Under Your Spell | A Mafia romance

Chapter III

Delilah

I got up in the first rays of the morning, I looked at the time, 5:00, the chapel prayer starts at 7:00, so there will be enough time to do everything. Today is a special day, I turn 18. I smile to myself, I always wanted to reach this age, from now on, I can make my own decisions and the first one will be to enter the order as a novice. I took a deep breath, got up from the old mattress where I slept. My room is in the attic, not really a bedroom, but a cramped and dark place, no light and always gloomy.

However, I made this little corner my little refuge. But now that I'm joining the order, I'll sleep with the other novices, in the barracks below where there are bunks. For me, it will be a big step forward, I will finally be someone, Novice Delilah. I sighed dreamily.

Excited, I knelt down, took my rosary and said my fervent prayer, the first of the day. Soon after, I put away toiletries, my clothes and shoes that are always the same, rough old leather shoes and a black wool bib dress that I wear with a white long-sleeved blouse underneath. I only have this outfit, the mother superior doesn't let me wear anything else, not even donated, according to her, I need to get used to a little since the life of a bride of Jesus has no perks. However, I have always lived with little.

Before with Mother Dulce, I had at least three pairs of clothes, but, this was taken from me, I don't complain, serving God and the causes of the less favored, especially children, makes me think that it was all worth it.

I go down and walk down the hall, enter the bathroom, turn on the cold shower to take my shower. The cold water hit my hot skin and made me shiver, I started to chatter my teeth, the water was so cold that even my bones hurt, but I don't complain, I do everything willingly and I thank God I at least have a place to bathe me

I've never had a hot bath, that's a luxury that doesn't exist in the convent, so I'm used to it.

After all the hygiene and already dressed, I go back to the attic, pack my things and sit on the mattress to wait for the bell that rings at six thirty. I take the opportunity and take my box of memories, my mother prepared it for me before she died. I opened it and took out the letter she wrote just before she died. In a nutshell, she wrote down the date of my birth and the name she chose for me, Delilah. I also took a medal from Saint Mary that she left me, I watched her and my eyes watered, my mother died a few hours after my birth, she was a nun and was raped. She didn't say this in the letter, but Mother Dulce met her and told the whole story. I remember that day.

Flashback on

It was my 15th birthday, I was crying in a corner, once again the inmates beat me and called me a child of sin, I was always called that, by the sisters, novices and even the other orphans. I didn't understand why they treated me like that. The Mother Superior saw me huddled in the corner and took me to her room. Between sobs, I asked her.

"Why does everyone call me the daughter of Sin? Why, Mother?"

"Delilah, You turned 15, you're already a little woman and I'll tell you the circumstances of your birth. Sit here."

I sat on a sofa in the mother's room, she also sat next to me and took my hands that were cold. She squeezed them and smiled at me. I felt welcomed.

"Your mother was 20 when you were born, she had just become a nun. One night, she and other nuns went out to answer a prayer request in a house. On the way back, they came across a group of men, there were three of them, they were drunk and started following them. In a darker place, they kidnap and rape them. Your mother survived, sister Liza, did not survive and died. A few months later, your mother found out that she was pregnant, she was very weak during the pregnancy, we took her in and gave her the necessary support, but your mother was not only shaken physically but emotionally as well. The church hid her condition, she could not be seen by anyone, she was isolated until her birth. God sent a beautiful girl with hazel eyes. Your mother didn't have light eyes, she was a fully black woman."