Disclaimer: The Sound of Music characters belong to 20th Century Fox.

Warning: Contains mild violence.

A Place To Belong

Chapter Four

Try as she may, Maria could not pray. As she knelt beside her bed, hands clasped, eyes closed, all that came were tears. At the Abbey she'd been taught to take all her feelings to God, whether that was by talking to Him, to Jesus, or the Blessed Mother, but now, in this time of personal crisis, she could say nothing. She could feel nothing. Nothing but despair. Sister Margaretta had told her that God was not rejecting her, just guiding her to where He planned for her to be, but rejection is what she felt. All her life she had wanted to be a nun. Like the sisters she had seen many times over the abbey wall, she wanted to spend her life in prayer and song to God. But God, it seemed, did not want her. Maybe she wasn't good enough for Him. Maybe she was too undisciplined, too tomboyish, too outspoken. Nuns were supposed to be models of virtue, modesty and meekness. Those things she knew she would never be, even though she tried hard, every day, to curb her tongue and refine her manners. Sister Margaretta had always said that God appreciated her effort, as it takes more work for those naturally boisterous to be disciplined than it does for the demure, but Sister Berthe had always said that she was a disgrace to the Abbey. Maybe that's why God had sent her away. It couldn't be to marry the Captain, as Sister Margaretta believed, as he was marrying someone else. And it hurt. It hurt to love him, to love the children, but to know she had no place in their lives. The Baroness was to be the Captain's wife and the Baroness was to be the children's mother. As to herself, she was to be... She didn't know what she was to be. Evidently not a nun, because if this was some kind of test she had failed miserably, and if not a nun, then what? A teacher, perhaps? That is what her uncle had always wanted her to be...

Her Uncle.

Maybe he'd been right all those years. Maybe there isn't a God. Maybe everything that happens in life, even the existence of life itself, is down to chance and not divine will. Her uncle had been so sure of that, so confident in his own philosophy that he'd despised anything to do with any religion. Maria had always felt he was wrong, because always, deep inside her, she had felt God call her, but now...Now she felt nothing. Nothing but emptiness. How could God do this to her? How could God call her and then reject her? And not only reject her, but play with her heart so cruelly? Why did she have to love the Captain? Why did she have to love his children? What was the purpose of it all?

God's will has no why

Those words kept coming back to her, over and over she kept hearing them, but she needed to ask why. She needed answers. She needed to know that God cared. Even to know that he really was there...

Unable to pray, Maria got up, put out the light, and climbed into her luxurious bed. But sleep did not come. Alone in the darkness, her troubled thoughts, her painful past, and her fears for the future, all tormented her. In the abyss of her memories, she was a thirteen year old girl again, back in her Uncle's lodge again, sitting on a stool before a blazing fire reading a book of hymns. Outside the wooden lodge it was raining, heavy rain that pounded hard against roof and windows, and a moaning wind was howling. In a skimpy dress, her boots long cast off, Maria sat reading while time passed by unnoticed. Her auburn hair was long, wayward and stubborn, and her crouched over figure was painfully thin. Suddenly, the lodge's front door opened and her uncle came in. He was a tall man, big of stature, and had greying red hair. Maria gasped at the sight of him and lost hold of the book in her hands. It dropped to the floor and lay there clumsily. Her uncle looked around the room, saw the empty dinner table, and then looked back at Maria.

"What's this?" he asked. "Where's my dinner?"

"I..I'm so sorry, Uncle," Maria stuttered. "I lost track of time reading and...But I'll get dinner on right away."

She bent down to pick up her book, but just as her fingers touched it, her uncle snatched it from her.

"It's just a school book," Maria cried, trying to snatch it back. "Nothing that will interest you. It's just..."

"Let me be the judge of what interests me," her uncle said, pulling the book from her by force and flicking through it. "I know what you're like, Maria. Head always in the clouds, never paying attention to duty. I dare say this work is some poetic drivel that..."

Suddenly, the book smacked Maria's head and she fell to the floor.

"Damn hymns!" her uncle cried. "How dare you! You know how I feel about you reading religious nonsense!"

"I'm sorry," Maria wept. "I just...They were..."

"There's only one place for this," her uncle declared. "And that's the fire."

With a flick of the wrist, he sent the book flying into the flames.

"No," Maria cried as the hungry flames devoured it. "No..."

Cross hands suddenly grabbed her, pulled her to her feet, and got her against the wall. "I will not have you reading that nonsense, understand? Understand?"

"It might be true," Maria cried. "How do you..."

His hand slapped her face. "Because it's nothing but fairy stories, Maria! Nothing but lies made up by wicked people. Do you understand? Do you? There is no God. There's nothing except what we can see!"

"I think there is," Maria argued. "I feel God, I do. And I'm not going to college next year. I want to be a nun."

Another slap stung her face. "Never! Never! And never let me hear you say such a thing again, understand? Understand? No niece of mine is going to be a dried up sister singing hymns to a fantasy God! You're going to college in Vienna and that's final!"

"I'm not," Maria wept defiantly. "I won't. I'm going to be a nun. You can't stop me!"

Her uncle reached for his belt now and whipped it off. "You willful, ungrateful, stubborn child! I've been too soft on you, that's what this is about. I've let you indulge that imagination of yours. But no more! You're long over due a beating and that's what's needed to knock some sense into you!"

"It won't change my mind," Maria cried. "I won't go to college! I won't be a teacher!"

Her uncle pushed her over the stool and pulled up her dress. "We'll see about that!"

The belt lashed against her thighs, burning as it whipped, and Maria bit her mouth to swallow her cry. Then the belt lashed her again, and again, until scream was all she could do.

"Now what do you say?" her uncle said as she lay on the floor, bleeding and crying. "You'll go to college?"

All Maria could do was nod.

"Then I'm glad we have an understanding. Now, get to making dinner. I've had a busy day and am starving."

Back in the present, Maria turned over in her bed, turning away from the memory. But it would not leave her. Willful and stubborn her uncle had called her. Maybe he was right. Maybe God never had meant for her to be a nun. Maybe it had always been her will, not God's. At the Abbey she'd been told to clear her mind of all wants and desires and to let God's desires guide her life. It was, like so many things taught at the Abbey, easier said than done, because flights of fancy often filled her heart, but she tried to suppress them, tried very hard. And never, not once, had she thought she'd missed her calling. But then, maybe she hadn't. Maybe God had drawn her to the Abbey to draw her somewhere else. To draw her here. And in that moment, Max Detweiler's words drifted back to her: to call her here, so I could hear her sing. If God really had a plan for her life, it couldn't be so muddled that all she was suffering now was for nothing. There had to be a point to it, a purpose, and maybe that was to meet Max and become a singer. She knew only too well the joy that music brings, especially to the lonely and the needy, and with war looming on the horizon, maybe the joy of song was a comfort that was needed more than ever. I think it's truly irreligious, Maria, that you keep such a God given gift to yourself. That had to be it. God had to be telling her to share her gift, to serve him by singing, and to ally herself with Max. And if that's what God wanted, that's what she would do, and try to do it wholeheartedly. Tomorrow, when the sun brought day once more, she would go to Max and place herself at his and God's mercy.

END OF CHAPTER FOUR