faintly phosphorescent outline of the crucifix above me glows faintly in the dark. I reach for it, reassured by its solid form in my hands.
It’s not a fire, but I fear what’s coming could be just as bad.
Worse.
‘Please, Lord,’ I whisper. ‘Have mercy. Please, not again.’
The fire comes back to me all at once, the heat, the choking smoke, the faceless silhouettes moving through the flames. I taste ash.
A thud hits my door and my mind blanks.
Another and the hinges scream and splinter.
A boot slams and the door flies off its hinges, slamming to the floor with a thunder crack.
My scream is lodged in my throat as the first figure fills the doorway. A giant dark shape in black armour and a balaclava, his rifle catching the candlelight. Another follows, then another. Five shadows in total, their steps measured, precise, terrifyingly silent.
‘Who – who are you?’ The words tumble out, thin and useless. ‘What do you want?’
No one answers.
One gestures; another sweeps the room, clearing corners with studied efficiency that would make Madre Superiora proud.
Madre Superiora! Where is she? What’s happened to my sisters?
I try to stand, to dart past them to the gaping hole that was once my door, but the nearest one is already beside me. A gloved hand catches my arm – firm but not cruel – and something cold presses against my skin. Plastic restraint.