As Raphaela made her way back to her room after the Passion service in chapel, she was a jumble of thoughts and feelings. Her emotions were all over the place, and she didn't know what to make of them. She didn't want to be at school, but then again she didn't really want to be anywhere much: not at the trials she'd left the day before, not at Matt's house where she'd been for a day or two before that; normally at Easter she'd be at home, but she'd always had a slightly ambivalent relationship with her large and slightly chaotic family, and school felt more like home sometimes. Even school had a strange atmosphere of its own over holiday periods, and the Easter holidays in particular.

She'd not been able to concentrate on the service. The singing had been nice, from Bea and a couple of other girls, but she'd felt very disengaged from the rest of it. She wasn't out-and-out pious like some, but her family observed all the usual things and she'd been going to church all her life. Even if it was more out of habit than anything. This year would be the first she hadn't even been to confession before Easter. She laughed mirthlessly to herself – the first year she really had something life-alteringly huge to confess, and she'd missed her chance because she didn't think she could go and not confess the biggest thing on her mind – and she knew she never could mention that in the confessional. Father Grady wouldn't be around now anyway until Easter Day, and he'd be too busy then. She felt disinclined to pray about it, because she'd been praying half-heartedly for years to stop fancying Bea and that hadn't really worked – and now she'd given in to a temptation so massive, far beyond anything she'd ever known with Bea in thought as much as deed, and she couldn't find the spiritual energy to pray about it at all.

She was so confused. She wasn't the sort of girl to panic, but a very uncomfortable sense of not being in control was making her chest feel heavy. She was used to being in control: of her schoolwork, of the various teams she captained, of her emotions. When she did feel something that troubled her, she pushed it down and went for a run, or did some ball practice to distract herself. But that was what she'd been doing at the trials on Monday – getting some extra practice in by herself – when Melody...when she'd...

Raphaela fidgeted in the middle of her room, feeling the embarrassment well up and heat her cheeks. A flush of shame made her cover her eyes with one arm for a moment, but it was mixed with a disturbing undercurrent of pleasure at the thought of Melody. With a sigh, she leant on the windowsill to look out over the school grounds. She could just see the netball courts, but in her mind's eye was back on the courts at the trials, with Melody...just the two of them. A certain tension between them as they practised attacking and defensive manoeuvres – which might have been rivalry but had turned out to be something else entirely. She felt her school skirt brush her fingers as she craned to see out of the window, and thought about the brush of Melody's netball skirt against her fingers barely four days earlier.

Just now in chapel she'd spent ages just staring at her hands in her lap: looking at her hands against the material of her school skirt and her bare knees, she'd felt momentarily dissociated from them, from what they'd done, where they'd been. She almost couldn't believe her hands had done and felt all they had, in all the stolen secret moments over the three days of the trials. That she had.

Melody had had nice hands, smaller than Raphaela's and gentle and much more confident. Just thinking about them gave Raphaela a queasy pleasure deep inside. She almost couldn't believe that Melody and her hands had been where they'd been and done what they'd done, either. She flushed again, shivering at the memory of Melody's fingertips trailing over her skin, and this time the pleasure was much stronger than the guilt. She immediately felt guilty about that.

She was used to guilt and shame – you didn't grow up in an old Catholic family like hers and not learn to feel guilty about something or other from an early age – but this was in a different league. And now she was feeling so many different things: frustration; desire; shock; a vague yearning for what she knew could never happen again; most potently, a deep joy at what she'd done with Melody and an equally intense guilt at having liked it so much. She was feeling both excitement and guilt more keenly, much more deeply, than she was used to and she didn't like it.

She felt her body respond just at the memory, and tried to push it down as she turned and unfastened her skirt. She'd go for a run, get it out of her system.

Her eyes flicked to the mirror as she unbuttoned her shirt. She dropped it on the floor and stepped closer in her underwear, pushing her bra aside: there was still the angry red patch on the slope of her breast, about an inch above her nipple. She stared at it in fascinated disbelief: she still couldn't quite understand how Melody had given her a love-bite – two, in fact, though the one on her inner thigh was fading quicker. She unclipped her bra and peered closely at her naked breast, trying to ignore the fact that her nipples were erect from the thought of Melody's touch. She stroked her breast lightly, cupping it to examine the mark while unthinkingly pinching her sensitive nipple in the cleft at the base of her thumb. The little shivers of pleasure lasted for a good few seconds before the guilt crept back in.

Raphaela groaned softly and closed her eyes for a moment as the two emotions fought for dominance, even as she was unable to stop caressing herself. She remembered Melody's mouth on her skin, on her breasts, while her hands were elsewhere. She remembered the soft pressure of her lips, the stroke of her tongue and the nibble of her teeth. Snapping her eyes open and staring at the mark again, Raphaela grunted in shocked pleasure.

Glancing down herself to check the love-bite on her leg, she saw a small dark patch seeping into her knickers. A suddenly overwhelming flush of shame made her turn away and pull on a sports top and her running shorts.

*

Raphaela's run took her right round the perimeter, so she could avoid the sports courts. She couldn't avoid them for ever, but today was too soon: sports courts were too closely associated in her mind with Melody. She stopped near the little copse on a slight rise not far from the cluster of outbuildings which had been converted into extra accommodation for some of the nuns. Her limbs had a good ache in them and her forehead, neck, back and thighs were pricked with sweat – but her thoughts were not as clear as they should be after a good run. She didn't need to glance down to know that her nipples were pointedly erect through her top.

She leant against a tree and wondered just how deeply she was steeped in sin. And why the habits and rituals of religion she'd found reasonably comforting up till now no longer seemed to work. She supposed that they had been comforting because they were habits, rather than anything like active belief. In which case, why did what had happened over the past week feel so keenly sinful?

Undoing her sweatshirt from her waist, she pulled it on to cover the tell-tale evidence of her state in her thin top, and strolled down to Sister Mary-Martha's cottage in the refurbished outbuildings. She had a half-formed idea of talking to the old nun about things – without being too specific or naming names or anything. Sister MM usually gave good advice, and wasn't as judgemental as some of the others.

Glancing in the window of Sister Amata's as she passed, she saw the younger nun and Bea obviously in animated conversation – Bea was gesticulating quite forcefully, and at one point reached out and rested her hand on the nun's arm, which was quickly brushed away. The nun looked quite cross, and Bea flinched like she'd just been slapped. Then Bea obviously launched into a bit of a tirade, jabbing at the nun with a finger, and Raphaela turned away, embarrassed to be watching the silent argument. The nun was a strange one, though, and Bea had her work cut out running the library under her. Raphaela wasn't at all surprised that Bea either quite often visited her cottage or got wound up with her.

She'd miss popping into Sister Mary-Martha's herself. The old nun was chatty and funny, as well as supportive, and Raphaela felt comfortable there as she knew she was a bit of a favourite by virtue of being good at sport. Being Good Friday, though, for once Raphaela found the old nun a bit distracted and unusually more focused on her prayers; although she was friendly enough, Raphaela didn't outstay her welcome, setting off back up the gentle slope to the copse to continue her run.

She felt suddenly very alone, and her thoughts and emotions were still churning inside her. She wished she could stop obsessing about feeling so sinful and find some relief. Perhaps, she reflected, the real problem was that she'd never known such an intense and all-consuming joy as Melody had shown her was possible in their brief time together? But even as she automatically felt ashamed, she was unable to feel very repentant. She'd felt more guilty about letting Matt sleep with her, the few times they had, and that hadn't been anywhere near as intense – or even enjoyable – as she'd either been led to expect or had now discovered was possible. She wondered if it was just that she didn't like Matt as much as she'd thought, or that she'd liked Melody more; although Melody'd been a complete stranger from the other end of the county, whereas she'd known Matt for two years and been with him for half that time. Raphaela didn't like the implication that maybe she just preferred girls – although she couldn't deny to herself how forgettable sex with Matt had been, where she knew she'd never forget Melody. She felt the shock and dissociation again of trying to get her head round the knowledge that she had done those things with Melody. In real life. That Melody had wanted to, had instigated it in fact, had noticed Raphaela and come on to her. She felt herself flush hot again (both at the idea that Melody had wanted her and that she'd responded to Melody's advances) and was aware of herself enough to know that it was from the pleasure of the memories, and not from guilt. She pulled her sweatshirt off again and wandered further into the copse, out of sight.

She couldn't get her head around how something so intense was such a sin, especially as it had felt so very easy and natural and right at the time. She remembered how Melody had searched her face questioningly just before...just before her fingers...

Melody had been seeking her permission, checking that what she was about to do was OK, and Raphaela remembered feeling absolutely certain like never before that giving herself to Melody had been the only right thing to do at that moment. She groaned, painfully aware that her body was reacting strongly just to the memory of it.

She supposed she could always pray for forgiveness for enjoying it so much, which might help her feel less guilty. But she knew that she could never seek forgiveness for the sin itself, because she didn't want to.

Inside the copse, she leant against another tree and felt a rush of excitement at knowing she was alone and completely hidden in that space – which just lent her excitement at the memory of Melody a sharper edge. She ran her hands over her breasts, feeling the hard nipples through the material of her top, then let one hand slide down, over her bare navel, inside the waistband of her shorts. She braced her shoulders against the tree and focused on the memory of Melody's hands and mouth on her as she pushed her fingers inside her knickers.

*

Afterwards, she felt some relief from the intense desire, but as she wiped her sticky fingers on her leg she also felt dirty and miserable. She slumped down to sit with her back against the tree and stared vacantly out at the school grounds. Perhaps things would be easier after she'd left the place and started a new life somewhere else.

She saw Bea emerge from Sister Amata's cottage and slam the door, striding off. Raphaela pulled herself to her feet and made to catch up with her friend – she wasn't bothered about finishing her run now. By the time she'd got down the slope and turned the corner by the outbuildings, she'd lost sight of her, though, and didn't know which way she'd gone. Raphaela sighed and made her own lonely way back to her room for a shower.

*

Bea took some tracking down. She hadn't been in the library, nor in her room, and they'd just missed each other when she and Susie'd gone to tea. Bea hadn't seen Raphaela's attempt to catch her attention, and had still looked cross – her bust-up with Sister Amata must've been a serious one for Bea to be still angry several hours later.

Eventually, Raphaela went back to the library and finally found Bea there, showing her successor some of the ropes. They'd chatted quietly for a while, but Raphaela needed to talk and couldn't do so with the other girl there. When she'd asked if they could talk just the two of them, Bea'd gazed at her for a moment with surprise and a hint of concern in her eyes, then suggested the chapel.

'There'll be no-one there at this time, and the organ loft is pretty private. Meet you there in five minutes?' She touched her friend's arm. 'Everything OK, Raffy?'

Raphaela nodded and left her to finish up with the other library prefect.

*

Even in the organ loft, Raphaela struggled. She didn't know where to start with her own concerns, nor how to ask if Bea was OK after her argument with Sister Amata – if she even wanted to discuss it. Bea was patient, though, and indulged Raphaela's stumbling attempts to get the conversation going. They were sat cross-legged on the floor, facing each other and she took Raphaela's hand gently.

'Just say it. It's obviously something big, and I promise not to judge. I might be shocked, though.'

Raphaela smiled slightly, and opened her mouth to begin, turning Bea's hand in hers absent-mindedly. Eventually she dropped Bea's hand and started unbuttoning her shirt, intending to reveal the mark on her breast. 

'Raffy? What are you doing...?'

'I need to show you something.' She slid a hand inside her shirt to push her bra aside.

There was a noise from below, and Raphaela swore under her breath at the unexpected interruption. Bea stood up to peer over the gallery and bit back a curse of her own. Raphaela joined her and they watched Sister Amata struggle into the chapel on her hands and knees, pulling herself forward on the pews.

Raphaela put her mouth close to Bea's ear through her thick hair. 'What the...is she OK?' She took Bea's hand again, and squeezed it lightly.

Bea shook her head. 'Stupid, stupid bitch. I can do without this,' she whispered crossly. 'Not today.'

Both girls could hear the nun mumbling to herself. 'What's she doing?' Raphaela watched as the nun pulled herself unsteadily into a pew, and felt a kick of alarm as she began to lean dangerously sideways. 'Oh my God, she's...'

But Bea was already moving towards the stairs of the gallery, pulling Raphaela with her.