Chapter 18 #2
Pandorian turned to Lilith, arching a brow. “Well, it appears the new girl—” She paused, mid-sentence. “That’s… very strange.”
Lilith swayed back and forth slightly. “This is all wrong.”
“What is it?” I asked on a thin breath to anyone who might answer.
As I watched Lilith tremble back and forth like a black church bell in the breeze, all I could see in my mind’s eye were the bodies of white, helpless swans swaying from a tree…
All I could hear were howls and a bad husband’s confession of murderous desire.
The atmosphere shifted to the color of Iris’s bruise and a cool chill crept down my spine.
I rubbed my arms for warmth as the sky grew dark.
Sister Pandorian stood and pulled Delilyx with her. “All of a sudden, it’s going to storm, a big storm. We must get down the mountain now or we’ll be stuck here. The dirt and clay were hard enough to climb dry.”
“It’s just a few dark clouds, Pandy,” Delilyx argued as the nun took her arm. “You said it would be clear and sunny all day.”
“A sudden shift,” she replied.
“Sister,” I said exasperated. “You’re blessed with many gifts but I’ve yet to be convinced that god truly endowed you with the ability to tell the—”
As if on cue and from god himself, a rumble of thunder shook the sky overhead.
“Just a… coincidence,” I said, though my voice betrayed my disbelief in my own words as I stood, moving quickly to Sister Lilith’s side.
The nun still clutched her chest, staring, unresponsive.
“We need to go,” I said. “It’s going to rain. ”
“Storm,” Pandorian said from the distance. They were already ducking through the blackthorn trees. “A wretched storm, please hurry.”
Just then, a thick raindrop hit my cheek.
Lilith’s eyes still locked on the rock, seemingly in a trance.
In a frantic effort to gain her focus, I entwined my fingers with hers, hitting the cool, hard thing she held at her chest. Though she held it tight, she didn’t fight me when I reached around the object, stealing it from her grip.
The silver was worn and scuffed.
“A lock?” I asked. “This is what you reach for in your pocket? You carry it with you everywhere? Why, Lilith?”
Instead of answering, she walked forward, the front pieces of her blonde hair whipping in a gust of cool wind as another roll of thunder sounded overhead.
She knelt atop the rock and reached forward, hooking her fingers into a patch of moss and pulling it back before smoothing the dirt from the stone underneath.
As I neared, I didn’t know whether to ask more questions or take advantage of the fact that she was now at least somewhat mobile.
“We have to go, Lilith.” Another droplet of rain hit my nose as I leaned over to see what she’d discovered.
A deep groove of a pointed line with lines slashed through it was visible on the otherwise smooth top of the rock.
“Markings of some sort?” I shook my head.
“It doesn’t matter right now.” Lunging forward, I grabbed Lilith by the waist and hauled her off the rock.
“Please, we have to go now. We’ll be stranded up here. Do you understand?”
A bolt of lightning cracked across the grey sky, shocking us in a brief flash of white as I sat Lilith on her feet. Something lit in her then and her awareness of reality returned. She nodded. “Okay.”
Her voice still sounded somewhat removed from her body, but I couldn’t dwell on that at the moment. Not when it was about to storm and we were about to be stuck on a mountain, possibly with whatever was hanging swans and making weird sounds in the night.
Grabbing Lilith’s hand tight, I shoved the lock in my pocket, and we took off running.
We paused through another flash of lightning and wove through black branches and onto the rocky trail again.
Lilith gripped my hand as we stepped over tree roots and jagged rocks.
Turns out, it is exponentially harder to quickly get down a mountain than to quickly get up one.
The sparse drops of rain morphed into sheets of water coming down so hard and tiny they pricked my skin. We could hardly see the next step in front of us as I tried to take the lead, guiding us towards the safest steps forward.
As the rain poured, my tunic soaked up the water like a giant black sponge, leveraging every ounce like a weight against my bones.
I ripped my veil from my head and tossed it into a bush before doing the same for Lilith.
She tripped forward, and I caught her, only barely.
“We have to take off our tunics,” I yelled over the rain.
“We won’t make it down the clay in these. ”
No sooner had I spoke, a river of water rushed down the path.
Lilith struggled to pull off her heavy tunic.
I pulled her to the meager protection of a looming pine tree and pushed her against its trunk to steady her as I helped.
Grabbing the edge of the hem, I tugged it up over her hips.
Rain had washed the white fabric of her undergarments sheer, and it stuck to her skin, amplifying every divot and crease.
“Lift your arms,” I said close to her ear as rain beat like a drum around us.
When she did, I hoisted her black gown over her head, leaving her standing wet, her blonde hair waving down her shoulders like drooping daffodil petals in a spring shower.
I stepped back, my chest heaving from exertion.
We still had to get down this river of a trail somehow.
Yet, despite the panic and the thunder, her blue gaze fell to my body, resting on my breasts through my own soaked white under-dress and down my hips.
Lilith shook her head. “You are the holiest thing I’ve ever seen. ”
“You think me holy?” A puff of fog left my lips as I neared her, my attention dropping to her mouth, watching her every tender breath.
I put my palms on the tree behind her, boxing her in, keeping her safe from the storm.
Despite her oddity, despite the fact she was only visiting and could depart from me at any moment, despite the risk of her church finding out…
I wanted her. I wanted her in a wicked and sacred way.
Her body, her mind, her hidden parts… somehow, I desired it all.
Then there was the most looming and dreadful fact of it all.
We were nuns, vowed to god, a life together was never something we could attain.
Marriage, living freely and openly… while perhaps Altar Church stood as a safe haven, the rest of the world, the entirety of society and religious structures, were decidedly not home to us.
Lilith nodded, leaning in slightly.
My body clenched and I dropped my head; the peppering of the rain was like marbles clattering in my mind. “My prior abbey, the one where I took my vows to christ… there was a nun, a beautiful nun.”
Lilith’s head tilted and her hands found my elbows, snaking over the water that dripped from my arms as she listened quietly.
“We’d stolen glances and spent time in the gardens together between prayers and community work, always seeking the other out.
One morning, hours before Mass, in the quiet of the empty sanctuary, we met to light our prayer candles together.
She touched my arm, much like you are now… and I kissed her.”
The memory dropped like a rock to the bottom of the murky lake of a soul within me. “I fell into the candles when she shoved me backwards.” My gaze bore into the soaked pebbles on the ground. “When she ran to tell our Reverend Mother, I hid in the confession booth, crying like a fool.”
“I’m so sorry,” Sister Lilith whispered. “That was wrong of her.”
“Was it? No, it was wrong of me. The priest said I’d compromised a holy woman’s purity and debased my vows with wickedness of the flesh. The bishops prayed over me to cast out my demons…” I glanced up at her, offering a slight smirk. “Demon lips, huh?”
“I didn’t know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s quite all right. I like the nickname.” I winked. “Angel eyes.”
“Did they cast you out?”
“Yes,” I breathed. “I was to be destitute and homeless. A disgraced woman of faith… no one would have had me… except somehow, Altar Church heard and asked for me. My old church accepted and sent me here. I don’t know why, or how, or if they even know it—but they saved my life.
You were right, I am a bad nun in so many ways.
I only… I do love god, I do believe this faith is beautiful in so many ways, but I’m only…
” I gestured around as if the mud and rain could help make my point.
“It was better than marriage, better than men. I thought perhaps a life of solitude and devotion to a higher power was better than turning into Iris Maison with a husband I hated more than he hated me.”
Sister Lilith let out a breath. Standing there in white, nearly naked again, she smoothed a long strand of hair from my face. “You don’t look much like a nun at all right now.”
“Neither do you… you look like the angel in the lake.” My thumb grazed her cheek, swiping a droplet of rain from her skin. “Bare, free, beautiful… holy.”
“Kiss me?” she asked with the strawberry lips of a goddess.
I neared, and the pit in my stomach lessened ever so slightly, like a dog attaining more chain to roam further. “What if you push me away?”
“I fear I could never.”
“What if you reject my kiss?”
“May the heavens burn should anyone deny you ever again, Jezebella.”
“No Sister? Sister Lilith.”
“No sisters here,” she breathed lowly, sliding her arms around my shoulders. “Only a demon and an angel… a demon and an angel who’d very much like to kiss.”
“Sounds like a tragic love story.” I tugged at my chain.
“Good thing I like tragic stories,” she repeated my words from the first day we met in the lake back to me.
My chain snapped, releasing my beasts, and my lips crashed into hers. Our bodies pressed together in a slick, warm, wet frenzy against the harsh bark of the tree.
My hands cupped her jaw, memorizing the groove beneath her chin.
Our lips met, exploring softly and teasing the other in a playful dance.
When I pulled back, the ghost of a past nun’s wide brown eyes in shock evaporated, floating away in the storm.
In the memory’s wake stood bright blue eyes, soft and kind, and a nun—no—a woman, who looked at me as if I were holy.
Not my beliefs.
Not my vows.
Not the old book in my lap on Sundays.
Me.
You’re the holiest thing I’ve ever seen.
A language we spoke but that was never created for us or with our hearts in mind.
Yet a language she’d used for me, to describe me like a psalm, like a proverb only versed for the two of us, drenched in the heavens.
I paused for a moment, and she noticed. Tenderly, she reached out, cupping my face like I’d done hers, and pulled me in.
“I’m not running away,” she said. “Your prayer candle can remain lit.” Lilith’s lips brushed mine, softly exploring, taking me in like a journey she’d never embarked on but had always wanted to.
“What if you’re my prayer candle?” I murmured against her mouth, my body gently pressing into hers. “Would you answer my plea and stay with me?”
Lilith’s body sagged into mine as she let out a shallow exhale. Breaking our kiss, her forehead dropped to my shoulder. “That is a flame that shouldn’t be lit, Sister Jezebella.”
“Sisters again, are we?”
“It must be so.”
Her drop of rain extinguished the flickering flame of the prayer candle within my chest. Chilling the wax and hardening my hopes along with it. For her and I were a prayer that would linger in sanctuaries, never spoken aloud.
A tragic love story, one written to be ignored by the divine, and never included in any sacred texts.