“He whispered the words into her ear as though they were a benediction. As if to blame her for what he became. As if the sins against her had opened the floodgates for others. He wished to make her culpable.” A work of fiction wherein a vast amount of bravery is summoned when a nun, with a shadowed past, confronts her own personal demons…
by: Sarah Wilson Gregory
The attic smelled of dust and mildew and with every inch trekked further into the room of half decaying boxes, Margaret’s stomach pressed tighter together. A hollowness inside ate at her, but Margaret had grown accustomed to ignoring such feelings.
Brushing her hand over the nearest box, she read the scrawled writing.
“Father Gordon,” it said in a wide, looping print familiar to her. Her heart clinched, hiccuping at the name. Pulling on the box, she wrenched it free from the spot on the floor where it had lain untouched for God knows how many years. Two more boxes with the same name lay tucked nearby, but she ignored those as she hauled the largest box into the center of the room, where the single skylight window illuminated the otherwise scantily lit room.
Water had seeped in over the years from the poorly constructed skylight, adding to the damp of the room. Margaret pulled at the tabs of the box, prying the sides open to reveal the contents. A plume of dust wrenched forth, causing Margaret to let out a loud sneeze. Her eyes watered as the sound reverberated in the room, and she went still as the room settled back to the same soft, empty hum as before.
“Nothing?” Her voice was quiet as she pressed her fingers to every corner of the box. Whatever had been inside no longer remained. Her heart hammered anew as she whirled, her habit swirling around her legs as she stumbled toward the other boxes belonging to “Father Gordon.” She wrenched them from the shadows and sprung open the tops.
Empty. All of them. Margaret’s knees buckled as she tumbled downward, knees digging into the unsanded planks of the attic’s floor.
How many thousands of hours had she spent on her knees before the eyes of God? And how many before Father Gordon?
Swallowing the cry in her throat, she rose and tore from the attic. The dark wood walls of the church had always been a comfort to her in her years of servitude. Now they felt as if they were closing in and pressing the air from her lungs.
“Sister Margaret?” The youthful Lavinia spoke Margaret’s name when they crossed paths in the hall as Margaret made for the chapel. Prayer. Prayer was what she needed. “Are you well, Sister?”
Margaret stopped. Her veil hung lopsided. Had she been running? Cautiously, she tugged the headpiece back into place and forced her arms to hang loosely at her sides before turning to the young Sister. Lavinia was only seventeen and fully committed to joining their ranks.
“Have you seen Father Gordon?” Margaret asked, clearing her throat.
“In the rectory, just this morning,” Lavinia said. The cross around her neck was polished to a high sheen. Margaret could just make out the pink of her flushed cheeks in the reflection. She clutched her own cross in her fist.
“The rectory?” Margaret repeated, her eyes widening. “Why has Father called upon you in his rectory?”
Lavinia licked her lips. Though it was tucked behind her veil, she had blonde hair the color of the sun. Even her still-visible eyebrows were a cheery, luminescent yellow. “We go where we are bid, Sister. Our work leads us down many unexpected paths.”
“Oh, yes. That it does,” Margaret agreed. “Lavinia, have you seen anyone in the attic as of late?”
Lavinia’s yellow eyebrows rose, widening the dazzling blue eyes beneath them. “The attic, Sister Margaret? Why would we have need to assemble in such a place?”
Margaret inhaled a shaky breath. “Yes, yes. Of course. Thank you, Sister. Be well in His name.” Margaret skirted around Lavinia, slowing herself to an acceptable pace. She darted down the first hallway she arrived at. Finding it empty, she hitched her skirts and ran toward the rectory.
She’d never run in these sacred halls, not in all of her twenty-seven years of obedience to them. When she burst from the church itself, her slippered feet hit the soft grass. The sun loomed higher overhead, still tinged with the smallest traces of pinks and oranges from this morning’s sunrise. She stuck to the side of the building, like a rat in the sewer, as she worked toward the Priest’s home.
“Father Gordon seems quite fond of his newest addition.”
Margaret froze at the edge of the building, jarred into stillness from the sound of giggling. The sounds of conversation drifted to her hiding spot.
“Disgraceful, is what that is,” a second voice answered.
“Come now, Sister. She is young and not yet wise to the ways of the church.”
Margaret could not conceal herself a moment longer. She did not wish to hear more. She sprang from the wall of the church and set forth once more. The nuns she passed jolted in surprise, but she paid them no mind.
The feel of the brass doorknob was familiar and warm, whether from the sun or another of her Sisters. She did not knock as she pushed the rectory’s door open with such might that it collided noisily with the ornate walls just inside.
“Yes?” Father Gordon popped around the corner, his brow furrowed. The sight of him would often make her hands tremble, but she clung to her cross again, fisting the metal tight to remind herself not to falter. “Ah, Sister Margaret. To what do I owe for this unexpected visit?”
Relief crossed his face, softening back into the handsome features so many whispered about. The dimple in his chin drew her eye before she snapped back to meet his gaze. His face was familiar, yet wildly distinct, with one brown eye and one blue. He claimed it was because he’d been touched by God — anointed directly from the creator as his holy mouthpiece.
“Lavinia joined you for breakfast.” Margaret stated the sentence plainly. Not a question, but not quite the accusation it should have been. She resolved to be braver.
The priest let out an exhale, leaning into the wide arched entryway with a cool indifference that made Margaret want to beat him. She was a child of God, but she’d wished violence many times in her life. How could God not make a little room for vengeance, she’d reasoned over the years. But never had she wished for pain and suffering so much as in that moment as she stood before the man who’d taken vows to lead their followers to salvation. He was a devil in a soutane.
“Oh, Margaret.” His voice was as soft as a caress, as though he pressed his palm to her cheek. He gestured, instead, toward his office. “Have a seat. I will call for some refreshments. You do not appear yourself this morning. It is too glorious a day from our creator to waste it with worries.” He trailed from the room as soon as she was deposited in one of the hard wooden chairs in front of his desk.
Margaret rose as soon as the sound of his footsteps disappeared. Moving quickly, she pulled open the drawer of his desk, searching for the familiar scrawl. She had to rifle through fat stacks of paper from Father Gordon’s desk before she found a letter in the print she searched for. Her handwriting. She suspected Father had intercepted her, the proof laid before her now in her own handwriting.
The seal had been broken, pierced neatly through. She could just imagine him slicing it open with the ridiculous gold flecked letter opener he favored. It lay on the corner of the desk just now, mocking her. Had he raged when he’d read the contents within? She’d kept the letter in her personal possession for months before summoning the bravery to post it — all to no end.
As Father Gordon approached, Margaret hurried to close the desk drawers and sink back into her seat, shoving the letter inside the voluminous sleeves of her habit.
The Priest slid a tray of tiny cakes in front of Margaret. The thought of sweets turned her tongue sour and she waved a hand. He took one of the tiny cakes for himself, licking the icing from his thumb before popping it in his mouth in one bite.
“Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses, Sister,” the Priest recited as he settled into the chair behind his desk.The line from Proverbs angered her, as he used love as an excuse. As if love relinquished him of guilt. As if he knew the meaning of ‘love. “You come to me with something dark stirring inside you. I sense an unease.” Father Gordon ran his tongue over his lips, searching for any remaining bits of sugar and sweet. Watching it made Margaret’s stomach turn.
Margaret brought another piece of scripture to memory and replied, “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”
Father Gordon’s soft mouth drew into a hard line, his handsome face turning ugly.
“You have been to the attic,” she accused, sitting straighter in his seat.
“What of it? Do I not run this domain? Am I not your Lord and Master?”
Margaret shook her head and steeled her spine. “No. You walk in darkness.”
Father Gordon leaned forward quickly, looming over his desk toward her, and Margaret let out a tiny squeak. “If it is darkness upon which I stride, you too, harken to my side.”
Water fell upon her lashes and she blinked away tears. “I did not know. What you asked of me, what you made me do…I did not know. You used treachery and lies. You exalted yourself in glory to conceal the devil inside.”
That was enough to send Father Gordon flying to his feet. Margaret mimicked the movement, clutching the letter in her sleeve so tightly that she felt the paper crumble. She took a step back, the desk and the chairs between them. It did not feel like enough.
“You succumb to fatigue, Sister. I believe you have lost hold of your mind. For how else could you hurl such accusations against a holy man such as myself?”
Margaret narrowed her eyes at him. “Because I have worn the imprint of this floor on my knees too many times, Father.” She gestured to the stone floor beneath his desk. “Because I have allowed evil to reside in this place for far too many years. My silence has kept it alive.”
Father Gorden reached for his pen, grappling for a piece of paper. “I will send for the Asylum this afternoon. You have lost touch with reality, my child. I can guide you no longer. Only the Lord can spare you.”
Stomping across the room, Margaret smacked the pen from the Priest’s hand with all her might. The slap of skin echoed in the stone room and Gordon snapped up to look at her, his mouth agape. “Still yourself, Father!”
“How dare you—”
“How dare you!” she hurled back at him.
Father Gordon crossed his arms over his chest, wrinkling his immaculate soutane. The muscles of his neck were rigid, his jaw tightening as his teeth gritted together. “Whatever you think you know, Sister, I caution you to tread cautiously. Complicity is a dangerous thing, is it not?”
Margaret felt a sudden surge of emotion. The bravery she’d felt only moments earlier dried up inside the cavity of her chest, replaced with a seething rage. She yanked the letter from her sleeve and slapped it on the desk, leaning into the rush of whirling emotions.
“I tried to have you laicized. I wrote of all your misdeeds and you have not only stopped my attempts to disrobe you, but permitted me to stay. You saw the boxes of correspondence I collected from other victims. You knew I plotted against you. I know what you are, yet you do not deny me a place in this church. Why?”
Father Gordon rose, maintaining his eye contact as he moved around to desk. Margaret motioned her own body in mirror of his, until the hard planes of her lower back dug into the edge of the desk. The anger had washed off his face. A truly arrogant man, she reasoned. Arrogance saved her from his wrath. He thought she would not act on what she knew and had collected against him. He knew and had not cast her out. The Priest thought her weak.
Father Gordon touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers and she could only stare at those strange, beautiful eyes as he loomed over her. “Because you are special to me, dear Margaret.”
“Special?” Margaret repeated. She did not move his hand away and allowed it to linger on her flushed skin. “After I discovered just how often you turned your eye to other nuns? To your Sisters? We relied on you to show us the way. You veil yourself in righteousness and piety, but you have a hand in darkness.”
The hand on her cheek moved down to her shoulder, pulling Margaret into his warm body. Nightmares of those hands had plagued her for years. The feel of them were imprinted permanently in her memory.
“You were the first, Sister Margaret. You showed me the way.” He whispered the words into her ear as though they were a benediction. As if to blame her for what he became. As if the sins against her had opened the floodgates for others. He wished to make her culpable.
Margaret reached behind her, her fingers closing around the ostentatious letter opener laying on his desk. They did not tremble any longer. She closed her eyes tight and reared back her arm and aimed for his eye — the blue one that mimicked the color of the sky.
With her shorter stature and their close embrace, she felt the sharpness of the letter opener bounce off the bone of his nose before it slid home, a sickening soft sound of wetness traveling to her ears in the half a second before Father Gordon began to scream.
He tumbled hard to his knees, clutching at his eye and the letter opener now sticking out of it. Blood trickled down his face, dribbling into his open mouth as he shrieked. The noise was twice as loud as she had screamed the first night he’d assaulted her.
Margaret let herself enjoy the vision of him beneath her before she grabbed her letter off of his desk and skirted around him, clutching her cross in her hands as she left.
She had a letter to deliver.
Sarah Wilson Gregory (she/her) writes from the foothills of Appalachia in her beloved state of Kentucky. She has three feral children and one mostly domesticated husband and spends all her free time writing, reading, and dreaming. A full list of her published and upcoming works can be found on her website.
