Anwen’s arms ached from the repetition, but she welcomed the soreness. It was something to focus on, something that kept her mind tethered to the present. Still, thoughts crept in, like the dust swirling around her feet, impossible to sweep away.

Her mother’s face hovered at the edges of her memory, half-forgotten yet impossible to fully erase. She hadn’t seen her in years – not since the day her mother had left her here, standing in front of the convent doors with nothing but her small bag of belongings and a bible clutched in her hands.

It had been raining that day. The kind of cold, steady rain that seeped into your bones and stayed there, long after the sky had cleared. Anwen remembered standing there, shivering, watching as her mother turned and walked away without looking back. There had been no tears. No final hug. Just the rain, and the feeling that something inside her had cracked.

The nuns had said it was for her own good. That her mother had made the right choice. They said it was the only way to save her.

Save her from what, though? Anwen had never understood that. She wasn’t bad. She didn’t steal, or lie, or curse the way some of the older girls whispered about in secret corners of the convent. But her mother… her mother had always looked at her like she was something that needed fixing. Like there was a darkness inside her that needed to be scrubbed out.

She could still hear her mother’s voice, low and tight, on that last morning: "The Lord will show you the way, Anwen."

Anwen bit the inside of her cheek, trying to shake the memory away. But it lingered, just as the chapel’s incense did, long after the service ended.

Her mother had been devout. More than that: she had been afraid. Afraid of sin, of anything that didn’t fit the narrow path of righteousness she carved for herself and Anwen. Her life had been full of rules, of rituals. Morning prayers, noon prayers, evening prayers. No dancing, no singing unless it was a hymn, no laughing unless it was polite.

And Anwen had tried. She had tried so hard to be the girl her mother wanted her to be. The one who sat still during mass, who kept her eyes down, without flinching. But something inside her had always resisted. Something that trembled in the presence of the church’s towering arches, something that recoiled at the sight of the crucifix hanging high above the altar.

She couldn’t explain it. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t demons, despite what they all thought. It wasn’t possession or evil. It was something else, something deeper, like a current that pulled at her feet whenever she stepped into the church.

It had started small: just a feeling of unease, of something not quite right. But over time, it had grown, across her mind. And the more she resisted, the worse it got. She would tremble during mass, her hands shaking as she gripped the pew in front of her, her breath coming in short, panicked bursts. Her mother would look at her with those sharp, disapproving eyes.

The sisters had noticed, too. They whispered when they thought she couldn’t hear, full of suspicion; "There’s something wrong with that girl." one had said ; "She’s been touched by something unholy." another had added, crossing herself as she spoke.

It was after one of those fits in the church that her mother had made the decision. "You need help." she had said. "I can’t do this anymore. They’ll take care of you at the convent. They’ll know how to cleanse your soul."

Anwen had begged her not to leave. She had clung to her mother’s sleeve, sobbing, promising that she would be good, that she would try harder. But her mother had only pulled away, pale and drawn, as if she couldn’t bear to look at her own daughter anymore.

And so, the convent had become her home.

Anwen pushed the broom harder, as if she could scrub the memories from her mind the way she scrubbed the floors. The silence in the convent was different from the silence at home. It wasn’t filled with the quiet hum of life, of dishes clattering or her mother’s soft humming as she cooked. Here, the silence was thick, oppressive, broken only by the sharp, clipped voices of the nuns as they went about their duties.

It was the kind of silence that made you feel small. Like you were disappearing, little by little, until there was nothing left but a shadow.

Anwen paused, leaning on the broom handle, staring down at the floor. She wondered if her mother ever thought about her. If she ever missed her, or if she had truly believed that Anwen was better off here, locked away in this place of penance.

She had tried to be good. She had tried to do what was expected of her. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Sometimes, at night, she would lie in her narrow bed and stare up at the ceiling, listening to the wind rattling the windowpanes. And she would wonder what it was like out there, beyond the gates, beyond the chapel’s watchful eyes. A world where there was no one telling her what to believe.

But those thoughts were dangerous. Sister Mildred had caught her once, staring out the window during evening prayers, and had pulled her aside after the service. "You need to focus, Anwen." she had said, her voice stern. "The devil preys on idle minds. Don’t give him the chance to creep in." Anwen had nodded, but the words had only made her stomach twist.

She let out a slow breath, her fingers tightening around the broom handle. She wasn’t possessed. She wasn’t evil. But sometimes, she wondered if her mother had been right. Maybe there was something wrong with her after all. Maybe that was why the prayers never settled in her heart, why the chapel felt like a cage instead of a sanctuary.

But deep down, she knew there was more to it than that. There was a part of her that didn’t want to be cleansed, that didn’t want to be made pure. A part of her that longed for something else, something wild and untamed, something that couldn’t be found in here.

And that scared her more than anything.