"Let not the newly arrived candidate be admitted too easily, but let care be taken, as the Apostle St. John advises, to try the spirits if they be of God." -- St. Benedict
May 3, 1933
I struggled to sleep again last night. Rain was trickling down the window of my room, which looks out over the abbey's courtyard. As each drop made its way across the moon it distorted the beams of light slightly, forming a soft carnival of sorrowful light dancing on my naked breast. If a sister were to dare the damp evening she could have looked up to my window and seen my nipples, erect from the cold, as they pressed against the glass. Somewhere beyond the dale the miskatonic flows outward and past Arkham, but in the darkness it could not be seen.
Sleep has come in troubled spurts following each sunset since my passing time in Arkham's briefly lived Hooverville. I trembled as my thoughts returned to the pain of those days and I craned my neck to look for the river. I imagined that if I could bathe in its waters I'd be cleansed of the sinful yearnings growing in my bosom this last fortnight, as some delusion festers within me that those indignities were desirable. I painted a scene from Matthew in my mind, with myself at the Jordan river being baptized by John. The water is cold, but its sting snaps me out of this fugue... I emerge renewed.
Something moved out of the corner of my eye and I turned, a gasp catching in my throat -- my door was open. "Sister Margaret?" I whispered, almost afraid to break the quiet and interrupt the soft patter of rain as if it was a performance put on by the most serious actors of the stage.
No response came.
I approached the door slowly, perhaps I had left it unlatched. I peeked out and surveyed the hallway. At the western end of the hall, my right, stands a door which had been shut and locked with the most archaic mechanism I have ever encountered. The abbess, Mother Superior Prinn, explained to me upon my arrival that the door leads to a stairwell which is in a horrid state, and dangerous. As such the old door is kept locked and off limits, but now it stood open. There seemed to be a faint light, flickering as if by fire, emanating from the doorway, which I could see into enough to confirm that indeed it contained a stairwell descending to unknown places. I realized at this moment that there was no corresponding door on the first and second floor as one would expect, and a twinge of curiosity stirred in me... but I turned back into my room.
May 4, 1933
I was summoned by the abbess in the morning, and as I sat outside her office I came to the conclusion that I would be reprimanded for my manner of dress, or some other violation of the culture which I am still learning. My postulancy, being in it's infancy, feels precarious, and the looks I have been noticing from the sisters tells me that rumor of my manner of life prior to arriving at the convent is spreading among the inhabitants. I thought back to the day before when the warm spring sun caused me to absent mindedly strip to my underclothes while working on the garden.
Upon arrival to the convent I informed the abbess of my agricultural upbringing, and she showed me their modest garden. I promised her I could expand it and began new plots, for the convent had no shortage of land, but lacked the skills to wrestle some from the forest and into producing fields. As I worked the previous day I had found myself drenched in sweat, and bit by bit discarded the garments the sisters provided me. Near the end of the day, I had noticed Sister Margaret watching me closely as I bent over in the mud, yanking a stubborn root from the ground, my sweat drenched undergarments clinging to my breast and bottom. Margaret seemed to watch me for a long time, returning my nervous smile with a nod and a predator's stare.
"First I want to thank you for all the work you've been doing in the gardens, Caroline." The abbess said when I had seated myself in front of her. "Sister West has told me you planted potatoes out near the orchids in the dale."
"Yes," I replied, "They'll be needing little tending and that plot is further afield."
Mother Superior is an older woman, but surprisingly young to be in charge of this abbey. I guess her age to be maybe 40 years. She is dark of hair with brown eyes, and her face reminds me of the girls in the flicks I saw as young girl years ago. Although her habit somewhat disguises the shape of her body, I can tell her bosom is much larger than mine.
"And you planted cranberries north of the western road."
"They take a few years to produce." I informed her.
"If you're to be running all over the forest planting crops I would ask that you consult with Sister Bowen first... where did you get the cranberry seed by the way?"
I grew even more nervous. "I scampered by the Whateley place and Noah was kind enough to provide. He and my father were on good terms."
The abbess narrowed her eyes at me... "Did you...
pay
Mr. Whateley in some way?"
I thought about the feeling of Noah's cockhead on my lips, the strong salty flavor of his sweat, built up over hours of work on the fields, and the feeling of his rough hands pushing my head down on the shaft, which seemed so much longer than it looked as it wedged, inch by inch, into my throat.
"No." I lied. I imagined her scolding me, "You filthy fricatrice! Been giving out French jobs?" In my head she was looking down on me, a fricatrice, a call girl, a prostitute... a whore. Instead, she changed the subject.
"Margaret could use some help." She said, "She's been struggling with some things that you may be more familiar with than the other Sisters." She paused for a moment, inviting me to ask what things, but I was silent. "I'll advise her to see you after dinner." I nodded.
As I stood, feeling tense as a frightened hare, the abbess stood with me. She placed her hand on my shoulder before I left the office. "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction. For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth." She recited, adding: "You'll be alright."
I nodded, taking her intention as comfort.
It was a difficult yet fulfilling day in the gardens, which I viewed as and would soon convert into fields, although after my conversation with the abbess I understood not to turn the grounds into a farm there was plenty of space to grow out of sight from the convent. I encountered one curiosity under the secretive earth on the southern property line: the ground was only a foot of topsoil beneath which was man-made stone. I concluded that it must be the foundation of some old structure come to ruin years prior, but I could not find the edges of its northern side. It extended in each place I checked towards the convent, and after an hour of effort I decided daylight was wasting.
Sister Margaret awaited me in the dining hall and we ate together, though she broached no serious matters. She told me how she applied to the convent at only sixteen, it being her calling from a young age. Five years had seen her grow into a respected member of the convent and of Arkham society as well where she had just begun working when the crash of '29 hit. A postulant at the time, she worked tirelessly to help the many destitute families that came from and to Arkham in those first chaotic years.
I was only a bit surprised when she asked to come by my room, whatever was eating at here most be something she didn't want paraded in front of the other sisters.
