The way back to the quarters was full of questions, as Samantha herself did not really expect her heartfelt attempt to actually work! With this unique chance to interview the Witch, Sam was trying to make sure to understand the what’s and how’s of the redheaded girl… but to her disappointment, she would find that Gabrielle herself knew very, very little of her own inner workings.
“Then it doesn’t hurt when you don’t blink?” Asked the blonde, tilting her head to the side.
“I don’t even notice.” Gabrielle shrugged. “Blinking made it easy for people to throw things at me, so I stopped.”
“How did you even stop!?”
“I just… did? What, you can’t do that?”
“No, no I can’t. No one can!”
“I see…”
While Gabrielle felt pretty happy with her own answers, and even more encouraged by the fact that someone was actually asking her things to begin with, Samantha couldn’t help but feel a little bit cheated. No strange powers or mysterious rituals, just a girl reacting to things and not knowing how! A very small part of Samantha’s mind wanted to learn a secret she could apply to herself. After all, it wasn’t a secret that Sammy was one of, if not the weakest girl in the chapel.
“You’re always carrying the heavy stuff with Amber, but you are like half her size.” Sammy exaggerated. “Are you sure you don’t have a magical power or something?”
“I don’t know, how do you even know if you have those?”
“I…”
The taller girl fell silent. Huh. How did one get to know that. Sammy assumed it would be something obvious, but was it really so? How could she even know? She never had any form of magical abilities either! No one has had them for at least five hundred years! Everything was so confusing when viewed from the eyes of that Witch, and that was something that Sammy was very quickly learning to like: that every time she made a question, it somehow turned into another different, much more confusing but more interesting question.
“What sort of magical powers are there…?” Asked the redhead, rubbing the back of her neck as they opened the door to the sleeping quarters.
“Oh, the Prologues mention a lot of them right? Like Saint Guadalupe’s rose–”
“GABRIELLE THE WITCH.”
A third voice suddenly interjected in their conversation, forcing both girls to look back up and see the entire quarters dimly lit by a single candle. All girls had gathered around it, covering themselves with their bed’s cover to wear it as if it was a long cloak. They were all clearly trying to appear as intimidating and mysterious as possible. The voice of Kimberly spoke loudly and with an exaggeratedly charged accent.
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“WE ARE THE SECRET COUNCIL OF THIS CHAPEL! THE COUNCIL OF AL-LORETA! WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU FOR THIS WHOLE TIME, YOU SMELLY WITCH.”
“I am not smelly.” Gabrielle crossed her arms and took a deep breath, huffing slightly.
“YES YOU ARE.”
“No I am not.”
“ARE TOO.”
“Am not.”
“ARE TOO.”
“Am not..”
“ARE–”
“Saints above!!” Sam stomped her feet down, now finally remembering what this was about… wasn’t she supposed to distract Gabrielle before coming, anyways? Oh well, talking worked perfectly for that. “Just. Continue with the ritual already!”
“A ritual?” Gabrielle turned to look at Samantha with fearful eyes. “Are you working with the D–”
“SILENCE!” Kimberly demanded, stepping over to loudly bonk Samantha with a rolled up piece of parchment. “GABRIELLE THE WITCH. WE HAVE DECIDED TO PUT YOU TO A TEST, TO DETERMINE IF YOU REALLY ARE AN EVIL WITCH! TONIGHT, YOU SHALL–”
“Oh, wait, I get it.” Gabi suddenly interrupted. “It’s like the Council of Alkairos, but you took Saint Loretta’s name and mixed it all together. That’s clever.”
One of the younger girls in the congregation let out the smallest, happiest exclamation of joy (yay~!), while Kimberly loudly cleared her throat.
“YOU SHALL CONFESS TO YOUR SINS TONIGHT, AND AFTER THAT YOU SHALL TAKE ON OUR TEST OF VIRTUE! SO ONCE AND FOR ALL, WE SHALL KNOW IF YOU REALLY ARE AN EVIL WITCH! DO YOU ACCEPT THIS?”
“Oh. Uhm…” Gabrielle looked down for a moment, meditating this very carefully. To be able to prove that she was not evil would mean much less troubles in the daily! A real gain for the girl. But, what if this was a trap…? She turned around to look at Sam in the eye. “Is this a prank?”
“Not that I am aware of.” Samantha confessed. “But this is all Kimmy’s idea…”
“I helped too!!” Yelled Amber, lost among the other cloaked girls. “It was the idea of both!”
“Kimberly and Amber are the worst here though.” Gabrielle said, brutally honest to the point both girls flinched. “They are the ones who pick the most on me.”
“LISTEN–O-Okay, okay. Enough with the voice.” Kimberly grumbled and, with all the pain of the world, took off her cloak to look at Gabrielle in the eye. Kimmy was around Gabi’s size, with many freckles on her dark skin and hair dark and thick falling in heavy dreads. “Sam says you are alright, and I want to make sure you are. I don’t believe her at all but, if you do this and succeed, we won’t pick on you anymore.”
“Do you promise?”
It was a sin to lie, and Kimmy knew this. She really wishes she could simply say “no”, and be done with it… but, for the sake of the other girls and to make things easier in the long run, she decided she would take the burden of risking having to accept the freak, and offered her hand.
“I promise.”
Gabrielle looked at the hand, confused. Sam, who was already starting to understand how the girl works, whispered to Gabi’s ear “You’re supposed to shake it”, before the redhead actually nodded and took the hand for a nice, firm if a bit hasty shake.
And so, the trials had started that night.
—
It was a well-accepted fact that to confess one’s sins, you must do so in the confessionary! And the chapel had a very beautiful one right on the side of its main hall. Sneaking over there was simple enough, for Sister Marina was still nowhere to be found and she was usually the one patrolling the hallways at night. Apparently, none of the others could be bothered to take on the job now that she was gone.
And so, the group of little girls was all surrounding the wooden box, as Kimmy took her place on the nun side and Gabrielle entered the side of the penitent. It was all a big ritual, the flock would come and confess their wrongdoings to the nuns, who were then supposed to advise on how to improve their way of life (usually by praying).
Gabrielle had a very unhealthy amount of “sin” on her back, so really this was more a favor to her than an actual trial.
“Dear Sister, I have sinned.” She started as it was the tradition. “Please, help me find my way back to the Saints’ Grace.”
“VERY WELL, MY CHILD.” Kimberly followed the traditional way as well, once more putting on her ‘intimidating voice’. “YOU MAY NOW BARE YOURSELF OF ALL PRETENSES AND CONFESS.”
This first part of Kimberly’s plan was very easy: she counted on Gabrielle being way too dumb to properly lie, and expose any supernatural or evil doings to the rest of the girls. This should be enough to erase any doubts from their minds. She was about to be surprised at how loosely one could interpret the word “Sin”.