Chapter 19

RAVEN

“Raven, can you hear me?”

I struggled to keep my head up. The gush on the side of my neck was still fresh from my recent punishment. I struggled to remember what I had done this time. Getting angry, anger was a sin. I looked down at my dirty fingers.

My new home was not the cleanest sanctuary.

“Raven…”

“Yes, Mother”

“This is your way to find freedom through your faith. To be set free. Do you want that for yourself?” The old woman asked, her eyes staring at me on top of her glasses that were moved low down the bridge of her nose.

“Yes. I do”

There were things I had done to prove my purity. Things they had done to break me. I just wanted to go home. Anywhere was home, as long as we were not here. I just wanted to go home.

That meant I would do anything to be set free. The dizziness only got worse when I moved in my chair.

“This is your 6th day fasting. You did good today. Now let’s begin with the scripture”

I listened. There was no room to ignore it. Ignoring what God was trying to tell me led to a punishment. It was truly a mortal sin that deserved a punishment that involved flogging and spending three hours holding the cross. The cross was not something I could handle with an ongoing fast.

The scriptural teachings took hours. I answered back, explained what I heard and listened to what she had to teach me. Things down here were not black and white. They were all blessed acts, a suffering for the flesh to earn a place in heaven.

To be forgiven. I had been baptized after my success night.

“Raven”

Rayana had whispered in the middle of the night. We spoke less, not because we disliked each other but there was nothing to say. Our hours were spent on prayers that never ended.

“Yes”

“Why are you here?”

That was the first time Rayana had asked me why I was there. I had never asked her reasons and she never asked mine.

“I t…”

“Please don’t lie to me” She begged, her voice still stronger than what mine ever could be.

I was losing purpose. My dreams had faded and the only reason I fought for life was knowing my little sister was living in a house with a monster. A monster who knew what was happening to me, a monster who had brought me a man to marry and I paid the price of refusing him.

It was the worst punishment of my life.

My father was my own nightmare and there was a storm in me that waited for the day.

“I struggled with attraction to women”

The words were practiced in my brain. I believed it. More than anything I believed it. Because if it was right, my prayers would have been answered and I would have been saved. If it was right, God would never let me suffer this way. The fasts were personally requested by me. I fasted for forgiveness, I fasted for change, I fasted to escape who I used to be. I fasted to be free, to be heard. I fasted for my little sister to be safe, for my mother to have strength to fight if my father ever tried.

In a place where I had nothing, I clung to the only thing that I had, faith. Stockholm syndrome in it’s ugliest form, maybe so. But my internal battle, turned into a war I had no weapons for.

I surrendered.

“You no longer do?”

“I’m nothing like that anymore” The bite in my tone, was that one of a threatened dog. Bearing its teeth to scare away.

“Would you date a man then?”

“No”

I turned away from her, end of conversation.

“Claire…”

I stayed still, my back still turned. Though, we both knew I was listening. Only I knew what she had to say. The weight of it. I wanted to stop her, from the confession that would reveal itself at the end.

“She…She is the girl I fell in love with. We planned to leave…to get away and live somewhere we could be happy. When Aurora found out, she was livid. Too angry, Aurora loved Claire too but sweet Claire never saw it. And when Aurora realized I was taking Claire away, she did something to make us stay”

A part of me already knew it was Aurora who told Mother Superior what happened.

“I need to get out of here Raven” Rayana sobbed out, tears running down her cheeks.

Elizabeth…

“I have to get to Claire” With tears still staining down, Rayana went on “Please, we need to get out of here”

Did I have the same goal as Rayana?. To get to her forbidden lover, one that had moved on if she was swapping spit with Aurora?. Would Rayana still want to leave if she knew?.

Elizabeth….

I ignored the thought of her, deciding on focusing on things that mattered.

“Let yourself be cured. We will leave soon”

That was false hope, I heard myself speak and I knew I was lying to myself. Though she turned away and continued to pray, I stayed still. There was a small window of hope eating away my sense of logic. Something about how my mother used to tell me, God doesn’t answer right when you call. His timing is right.

Her voice, now continued to ring in my ears and the thought of waiting longer brought tears down my hollow cheeks. Was he even listening to someone like me?.

The need to be heard, the desperation and the suffering. Wasn’t it sadistic for him to demand that sort of devotion. One where he dominated everything, I wondered. And it was his way or none. Was it right?.

That night was yet another night I sobbed in my hands and with a heart that wanted more than anything to pray, with faith. It never did. The faith I held was nothing but something go cling to but believing was an entirely different case.

Sleep never came, I stayed in one place. Unable to feel my legs and my body weak from being deprived of food. When I turned around, unlike every other time where I was woken up by Rayana’s morning prayers. She was laid still, her bones protruding from her scarred back.

“Rayana?”

I called, fear gripping my heart. I suppose I was afraid she was gone. The lack of conviction from her eyes always scared me. That maybe she would die and leave me here to lose myself as she was the only part of me that was connected to the person inside me they trying to kill.

“Rayana…” I crawled closer, taking a breath in before turning her body over.

She was awake, her red eyes filled with despair and when I saw her a feeling I could not describe filled my lungs.

“You didn’t wake up to pray”

Rayana stared at me with pity, just like she had done the first time those nuns carried me out. She brought her hand up to mine and held onto me.

“We are suffering for what others believe in. He is enjoying this”

“Are you giving up?” I asked wrapping my hands around her slender fingers.

“What’s the point anyway?”

“No, no. We can leave”

“By getting cured?”

I shook my head. There was a way. If it meant Rayana left this place alive. While I was completely out of hope, not motivated to save myself. I wanted to save others. They did not deserve this, yet I was convinced I did.

It was heavy to carry the weight of their faith. It was brutal, tore me apart and I had gone back to questioning who I was. Here, my thoughts did not matter, what I knew did not matter and who I was had to be forgotten just to be able to survive.

I was lost.

Rayana still knew who she was. There was hope for her.

“No, I’m going to get us out.”

Rayana hugged me. The only form of affection I had received in months that felt like years. It left me more sure if myself about what I had to do.

I had to call my mother.

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