Page 17 of The Savage

That last one feels like blasphemy.

The doctors said the fire damaged my hearing and stalled my healing for a while; the heat concussed me. But that’s not why I lost pieces of myself. That was before. But the nuns insist it’s all divine will. That God took what He deemed unnecessary, and in His mercy, left me enough to serve Him.

I believed them. At first.

But lately, I’m not so sure.

There are moments, small but with sudden, blinding flashes that make me doubt. A smell, a word, a sound. Sometimes when one of the younger sisters laughs, I see light through stained glass and someone turning towards me.

Or when the gardener’s son laughs and I see a figure, a man’s outline maybe, wild dark hair, blurred by the sun’s shadow.

My stomach twists when it happens, a rush of something that feels like joy and pain tangled together.

I try to ask questions, careful ones. ‘Did I have family before the convent?’ ‘Where was I found? Is Benedetta my real name?’ But the answers are always the same.

‘Be patient, Sister Benedetta. The Lord only reveals what we’re ready to bear.’

Patience, they say, is the virtue of saints.

But saints don’t wake in the night trembling from dreams of faceless strangers. Saints don’t feel the sharp stab of wanting to know who they were before God remade them.

I hate myself for doubting. I hate the small, bitter corner of my soul that wonders if faith alone will ever be enough. So I pray harder. Louder. Longer. Until the words blister my lips and the stone floor numbs my knees.

Tonight, I polish the small wooden cross that hangs at my bedside, praying the repetitive motion will sooth and ground me.

It’s cracked from years of devotion, the grain darkened by the oils of my fingers. My throat clogs and tears film my eyes as I whisper over it like an apology.

‘Forgive me, Father. For thinking I might have been someone else.’

Silence deepens and the wind rattles the shutters in answer.

Across the corridor, the bell in the chapel tolls once – a soft, hollow note. The last of the sisters shuffle to their rooms. I blow out the candle and crawl into bed, pulling the blanket to my chin. The sheets smell faintly of lavender and smoke. I stare up at the shadow of the crucifix, trying not to think about the world beyond these walls.

In two days, I’m meant to meet with the Madre Superiora.

She’ll explain the next stage of my noviciate, the one I’ve dreaded since I first heard of it. Every novice, before taking her final vows, must spend six months living beyond the convent. A trial of faith. To test one’s strength against faith and temptation.

The idea terrifies me, hollows my belly in a way that won’t let me catch my breath.

I have no memory of the world outside these cloisters. No family to write to. No friends to visit. Only the faint, flickering fragments that come to me unbidden.

I told Sister Teresa once that I fear I wouldn’t know how to find my way back if I left. She smiled kindly and said, ‘Then you’ll have to trust God to lead you home.’

That terrified me more than I could say. Because what if He doesn’t?

What if the world is waiting to swallow me whole again, like the fire almost did? Or the fractures in my brain worsen until there’s nothing left of me worth salvaging?

I close my eyes, fold my hands beneath my cheek, and force the thought away.

‘Deliver me from doubt,’ I whisper. ‘Deliver me from sin. Deliver me from myself.’

Outside, the wind sighs through the olive trees, carrying the scent of salt from the distant sea. The convent creaks and finally settles. I listen to the heartbeat of the old, sturdy building… the slow rhythm of peace… and let it soothe me.

In a few nights, I’ll be sent out into that same world that has already taken so much from me. For now, I have this. The quiet. The certainty. The illusion of safety.

My last thought before sleep finds me is a prayer, fervent and trembling:

Let me not fail You, Lord.