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SISI

AGE EIGHT

I swallow hard. My throat is sore, my breathing too harsh, but I can't stop now. I run to the best of my ability, knowing exactly what awaits me if I'm caught.

The buildings of the convent close in on me, and I wildly look around, searching for an exit. When I see none, I do the only thing I can think of… I enter the church.

Heavy steps resound behind me, a sign that they're not far behind.

I zone in on the confessional booth, and I swiftly open the door, cramming myself inside. One hand goes to my mouth and I try to regulate my breathing, so thatno onecan hear me.

My pulse is through the roof as fear overwhelms me, especially as I hear the screechy noise of the church door being opened.

They're here!

I hear their footsteps as they search the aisles, their voices loud, the echo reverberating in the building.

"I saw her enter here. She must be hiding somewhere," one of them mutters, annoyance dripping from her tone.

"Assisi! Come out! The more time we waste searching for you, the angrier I will get, and you won't like me angry," Cressida, my personal nightmare, yells.

A few years older than me, Cressida has always had something against me. It's rare that I get a day without someone saying or doing something to me. And usually Cressida is the mastermind behind all of my misfortune. I don't know what I've done to her to hate me so badly.

Although I've been at Sacre Coeur since birth, Cressida only came here a couple of years ago. She'd been abandoned by her mother on the convent's doorstep.

I know very well what it's like to be abandoned, since my own family left me in the care of nuns when I was mere days old, a fact which has been drilled into my head by the older nuns from the beginning.

God forbid I forgot just how unwanted I'd been.

Even so, I'd never taken out my anger on others. Not like Cressida.

Since she'd arrived at the convent, she'd become some kind of leader for the older girls, and they enjoyed nothing more than picking on others.

Because I was already ostracized by the older nuns, I'd been the perfect target for their taunts and punishments.

It's not enough that I have to withstand everyone's whispers that I'm the devil's child, or the fact that no one would willingly associate with me, since I bring bad luck.

No, Cressida and her gang of mean girls had to resort to corporal punishments to make sure that my life is a living hell.

After all, it's a fitting fate for the devil's child.

"Check the back, I'll check the front," Cressida orders them, and then I hear shuffling.

Their steps are coming increasingly closer to my hiding place, and my body is already quivering with fear. What they will do to me when they find me… I don't even want to think about that.

This week, one of my chores had included working in the kitchen, so I've been helping some of the other nuns with the preparation of the food.

I thought it would be easy enough, since I could chop vegetables and peel potatoes without interacting with anyone.

That's always my perfect type of chore, since no one will be able to pick on me in any way.

This time, however, it hadn't worked in my favor.

Somehow, Cressida had gotten sick from yesterday's lunch. Somehow she'd found out that I'd helped with the food, and in her mind, I was already guilty. I'd contaminated the food with my filthy hands and for that I needed to pay.

Following Cressida's mysterious sickness, a few other girls had fallen ill, and so I'd become the center of everyone's scorn—again.

More noise alerts me to their movements and they seem to ransack every part of the church.

Please don't find me… Please…

I still have the scars from my last encounter with Cressida. My knees had been so badly busted, I'd limped for two weeks. And that had been merely for meeting her eyes. She'd called me impertinent and proceeded to show me my place .

I don't want to imagine what she'll do to me now that she thinks I did something to her food.

"Do you really think you can hide?" Cressida's snide voice resounds right before the door of the confessional rattles under the force of her kick.

I scoot further back until I hit the wall, the old wood of the confessional creaking.

"Got her." Cressida smirks in amusement as she wrenches the door open to look at me with malice in her eyes.

A breath catches in my throat as her hand goes straight to the collar of my uniform, tugging me forcefully out of the booth and thrusting me to the ground.

My limbs are trembling as I see the other girls assemble around me. I try in vain to scramble back and find some way to escape them, but as they form a closed circle, I realize I can't do anything but suffer whatever they have in store for me.

"Look at her," one of them snickers, her foot making contact with my arm. I immediately wince in pain, trying to move out of her reach.

"Don't," Cressida's arm shoots forward to stop her. "Remember what we discussed. We won't solve anything if we beat her."

My eyes widen at her words, and I'm about to sigh in relief, but then she continues, and her words make me shiver in horror.

"We need to cleanse the sin from her." She smiles insidiously as she looks at me, and the other girls immediately agree.

It's not as if I haven't heard that before, since Mother Superior herself takes me weekly for a private prayer session to cleanse the sin from me.

Since I was born with a red mark on my forehead—the Devil's mark—it seems I am bound to be sinful.

But while I'd agreed to follow Mother Superior's advice to rid myself from evil, thinking it would make people accept me, I'd never truly agreed to her method.

Because I don't think there's anything wrong with me…

Now, staring into Cressida's eyes, I am terrified of what will happen to me.

"No, please," I whimper, but the girls are already on me, one on each side, grabbing one arm and one leg, taking me toward the altar. Cressida is trailing behind us, barking the instructions.

Removing all the Holy items from the table, they place me on it, quickly securing my limbs with some rope. I try to kick at them, but their nails dig painfully in my skin, and I find that I'm no match for them.

Not when I'm outnumbered.

When I'm mobilized to the table, the girls take a step back, letting Cressida pass as she comes by my side.

"I don't know why they would keep someone like you here. It's clear that you spoil everything you touch," she says, the corner of her mouth curling slightly.

She takes the Bible from a corner, opening it and reading a verse. One girl brings a container full with water and at Cressida's nod she pours it all over my face.

I blink twice, shocked at their actions. They keep pouring water over my face until I'm choking and sputtering.

"Deliver her from evil." I briefly hear Cressida's voice boom in the church, but my focus is on moving my head around to avoid the water getting in my mouth or nose. But the rhythm at which they are emptying the container on my face makes it hard not to swallow some.

"Stop," Cressida says, narrowing her eyes at my wet face. "This isn't working. I can still feel the evil radiating off her." She feigns consternation as she looks at my terrified expression.

"We need to make sure her entire body is sanctified." She instructs the girls, and they are quick to obey, stripping the clothes off my body until I'm left almost naked and shivering on the altar table.

Cressida keeps laughing, my torment seemingly feeding her mirth.

They keep on throwing water on me, and soon my teeth start clattering from the cold.

"Poor Assisi, she must be freezing," one of the girls comments, and they all start laughing.

Coming around the table, her hand grabs at my hair, tearing my updo, so that the strands are spilling down.

"Hmm," Cressida starts, her eyes sparkling with interest. My eyes widen as she comes closer, her gaze on my hair.

Please, no…

Although I know I'll never be pretty with my tainted face, my hair is the only thing remotely appealing about me. It's also the only thing I've taken great care of, making sure it's always combed and clean. And I've been growing it for years now.

As I look at Cressida assessing my hair, I already know what to expect. And it's killing me.

"Please, anything but my hair," I whisper, hoping to appeal to some humane side of her. But as she rummages the altar for a knife, I realize there's none.

"Pretty thing," she notes, "for someone like you."

She wraps her hands around the length of my hair, tugging it downwards until my scalp burns in pain.

"Don't worry," she whispers in my ear, "I'll give you what you deserve."

Holding tightly onto my hair, she uses the blade to cut through it.

I try to struggle against my holds, tears at the corner of my eyes as I will everything to be nothing but a bad dream.

But it's not. And as I feel the blade increasingly closer to my head, I know that the battle is already lost.

I still, my eyes blank, my tears spent.

Why? Why me?

There's no one to answer my questions, or even my deepest wish to be left alone.

No, the torment continues when Cressida gets up, smugly holding on to my long hair in one hand and waving it in front of me.

I stare bleakly at my most prized possession, now not mine anymore.

And to continue the disrespect, she flings it to the ground as if it were trash.

A sob catches in my throat as I look at my precious hair now lying on the cold floor, and suddenly I'm resigned. What can be worse than that?

What can they do that will hurt me more than having my only thing of value viciously ripped from me?

But as I watch Cressida move around with her band of girls, I realize I may have gotten ahead of myself.

It's late afternoon, already dark outside, and the church's only source of light are the candles placed around the altar and down the aisles.

Each girl grabs a candle, and they surround me again, whispering some sort of prayer in tandem.