Apprentice Nun, Nasha (1)
The familiar voice calling my name drifted through the air. “Nasha. Nasha!”
The blue sky peeking between the leaves reminded me that I had dozed off. ‘It’s been a while since I had that dream.’
Even after all these years, the memory showed no sign of fading.
“Wake up already, Nasha!”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
I instinctively made an excuse at the scolding tone and quickly sat up from where I had been lying. The owner of the voice stared at me with suspicious eyes.
“Nasha, were you sleeping?”
“I said I wasn’t.”
A small girl’s finger pointed at the corner of my mouth.
“You were drooling.”
I sucked in a breath and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, but there was no trace of saliva. Arni simply stared at my green eyes in silence. The eight-year-old girl’s reproachful gaze stung. Quite a lot.
“Anyway, what brings you here?”
I cleared my throat lightly and changed the subject. There had to be a reason she came looking for me. Maybe she had caught me slacking off…
“Let’s play together.”
Hearing those words, I let out a sigh of relief in my heart. Arni raised both arms and hopped up and down while looking at me. She said it so often that she liked me that now she would just lift her arms without saying anything. I picked Arni up and met her eyes.
“What do you want to play?”
“Tag.”
Only then did I notice the other children waiting for Arni. They must have sent her ahead to bring me back.
“Alright. Who’s it?”
At my question, Arni silently placed her hand on my forehead. It was a mischievous look completely different from the scolding gaze earlier. It was the pure face appropriate for her age.
“Big sis Nasha.”
“Nasha is it! Everyone run!”
The children shouted the moment Arni’s hand touched me. I looked at Arni in surprise, and she beamed at me.
“Arni?”
“Yeah?”
“Weren’t you the one who was it?”
“Yeah.”
Correction. It was appropriate for her age, but she was definitely not pure.
“Aren’t you going to run?”
“I was already it, so it doesn’t count!”
Still held in my arms with her hands on her hips, Arni declared confidently. Since I was holding her, I couldn’t bring myself to say she was it again.
‘This little…’
The other children were already running far away. I set Arni down and lightly stretched my body. Maybe because I had fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position, my joints popped all over. Arni quietly watched me do so.
“If you stay here, I’m going to catch you.”
Startled, Arni nodded and started running in the opposite direction from the other kids. Her short strides as she ran were incredibly cute. When I turned my attention back to the children, the ones who made eye contact scattered in different directions. If I let them go any further, it would be hard to catch them. Even with my stamina, it would be tough.
With a light deep breath—
“Don’t stop there! I told you not to go too far!”
I began the chase with full power. Water splashed with a splat from a puddle that had collected. The nun sister who was hanging laundry that had been pushed back by the now-clear weather. The orphanage director who was watching us with a pleased smile. This was my new world.
The children knelt with their arms raised in punishment. Before them stood a woman wearing a nun’s habit of black and white with gold accents. It was Sister Miria. Behind Miria, Arni peeked out her head and watched us.
“Do you know what you did wrong?”
The beautiful nun whose beauty was famous even in the village had her brows deeply furrowed. The intimidated children couldn’t say a word. But this wasn’t what Miria wanted.
Miria called each child’s name one by one.
“Manny?”
“We went too far out to play…”
“That’s right. Even though it’s a village, you children are still too young. You never know when or where something dangerous might happen.”
“Yes.”
Miria nodded and turned her gaze to the child next to him. The child flinched at the approaching look.
“Alt?”
“We went to play without finishing our studies.”
“Correct. It might be difficult now, but these are things that will help you someday. It’s not that playing is bad. Just make sure you finish what you’re supposed to do before you play from now on.”
Alt shook his head vigorously up and down.
“Keep your hands up.”
The hands of Manny and Alt that had been slowly lowering shot back up straight.
“Ceres?”
“I was running around on the muddy water.”
“It’s been raining a lot lately, so the ground isn’t in good condition. You have to watch where you’re going. Understood?”
Ceres gave a small nod.
Miria’s gaze then fell on a child who was only kneeling, smaller than the others.
“Arsen, make sure you take good care of your little sister. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“And Nasha?”
“Yes?”
Miria finally turned to me. All the children’s eyes also pinned on Nasha. Even though we were all kneeling with our hands raised, the weight of the shame felt different. My face grew hot without me realizing it.
“What did I tell you?”
“To make sure the kids studied?”
“What did I usually say?”
“To make sure the kids don’t go too far?”
“And?”
“To watch them carefully so they don’t get hurt?”
As I answered, the heat in my face subsided. I slightly lifted my head to check Miria’s expression. She was smiling, but it was a pitiful look that said she felt the fault. There was an old saying from my previous life. You can’t spit on a smiling face.
“You know all that and still—!”
I immediately lowered my head. Based on experience, I added an annotation to the old saying in my head. You might not be able to spit on a smiling face, but you can definitely get angry at one.
“It’s a good thing no one got hurt.”
I could only fully agree with that statement. ‘Of all the places to herd them together to catch them at once, why did it have to be a puddle?’
I had tripped over the children whose feet got tangled and we all fell together into the muddy water. Our bedraggled appearance as we stood in punishment proved it. I opened my mouth to offer the smallest defense, but—
“That’s…”
When Sister Miria’s sharp gaze pierced me, I had no choice but to close my mouth. She didn’t even give me time to say that I had fallen the hardest while trying to protect the children. My particularly terrible state and the nun’s habit so covered in mud that no white was visible left no room for excuses.
After examining our appearance, Sister Miria let out a sigh.
“Anyway, we can’t keep you like this, so let’s get cleaned up. Director.”
“I know you’re standing behind the door. Director Raksha.”
“Did you call me?”
As if he had been listening right outside, Raksha poked his head in.
“Please help the boys wash up. I’ll prepare dinner.”
“Nasha, you take Ceres and Arni and wash with them.”
“Me?”
“Then are you going to make dinner?”
Before I could say anything, Ceres and Arni grabbed both my hands and started walking. I hadn’t heard anything, but my heart ached.
It couldn’t be called abundant, but it wasn’t lacking either. The dinner made with Sister Miria’s skill was satisfying. In the room where the children who had played energetically had fallen asleep early, the light was still on in the room where Sister Miria and I lived together.
“Your writing is always good, but…”
Sister Miria looked at the answers written on the paper and let out a small sigh. Even in light sleepwear, her atmosphere was no different from when she wore her nun’s habit.
“It’s not your fault. Don’t worry.”
Perhaps she interpreted my silence—lost in thought—as something else, Miria comforted me.
“You’ll be able to manifest your divine power soon. The director said it’s certain.”
“I suppose so?”
To become a nun, only two things were needed in very simple terms: knowledge called the teachings of God, and divine power. At first, I thought manifesting divine power would be the hardest part, but according to Director Raksha and Miria, it seemed to be the opposite.
They said the written exam, which was one of the processes required to become a nun, boasted an incredibly high difficulty. If you just passed it, everyone would awaken their divine power, though it might take time. According to Raksha, because the screening process was so strict, people without faith—in other words, those with no possibility of awakening—were naturally weeded out.
‘Of course, the time it takes is at most three years.’
At the late hour, I turned off the light and lay down on my bed, thinking. My current age was roughly seventeen. Considering I had passed the exam for the first time around age twelve and become an apprentice nun, far too much time had passed. And yet Nasha still hadn’t awakened her divine power.
‘It’s not my problem… but I’m not entirely sure that’s true.’
Perhaps because I had dreamed of my previous life after so long, the memories came back more clearly than usual. Even though I must have been much younger than I am now, the memory of my parents who had fallen into a cult and died wouldn’t easily disappear. I had a hunch that perhaps because that part was lodged so deeply in my heart, I couldn’t awaken my divine power.
‘Worrying about it won’t change anything right now. I should just sleep.’
Since I had thought about this worry many times before bed, I knew it was a problem without a solution. Having moved my body vigorously, sleep came rushing in. Hoping that time would solve it, Nasha fell asleep.