As Above, So Below

It had been a month since Ellanova had passed. The church had been completely shattered. The same incense drifted through the air. Father Mattias’ voice still rang out. Yet, a silent, terrified unease gripped the parish. The sisters prayed with a desperate fervor, terrified of the abyss that had claimed one of their own. Though many continued to pray, there was a silent unease that haunted the people.

Adelaide, once the most joyous and talkative member in the convent, hadn’t uttered a word since. While she continued to fulfill her duties with interior prayer, kneeling and standing and clutching her rosary and bowing her head, everyone noticed that not a sound escaped her lips, nor did they ever move. When questioned about it, she simply wrote that she was partaking in holy silence. A few sisters had reported hearing sobs coming from her quarters at night, and many noticed the puffy redness of her eyes in morning prayers. While Father Mattias had pushed through the scandal to grant her a funeral mass, a stifling, guilty energy now filled the sanctuary.

Mother Genevieve hadn’t fared much better. Though she attempted to remain stoic, the persistent black bags under her eyes had given her away. Once, Sister Marie had been caught speaking with a young suitor during the night outside the convent gates. Everyone, including Marie, had prepared themselves for the brutal discipline. But when the matter was brought up with Mother Genevieve, to everyone’s surprise, she simply sighed and wearily sentenced Marie to only a day of fasting and extra laundry duty before retiring to her quarters.

Even Father Mattias seemed completely shaken. He had come personally to the community to offer condolences, granting a rare one-week dispensation from duties for those who needed it. He had even cleared Ellanova's room himself when none of the sisters could bear to cross the threshold. During Mass, everyone noticed his homilies had lost their soul. Heavy sighs escaped his lips between readings. He paused too long during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. One Sunday, Mass ended abruptly when he grew faint at the pulpit. Yet, he continued to struggle forward, desperate to remain the rock of the parish.

But a question, though unasked, continued to hang in the air. Why had such a devout soul succumbed and committed such a grave sin? What had caused Ellanova such deep sorrow that she would rather die than remain in such a blessed sanctuary? She had it all. A warm place to sleep and eat, a loving community of sisters, and most importantly, a direct connection to the Lord. Why would she give that all away? Despite their hunger for answers, everyone believed that no one would ever truly know why Ellanova did what she did.

But Aurelia knew.

She knew exactly why.

It was a sacrifice. A necessary sacrifice.

A couple of fortnights before Ellanova’s death, she had burst into Aurelia’s quarters, red-faced and panting. Her chest heaved violently, sweat dampening the curls clinging to her forehead.

“I know what you’re up to,” she panted, her chocolate eyes blazing as they glared into Aurelia’s golden ones.

“Pardon?” Aurelia responded, unflinching. She tilted her head innocently, batting her lashes in feigned confusion. The calmness in her voice only fueled Ellanova's fury.

“I know,” Ellanova repeated, slowly stepping closer. “Your ‘lessons’, the peculiar, blasphemous philosophies you spread, gathering the sisters during the night in the woods… I know. You’re trying to turn us against the church. Against the Father…against God! You’re trying to damn all of our souls to hell! You’re a demon! A wretched demon sent by Satan himself.” Ellanova was shocked by the venom that dripped from her words, the way rage coursed through her veins and made her feel ready to smack Aurelia back to the depths of hell herself, where she belonged. Yet she restrained herself, staring the girl down with her rosary ready in hand. But to her surprise, Aurelia did not react. She barely so much as blinked. Instead, she looked Ellanova in the eye for what felt like an eternity. The twitch in her eye had returned, more prominent than ever and impossible to deny. After several moments of deafening silence, Aurelia stepped toward Ellanova. It took every fiber of Ellanova’s being not to flinch and scream. But instead of attacking, Aurelia brushed right past her, walking towards the door and slowly closing it shut. She slowly turned back around, and the twinkle in her eye and upturned corner of her lip made Ellanova’s blood run cold.

“Your deduction is…amusing, to say the least. Is that what you truly believe of me? That I’m evil? A demon sent from hell?” Aurelia giggled. “And here I thought I was leaving a good impression.” Ellanova scoffed in disbelief, appalled by Aurelia's gall in laughing in response to such a serious accusation. If she wasn’t a demon, which she was sure she was, she was an utter lunatic at the very least. “Then how else would you explain yourself? No true sister would be so comfortable with leading her peers down the road to hell,” Ellanova sneered. “To hell, or to freedom?” Aurelia smirked.

“What?”

Aurelia stepped closer, her movements entirely devoid of human friction. She didn't walk; she drifted, narrowing the space between them until Ellanova could smell the distinct scent of crushed lilies, sandalwood, and sulfur on her skin.

"You think this sanctuary is a blessing, Ellanova,” Aurelia whispered, her voice dropping into a rich, velvety register. “But a cage is still a cage, no matter how beautifully you gild the bars. You pray to a Father who demands your compliance, lest you be damned to a fiery pit. You bow to men who deem you a beast yet bear their fangs without hesitation. I am not leading the sisters to hell. I am merely handing them the keys to their own heavens.”

Ellanova raised her rosary like a shield, her knuckles turning white. “Blasphemy,” she choked out, though the word felt heavy, almost clumsy on her tongue. “The Lord is our shepherd! We are meant to serve Him, and only Him!”

“And what does your Shepherd do to the sheep, little lamb?” Aurelia smiled, tilting her head again in a mocking question. She reached out, her finger gently brushing the silver crucifix dangling from Ellanova's trembling hand. Aurelia could practically hear Ellanova’s heart beating out of her chest. She could feel how her breath quickened; she could taste the fear of her beliefs being questioned. The cold metal instantly seared with a faint, phantom heat. “He shears them. He consumes them. He sacrifices them on the altar of His own glory. Tell me, Ellanova, when you look into the mirror, do you see a holy servant, or do you just see a ghost wearing a habit?”

The question struck Ellanova with the force of a physical blow. She resisted the urge to fall to her knees and gasp for the air that seemed to not be capable of filling her lungs anymore. Why hadn’t the rosary burned Aurelia? Was she not faithful enough in the power of Christ? Had God forsaken her? Was He even on her side to begin? She tried to shake the sinful doubts from her mind, but they only grew louder. The absolute certainty in Aurelia’s eyes didn’t look like demonic madness. It looked like an undeniable, terrifying truth. A cold dread pooled in Ellanova’s stomach as the first, tiny crack formed in the foundation of her entire existence.

“W-what are you?” She stammered, hoping that getting Aurelia to admit she truly was a demon would somehow discredit everything she had said. She watched as Aurelia closed her eyes and raised her hands to her face in a praying motion. A haunting, uncanny smile spread from behind her folded hands. When she opened her eyes to look at her, the golden orbs had been replaced by pools of black. “I’m a savior!” Aurelia’s voice sounded like a horrible, inhuman distortion. Petrified, the rosary fell from Ellanova’s hands, clattering loudly onto the floor that Ellanova wished she could sink into. Hot, burning tears streamed down her cheeks as she stumbled back into Aurelia’s desk. “I-I’m going to tell Mother Superior. I’ll tell the Father!” She cried desperately, itching to grab the Bible nearby but afraid to take her eyes off of the creature in front of her.

“Tell them,” Aurelia invited, gesturing toward the heavy wooden door with mocking grace. “Go on, run to Mother Genevieve. Run to Father Mattias. Go out and tell our sisters, for all I care! Tell them a demon is living in the convent. Tell them I speak with a voice not of this earth. What do you think they will do, Ellanova?”

Ellanova gripped the edge of the desk, her knuckles aching. “They will cast you out,” she sobbed, words wavering. “They will perform an exorcism. They will destroy you!”

“They will lock you away,” Aurelia corrected softly, her voice dropping back into that smooth, terrifyingly calm register. The pitch black of her eyes slowly receded, leaving behind those piercing, hypnotic golden rings. She didn't move, yet she seemed to occupy every corner of the room. “Think about it, sweet girl. I am the favorite. I am the most devout, the quickest study, the sister who brings peace to the grieving and order to the chapel. And you? You are the girl who comes screaming into the night, raving about black eyes and voices in the dark.”

Aurelia took a single, agonizingly slow step forward. She looked down at the discarded rosary on the floor, then stepped right over it, a silent declaration of her immunity to its power.

“They'll call you mad,” Aurelia whispered, a taunting chuckle adorning her words. “They will see a devout sister who has cracked under the pressure of her vows. They will call it a hysteria of the mind. They will lock you in a cell, restrict your meals, and pray over your broken body while you rot in solitary silence. Father Mattias will look at you with pity, and Mother Genevieve will weep for your lost sanity. You will be completely alone.”

Ellanova felt the room tilt. The gravity of Aurelia's words suffocated her faster than the smoke of any incense. The Church didn't look for monsters in the dark; they looked for weak, sinful women to correct. If she spoke up, she would be the one condemned.

“So go ahead,” Aurelia smirked, offering a cruel, beautiful hand to help her up. “Open the door. Cry out for your shepherds. Let us see who they sacrifice first.”

Ellanova didn't wait for another word. She grabbed the iron handle, threw the door open, and fled into the dark corridor, her bare feet slapping frantically against the cold stone floor.

Aurelia watched her run. She listened to the girl's panicked gasps disappear down the hall before sighing wearily. Perhaps she had pushed too far, too fast. She knew Ellanova was a true believer, someone who absorbed every word of the Gospel like a sponge. Outside of her role as a bride of Christ, Ellanova saw absolutely no value in herself. Faith was not simply a part of her identity; it was the foundation beneath every thought she possessed.

That realization broke Aurelia’s heart. How could someone find purpose only in a life of complete submission and blind faith? How could she fail to see the beauty and power she held, not just as a human, but as a woman? How could she simply hand her sovereignty over to a religion that blamed her kind for the fall of humanity, that taught her she was nothing without a god, and that forbade her from ever assuming authority over a man? Aurelia hadn't intended to terrorize the poor girl. She simply wanted to wake her up to reality. To her true, divine purpose. She had hoped that given time, Ellanova would understand. She hoped she would eventually join her and the rest of the awakened sisters in the woods.

But she never did. Instead, Aurelia watched as Ellanova slowly spiraled into madness.

During communal meals in the refectory, Ellanova sat deadly silent, barely touching her food. She went far out of her way to avoid Aurelia. On the rare occasions they were forced into the same room, she became a nervous wreck. Whenever it came time to pray, Ellanova would stiffen and begin to tremble violently, caught in a terrifying mental tug-of-war between heaven and hell.

Eventually, she ceased praying altogether. Aurelia knew the girl's entire sense of being had been shattered. She knew she was drowning in the weight of the things she had been shown, but out of fear of pushing her deeper into the abyss, Aurelia held her tongue.

Despite desperate pleas from Adelaide to share what was troubling her so, Ellanova kept her agony entirely to herself, out of fear of being deemed insane and cast away. Soon, she began missing the canonical hours. For two days and nights, no one saw her. Finally, after she failed to appear for Sunday Mass, Mother Genevieve went to her quarters to investigate.

The shriek echoed through the entire convent. Some even claimed to have heard it from outside the church’s gates. After weeks of being tormented by her mind, a constant battle with thoughts from heaven and hell, Ellanova had succumbed to her despair. A cup of foxglove tea was found at her bedside, and Ellanova’s cold, lifeless body lay on her bed.

Aurelia felt horribly guilty. She knew she was the cause of Ellanova’s demise, but she did all she could. She knew she couldn’t save them all, that there would be a few that would rather stay asleep than face the truth and awake from their trance. Apparently, some would even rather cease to live with it altogether.

That evening, the chapel bell rang for vespers. One seat remained empty, and Aurelia never looked away from it. That night, Aurelia kneeled, closing her eyes and whispering a prayer for the girl she could not save. Maybe the God she so desperately believed in would hear.

No one answered.