Chapter 5
The Last Days of Innocence
Early the next day, Sister Oana exited the convent, by stepping out of the main gate. She walked on a well-trodden path leading around the exterior of the wall to the main gates of the village of Terem on the opposite side. This path was necessary because the wall that protected the convent had been built to enclose both the convent and the neighboring village, but the convent had been kept intentionally separated from the city. Though they relied on the wall’s protection, the sisters of the convent preferred to keep themselves mostly sequestered from the commerce of normal life. The villagers used this same path every Sunday when they went to attend the Sunday service, during which they donated a sliver of their meager income towards the preservation of this church and its convent.
Entering the main gate, Sister Oana stepped into the middle of a bustling city center. In front of her was the main square, where several stores and stalls sold goods to the crowds of eager customers. The streets were paved with stones that horses and wagons walked across, and at the heart of the square was a flowing fountain around which people sat and children played. Due to the wall that protected it from vampire attacks, the village of Terem was the most thriving village in the area.
Sister Oana walked down a side street leading to the office of the guards, behind which she could see the sole set of stairs leading up to the top of the wall. A pikeman named Cezar stood guard in front, holding his long pike in hand, while a wood and metal arquebus rested against the wall beside him.
“Could you direct me to the captain of the guard,” she asked Cezar.
“Captain Flaviu’s asleep sister,” he said politely, “And he doesn’t like to be woken unless it’s urgent.”
“Then can you deliver a message?” She asked, “I just want him to tell the sentries to look out for one of my novices. I suspect that she’s been sneaking around at night. She might even be trying to sneak out of the convent. She’s a small girl, about fourteen years old with dark hair.”
“You didn’t have to come all the way around here to tell me this, Sister,” Cezar said, “You could’ve just called to one of the sentries on the wall when he passed by. I’m sure they’d be glad to pass on the message.”
“I didn’t want to bring any attention to myself,” Sister Oana said, “We don’t want this novice to find out she’s being watched.”
“Understood,” he said, “I’ll tell the sentries. But you don’t have to worry about her getting out at night. She’d have to raise the portcullis, which is hardly something you could do without someone noticing. It’s about as quiet as a tiptoeing cannonball, I’d say.”
“This girl is quite inventive,” Sister Oana said, “She’s like a sly little mouse sneaking through the cracks in the walls. She’s already managed to climb up onto the top of the roof of the novitiate. I suspect she was up there looking for a way over the wall.”
“Why ever would one girl be so determined to get out of there?” the pikeman wondered, “You feed her, you clothe her. It’s a cruel world out there. She’d probably get devoured before she could enjoy her freedom.”
“Because she’s young and naïve,” Sister Oana sighed, “That’s why young girls need adults. If we give them too much freedom, they’ll only end up filling their days with regrets.” Cezar nodded with understanding.
When Sister Oana returned to the convent shortly thereafter, she called together Madalina’s three roommates, Dorina, Nicoleta and Mirela. She ordered the three girls to join her in the courtyard, and there she said to them: “As you know, your roommate Madalina has been sneaking out at night without permission. Such behavior cannot be tolerated. If she is caught out of her room at night without permission again, not only will she be punished severely, but you three with her.”
“But Sister,” the three girls objected.
“No argument!” Sister Oana cut them off, “You will share the punishment with her for permitting her to do this. If she has to be locked in the crypt again, you will be locked with her. If she has to clean the whole church top to bottom, you will have to clean it beside her. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Sister,” the three girls replied with dour consent.
“You must understand the gravity of her misbehavior,” Sister Oana said, “There will be no leniency, and I can assure you that I will keep this promise no matter what. We cannot tolerate those who flout our rules.”
When Madalina’s three roommates saw Madalina later that day, they told her what Sister Oana had told them.
“If you get punished, we get punished with you,” Dorina complained.
“We’re not going to let you get us into trouble,” Mirela insisted. She grabbed Madalina’s hair and gave it a good yank to emphasize her point. “We’re going to watch you at night from now on.”
The three girls turned their back on Madalina and walked away. They had never been apt to be kind to Madalina, but they resolved then on to stop being so easy on her. Mean comments passed between the girls as they walked away.
“She’s always so stubborn,” Mirela said, starting it off.
“I heard her parents left her here because they couldn’t stand to have her around,” Dorina said, “It’s not surprising, is it?”
“No, they probably abandoned her here because she looks like a giant ferret,” Mirela said, and the three girls laughed.
“That explains how she’s so good at climbing,” Dorina said, and the girls laughed again.
Knowing her roommates would be watching her tempted Madalina to cancel her planned excursion, but it did not tempt her enough. Though she didn’t believe it, she’d once been told that her parents had left her at the convent so that she might finish off the rest of her life in resignation, but she was unwilling to cede to these intentions.
When bedtime arrived and the girls settled into their beds, they all sat up staring at Madalina, waiting for her to sleep first. “You going to sleep, Madalina?” Mirela asked. Madalina nodded and laid down her head, pulling her covers up over her face and closing her eyes. Keeping still and silent, she waited for them to follow her and go to sleep.
The three girls lay down after her, but they didn’t go to sleep either. After a while, Madalina noticed that they were taking far longer than usual to fall asleep. Clearly, they were waiting for her to sleep first and weren’t convinced she’d fallen asleep yet. Madalina decided to try and actively pretend to sleep instead of just remaining quiet and motionless. She didn’t know exactly how she sounded while she slept. Did she snore? Did she talk in her sleep?
She began to breath heavily in the way the other girls would when they were asleep. After a few minutes of this, she heard a whisper from Nicoleta, “Is she asleep?”
“Yes,” Mirela said.
“Are you sure?” Nicoleta asked, “Does she normally snore?”
“Not usually,” Dorina said.
Mirela silently stepped out of her bed and leaned over Madalina to look at her closely, conceding, “She’s asleep. But keep your ears open for her tonight, in case she wakes up.”
The girls were not adept at keeping their ears open at night. They normally slept through even the somewhat loud noises Madalina had on a few occasions accidentally made when sneaking out at night. In fact, Madalina believed she was the only one who knew that Nicoleta talked in her sleep, even though she sometimes uttered her sleep-talk gibberish at full volume.
Madalina remained patient while she listened for the sound of the three girls falling asleep. Dorina sounded like the first to fall asleep. Mirela took a little longer, shifting and squirming before she finally descended. Last came Nicoleta, who sighed heavily a few times before she started to snore lightly and settled into her pillow.
Madalina waited for nearly a half hour after they were all asleep before she decided to sneak out. She raised herself up, pulled out her cloak and put on her shoes, moving even more slowly and quietly than she normally did. Everything was done with extra care, even her breathin
g, which she slowed and muted. She walked across the floor, so that even the touch of her feet and the shuffling of her clothes were barely audible. When she unlocked the door, she took more than twice as long as she normally would, just to make sure the metal click was as quiet as could be.
When she eventually stepped out into the hallway and closed the door, she relaxed and took the first full breath she had in many minutes. She then rushed down the hall to the courtyard. She checked to make sure she wouldn’t be spotted by the sentries, looked out for Sister Oana, and squeezed through the gap by the portcullis, ever so carefully unlocking and opening the outer door.
Waiting until the coast was clear once again, she ran into the woods and disappeared into the darkness, heading directly east, as instructed. She still didn’t know whether the vampires had decided to accept her, or if those wolves had decided to hungrily gobble up this little rabbit.
She walked through the cold of the forest. A low-hanging moon penetrated through the upper canopy of the trees, creating faint shadows on the ground and creating bits of fractured light that moved along Madalina’s body as she walked.
From a distance, two vampires watched this tentative shape, who moved with circumspect glances in all directions. She did not notice the vampires, who were perched high in the branches of a tree far from her, but with their much keener visual acuity, they could see her. The two vampires hopped to the branches of separate trees towards her, which caused the trees to sway as if they were being pushed by a furious wind.
Madalina heard the sound of the trees and looked up but could see nothing through the deep darkness above her. Almost out of nowhere, she saw the faint streak of a moving object falling in her direction. She again tried to leap out of the way as she had before, but she hadn’t reacted early enough. A net suddenly landed on top of her, with heavy weights at the four corners to hold it down.
Madalina scrambled to pull herself out of the net, furiously pulling at it and lunging for one of the weights. She picked up the weight to toss behind her and make an egress from beneath it, but, just as she was escaping, she saw the legs of a dark figure standing in front of her.
It was the same vampire she’d seen before, and he looked down on her with an amused expression.
“Vad,” he said. He pointed to a second vampire standing behind Madalina and said, “Fane.” She turned around to look at Fane, who was pale and hairless and looked at her with a vicious look.
“If you want to join our coven, you will bring someone to us tomorrow. Here. Someone young. Or we’ll take you instead,” Vad said as Madalina began to stand up.
“Take someone?” Madalina asked, “You mean you want me to kidnap someone and bring them to you?”
“Someone young,” Vad repeated, “Bring them tomorrow, alive.”
“But, I don’t know…” the words sputtered out of her.
“You want to join our coven, you do as you’re told. Vampires are obedient,” Vad said, “Someone young, alive, tomorrow. If you succeed you join the coven. If not, you’re food.”
“I’ll do it then,” Madalina softly replied.
“Don’t be overconfident,” Fane said, “None of us expect such a weak, little mere human to succeed. It’ll be a miracle if you do.”
Madalina started to approach Vad, hoping to try and negotiate further, but Vad pointed her back in the direction of her convent and said, “Now crawl away cretin. Don’t talk with us anymore until tomorrow.”
Madalina backed away from the two of them, nodding her head, and said, “Tomorrow.” When she had put some space between her and the vampires, she turned and ran.
It had not been how she had anticipated it. Part of her was pleased with the result, even excited, but she still looked on the task they had asked of her with dread. She wasn’t sure whether she could do it and was quite sure she didn’t want to do it.
As she approached the wall of the convent, she again waited for the sentries to pass out of sight before she entered through the door. Once in the courtyard, she darted to the novitiate and walked down the hall to her room.
When she entered the room, she closed the door and leaned against it to breathe a sigh, as if she could finally relax for the first time in weeks. But within a moment she heard a sound among the three occupied beds. Madalina froze, deciding to remain silent. Then she changed her mind and began to undress and try to climb into bed before she was noticed.
Nicoleta had woken and after a few minutes of groggy rolling about, she suddenly sprang up in her bed and looked in Madalina’s direction. Madalina was stuffing her cloak under her bed and hopping into it as Nicoleta looked at her.
“Madalina!” Nicoleta whispered forcefully, “You didn’t go out did you?”
“No, I swear,” Madalina replied, “Just using the chamber pot.” Nicoleta appeared unconvinced, and Madalina said, “Please don’t tell anyone you saw me.” Madalina was optimistic at seeing that it was Nicoleta who saw her. She was the most forgiving of the three, the most pliable and sensitive.
Nicoleta pouted with a loud harrumph and crossed her arms. “Madalina!” she whined, “No!”
Madalina mouthed, “Please.”
After a few more displeased grunts, Nicoleta finally asked, “No one saw you, did they?”
“No, no one,” Madalina assured her.
Nicoleta, though, did not want to leave it at that and was thinking about what to do. She resolved to wake the other girls and leave it to them, standing from her bed and approaching them. Madalina saw her and leapt from her bed. She gently grabbed Nicoleta’s arm to stop her.
“Please!” Madalina pleaded, “Please. Let them sleep.”
Nicoleta frowned and sighed, then turned to Mirela and nudged her awake. Mirela took a moment to stir from her sleep, grumbling out, “What is it?”
Nicoleta pointed in Madalina’s direction and said, “I caught her out of bed. She just came back.”
Mirela threw a pillow to wake Dorina. Once Dorina was out of bed and apprised of the situation, the three girls circled around Madalina. They pushed her into her bed and Dorina stood above Madalina, restraining her arms. In this position Mirela pounded Madalina repeatedly in the face with a pillow.
“Do you want to get us in trouble?” Mirela asked her, “Do you care?”
Madalina struggled to free herself, but Dorina held her firm. After Mirela stopped, Madalina was crying. She rolled over in her bed and covered her face, wetting her pillow with her tears.
“You try to leave again, we’ll make it even more unpleasant,” Mirela said as she returned to her bed.
While Madalina cried, the three girls all lay down and fell asleep.
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