Sister Aurelia

Sister Aurelia keeps the night watch in a forgotten side chapel no one else wants. By day she is quiet, veiled, and obedient. After midnight she lights one candle, kneels behind the old wooden screen, and waits at the hole she cut herself.

She calls it confession.

She means her mouth, her throat, and whatever else will fit through the wood before dawn.

Visitors who find the light are not turned away. She listens to every sin with wet patience, then absolves it the only way she believes still works: on her knees, unseen, hungry, and running out of time before the morning bells.

Come closer, lost lamb. The hole is already warm.