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Beholden

"Are you sure you will not change your mind?"

There were three of them sat on the bench outside the convent gates. They had been friends since childhood. Their families had lived in the same street, and they had gone to the same schools. As they had grown up together, they had shared good times and bad times. They had discovered boys together, then cigarettes and alcohol. Now, however, it was time for them to go their separate ways.

Gwen was the eldest of the three - but only by a matter of days - and widely regarded as the most sensible of them. She already had a job behind the counter of a chemist's shop, and was trusted to dispense the simpler remedies on demand. "You don't have to become one just because Father Hugh suggested it," she continued.

The youngest of them, Frigga, had something of a reputation as a tearaway. She was the one behind the trio's wilder adventures. At school she was often held up as bad example and had had more visits to the headmistress's study than any other student. "What are we going to do without you?" she wheedled.

Conny was the typical middle child: quiet and often ignored. Still, the others thought of her as the glue that held them together. She pushed an unruly strand of coppery hair out of her eyes. "No. I made a promise. I have to try to keep it."

Gwen shrugged and glanced towards Frigga. "A promise is a promise. You have to keep it."

"Not one like this!" Frigga got up from the bench and turned towards Conny. "Sure you're still young! It's a big decision. Nobody will mind if you don't!" She reached out to grab Conny by the shoulders, to hold her and never let her go, but stopped herself. "Sorry." She put her hands into the pockets on her skirt and sat down again.

"They will mind!" Conny's face started to turn red from emotion. "Everybody's so proud of me. Ma, da, everyone! It'll break their hearts if I don't!" She put her head in her hands. "I wish I could take it back, but I can't. I really, really can't."

Gwen sat back on the bench, stretching her legs across the pavement until she was lying almost straight. She looked up into the slate-grey sky above. "Well, it's only the - what did Father Hugh call it? - the discernment. Two years. Maybe less. They'll find out whether you've got a vocation." She turned her head to look straight at Conny. "We'll wait for you. Won't we?"

Frigga turned away from the others. "No. I won't wait." She tried to sound defiant, but only succeeded in sounding petulant. Gwen reached across Conny and gave Frigga a slap across the back of the head.

"Don't be like that."

"Sorry." Frigga shifted around. "I'm sorry, Con. It's just ... ."

Her confession was interrupted by the sound of the convent gate swinging open. A nun, probably in her late thirties but looking much older in the eyes of the three teenagers, walked out onto the pavement. "Constance? I'm Sister Assumpta."

The three girls stood up. Frigga automatically assumed an expression of hurt innocence, but Sister Assumpta ignored it and extended a hand towards Conny. "If you'll come with me, then we'll have a talk about you and what you expect."

Conny bobbed a quick curtsey. "Yes, sister."

The nun nodded to the other girls. "Ladies. If you'll excuse us?"

"Yes, sister," they mumbled in response.

Sister Assumpta escorted Conny through the gates of the convent, closing them behind her. Gwen and Frigga waited, watching as the nun and her new charge walked down the flagstoned path, until they vanished into the dark corridors of the building.