After all this time, she still felt a cold pang in her heart whenever she thought of that forgotten and faraway place called home. She had had a house, a farm, miles of pasture that swayed in the soft breeze. Friends, family, everything that everyone takes for granted and never once stops to ponder the fragility of it all. One little mistake, one tiny little sin, had burned down her whole world, and all she could do was stand by and watch and weep and let it happen.
That was God's wrath and mercy. That was penance, and this, this small little time called her life, this was her time to pay it. And, ten days ago, she would have gladly paid it. She would have stayed in her little purgatory forever, resigned to spend the rest of her days in the Lord's house of healing. But that was before the nightmares started.
Even now, as she sat in the chapel, her head bowed and her eyes turned upwards to the the image of Christ hanging down from his cross, the thoughts refused to be shaken from her head. Her fervent and desperate prayers have done nothing to still their horrid tide. It seemed that the dreams, seared into her brain, would haunt her till her dying day. The things they said, the things they suggested, the things they showed, left her to wake crying and breathless and sweat-coated. It was the dreams that drove her here, to the sanctuary, so late into the night, and it was the dreams that refused to loose their hold on her aching soul. Dear, she wasn't even wearing her habit, or – as her sisters here called them, la bata – and, in fact, had come in nothing more than her night dress, her hair an unholy mess and here she stood, so small and so teary-eyed in the House of the Lord.
Guidance, that's all I want, she prays, the eyes of the wooden Savior staring down at her. Guidance, and maybe understanding. Forgiveness, even.
Then, as if from another world, the soft patter of footsteps echoed from behind. The girl called Raquel didn't turn, and said nothing until Sister Maria seated herself next to her. The pew creaked loudly under her weight, a sound that again stirred up echoes in this cave of a church. It reminded Raquel of how old, how used, this place was. And she wondered – fleetingly – how many other weary souls had come to this place seeking rest and guidance.
“Chico,” said Sister Maria. “It is late, you know this. What brings you here, in the dark?”
“Sleep does not come easy to me, hermana,” said Raquel softly. In the past three years, she had managed to learn a usable deal of Spanish, but still could not speak it with much fluidity. Maria was the only one of her sisters who broke this barrier. Raquel counted this small, traveled woman as one of the few blessings that brightened her new life.
“For the young, it never does,” said Maria, and Raquel, turning, saw a tender smile etched across the old, lined face. “What troubles you, Raquel?”
“The dreams,”said Raquel.
“Oh, merciful Lord,” said Maria, before closing her eyes briefly slipping into a short burst of Spanish that Raquel did not recognize and was not meant to. It was a personal prayer, though the unfamiliar listener might mistake it for an angry bout of swearing. The smile was gone from Maria's face when her eyes reopened. “The nightmares? The things that haunt you in your wandering eye?
“Si,,” said Raquel. Her voice was barely above a whisper, “I came here to pray, and to think. But mostly to pray.”
Maria shook her head, and was silent. Her eyes became fixed, just as Raquel's had been for the past hour, upon the image of Christ mounted at the front of the church , looking down on his children. Raquel noticed that Maria, too, had come in her night clothes. Here they were, not two nuns but two women, sitting under the gaze of God's one and only Son. But, in spite of this, that feeling of sisterhood, of shared purpose, had never been stronger in Raquel's heart.
“Chico, you are not yet twenty, yet your troubles baffle even me,” said Maria sadly. “And have I have passed more than my fair of share of twenties.” The old woman laughed softly, and Raquel could do nothing but laugh with her. It was a soft laugh, but it was a laugh.
“I am nineteen, hermana,” said Raquel. “I am an adult, I should be able to handle –”
“You are a child,” said Maria sharply. “Never let anyone tell you different. All of you here, the young ones whom I call chicos. Children living in a world built by the old.”
“But I have committed the sins of a woman, not of a girl,” said Raquel simply. “Of an adult, not a child.”
“Everyone has their sins, Raquel,” said Maria. “And we all deal with them one way or another.”
Raquel swallowed hard.
“I fear for her,” she said simply. And there it was. Her shame, brought out once again. The sin that had driven her here to this old, rusted monastery at the border of a strange land. “Hermana, I fear for my child.”
For a few moments, silence held the church. In the three years since she had arrived at the steps of the nunnery in the blazing summer of 1908, this subject had come up but twice. The first time, it had been shut away quickly, like a book filled with demons and hellish secrets. The second time, under a gentle rain, she had shared her story with her a few of her sisters, Maria included. It had been a confession, not to God, but to her new family. For her, that telling had been the final closing of a long and hard road, the time for her to lay down her shame and let it be known, all for the sake of no longer being haunted by a secret she could not keep. It was to be her final word on it, and that would be that. Once the story was told, Raquel had said, there would no more talk of this sad matter. Then, not two months later, the nightmares had started, and the old wound had been reopened before it could even begin to truly heal.
“Your fear,” said Maria. “Is this the rational fear of a woman of God, or the irrational fear of a hurt mother?”
“Both,” said Raquel without hesitation.
Maria nodded, and was silent.
And the silence stayed.
†
That night, after she and Sister Maria had returned to their rooms and to their waiting beds, the girl called Raquel finally found sleep. But the nightmares followed her there.
She was in the middle of a large, hard-pan desert, and she was naked save for the nigh-invisible veil of her night gown billowing in the harsh wind. The sky was charred and hellish crimson. Withered trees sprouted out of the ground, nooses dangling from every branch.
In the center of all this was the child she had not seen since birth, whose name she did not know – would never know, said the hell-sky – and she was bleeding out onto the desert floor. The child was dead, but this did not hasten Raquel. She walked slowly, looking at her dead child as a deer might look upon a mild curiosity. The girl was featureless, her face caked in blood and tears, and when at last Raquel was upon her, the child's eyes opened and light sprang from them.
Help, mouthed the dead child, and that was all.
And Raquel, sweaty and screaming, sprang out her dream and into the arms of Maria, who was already waiting by her bed. Others had gathered outside her small room, their fear-filled eyes fixed upon the scene. Sunlight streamed through the window in scattered bits inspired by the bars upon it.
Morning had come, and still, the girl called Raquel could feel the darkness begin to crush her.
