Chapter 1 #2
As we continue up the mountain, I unbuckle and scoot to the passenger side of the car, looking for a road sign, a mile marker, anything to tell me where we are. My service is spotty at best, and for what has to be the hundredth time, I refresh my navigation app, but it fails to load.
I peer out the window and find a few feet of asphalt dividing the car from the whitewash crashing into the bluffs. The sight catapults my heart into my throat, and I focus on the pavement, trying not to panic. The squall hits even harder, and up front, the windshield wipers fight to keep up.
The road narrows as we drive, and I squeeze my eyes together, breathing in and out between my teeth.
The cold air in the car does little to calm my nerves until, finally, we turn off the main road to follow a winding path to a set of ominous black iron gates.
They're massive, nearly as tall as the oaks beside them, and are flanked on either side by fieldstone walls.
We pass through the gates and tree branches, heavy from rain, scrape the roof of the car.
We follow the snaking road through the forest for what must be miles until, at last, the car's headlights illuminate a towering structure in front of us.
I peer through the windshield, marveling at it.
Thick fog fragments the soaring stone walls into jagged talons, and a shiver shoots through me at the sight.
I didn't know a building could look evil.
The place is ancient, made of enormous blocks of stone carved into parapets, turrets, and towers.
Windows flank the front of the building, and iron double doors, green with oxidation and rounded at the top, stand in the center.
It's as big as a castle, and I can't help but stare as the car rolls to a stop.
My driver unbuckles his seatbelt, exits the car, and opens my door. His large black umbrella does little to protect his face from the downpour, and it pelts his weathered cheeks and runs in thick drops down to his jowls.
"Your destination, Ms. Immorier," he yells over the roar of the storm.
There's no point fighting it.
We both know it.
I climb out of the car, wind stinging my eyes as I duck beneath the umbrella. I follow him, climbing the rain-slicked steps to the front doors. The man reaches out a hand to grab one of the ancient iron knockers, striking it against the door three times.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
We stand there, huddled beneath the umbrella for what feels like forever until a figure clad in all black opens the door. I blink away the storm, and it takes me a moment to realize it's a woman wearing a habit, her face aged by hard lines and ethereal pale cheeks.
The woman looks first at the man, then at me, and frowns.
"Ms. Immorier," she says, her tone clipped as she steps to the side, "welcome to Saint Margaret of Castello Convent. We've been expecting you."
She regards my driver.
"Thank you," she says, dismissing him, before she grabs my arm and tugs me inside the building, closing the door behind me.
I wrap my arms around myself as we stand in a cold, open room.
Lightning cracks outside, and the lights flicker momentarily and then go out completely. She grabs a lantern from a table behind her.
"The power often goes out during the storms," she mutters, carrying the lantern as she strides deeper into the building. "We rely on power generated from the mainland out here. If you find yourself afraid of the dark, I suggest you turn to prayer. Am I understood?"
"Yes, ma'am," I manage through my chattering teeth.
"You will call me Reverend Mother."
"Yes, Reverend Mother," I correct.
"Come," she orders with a jerk of her head. "This way now. I understand you will be with us for a while."
She continues forward, taking the only light. I dart to keep up with her, her habit dusting the floor as the open space of the convent prickles at the back of my neck.
"Your grandfather saw fit for you to walk the same path as your distant aunt," she tells me, leading me down an intersecting hall.
"My distant aunt?" I ask.
She says nothing in return.
When we were children, Grandpapa used to say bad girls went to a place on the shore, where a relative, generations ago, was sent to pay for her sins.
He always threatened my sister and me with being sent away, too, if we were disobedient, but I never thought the place on the shore existed.
It was a child's tale told to keep us in line, nothing more.
Or so I thought.
We continue through a long hall, ashlar walls on either side of us, and then down a set of spiral steps into the building's basement until, finally, we stop in front of a closed wooden door.
Reverend Mother reaches for a set of keys beneath her habit and unlocks it.
She swings the door open and guides me by the elbow into the dim room.
"This is where you will stay," she says as I look at the sparse twin bed against the barren wall and the desk with a plain wooden chair in the corner of the room.
"You will find a bathroom through there.
" She points to an adjoining door. "Suitable clothing will be brought to you tomorrow as well as personal hygiene supplies and anything else necessary for your health during your stay with us. "
She turns on her heel, the lantern jittering with the movement and sending her long shadow stretching across my feet. The flames flicker, tracing the creases of her timeworn face in dying light.
"Let me be clear," she says, her thin lips vanishing into the line of her teeth. "I expect nothing short of obedience during your time with us, child."
Something inside of me withers beneath her wintry stare as she walks to the door, taking the lantern with her.
"We will do whatever is necessary to save your eternal soul, Ms. Immorier," she says from the other side of the threshold.
Then she shuts the door and locks me inside, leaving me in utter darkness.