The Weight of Unspoken Truths
Pia had started avoiding me.
At first, I thought it was just my imagination. Even after morning prayers ended, she didn’t come running up to me like usual. Instead, she watched me from a little distance, and the moment our eyes met, she quickly looked away.
“Pia, Senior?”
When I approached and called out to her, her small shoulders flinched.
“Ah… yes. Ria.”
Her reply came a beat too late. The usual Pia would have scampered over like an eager puppy and started chattering away, but today she just stood in place, fidgeting with her hands.
“Are you feeling sick?”
“A little… my head hurts.”
“Did you tell the Sister?”
“It’s fine. I just need to rest.”
Pia tried to smile as she said that. Only the corners of her mouth lifted slightly, and her eyes never quite met mine. Then she turned away as if fleeing.
“I… I have to go. There’s something I need to do.”
She practically ran down the corridor and disappeared. I stood there for a long time, staring at her retreating back.
It was strange. This was the first time Pia had ever avoided me like this.
“……”
My mood wasn’t great. Still, if I was being honest, part of me felt relieved. I had a lot to think about right now. I needed to find my own answers.
Mariel’s words kept circling in my head.
If the Lord truly exists, why didn’t He do anything?
Why did He stay silent while people were breaking, children were crying, and someone was dying?
Does someone like me, who resents such a Lord, even deserve to become a Saintess?
I hadn’t been able to give her a proper answer. In a way, that was only natural. I wasn’t a member of the clergy, nor was I someone with deep faith. I had barely even read the scriptures of this world.
Even so, I couldn’t just let it go.
In the original story, Mariel had become the Saintess. But if someone asked whether the Mariel standing before me now was completely different from the one in the original…
The answer was absolutely not.
Mariel never simply walked past a sickroom. If someone was suffering, she stopped. Even when a young novice nun made a mistake, she never raised her voice first. The people of the convent would naturally part ways for her as she passed, watching her with eyes full of respect.
Perhaps the true answer to salvation already existed deep within Mariel’s heart. Maybe she was the only one who couldn’t see it because her eyes were covered.
That thought crossed my mind. So, with the mindset that I had nothing to lose, I opened a book.
The Bible. And writings on faith.
The cover alone was thick enough to make me feel faint, and the text was densely packed. I somehow managed to read the first few lines. Something about the Lord’s light piercing the darkness, the chosen ones, mercy, and so on.
“……”
I forced myself to turn a few more pages. It was filled with vague, lofty words. They seemed good and noble. They sounded plausible, and I felt like I should nod along. But I still had no idea what I was supposed to actually do.
It was boring and overly academic.
In the end, I closed the book without hesitation. I had been approaching this the wrong way from the start. Mariel was a prominent Saintess candidate who had studied theology her entire life.
She knew the doctrines and scriptures far better than I ever could. There was no way that flipping through a few pages for a couple of days would let me find an answer that Mariel, who had clung to this for so long, had never found.
My chest felt tight, so I wandered outside without any particular destination. The convent looked no different than usual. In front of the sickroom, a nun was changing a patient’s bandages. Near the laundry room, two novice nuns carried a large basket between them. In front of the prayer room, someone sat quietly beside a sniffling child.
I walked past them all. Everyone moved with such familiarity. Nothing special. Just the everyday routines that repeated here.
I reached the end of the corridor and turned back. That was when I heard it.
“Lord, please let me find it…”
A small, tearful voice mixed with a prayer pierced my ears. A young child was searching the floor. Knees nearly pressed to the ground, small hands groping through narrow gaps and beneath the windowsill. The child’s eyes were already red and swollen.
“I really can’t lose it…”
The child clasped their dirty hands together in prayer, then went back to searching the floor.
I was about to ignore it and walk past, but something pulled me to a stop.
“What did you lose?”
The child looked up in surprise.
“Ah, um…”
The child glanced at my nun’s habit, as if gauging me. Even though it was only a novice’s uniform, I must have looked trustworthy enough in their eyes.
“A small brooch. It’s silver…”
“A brooch?”
“My mother gave it to me. She pinned it on me when I came here… I can’t lose it…”
As the child spoke, their emotions overwhelmed them, and they began to sob. I looked around. Beneath the window. Under the long bench. In the gap between the wall and floor. It wasn’t anywhere obvious. Then a sliver of sunlight flickered.
Light coming through the window brushed across one part of the floor. Something tiny glinted. I crouched down and slipped my fingers into the gap. The tip of my finger caught a small piece of metal. It was a plain silver brooch, slightly worn from years of handling.
“Is this yours, by any chance?”
The child, seeing it in my palm, gasped. Their eyes widened as they stared at it.
“It is…”
The child took the brooch with both hands. They clutched it tightly in their palms, as if terrified of dropping it again.
“Thank you.”
Then, in a tiny whisper, they added, “The Lord really answered my prayer.”
I blinked.
“I was the one who found it, though.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them. The child shook their head, still hugging the brooch to their chest.
“Maybe the Lord sent you here?”
The child bowed their head once more, then ran off down the corridor, still clutching the brooch tightly.
I was the one who had found it. I had seen it, picked it up, and handed it over. But if the clouds hadn’t parted at that exact moment to let the sunlight through, I might have walked right past it. If the child hadn’t prayed, I might not have stopped.
The Lord really answered my prayer.
Maybe He sent you here?
Those words lingered strangely in my chest.
God hadn’t come down Himself to pick up the brooch. But to that child, it was someone appearing at the end of their prayer to help them find it.
If that was the case…
I slowly lifted my head. The nun changing bandages in front of the sickroom. The novice nuns carrying the basket together. The person sitting beside the crying child. And Mariel.
I finally felt like I understood a little.
I didn’t know if it was the exact answer. But I thought I could at least try to say it.
I headed straight for Mariel’s office. My fingertips felt tense for no reason. Here I was, someone who hadn’t even properly read a single line of the Bible, about to talk to a Saintess candidate about the will of the Lord. Even I could see how ridiculous it was.
Still, it didn’t matter. I felt like I had to say it now.
I knocked on the door carefully.
“Come in.”
It was Mariel’s voice. When I opened the door, she was sitting neatly at her desk. Her gaze had been lowered to the documents spread before her, but the moment I entered, the corners of her eyes crinkled warmly and she looked up.
“Ria?”
Mariel’s eyes melted into gentle warmth.
“What brings you here?”
I paused for a moment at the doorway. Now that I was facing her, the words wouldn’t come out properly.
“Mariel.”
“Yes?”
“You said… that you don’t think you’re qualified to become a Saintess.”
Mariel’s fingertips stiffened ever so slightly. I continued without stopping.
“To be honest, I don’t really know what a Saintess is. I don’t understand the will of the Lord very well either.”
This was the complete and honest truth, without a single lie.
“But there’s one thing I’m sure of. To me, you look like a Saintess.”
Mariel’s pupils trembled faintly.
“I’m not just saying this to comfort you.”
Mariel remained silent, her face stiff. I took a deep breath and recalled the scenes I had witnessed that day. The child clutching the small brooch tightly to their chest.
“You said you didn’t understand why the Lord remained silent.”
My fingertips tightened as I spoke.
“Why He did nothing while people were getting hurt, breaking, and dying.”
Mariel’s expression hardened just a little more. Still, I didn’t stop.
“I saw it today.”
“Ria.”
Mariel tried to call my name, but I lifted my head.
“There was someone tending to the wounded. Someone helping carry something too heavy for one person. Someone sitting beside a crying child.”
The nun in front of the sickroom. The novice nuns near the laundry. The child sobbing in front of the prayer room. And the small silver brooch I had found for them.
“The Lord didn’t come down Himself.”
I spoke slowly.
“But someone moved. They reached out a hand, healed, and sat beside them.”
Mariel said nothing.
“The way the Lord saves people doesn’t always have to be through miracles, does it?”
I spoke more firmly.
“It’s the thing that keeps someone from ignoring a fallen person. That heart… maybe that’s the will of the Lord.”
Mariel’s eyes trembled quietly.
“You did the same for me.”
Only then did Mariel’s gaze fix completely on me.
“You didn’t pretend not to see me.”
That night came back to me. The moment the Inquisitor’s hand had grabbed my arm. And Mariel’s voice as she cut that hand away.
“You made them let go of my hand. You hid me behind your name.”
The back of my neck tightened slightly.
“You said the Lord did nothing. But that wasn’t true for me. Because you came to me.”
The room fell silent.
“Couldn’t that have been the will of the Lord?”
After I finished speaking, my heart began to race belatedly. Here I was, someone who had closed the Bible without even reading it properly, speaking about the will of the Lord in front of a Saintess candidate. But I wasn’t done yet.
“And the fact that you’re suffering so much.”
Mariel’s fingertips froze above the desk.
“If you truly believed everything you did was right, you wouldn’t be suffering this much.”
Daisy. I didn’t know the full details of that name. But I remembered the expression on Mariel’s face when she had spoken about her past.
“If you’re suffering because you can’t believe it was the will of the Lord…”
I swallowed.
“That doesn’t mean you were wrong.”
Mariel seemed unable to even breathe deeply.
“It means you still see people as people.”
All of her pain.
“It means you couldn’t see them as things that simply needed to be burned, purified, or disposed of.”
My voice trembled slightly.
“If that heart is what caused you pain…”
This time, I didn’t look away.
“I don’t think that’s a reason you can’t become a Saintess.”
Mariel couldn’t say a word.
I added one last quiet sentence.
“In fact… if someone didn’t have that kind of heart, maybe they shouldn’t be called a Saintess at all.”
The room grew quiet. After I finished speaking, my heart started pounding again. Had I said too much, overstepping my bounds? I lowered my gaze awkwardly.
“…Ria.”
Mariel called my name softly. My shoulders instinctively shrank a little.
“Yes.”
Mariel looked at me for a long time. Her face wasn’t angry. But she wasn’t smiling either. Then she slowly rose from her seat. She walked over to stand in front of me. I lifted my head slightly. Her hand rose carefully. Her fingertips gently tucked my messy hair behind my ear.
“…Thank you, Ria.”
Her voice was low. As neat as always, but the end trembled just a little.
“For saying that to me.”
I blinked.
“I was just…”
“No.”
Mariel shook her head gently.
“It wasn’t just anything.”
Her hand lingered for a moment on top of my head. It felt careful, almost like a slow caress. I lowered my head awkwardly. My face felt a little warm.
Judging by Mariel’s reaction, it seemed like I had at least helped a little.
Even after Ria left, Mariel remained standing in the same spot for a long time. The sensation of the child’s hair still lingered on her fingertips. It had been so small and light.
A child who seemed far too easy to hurt. And that child had just told her that the Lord had not done nothing. That making people save one another might be the Lord’s will. And that she herself had been that person for Ria.
Mariel closed her eyes. They weren’t new words. Standing beside those who suffer. Caring for the wounded. Not turning away from those who cry. She had heard those words more than anyone, spoken them more than anyone, and taught them more than anyone.
But at some point, she had stopped believing them. The prayers remained on her lips, but she had lost the place they were meant to reach.
The word mercy lingered on her tongue, but it could not wash the blood from her hands. She had heard the word salvation too many times, yet the faces of the children she could not save refused to disappear.
But Ria… that child had returned those words to her in such a small voice. Words Mariel had lost sight of for so long.
That perhaps the Lord had not been silent. That perhaps He had moved people to act. That perhaps she herself had been the way the Lord’s will reached someone.
Mariel slowly inhaled. The inside of her chest ached. But it was not the same pain as before. Had Ria been trying to comfort her? Or had she truly reached a place Mariel could not?
Mariel gazed at the spot where Ria had stood. The child falling through blue light. The small body descending wrapped in ashes. The child held in her arms at the end of a prayer.
Mariel brought her hands together in front of her chest. If the Lord had truly sent this child to her… then Ria was not simply a child who needed protection. She was a child who returned lost answers. A child who looked at the places Mariel could not reach.
Perhaps.
Mariel could not hold onto that thought until the end. It was still too early to say. But in one corner of her heart, a small certainty had already settled. Ria had become even more precious to her. Far more than before.
That day too, Pia stood in front of the confessional. It wasn’t her first time. Ever since she had started avoiding Ria, she had come here several times. She would place her hand on the doorknob, then pull it away. She would stand in front of the door for a long time before turning back.
On some days, when she made eye contact with a nun coming out of the prayer room after finishing her prayers, she would jump in surprise like a thief caught in the act and run away.
Today was the same. Pia stood in front of the confessional door, grabbed the handle, then let go. Ria’s face came to mind. Then Mariel’s face followed. The person Pia respected most in the world.
After standing there for a long time, Pia finally opened the door.
The inside of the confessional was dark. Beyond the dense wooden screen where confessions were heard, she could sense someone sitting upright. Their face was hidden in shadow. Pia sat on the small chair and placed her hands on her knees. Her fingers kept fidgeting without pause.
“Speak, child.”
A calm, gentle voice like soft waves came from beyond the screen. Pia clenched the hands resting on her knees. Her lips moved several times, but no words came out.
“It’s alright. You don’t have to try to say everything from the beginning.”
The voice beyond the screen was kind and merciful.
“Just say what you can, little by little. Slowly.”
At those words, the corners of Pia’s eyes grew hot. She lowered her head deeply.
“I have a friend.”
Those were the first words that came out. Once she started, the next ones became even harder.
“My closest friend.”
Pia gripped the hem of her skirt.
“I… I did something unforgivable to her.”
The moment the words left her, her throat tightened. There was no sound from beyond the screen. Afraid of that silence, desperate to end this moment quickly, Pia spoke even faster.
“You’re supposed to hate things like that, right? You’re supposed to be scared of them, to despise them.”
Pia bit her lip. That was what she had been taught. That you had to step back when you saw such things. That people who hid them were even more dangerous. That people got hurt because of them.
But when she thought of Ria’s face, the first thing that came to her wasn’t hatred.
“But… hic, ugh… I just can’t do it.”
Tears fell onto her knees.
“I can’t hate her.”
After saying that, Pia hated herself even more. She was supposed to hate her. She was supposed to despise her. It was the power of a demon that had burned her parents and her hometown. Yet other thoughts kept coming first.
“I’m worried she might have been in pain.”
Her voice grew wet and small.
“I keep thinking… that she must have been so scared all alone.”
Pia rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. The tears wouldn’t wipe away; they just smeared across her skin.
“So I hate myself.”
Her fingertips twisted the hem of her skirt even tighter.
“I hate myself for not being able to hate that child.”
The space beyond the screen remained quiet. Pia couldn’t lift her head for a long time. Then, with great difficulty, she opened her mouth again.
“And… there’s someone I respect more than anyone.”
She didn’t say Mariel’s name. If she said that name, it would feel truly irreversible.
“I think she knows too.”
Pia’s voice grew even smaller.
“But it seems like she’s still protecting her.”
Those words hurt more than when she had spoken about Ria’s sin. Pia took a shaky breath. Her throat stung.
“Then that means she did something wrong too, right?”
After speaking, Pia squeezed her eyes shut. There was no way Mariel could have done anything wrong. She wanted to believe that. She wanted to believe only that. But the memory from that time kept flickering before her eyes.
“You’re supposed to hate it, right?”
Pia shook her head slightly.
“But I want to believe in her.”
Her voice broke.
“I want to believe there must have been a reason. I want to believe she couldn’t have been wrong.”
She knew she shouldn’t. Both the desire to believe and the inability to hate that child felt wrong. Pia covered her face with both hands.
“I can’t hate that child.”
The words were muffled against her palms.
“I can’t hate her either.”
Her breath shook as if it might break.
“I’m scared, I hate it… but I’m still worried, and I still want to believe.”
Pia could no longer sort it out. Her mind was a mess. The things she was supposed to hate and the things she couldn’t hate clawed at the inside of her chest, making everything dizzying.
“Why am I like this?”
Pia barely managed to lift her head. She couldn’t see beyond the screen.
“Am I a bad person?”
For a moment, there was no sound. Pia’s fingertips trembled as she waited for an answer. Then a gentle voice returned.
“You are not a bad person.”
Pia’s lips parted slightly. The voice beyond the screen was low and soft.
“Feeling fear toward something frightening is not a sin. Not being able to hate does not mean you have done wrong.”
Pia couldn’t say anything. Her fingertips twitched on her knees.
“Then what… what should I do?”
Her voice was wet with tears.
“Should I hate that child? Should I… hate her too?”
After asking, Pia immediately bit her lip. The silence stretched for a moment.
“You don’t have to try to name everything in your heart right this moment.”
Pia lifted her head. She couldn’t see the face speaking to her through the darkness. Only the merciful voice reached her.
“Being afraid does not mean you must hate. Being worried does not erase the wrongdoing.”
The corners of Pia’s eyes grew wet again.
“There will be fear in your heart. There will be anger as well. You will want to ask why it had to be that child, why it had to be her.”
Pia’s hand gripped her skirt tightly. Those words were so accurate that they hurt even more.
“Yet the fact that you did not run away and found the courage to come all the way here…”
The voice grew even kinder.
“…is because you did not want to cover those feelings with lies.”
Pia couldn’t speak.
“You said you were scared. But you also said you couldn’t hate her, and that you wanted to believe.”
Those were the words Pia had barely managed to say just moments ago. Messy, shameful words that had made her feel like an even worse person the moment they left her lips.
“That means your heart is still searching for the light.”
Pia’s tears fell quietly. She sat with her head bowed for a long time. She wasn’t completely alright. Thinking of Ria still made her chest ache, and thinking of Mariel made her suffer even more because of how much she wanted to believe in her. But the tightness in her chest seemed to have eased just a little.
Because she had found the courage to speak. Because she had at least laid down what she had been carrying alone before the Lord.
“I… still don’t know.”
Pia managed to say in a tearful voice.
“I know.”
The voice beyond the screen settled gently.
“You don’t need to understand everything today.”
Pia’s fingertips relaxed a little.
“Just remember that today, your heart was not lying.”
Pia couldn’t answer for a long time. Then, very slowly, she bowed her head.
“Thank you.”
Her voice still trembled.
“Talking… made me feel much better.”
“The Lord’s grace is with you. That is enough.”
The voice beyond the screen remained kind until the very last moment, as Pia stood up and brushed herself off.
Pia rubbed her swollen eyes roughly with the backs of her hands to wipe away the tears. Her heart wasn’t completely at ease. The situation hadn’t been magically resolved. But at least she no longer wanted to run away from the door like before.
When she stepped outside, she found herself wanting to look for Ria. Even if she might not be able to speak properly when she saw her face, she still wanted to see her.
Pia slowly stood up. She bowed her head once more, then left the confessional. The door closed. Silence settled inside once again.
A moment later.
A pale hand slowly rose from beyond the screen. The fingertips, covered in thin gloves, pushed the wooden partition aside.
At the same time, long, cascading dark purple hair flowed down like a waterfall, piercing through the darkness. Beneath it, a pale face was revealed. Cold grey eyes with a hint of blue quietly looked down at the seat where Pia had been sitting.
Iris said nothing for a long time. She had only been waiting because the girl had been hovering around the confessional for days. Just in case. Just in case she could find even the smallest flaw near Mariel’s name.
But she had heard a more interesting story than expected. A closest friend. The person she respected most. An unforgivable sin, and an attitude that seemed to protect her despite knowing about it.
Iris’s eyes narrowed very slowly. The child Mariel had personally brought in. The novice nun who had grown close to that child. And the reason that novice nun had been circling the confessional for days.
“An unforgivable sin toward that child…”
A thin smile formed on Iris’s lips. It was a very beautiful, and very quiet smile.