And a nun.
It was not a kind laugh. It was not a holy laugh. It was the laugh of a woman who had spent seventeen years lying to herself and had just realized the demon in front of her was a worse liar. scarlet innocence movie
"Where am I?" the child whispered.
Scarlet—the real Scarlet—grew up. She never spoke of the thing that had worn her face. She became a postulant, then a novice, then a nun. She chose the name Sister Mary of the Snow. She never went into the crypt. She never lit a candle with her left hand. And every night, before compline, she left a cup of milk and a crust of bread outside the convent gate. And a nun
The convent became two camps: those who saw a soul to be saved, and those who saw a serpent in swaddling clothes. Scarlet did nothing to dispel either notion. She learned her prayers in a week, reciting the Ave Maria in a voice like a cracked bell. She lit candles with her left hand and snuffed them with her right. She never ate meat, but she would sit for hours in the chicken coop, her gray eyes fixed on the hens, and the hens would lay double-yolked eggs until they dropped dead from exhaustion. It was the laugh of a woman who
"Ask me," she said. "Ask me what happened to the real Scarlet."
"And neither," she said, smashing it against the stone floor, "are you."