Chapter 2: Merzota
Sarah leaves the apartment, and slowly walks over to Mrs. S' pick-up truck with her bags in her hands and an upset look painted all over her face. This was usually her attitude when she was forced to do something Mrs. S wanted her to do, but tonight, she had every reason to be upset.
Felix runs out after Sarah and straight to the truck. Mrs. S exits the house and locks the door. She's dressed entirely in black, which only takes Sarah's suspicions further. What was she hiding from, or who she's hiding from?, Sarah thought. Mrs. S walks down the pathway to the fairly new orange truck, but before getting in, she stops, turns around, and looks at the house thoughtfully.
Sarah puts her bags in the back of the pick up and as she goes to sit shotgun in the car, she notices Mrs. S looking at the home they'd been living in for over a year. She recognizes that look, it's the goodbye look, which almost always meant they weren't coming back and they were gonna move again. Start all over again. Felix didn't really mind because he was too young to even care, but Sarah was finally starting to enjoy it here. Her and Felix weren't getting bullied anymore, she didn't argue with Mrs S half as much as she did before they moved here. Everything was nearly perfect. Everything was so close to being…normal.
Sarah pushes down the regret she feels about having gotten attached to the place, snaps out of it, and gets into the car. Mrs S hops into the drivers seat, after tossing her stuff in the back and surveying the area. She starts the car and before she pulls off, she turns to face Felix smiling and says, "You ready, monkey?" Felix nods enthusiastically with a massive smile spread across his face, Mrs. S smiles back. As Mrs. S turns to face Sarah, the smile washing from her face. "And you?" she asks, sternly, more of a 'are you going to behave yourself now?'. Sarah stares straight ahead, her arms crossed over her chest. "It doesn't matter. So lets just get on with it," she replies wryly. Mrs. S shakes her head, knowing it was the best response she was going to get, and that it was best to just take it.
Mrs. S shifts the gear into drive and hits the gas pedal, which causes the car to lurch forward for a moment. She pulls out of the driveway and down the road toward their next destination.
Ukraine. 1996. The Convent.
Off of the outskirts of Ukraine, a convent stands high and mighty, like the God the nuns that inhabit it, most likely pray to.
Inside the darkly lit convent, a group of nuns accompanied by a little girl, with pale blonde hair, sit at the table eating supper. The nuns are eating in a "proper" manner, and the girl… was not. As the little girl animalistically scarfs down the scraps of food on her plate, the nuns glance over to her with looks of disgust on their faces. The nun who sits at the head of the table and adjacent to the small child, stops eating, rests her fork and knife down beside her plate.
"Helena." the woman says in Ukrainian, with a low, domineering tone.
Helena does not hear the nun and continues to devour her food.
"Helena!" the woman now yelled, ending her attempts to try and – somewhat – calmly tell the girl what she had to say.
Helena, having now heard the upset nun, stops eating and looks around the table to see all of the nuns glaring back at her. Helena spits the food in her mouth out into the table napkin sitting next to her plate. The women surrounding her, all collectively look away out of disgust for what Helena just did. The little girl wipes her mouth with the sleeve of her black habit, sits up straight in her seat, bows her head in shame, and waits to be scolded.
"What have I said about eating like an animal, child?"
"That only animals eat like animals, Sister Anna," Helena says with her head still bowed.
"Correct, now, pick up your fork," the nun demands, and Helena does as she is commanded. "And your knife," the nun includes. Helena picks up her knife. "Now," she continues, "eat like a little girl". Helena lifts her head, she looks around at the faces that are no longer looking at her, but down at their plates. Helena knows what this means – Sister Anna is out for blood, and they don't want to watch.
Helena hunches over her plate and goes to stick her her fork into a piece of cabbage on her plate. When she gets close, Sister Anna picks up her own fork and jabs Helena's back, reinforcing her, in a cruel manner, to sit up straight. Helena winces, she doesn't want the sister to see her cry. Helena sits up straight and scans around the table once more for help, no one is even glancing in Helena's direction. Helena tries again and cuts a piece of cabbage with her knife and fork. As she raises the fork to her mouth, the nun, slaps her hand with her fork again, this time on her knuckle. Helena winces again and retracts her hand. It hurt, but no, she will not see her in pain.
"Do not be wasteful," says the Sister, pointing to the napkin with the food Helena spit out.
Helena looks at the napkin then back at the nun. "No," Helena tells her, disobeying the nun's requests.
All of the nuns, including Sister Anna, look at Helena's face. Pure unadulterated anger emanates from her expression. Helena is holding the knife and fork tightly in her hand. Her hands and body are now vibrating with the rage she tried so hardly to hold back.
Sister Anna stares back at Helena with wrath in her eyes. "What did you say, dog?"
Helena's body relaxes and a menacing smile that could put the fear of God into anyone spreads across her cracked, dry lips. A flicker of shock washes over Sister Anna's face, and before she could fully grasp what was about to happen, Helena climbs up on top of the table and jumps down on Sister Anna, tipping over the chair Sister Anna was sitting in and Helena starts slashing the woman beneath her with the knife and fork in her hand, barking while she does so.
As the woman lay unconscious on the floor in the dining area, bleeding out, two nuns tends to her neck wounds (to no avail) and the rest carry Helena kicking, biting, and barking down the now night lit corridor of the convent. As they approach the end of the hallway, which leads to another entrance to a stairway, Helena notices and starts begging that the women don't put her down there. After a bit of struggle, the sisters are able to bring Helena downstairs to the cellar that's candlelit. Helena starts crying, and she stops screaming, kicking, scratching…and begins pleading, soon to realize there was nothing she could do now. One of the nuns lets go and unlocks the door to the cellar. The nuns throw her in and quickly lock the door, and Helena crawls further into the darkness of the cellar.
Upstairs in the dining area, prayers are being said in Ukrainian over Sister Anna, by a nun with a bible and rosary in her hand.
Downstairs in the cellar, the nuns leave, but one stays behind.
Helena rocks back and forth in the corner of the cellar, repeating over and over again something quickly in Ukrainian – "Against thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified in Thy saying, and clear when Thou art judged. Behold, I was shapen in wickedness: and in sin hath my mother conceived me. Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."
The nun that stays behind goes close to the cellar door, when she does, Helena goes silent. The Sister whispers into the darkness, "Helena," but there is no answer. The second time the woman goes to say the child's name, before she can say the name, Helena jumps out the shadows, grabs the bars and starts barking at the nun.
The woman startled falls to the ground, scrambles to get up, and when she succeeds in doing so she screams, "Merzota!" and spits at the ground between her an Helena.
"Abomination!", the horrified woman repeats.