“Wrong because you wanted to take your vows?”

“God was watching. What we were doing was so improper.”

Hardly. They’d been two girls who had loved each other fiercely in ways they couldn’t even understand. Two almost-adults, surrendering to their bodies’ impulses. It had been nothing short of lovely.

Kate’s voice was a whisper. “We were only kissing, Til. It was innocent.”

Tilly shook her head, her gaze jerking down to her boots. “Kate, please. I don’t want to talk about it.”

It was like salt in a wound to think that Tilly regretted a memory that Kate held dear—those chaste, sweet kisses, Tilly’s soft, gentle hands in her own, drawing her closer. Would anything ever feel as special?

Kate rubbed her hands across her knees. It was all so vivid—the two of them in their pyjamas climbing over the low wall of the belltower and onto the sloping roof of the convent. The lightning and the thunder, playing like an underworld extravaganza over the horizon of Port Phillip Bay. The night quickly growing dark, rain refusing to fall as flashes lit the night sky. Lying beside Tilly, their feet pressed against the tile as they stared into the moonlight, the stars, waiting, waiting, waiting. The Earth pulling around them. Shoulders pressed together, filthy tile against her palm, against her spine. The storm, stretched tight across the night sky like an elastic band, tension, tension, tension. Tilly’s fingers on her cheek, her breath warm on Kate’s jaw…

Kate drew a deep breath and pulled herself to her feet. “Are you ready to get going?”

Sunday nights were always the chattiest. Well past the excitement of returning to see their friends at the end of the weekend, the boarders were either asleep or already in bed playing on their phones. After bidding goodnight to too many LED-lit faces to count, Kate moved on to the exhausting task of demanding lights out in the junior wings. Ten-thirty checks quickly progressed to eleven-fifteen checks. Finally, Kate was headed out to the cottage when she noticed that the kitchen light was still on.

“Oh, Sister Ellie,” Kate said, her hand falling from the light switch. “I didn’t think anybody was in here.”

Sister Ellie smiled shortly. “That’s all right, Kate.” She reached across the counter island for another carrot and began slicing, her eyes refusing to meet Kate’s. “I couldn’t sleep so I decided to prepare some things for the lesson tomorrow.”

Kate stood in the doorway, an uneasy feeling suddenly seizing her. “Are you okay, Sister?”

Sister Ellie took pause. She placed the knife down beside the diced carrots. “I feel very conflicted about something, Kate.”

Kate stepped further into the kitchen. “Should you talk to the Reverend Mother?”

Sister Ellie planted her hands firmly against the countertop. “I did speak to her, and heaven forbid, I have to say that her advice has brought no peace.”

Kate took a seat on one of the counter stools. “Well would you like to talk to me about it?” she said softly. Sister Ellie was so much younger than the other sisters, just as Tilly would have been had she joined the order, and Kate often worried that Sister Ellie seemed lonely. If Kate could be someone to confide in, somebody like-minded, then she wanted Sister Ellie to know she was there for her.