Rise (2 page)

"Is that what this is about?"

"Sister Katherine, I was just curious."

"Well, your curiosity has been abated. Go to sleep."

"Why can't I join?"

"I thought you told Sister Raela you didn't want to join?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Maybe I'm interested, now."

Sister Katherine sighed. "You're a bit too young, foolish, even." She shook her head. "Not yet."

"Well, when? I'm sixteen years old, now. I already have a dagger, too" I couldn't help but feel a little proud about that. I couldn't remember where I'd gotten it, but I'd always had it.

"This isn't child's play, Victoria." She looked at me, hard, as if trying to decide.

"I know. I just..." I didn't finish. Raela's comment had gotten to me a little more than I cared to admit.

"I'll think on it", she said, and she slipped her dagger into her robe pocket and was gone before I could say anything else.

After that incident, I stopped making my midnight trips. I figured it would be a little awkward if I just kept showing up after she'd scolded me. I didn't have to wait long, though, luckily for me.

One evening after a long day of serving, or in my case, pretending to serve, I was rewarded with a visit from Sister Katherine. She didn't say much, and she didn't seem particularly happy that she was saying it, either, but she showed up at my door and said, "We're considering you for membership, Victoria."

"When, when?" I'd exclaimed. She'd then frowned. "Soon."

I'm more excited than I should be, but like I said before, I'm documenting my pre-life here. From this moment forward, everything is going to change. And even with the knowledge that I'm going to be "in", it still isn't soon enough.

I.

"Get up! Get up!” Victoria was pulled up roughly by her hair, and she found herself staring blearily into the gleaming face of a sister. "It is nearly half past six. The children will be coming in less than an hour, and you're not even awake. Some sister you are!." The sister stared down at her, scowling, and then threw her back, face first, into her pillows.

Victoria landed with an "oomph", making no attempt to move. Her thoughts were scattered, as her mind attempted to adjust from dream mode to being awake. She closed her eyes again and thought hard, attempting to get back the last, sweet moments of her dream. It had been a good one, too. Something about a king, and she was a queen. She rubbed her eyes. She couldn't really remember.

Victoria shook her head, clearing it. It was stupid to be dreaming of such things, really. As a sister of two ancient sisterhoods, neither of them being particularly noble, the chances of her ever becoming a queen were as slim as her being able to get back her dream.

She rose, reluctantly, her vision still blurry from sleep, and she swung her legs around the edge of her bed, yawning. She stumbled over to her closet, and threw the doors open, leaving her hand on the door knob for support as she gazed inside, groggily.

As usual, there really wasn't much to choose from. On the left side of her closet were about ten pair of her day robes. They were long and plain, as fashion was not a concern for most nuns, and they generally reached beyond her feet, so she found herself often having to hold them up as she walked.

She reached in and grabbed a pair, subconsciously reminding herself that one of the more anal sisters would probably make a comment about her wrinkled robes. Whatever. She didn't care.

Victoria shrugged into them and tied the long belt around her waist. As she did, her eyes fell to the right side of her closet, where her Other Sisterhood robes hung, shrouded in the darkness, and just as invisible. But, she thought, as she closed the closet door, that was rather the point.

The room Victoria occupied was small, just a bit bigger than a supply closet. and it was filled to the brim with an array of holy items. Holy texts, holy water, and of course, her holy robes, to be worn when serving the old, the young, and the poor. The ones she was wearing at this very moment.

Victoria took a quick look in her dusty mirror before she left. The robes were on correctly, no visible scars or tattoos. All was well. She pinched herself in the arm, and grimaced at the pain. She pinched herself regularly, right before tending to her sisterly duties. The pain caused her to frown, a look the other sisters would take for a mixture of sympathy and disgust at all things unfair in the world. It wasn't of course, but sometimes, the things in her head were better left unsaid. She flung open the door, crossed her arms in the proper nun fashion, and proceeded outside.

The convent was a small structure, decorated with various frescoes of old gods. It was sectioned into several parts. The sisters, like herself, lived in individual cells towards the back, the only private section of the convent. The rest of the convent was public, and subject to the public at any given time. Sometimes, Victoria would find women kneeling in front of the frescoes, but it wasn’t something that happened very often, anymore. Thus, the frescoes had fallen into disrepair, with their paint peeling at the edges, and none of them as vibrant as they once were.

Victoria began to walk the long stretch of hallway that separated her from the beggars. She did this every day. Every day, she told them that help was on the way, when she was sure that it wasn't. It was a difficult job, truthfully. She imagined it was similar to being a doctor, in that a doctor has to see patients who have no chance of living on a regular basis, but still has to tell the family that they have a "fighting chance."

As she stepped outside into the courtyard, her eyes reeled in the sunlight, and she stood there blinking for a few seconds as her eyes adjusted.

The line of beggars was longer than usual, and on either side of her, Victoria could see the other sisters working furiously, anointing, praying, and filling bowls with slop.

"Victoria, good child. We have need of you over here."

Victoria shrugged her shoulders, truthfully indifferent to wherever they sent her. She approached Sister Katherine, who was busy scrubbing some orphan child's back. Sister Katherine looked up at Victoria, her old blue eyes shining with the usual concern, as she was a particularly dedicated sister. Too dedicated, Victoria decided, as she groaned inwardly, remembering that Sister Katherine was always on her back about something.

"We've got children that need washing. See to it."

Victoria scanned the line of dirty children in front of her. Where to begin, she wondered, looking wide-eyed at all the children. It seemed as if the line was never ending, and she wasn't sure how scrubbing children was going to do any good, since they were likely to go play in mud as soon as she was done.

But, under Sister Katherine's watchful eye, she couldn't shrug off her duties. Victoria sighed heavily, and grabbed the nearest kid.

"Here, sit down good child." She gestured towards the tub. The child just stood there, wide eyed, dirt falling off his body in stiff chunks. If he hadn't been so dirty, he would have been a rather cute child, Victoria thought.

"Go on and sit." She pointed at the tub again, and splashed her hand around in the water for emphasis. The child inched closer, and lifted his leg in slowly and deliberately.

"As long as you don't eat me."

"Why in the world would I eat you?" Victoria pulled the boy gently down into the tub. "Because, you're a demon." The boy said, so sincerely, it was clear he believed it to be fact.

Victoria suddenly became very conscious of her red roots that were undoubtedly showing, as it had been a while since she’d last dyed her hair.

She could also feel Sister Katherine's eyes on her back. Why did that woman have to hear everything? It seemed as if the older she got, the more acute her hearing became.

She turned back to the child. His eyes were still on her, wide and nervous.

"I'm not afraid." He said, defiantly, but his voice shook a little. "Well, you should be. I've got some stories I could tell you. Stories only demons would know.” She whispered to him. The boy's eyes widened again, but this time, they were brimming with excitement. Victoria smiled, relieved. Every once and a while she got a child who thought she was a demon. Typically, if she joked about it, the child would calm down. The last thing the convent needed was panic over a “demon." There were already enough rumblings about its irrelevance, no need to add "demon nest" to the list.

"Oh, please tell me. My name's Wes, after my dad. I never met him, though. My mom, before she died, she said he was a good man. A hero. My mom said he fought with demons, and he always won. Until the day he died, you know. Do you have any stories of my dad? I bet you do." Victoria froze. She was sure this boy's father had been a soldier in some conflict that Gracelia had been involved in, but she didn't know any specifics as the convent discouraged contact with the outside world. But, she had not expected the boy to spill his whole life story, and after he did, she had no idea what to say.

She looked down. Wes was still looking at her with such unabashed adoration, that she felt ashamed. What was she supposed to tell him? More diatribe about demons being defeated by gods, even though she knew it wasn't true?

It was in these moments that she knew she didn't belong here with the other sisters. Those who gave a damn about what happened to these children. Now, Victoria cared more than she wanted to admit, but did she want to be a part of the elaborate web of lies the convent had so expertly weaved over the years? No. She was here because of poor choices on behalf of her parents, whoever they'd been. Nothing more, nothing less. She hadn't made the choice to dedicate her life to any cause, even one as falsely noble as this one.

Victoria swallowed. "I'll tell you after you're washed. Maybe over some juice?” Wes smiled, relieved, as if he’d been waiting to hear her say those very words.

"Good. I can't wait." As Victoria scrubbed his back, she thought frantically of something to tell him. Lies, stories, anything.

And good lord, she realized, she had even invited him to a makeshift play date. What had gotten into her today? Somehow, she gotten herself into the very situation she was trying to avoid. She was an assassin-in-training, and something just seemed very wrong about befriending little boys.

When she finished scrubbing Wes's back, he stood up, eyes gleaming with anticipation. Victoria looked over his shoulder, still feeling too uncomfortable to look him in the eye.

"Juice?" Wes pulled impatiently on her shoulder, something that might have endeared him to her, if only Victoria wasn't worrying about what she'd just promised him.

She looked around frantically and spotted Sister Katherine stalking towards them, her mouth pressed together in a tight, thin line, and Victoria resisted the urge to roll her eyes. This woman really did hear everything. When Sister Katherine she finally reached the two, she took Wes by the shoulder, and pointed him, roughly, towards the slop table. Victoria couldn't hear what was being said, but she saw the gleam in Wes's eye grow even brighter.

Sister Katherine then turned to her, her mouth still closed tightly. "Don't lie to these children." Her eyes held the same wild fury that Victoria had only seen once before, and that was when she was praying. Victoria felt anger well up inside of her, at the hypocrisy of it all.

"Isn't that what you do every day? Telling these children it will be okay, when you have no idea? You know none of these children will ever be anything, but yet every single day, YOU lie. Your lies aren't anymore holy than mine." Victoria looked her square in the face, and watched the emotions play across the older sister’s face like a slideshow. First, there was anger. The anger subsided a few seconds later, giving way to what Victoria could only describe as realization. That she was right, she thought, smugly.

Sister Katherine's face sagged. She suddenly looked much older than her fifty two years, and a lone tear dribbled down her cheek, falling to the ground with an unnecessarily loud plop.

Victoria stared, and then forced herself look away, uncertain of how to react. She had steeled herself against such emotions years ago, but to be confronted with them again so suddenly, Victoria felt her resolve beginning to give way. She stood there awkwardly for a moment, very aware of the heated stares the other nuns were sending her way, before walking towards the convent doors, each step quicker than the last.

Upon reaching the doors, she yanked them open and hurried inside, grateful when the heavy oak doors shut behind her, blocking her from the rest of the nuns.

She ran past the frescoes and skidded into her room. When she had finally shut and locked the door, she collapsed onto her bed, and stared up at the dusty ceiling. Victoria's mind wandered, to thoughts of Wes. She blinked, forcing back an uncomfortable wave of emotions as she imagined him still sitting there, drinking juice, and waiting for stories of his father. Stories that would never come.

Her eyes drifted to the wall besides her, where a collection of ornate carvings littered the wall. It had been in times like these, when she was unable to express her emotions, so she taking to drawing...sort of. She didn't have any actual paintbrushes, so the next best thing was her dagger. Victoria eyed her drawings, noting how macabre they looked. Her eyes wandered to the door next, where several puncture holes stood out from the smooth oak exterior. If she was particularly angry, she would throw her dagger there. It helped her by allowing her to release anger and practice her throwing at the same time.