1
WILLOW
Rain lashes at the windows of the carriage.
The grand wheels of the contraption navigate the uneven road without delay.Each bump along our journey nearly sends me clattering to the floor.I manage to steady myself, unwilling to break the heavy silence between my fellow carriage patrons and me.
Daring a glance from under the heavy wool of my hood, the stoic faces of Father Knoll and Sister Grayvle remain unchanged as we continue our journey.They could be siblings—both with severe, dark eyes and deep wrinkles around their mouths.While the majority of Sister Grayvle’s hair is covered by her white veil, I’ve seen her auburn tresses before, and they bear a striking similarity to Father Knoll’s.
When my eyes trail towards him, I find his gaze already searing into mine.I drop my stare as goosebumps erupt on my skin.I say a silent prayer of gratitude that I’m alone on my side of the bench.Beneath this scratchy, threadbare robe, I am naked.My state of undress is a punishment for my crimes.As is the blood red fabric I’m currently draped in.
It is a far cry from the pristine white robes I’ve worn for the last twenty-one years of my life.I hardly recognized myself in the color.Sister Grayvle had said the color suited my kind better—in her eyes, I was never deserving of the white robes of the Sisterhood of the One True Faith.
To her, I was always what I am now—a hedonistic beast who deserves to be cast out of the only home she’s ever known.To be shunned and disavowed—left to rot by the side of the road as all vermin should be.The word impure rings through my head.It’s the only thing the other Sisters said to me as I was stuffed into this carriage and sent off to God knows where.
I suppose the word wasn’t untrue in my case, but one can hardly blame me.As an orphan, abandoned on the steps of Thorncatcher Monastery, I was adopted by the One True Faith before my first birthday.I took my first steps before the altar, and my first words were prayers.I should’ve been the most pious of all my Sisters.I should’ve looked up to Sister Grayvle as a beacon of what true servitude to our One True God could give me.
As I grew older, it became apparent to everyone that I was different.Restless, the Elder Sisters would call me.My mind would often wander during prayer.I was curious in a way the other girls my age were not—or at least they were better at hiding it than I was.
A few of the sisters even whispered I was cursed by a demon—my heart filled with a salacious nature that only more prayer could absolve me from.It was all for not, though.No matter how hard I prayed, my soul longed for more.As I grew up, it led me to do things that were unthinkable to the other Sisters.
I would sneak in contraband—books, dog-eared and forgotten.They were filled with tales of bravery and adventure.Themes of love and good triumphing over evil bled from each page.My rebellion first drew breath from inside those pages.Hidden amongst the travels and treasures of battle were scenes that changed everything for me.
Lust-filled depictions of couplings unlocked a world I had been barred from.
I’d huddle under my sheets, using the flame of one spare candle to devour each delicious sentence.My skin heats just thinking about my favorite passages—of a knight returning from a deadly battle, near the brink of death, only to be restored by his lover, the princess.In her embrace, he is whole, and they are one.
I savored each passage over and over, memorizing my favorite sentences by heart.From those wanton pages, a seed was planted within me.I would find that type of love—my heart yearned to be bound to another.I would experience the same euphoric, bone-shattering pleasure, or at the very least die trying.
Those books remain back at Thorncatcher Monastery, tucked under a loose floorboard.While they may no longer be with me, the messages inside them are carved into my heart.They are more than just stories to me.Reading those books taught me about the world beyond the monastery.It showed me things I never would’ve otherwise.
It showed me that love was not forced but given freely.
Love is a tenet of the One True Faith.We are raised to love our God, our Sisters, and, of course, our Blessed Fathers, like Father Knoll.We are given no choice in the matter, merely told that is how we should feel.It is our payment for the safety and security His Love gives us by being pious and loving towards our Father.This love is familial—any romantic love is seen as sinful.Sisters are to remain chaste and untouched until death.
The type of love I was reading about was forbidden to me.Perhaps that is why it entranced me.My path to damnation was set the moment I read my first indecent page.I had to discover what it felt like to have someone else’s hands upon me—to share breath with another in the darkness of a bedroom.
I had to start somewhere.My twenty-first birthday had come and gone, and I was no closer to discovering pleasure than when I first read those books at fifteen.I was feeling more restless than usual that day in the garden.The feeling of my life slipping away behind the walls of the monastery forced me to reclaim some of the freedom they stole from me.
The young man from the neighboring town had just been convenient.I had kissed him in the middle of the garden with no preamble.There was no effort on my part to hide what we were doing.His lips had been soft, but surprise had rendered him mostly motionless.By the time he started to kiss me back, we were being pulled apart.He had not been my first kiss, and I hope he won’t be my last.It was nothing special, and my loins were not left burning.
The man had been dismissed without pay, while I would be forced to suffer for my lecherous actions.It didn’t help my situation that Sister Grayvle had discovered us.
The Elder Sister had been singling me out for years.She would chastise the shape of my body once I began to grow into my curves.She’d call them obscene and make me wear double the garments to hide my shape.My prayers were never up to her standards.Any attempts I made at rededicating myself to the One True Faith were met with her dismissal.
She was almost purring as she dragged me towards Father Knoll’s study.My begging was met with stony silence as she tossed me inside.It had not been the first time Sister Grayvle had sent me in there to deal with Father’s wandering hands and foul breath.
It had never gotten too far, but it was only a matter of time before Father Knoll stopped being patient.His desire for me was more than evident, and the thought of him touching my naked flesh made me want to vomit.For as much as I loathed her, I was relieved I wasn’t making this journey with only Father Knoll.
His condemnation of me had been swift inside his study.There was anger in his beady, dark eyes that nearly stole my breath.He had proclaimed that if I was willing to give myself so freely to a stranger and forsake God, then my punishment would be for my sinful flesh to be on display for all to witness.
A punishment that far outweighs a chaste kiss that wasn’t very good.
It mattered little; I was stripped in the great hall before the eyes of all my Sisters while they chantedimpurein unison.I was given these sinner’s robes and loaded into this carriage without so much as a backward glance.My punishment was to begin immediately.The nudity hardly bothered me.As Sisters, we bathed communally; it was not as if it was a sight they’d never seen before.
Truthfully, I’ve barely had time to process it all.My stomach rolls with each shaking bump along the road.The journey throughThe Woodshad been short enough.Stories about it being filled with unholy magic and depraved creatures were well-known.We were forbidden from travelling into it at Thorncatcher Monastery.However, I had ventured into it many times and found it no more frightening than any other forest.
That’s not to sayThe Woodsare not special.I have seen many things inside them that the True Faith has no explanation for.Perhaps that is the real reason they do not want us wandering too deeply into them.
