Chapter 28

RAVEN

The prayer was long in the best way because my heart was free, my mind numb for the first time since I came home. My knees steady on the hard floor, hands held together as repeated the memorized prayers. My voice mixing with the nuns around me.

I felt watched.

I wanted to ignore it, I tried to focus harder instead of listening to my intuition screaming for me to snap my eyes open. The voice in my head was stronger than everyone. Stronger than me.

I lifted my head and met her eyes staring at me. She did not look away, I, as expected, gave into the pull. Elizabeth refused to blink or look away. As if sin already existed inside me, I gave into watching her. Her cloth was pulled back showing me the white hair she was not allowed to review.

My memory replaced hail mary with images of Elizabeth in her bed the last time I saw her. Her white hair all over me, blue eyes dark as she brought her soft lips to taste mine. Her neck, her hands. Her scent, her voice. The look in her eyes when she attacked me. The desperation that replaced it when she asked me to stay.

How she stared at me the same way she used to, a cross. Even now, on her knees eyes on me, lips sealed as if she had no idea of what to say.

“Raven…my child have you forgotten to…”

Only then did I notice everyone was now waiting for me to…

To do what?.

Elizabeth’s eyes hardened as if she hated me for forgetting and with a certain forced bitterness she began,

“O God of my soul,
I am sincerely sorry
for not having loved you.
Instead of having loved you,
I have, for the sake of my pleasures,
offended and despised your infinite goodness:
I have turned my back on you;
in a word,
I have lost you through my own will.
I am sorry,
from the bottom of my heart,
for all my sins.
I hate above all things the offences,
which I have committed against you.
You have already cleansed me
from the stain of sin
in the sacrament of penance,
but I desire to become still purer in your sight.
Wash in your Blood this soul,
and make it your dwelling place.”

I swallowed the down the bile in my throat, my hands began to shake and I could almost feel it all coming out in a single breath. Elizabeth was sick in the head for doing that. For looking at me like that. Nothing had changed, I knew it. I could almost hear the echo of her empty words.

“Amen”

They turned to me again. I swallowed down one more time then breathed out.

“Lord God, I love you above all things
and I love my neighbor for your sake
because you are….” I felt the heat in my chest rise. My hands were tingling and cold. My heart beat racing hard against my chest. “You are the highest d…”

My stomach repeatedly clenched as I tried to breath in through my nose. It happened one more time before I felt it all force it’s way up my osophagus. Nothing really came out, i had been starved out. I could see my sister crying through my peripheral version.

Get your shit together.

I heaved as my body continued to try and vomit. Bitter liquid pass through my mouth, my chest burning as I threw up in whatever my mother placed in front of me. Elizabeth was right by my side gentle with me.

The door bell rang again. I coughed one last time before I sat up on my knees. My mother stood up going over to the door. Elizabeth held me up.

“Where is your nearest bathroom?”

My crying sister pointed at the hallway. Elizabeth led me towards it. I threw an eyes towards my sister and tried to smile for her. She was only nine years old, this was her birthday that I just ruined.

I began coughing again holding on the sink. I was shaking, my arms barely holding me up. Hers did the job. My skin too aware of whose hands were almost all over me.

“Here, wash your mouth”

I did not want to be in a bathroom with Elizabeth. I needed to hurry up and get out of here. I washed my mouth and my shaky hands. Grabbed the towel handed to me without looking her way. I turned to leave but she probably anticipated  this.

“You are not well” Elizabeth stated, her fingers quick to feel my cheek.

And my body as weak as that of a new born cradled to the warmth of her palm. In an instant she was closer.

“What happened to you?”

I knew I was supposed to be angry with this woman yet my brain shut down. There was the gratitude for saving my life by sending me to them. Yet, I was aware of the anger I could not access. Of the sin I was feeling inside me.

How her eyes on mine and her hand now on my waist brought me back to sin. To needing her touch this way. To my attention on her soft lips.

“I’m so sorry baby”

I stood still in her arms like a mannequin dressed doll. Her hand remained on my waist for support and I could not blink the hatred buried in my stomach. There was also anger and the churn rolling in the pit of my stomach. When her thumb wiped on the side of my eye, it was wet. My body continued to react yet i felt nothing. Bile rose higher and I retched, the smell coming from my throat to my nostrils.

Elizabeth, as quick as she could react moved my immobile body to the toilet bowl and held back my hair. Nothing but the bitter acidic taste of less than a mouthful of liquid came out. The light in the bathroom was almost too bright, almost hot above my head.

And she was there, rubbing my back, whispering apologies I failed to process.

“Is it the sight of me that is making you sick?” Elizabeth asked, fingers still in my hair.

“I…uh..I…I don’t want to feel this”

The door opened right before she responded. Elizabeth stepped back.

“Let me talk to dearest Raven. Your mother mentioned you are still unwell”

Everything seemed to move too fast. Elizabeth Elizabeth Elizabeth. She left the door slightly open. I sat on the floor with my back against the chamber. The old woman was less gentle in her touch.

“Addiction is also a sin my child” Her tired voice advised “This too, is a sin if there is no change in the eyes of the God you are suffering for.”

“Yes, mother”

“Do not let the devil win. You beat him” She opened her bag and took out the books I was familiar with. Amongst them was the whip she had gifted me back at the convent. “You let him know there is no place for him in this temple of God”

I nodded, held on her hand that rested on top of the books.

“Not a day passes where I pray for you. Oh my dear God has not let me forget you. You are truly favored. I think…” She swallowed down before licking her lips “I think he is calling you through me”

I stared up at her, a bit list on what she was talking about.

“Calling me as in…to heaven?” My heart thumped with fear.

“No, oh no. Calling you to be one of us. My dear you are blessed to have been saved, shown mercy, offered a chance to redeem yourself and now that you are free…nothing can stop you from walking aside him”

“But I d…”

“Get out”

I was a bit startled by my mother’s cold voice.

“Get out of my house” She was fuming, eyes red.

“Mom..She is…”

“Old woman I said leave my fucking house right now!” My mother yanked the old nun up and dragged her out of the bathroom. I struggled to get up and follow. My sister was pressed against the wall watching the old get dragged out of the house and pushed out with force I gasped.

I rashed to the door to watch the nuns help out while Elizabeth stood still as if she did not care.

“Let me say this in your language, if I ever see any of you near my daughter…It will be your first time experiencing an actual devil…and also your last” She threw the whip and books towards Mother Superior “I have buried worse men than you for less, she is not your lesson, she…she is not your calling or-or your project. You come near my daughter and I will send you to your God!”

Then she slammed the door shut.

☆ ☆ ☆

Random something something;

☆You do not experience reality directly. You experience a brain-built version of reality centered on “you,” and that version shapes everything you believe is true.☆