It called to Mirela’s heart, stirring it to wake. What sorrow could live inside a woman who had sworn herself to God? If she lived beneath His wing, why did she sound so alone?
Mirela crept nearer, her bare feet silent against the stone. The melody rippled through the stained glass and into her bones. For a moment, she let herself close her eyes; the sound softening every wound she ever bore. Her scars didn’t feel heavy on her skin, the hunger in her stomach diminished, and for a minute, she allowed herself to float.
Then the music ceased.
Mirela’s eyes flew open to find the nun gazing upward, searching. Their eyes met for the briefest instant before Mirela gasped and vanished back behind the column. Her pulse thundered in her throat. She pressed herself into the shadows and waited, daring not to breathe.
She heard the nun’s voice again, no longer singing but speaking to Sister Margaret. Mirela knew Margaret well. She was a bitter woman, full of hollow prayers and venomous sighs. Mirela had seen her kind in the cathedral time and again. The kind that was all about duty and no faith.
Mirela listened, heart hammering so loud she could scarcely hear the words. When at last she calmed, shecaught the nun’s name coming from Sister Margaret’s mouth.
Claire.
A simple name. Soft, like the woman’s voice.
Mirela liked it.
She peeked again just as Claire frowned at something Sister Margaret said, her lips forming a small, disbelieving pout. The sight made Mirela stifle a laugh, but it burst free anyway, quickly smothered by fear when Claire’s head tilted up again. Mirela shrank back. Not wanting to be seen. Wanting to be obedient to Ferron. But the need to watch Claire, and the temptation to interact was proving to be hard to ignore.
She needed to follow instructions. Ferron had forbidden her to be seen.
“The world is cruel,” he always said. “They will not understand what you are.”
But was this nunthe world? They were both inside God’s house. Did that not make them kin? Would even a nun judge her?
Her heart trembled at the thought.
Ferron had given her everything… A home, food, love. She owed him everything. Yet, as she watched Claire turn to leave, something inside her begged to follow.
Claire’s form, hidden beneath layers of coarse habit, disappeared through the large cathedraldoor. The doors closed with a hollow clang, sealing Mirela inside the vast, empty church.
Relief and disappointment rose in her chest. She climbed down from her hiding place and landed softly near the altar. The cathedral was silent now. The Virgin and her dead Son gazed down from the stone. The statue’s stillness somehow brought her a sense of comfort.
Mirela touched the hem of Mary’s carved robe. Then she turned to the spot where Claire had been standing, and her stomach fluttered, though she could not name the feeling.
She moved through the side corridor to fetch her cleaning supplies. She took rags, brushes, and a small bucket. The work soothed her. She scrubbed the marble floors, the gargoyles’ mouths, the pipes where rainwater gathered.
Hours later, she returned to her chamber in the tower. Although clean, the room was filled with drawings and paintings she had created throughout the years. The clutter in her room reminded her that no one else had entered this space; just her and some; pigeons and Ferron when he came to visit.
What would she even show a friend if she had one?
With a sigh, Mirela reached for her worn notebook and a stub of graphite. Her hand trembled as she drew not the saints she once copied, buther.Claire’s face took shape beneath her fingers. The curve of her lips, her tannedskin, the proud line of her nose, the graceful stretch of her throat as she sang.
She paused, eyes flicking toward the sketches littering her walls. They were mostly images of saints and angels she’d studied from faded murals and holy books. Their faces were always too perfect. It was the kind of beauty that never seemed real.
She had never seen such beauty in the pilgrims who came to pray, nor in the nuns who passed through the pews. And yet here she was, captured in a drawing that could never do her justice. The lines refused to stay still, her hand desperate to capture something divine that was not divine at all, butalive.
When she finished, Mirela stared at the portrait. It was beautiful, but not enough. The page could not hold the warmth she imagined in those eyes, or the sound that still lingered in her ears.
If only she could see her up close and name the color of her eyes, the shade of her hair beneath the veil.
She looked down at her own scarred hand, the burn marks twisting as she flexed her fingers. Her heart dropped.
What could she ever offer to someone like Claire?
Chapter four
Claire
