SÃO PAULO, OCTOBER 10, 1951
The taste wouldn't go away.
Iron. Salt. She could still feel the texture in her mouth — human flesh.
It felt wrong, even after she had spat it out.
Maristela choked. Her body trembled. Nausea.
Hands on her knees, she tried to vomit, but only saliva mixed with red came out.
She swallowed some blood; beneath the taste, there was something she had forgotten since she was a child, excitement. For what?
The piece was on the floor. She didn't even remember spitting. She just saw the irregular fragment of skin and muscle land on the chest of the sprawled man and slide down his blood-soaked cassock.
Father Dan. The monster every novice in the convent feared…
Now he was just part of the scenery. Motionless.
Dying.
His body still moved, just the last spasms, the nervous system giving up slowly, fingers scratched the floor. His glassy eyes stared at the ceiling, at nowhere, at the hell that might already be swallowing him.
Why did he want to kill me?
Why did it have to be tonight?
Why not anyone else?
She panted. Her chest rose and fell too fast, her heart beating in her throat, in her ears, behind her eyes. The world buzzed. The walls of the office seemed to curve inward.
She remembered Clara's face, the nine-year-old girl who had just arrived. It was better that it was Maristela.
Maybe it would have been better if she hadn't fought back.
Maybe she would have fewer problems.
Too late now.
Her hand found the brooch.
It was pinned to her novice's clothes. That ridiculous thing they used to cover girls who had nothing, as if cloth could hide that they were orphans, that they were leftovers, that no one wanted them.
The brooch was the only pretty thing she owned. The only thing that was hers.
She stabbed the pin into her finger.
Deep. Until she felt the skin give, the flesh open. The pain came hot and sharp, cutting through the buzzing, bringing the world back in shards.
Maristela had learned early that pain brought things into perspective. Too much pain made you useless. Too little made you vulnerable.
A pinprick brought a small wave of calm.
The table was crooked. Papers scattered. The priest's cassock was stained with blood. The lamp light flickered, casting dancing shadows on the stone walls. The smell of cheap wine still hung in the air, mixed with the smell of blood.
The agate mug was still on the table, where he'd left it. The coffee was still steaming.
She grabbed it. Burned her lips, her tongue, the back of her throat. The scalding pain was supposed to burn away the taste of blood. The taste didn't leave.
Tears fell silently. She didn't know when they had started.
There. There, it was over.
It's over. I killed him. I… what? How? I remember biting, but not deciding to bite.
A lapse of memory: his hand on her neck. The brooch pierced Father Dan's eye. The wine breath. The weight of his body was crushing her bones. The hateful embrace, the lungs without air, the imminent death. She didn't want to die.
And then — teeth finding the neck, the surprise in his eye, the warm taste exploding in her mouth.
I'm a monster.
She thought about what the girls said about Father Dan. He was kind, gentle, and only wanted the best for his flock.
But Maria had disappeared after a "confession," and no one asked where she went.
Silvane no longer slept at night and had started blocking the novices' door with a wooden chair.
The tears kept coming. Maristela sat in a corner, curled up, the blood spreading across the floor and covering one corner of the room, slowly approaching where she was.
The worst part: all the novices felt that sometimes, on full moon nights — on nights like this — Father Dan wasn't himself. He was something else. Something else used his body.
No nun and no novice had proof. But they felt it.
Maristela didn't have proof either. She killed him.
Actually, the room now had dozens of pieces of evidence against her. Blaming her.
My life is over. I killed a Priest. I tore a piece off a man with my teeth.
And then, a voice.
"Years of pretending to be a fragile novice to end up like this."
It wasn't her, but came from inside her.
Shut up
"What a waste of time. Should have abandoned all the others."
She knew that voice. It was the same one that whispered in dark corridors, that said "don't trust" when the nuns smiled, that woke her in the middle of the night when she heard something scratching the wooden door.
The voice of survival, of paranoia. The fear that had kept her alive for as long as she could remember.
It was the hatred that made her angry at every word of love and care that came from the mouths of nuns, other novices, and other people.
The Orphan.
It was the only thing that stayed with her.
The nickname she herself gave to that thing inside her. The voice in her head.
The part that wasn't innocent, that didn't trust, that knew the world was a place that wanted to devour the weak.
Maristela looked. The mess was a dead man, blood spreading across the floor and already licking Maristela's bare feet.
"Now you're a criminal."
"Does that change anything?" Maristela whispered to herself, to nothing.
The Orphan listened. It always listened.
"No. You survived. Get up."
Her hands shook. She squeezed the mug until her knuckles went white.
She had no strength in her legs to get up. Her legs trembled.
"You're going to get caught. Get up, orphan."
Maristela didn't move.
Orphan — the only name she truly had. She arrived at the convent at age eight. She is sixteen now.
She didn't remember much before that. "Orphan" was what the nuns called her for a week before they gave her the name "Maristela." An old nun had died when she arrived. She received the same name as the deceased.
It had something to do with faith, but she didn't believe in that.
She only pretended to believe.
"Or even worse — they'll hand you over to someone like him, only in uniform. And this time you won't be able to bite."
"Shut up," she whispered. Her voice came out hoarse, broken.
"GET UP, ORPHAN!"
The voice was a command. Maristela stood up. Her body trembled. Her hands couldn't move. The tears didn't stop. But at least, she stood up.
The tears kept coming. The tremors kept arriving. It took a few more minutes for her hands to stop shaking.
They moved slowly, returning to normal.
At that moment, that would have to do.
She fixed her clothes. Put her veil back on, adjusted the bands on her habit, put on her sandals, and straightened her skirt. Tucked her hair under the veil.
"Pretending to be normal," the Orphan's voice said in her ear.
What else?
She looked at the body. At the blood. At the piece of flesh on his chest.
"Why us. Why Tonight? You need to know."
No. I don't want to stay here. I want to go back to the room.
"They saw you leaving to return the book. You'll be the first suspect. And you have no excuse and no proof. They'll all point fingers at you."
No. We'll be fine. He died. It wasn't me. Everyone is safe.
"They won't…"
"Won't what? Lie? Risk their own skin? Stop acting like a victim before you deserved to be one."
The convent slept. It was early morning — she didn't know what time, but the moon had already passed its highest point. The corridors were empty, submerged in dim light, with only the weak glow of oil lamps in the saints' niches.
She thought about walking, about moving away, about going back to her room and pretending nothing happened… but her feet wouldn't obey. Something pulled her back.
Father Dan's last words:
"They need you alive. I can't let it happen. Forgive me"
Who were they?
And then Maristela saw it.
Dan's arm was extended, the sleeve of his cassock torn — the skin of his forearm was exposed.
And there, on the pale skin, a drawing.
Dark ink, old, faded by time. But still visible.
A tattoo.
Priests don't have tattoos. Hell, no one had tattoos.
The rule was clear. The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Marking it was a sin. It was profanation. It was something for outcasts, for heretics.
But there it was.
And the drawing…
Maristela approached. Knelt beside the body. Pulled the torn sleeve to see better.
The symbol was simple, but disturbing.
It was clearly a crucifix, but the head wasn't a head. It was an oval circle, like a loop or a water drop.
A strange cross. Or maybe a key. Maristela didn't know.
What did this mean? Why did Father Dan have a tattoo? Why did a priest carry on his skin the mark of something that seemed so… pagan?
She pulled the sleeve further. Below the symbol, words. In Latin.
"Pro vita aeterna laboro."
Pro vita aeterna laboro — I work for eternal life.
The translation came like a sneeze, involuntary, strange.
"Who ?"
A few moments passed.
Father Dan is dead.
The question stuck in her mind, along with the tattoo on Dan's skin:
"I work for eternal life." But…
Whose eternal life?