"Thank you" was what Mother Teresa said.
The anger grew inside Maristela like an ember fed by wind. It wasn't just anger – it was hunger. Hunger to cause pain. Hunger to hear the protector thank her for the courage she didn't have. Hunger to drive those words back down her throat.
"Where were you?" Maristela's voice came out low, trembling, but sharp as a blade. "When he brought our sisters here, WHERE WERE YOU? Why DIDN'T YOU PROTECT US?"
The Mother didn't look away. Didn't shrink back. She just stared at her with tired eyes, old eyes that had already seen everything the world could offer that was worst.
"I protected you, Maristela. I swear. In the best way I could."
She paused. Took a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice was that of someone teaching an old lesson, learned in the flesh:
"Have you ever seen a live piranha, Maristela?"
The question hung in the air, absurd.
"It's a horrible fish," the Mother continued, without waiting for an answer. "Carnivorous. Lives in the Amazon River. The problem is they're small, they move in hundreds, they eat anything slower than them that's bleeding."
Maristela frowned. She didn't understand. Didn't want to understand.
The Mother sighed. A tired sound, old, heavy with years of silence.
"My family lived near the Amazon River. It had hundreds of piranhas in it. They devoured everything too slow to escape. Once a year, we had to cross the river with hundreds of oxen, taking them to graze on the other bank."
Her eyes lost focus for a moment, as if she saw something Maristela couldn't see.
"My father would choose a calf. A sick one, or ugly, disposable. He would bleed the calf and throw it into a distant part of the river. The piranhas never attacked us."
Pause.
Maristela wanted to vomit.
The understanding came like the truth she had always known, but never wanted to name.
She was the calf of the month.
The bait.
The one sacrificed so the others could remain innocent.
And if it hadn't been her, it would have been Silvane. Or Clara. Or any of the eighteen.
"If I had reported Father Dan," the Mother said, her voice now a thread, "I would have been suspended. Kicked out of here. And he could have used you whenever he wanted, with no one to look away at the right moment."
She lifted her head. Her eyes were teary, but firm.
"So I chose the calf. And I prayed to God every night to send me an answer."
She looked at Maristela. At the blood on her hands. At the body behind her. At the word ORPHAN carved into the chest of the man who had terrorized those girls for years.
"And He sent me you."
The Mother approached. Her steps were slow but determined. She stopped in front of Maristela, close enough that they could feel each other's warmth.
"I'll buy as much time as I can," she said, her voice now practical, of someone who had already made a decision. "I'll say I heard noises. Heard drunken men I didn't know shouting. Heard you screaming for help. Saw the door locked and rang the bells to call for help."
Maristela opened her mouth to answer – she didn't know what, maybe a thank you, maybe more anger – but before she could, the Mother hugged her.
The hug was firm, warm, unexpected. The Mother's arms wrapped around Maristela with a strength that didn't seem to belong to that frail woman. For one second – just one – Maristela felt what it was like to be held by someone who wanted nothing from her.
The anger dissolved.
Not completely. Never completely. But enough to make room for something else. Anguish. Fear. The brutal realization that she was leaving behind the only protection she had ever known in her life.
The Mother pulled her face away. Kissed her forehead. Her lips were dry, trembling.
Then, with a gentle movement, she stepped back. Her eyes met Maristela's – and in them there was something new. Determination.
She knelt and lifted her habit with practical movements. Took out something Maristela never imagined a Mother Superior would carry: a knife.
It was simple. Short blade, bone handle worn from use. A hummingbird was carved into the handle – small, delicate, strangely out of place in that calloused hand.
A hummingbird? Maristela frowned. What kind of symbol was that for a Mother Superior?
The knife was attached to a garter belt tied around her thigh – hidden, always ready.
The Mother untied the belt. Knelt – before Maristela, not before God – and tied the knife to the girl's leg. Her fingers worked fast, precise, as if she did this every night.
"This knife isn't for cutting, it's for protecting. And it cuts much more than flesh. Don't forget that."
That knife had history. It had been used before. On whom? For what? Maristela would never know. But she felt, in the weight of the handle against her skin, that she wasn't the first to receive it.
When she finished, she lifted her eyes to Maristela.
"Look for the Hummingbird in the pigsty. If you find it, you'll be safe. If you have money, they won't find you there. Then you leave the city."
Maristela frowned. Pigsty? What place was that? But she didn't have time to ask.
The tears came.
Silent. Warm. Streaming down her face dirty with dried blood.
She made no sound. She couldn't. If she did, she would collapse.
The Mother stood up. Straightened her habit. Took a deep breath.
"Go, child. Go and never come back."
She touched Maristela's face one last time.
"May the sin you committed in the name of all of us be forgiven."
She turned. Walked to the door. Stopped for a moment, without looking back.
Then she left.
The door closed hard. The sound echoed through the corridor.
Maristela was alone.
She touched the knife on her leg. The handle was smooth, worn, warm from the Mother's body. Someone had been using that for years. Someone survived. Maybe she could too.
She looked at the window.
Second floor. Almost five meters. She could survive.
'Hold onto the window,' the Orphan's voice whispered, practical, urgent. 'Use the poker to hang from and lessen the fall.'
She grabbed the poker. Stuck it in the crack in the wall. Held tight. Looked down.
The darkness waited for her.
'Where do I go? What do I do?'
The voice answered, tired but firm:
'You do what you've always done. Run. Lie. Hide. Use. Then repeat. That's how orphans live.'
She jumped.
The cold air cut her face. The darkness rose to meet her.
The impact was an explosion.
Her knees hit the hard earth with a wet sound – skin tearing, dirt entering the flesh. Her right ankle twisted with a dry crack – crack – that echoed through her bones, climbed up her leg, exploded at the base of her skull.
She groaned. A low sound, animal, that escaped between clenched teeth.
The taste of earth filled her mouth. The smell of dust and dry manure entered her lungs.
She lay there for a moment, face down, feeling every part of her body scream. The earth was cold. Damp. Alive.
BONG.
The bell.
BONG. BONG.
The alarm bell. Emergency.
In ten minutes, the whole convent would be awake. In twenty, everyone would know.
BONG. BONG. BONG.
'Get up.' The voice was now pure urgency. 'You have to get up.'
She tried. Her hands sank into the earth. Her arms trembled. Her right leg wouldn't obey.
'GET UP.'
She forced herself up. Got to her knees. Then standing – leaning against the wall, all her weight on her left leg. Her right foot dangled, useless, the pain pulsing in waves.
She limped. One step. Another. Another.
'That's how orphans live. That's how orphans live.'
The mantra filled her head. The only thought keeping her moving.
The sound of the bell grew more distant. Or maybe her hearing was failing. The fatigue weighed like lead.
She dragged herself away from the convent. Away from the only home she had ever known. Away from Clara, from Silvane, from the Mother, from everything.
'With that foot, you won't get far. Need a hole to hide in. Fast.'
The blood on her hands was not a martyr's.
It was something worse.
The Orphan's voice came, now calmer. Tired. But satisfied. Like a beast that has just fed and now sleeps.
'Rest, orphan. Then we'll do it again.'
Maristela didn't answer. She had no strength.
But deep down, where the Orphan lived, something smiled.