She didn’t know who to trust. They all acted as if they were pious, as if their connection to God was the real one, that anything else was fake, an act to stay alive. Each day, Claire looked at the convent’s door with longing that gnawed her insides. She wanted to leave. She wanted to run, but where would she go? Back to her parents? So they could rub in her face every day until her last breath, what a disappointment of a daughter she was? Would she join the travelers?
Each passing day, Claire swore she would go insane if they didn’t leave the confinement of the convent, but then came an announcement.
Mother Beatrice said they would visit Notre-Dame.
For the first time in months, Claire looked up toward Heaven with gratitude. She was so tired of the misery inside Paraclete. Anything other than the convent would be a breath of fresh air.
She could barely sleep the night before. She had wanted to see what it was like inside the holy building. She remembered when she arrived in Paris, walking in front of it on her way to the convent.
She had noted how the two large towers rose like sentinels over Paris. It was already beautiful outside, but nothing could’ve prepared her for the inside.
Sunlight fractured through the stained glass, scattering light across the stone. The air smelled of wax and incense. It was rich, suffocating, and of course, holy.
She had never seen the inside in person. She only heard the stories some travelers offered when they passed her village and what she had read of Notre-Dame in a few borrowed books. Words had become her escape. She had wanted to write to her parents, to tell them she still thought of them, that she still loved them despite her better judgment, but she never did. She didn’t know how she would react if she ever wrote to them and they never sent a letter back.
The visits to the cathedral became weekly pilgrimages. For most of the sisters, it was devotion. For Claire, it was oxygen. It wasn’t long before they decided to start a choir, and Claire was more than willing to be part of it.
When Claire sang, her voice carried through the cathedral. She sang not for God, but to fill the hollow ache of her solitude. She sang because silence and loneliness had become unbearable.
The other nuns praised her tone; even the stern Sister Margaret permitted her a small solo each week. When Claire sang, the world seemed to still. The walls in the cathedral listened.
To anyone else, the idea of a building listening would’ve sounded like crazy talk, but every time Claire finished a song, and she lifted her gaze toward the arches, she caught a flicker of movements and shadows shifting where no one should be.
More than once, a soft shuffling above made her lose her place, until Sister Margaret tugged sharply at her habit to refocus her attention. Still, she could not shake the feeling of being watched.
She tried to pay it no mind. Maybe it was an animal. A rat or a dove that had found its way into the church. But one day, when the choir’s final notes faded, she saw red hair disappearing behind a column high above.
Claire’s breath caught.
Sister Margaret was talking about something she couldn’t catch. She wasn’t paying attention to what was being said but to the movement above her.
“Sister Margaret,” she interrupted, cutting the other nun off. “Is anyone else here today?”
The old woman gave her a withering look before glancing toward the altar. “Yes, Sister Claire. Of course there is someone with us. He is always with us.”
Claire clicked her tongue in annoyance and shook her head. “I mean someone real!” Claire blurted, then regretted it instantly.
The other nuns gasped, their habits rustling, looking at her as if she had conjured Satan himself.
Claire forced a shaky laugh. “I only meant a worker... perhaps in the rafters?”
Sister Margaret’s brow furrowed deeper, her eyes cold. “No one else is here,” she said sharply.
Claire exhaled, relieved that Sister Margaret didn’t push further. She was known to be a tattletale, so she hoped she wouldn’t report back what she had said to the superior Mother Beatrice. Yet, the weight of unseen eyes still lingered, and Claire looked up out of the corner of her eye.
As the sisters filed out, Claire turned once more toward the heights of the cathedral. She would find a way to climb those stairs, to see who—or what—waswatching her.
Because whatever it was, Claire was certain of one thing: it was not God.
Chapter three
Mirela
Mirelahadneverseenthat nun before. It must’ve been a new one. From her vantage point, she kept a quiet count of all who came to Notre-Dame, memorizing faces and names. She knew every nun who visited, every priest, every penitent. But this one had escaped her notice, perhaps because hunger had dulled her focus for days.
Today, though, sheheardher.
The nun’s voice drew Mirela from her shadows, pulling her closer to the altar, still hidden behind a column, breath caught between awe and ache. The voice was unlike the others. It was pure yet heavy, threaded with grief,sometimes trembling with abandonment. Each note seemed to bloom from pain instead of piety.
