PART 2 — THE ROOM BEHIND THE CHAPEL
Mother Caridad stared at the strip of medical tape between her fingers.
She had smelled that sharp, sterile scent many times before.
Doctor Paloma used the same tape whenever she drew blood or secured an IV.
But Doctor Paloma had not visited the convent in nearly three weeks.
At least, that was what Mother Caridad believed.
She wrapped the strip carefully inside her handkerchief and slipped it into her pocket.
Then she walked into the corridor.
The convent seemed exactly as it always did.
Morning sunlight spilled through the narrow windows.
Somewhere in the kitchen, dishes clinked together.
Two sisters whispered prayers while carrying baskets of laundry toward the courtyard.
And from farther down the hall came the soft laughter of Esperanza’s children.
Everything looked peaceful.
Yet Mother Caridad could no longer shake the feeling that the peace was only a curtain hiding something much darker.
“Sister Beatriz.”
The elderly nun stopped immediately.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Has Doctor Paloma visited us recently?”
Beatriz frowned.
“Not that I know of.”
“Not even at night?”
The question surprised her.
“At night?”
“Think carefully.”
Beatriz hesitated.
“No, Mother. I haven’t seen her since she examined little Miguel.”
Mother Caridad nodded.
“Thank you.”
She continued walking, but her uneasiness only deepened.
If the tape had not come from a recent examination, where had it come from?
And more importantly…
Why had it been lying beneath Esperanza’s chair?
By noon, Doctor Paloma arrived.
She was a serious woman in her late forties who had served the convent for nearly fifteen years.
She carried her medical bag into Esperanza’s room while Mother Caridad waited outside.
Twenty minutes passed.
Then thirty.
Finally, the door opened.
Doctor Paloma stepped into the corridor.
One look at her face told Mother Caridad everything.
“She is pregnant?”
The doctor nodded.
“Yes.”
Mother Caridad’s stomach tightened.
“How far along?”
“Approximately twelve weeks.”
“Twelve…”
Mother Caridad leaned against the wall.
Twelve weeks.
She began counting backward in her mind.
Three months earlier, the convent had been under temporary quarantine after an influenza outbreak in the nearby village.
For almost six weeks, no visitors had been permitted through the gates.
Not even delivery workers.
Food and supplies had been left outside.
The sisters themselves had carried everything inside.
There was simply no reasonable explanation.
“Doctor,” Mother Caridad whispered, “I need to ask you something.”
Paloma closed her medical bag.
“What?”
Mother Caridad removed the handkerchief from her pocket and unfolded it.
The doctor’s expression changed instantly.
“Do you recognize this?”
Paloma stared at the tape.
For perhaps half a second, fear flashed across her face.
Then it disappeared.
“It is ordinary medical tape.”
“You use this kind.”
“So do thousands of doctors.”
“But it smells like the antiseptic you bring here.”
Paloma gave a nervous laugh.
“Mother, antiseptic is antiseptic.”
“Have you been inside this convent without my knowledge?”
The doctor’s eyes hardened.
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Of course I am.”
Mother Caridad watched her carefully.
Paloma closed her bag more forcefully than necessary.
“I think these pregnancies are frightening you,” she said. “Perhaps you should rest.”
Then she walked away.
Mother Caridad remained where she was.
That answer had frightened her more than anything Esperanza had said.
Because Doctor Paloma had lied.
Mother Caridad knew it.
Three nights earlier, she had awakened shortly after two in the morning because she thought she heard the outer courtyard gate closing.
She had dismissed it as the wind.
Now she wasn’t so sure.
That evening, Mother Caridad began asking questions.
Quietly.
She spoke to Sister Inés, who slept near the eastern corridor.
She questioned Sister Beatriz about missing supplies.
She checked the visitor ledger herself.
Nothing.
No strange names.
No unexplained entries.
No men.
But something else was wrong.
Several bottles of antiseptic were missing from the infirmary.
So were syringes.
Bandages.
Sedatives.
And when Mother Caridad compared the inventory records, she discovered the shortages had begun almost three years earlier.
Three years.
The same year Esperanza became pregnant for the first time.
Mother Caridad felt her hands begin to tremble.
Someone had been using medical supplies secretly inside the convent.
But for what?
That night, she did not sleep.
At eleven, the convent became silent.
At midnight, nothing moved.
At one in the morning, Mother Caridad sat beside her window with a rosary wrapped around her fingers.
At 1:47, she heard it.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Careful.
Moving through the corridor.
Mother Caridad stood.
She opened her door only a fraction.
A shadow passed beneath the distant candlelight.
It was Esperanza.
The young nun was walking barefoot through the corridor.
Alone.
Mother Caridad waited several seconds before following.
Esperanza crossed the cloister.
Passed the kitchen.
Then entered the chapel.
Mother Caridad frowned.
Perhaps she had come to pray.
But Esperanza did not approach the altar.
Instead, she disappeared behind it.
Mother Caridad’s heart began pounding.
There was nothing behind the altar except an old wooden panel that had been sealed for decades.
At least, that was what everyone had been told.
Mother Caridad crept closer.
Then she heard a sound.
Click.
A hidden lock.
The wooden panel moved.
Esperanza slipped through the opening.
Mother Caridad almost cried out.
She waited until the panel closed before rushing forward.
Her fingers moved across the old wood until she found a tiny metal latch concealed beneath the carved frame.
She pressed it.
The panel opened.
Cold air touched her face.
Behind it was a staircase descending underground.
Mother Caridad stared into the darkness.
She had lived in this convent for thirty-seven years.
She had never known those stairs existed.
Then she heard Esperanza’s footsteps below.
Mother Caridad followed.
The staircase descended farther than she expected.
Ten steps.
Twenty.
Thirty.
The air became colder.
And then came something stranger.
A smell.
Antiseptic.
Mother Caridad froze.
The same smell that had been on the medical tape.
She continued downward.
At the bottom was a narrow stone corridor illuminated by a single electric bulb.
An electric bulb.
Underground.
Someone had installed power here.
Recently.
Mother Caridad covered her mouth.
At the far end stood a metal door.
Esperanza disappeared through it.
Mother Caridad approached.
Voices came from inside.
One belonged to Esperanza.
The other belonged to a woman.
Mother Caridad pressed her ear against the door.
“You should not have come tonight,” the woman whispered.
“I had to,” Esperanza replied.
“You know what happens when you remember too much.”
Mother Caridad’s blood ran cold.
Remember?
Then came the woman’s answer.
“Lie down. I need to check the injection site.”
Mother Caridad immediately thought of the medical tape.
Her hand flew to her pocket.
She leaned closer.
Esperanza’s voice became frightened.
“Will this be the last baby?”
Silence.
Then the woman answered.
“If everything goes according to plan.”
Mother Caridad could barely breathe.
“What happens afterward?” Esperanza asked.
Another pause.
“You will forget again.”
Mother Caridad stepped backward in horror.
Her heel struck something.
Clink.
The sound echoed through the corridor.
The voices stopped.
Mother Caridad froze.
The metal door suddenly opened.
She ducked behind a stone column.
Someone stepped into the corridor.
Doctor Paloma.
Mother Caridad pressed both hands over her mouth.
Paloma looked left.
Then right.
After several seconds, she returned to the room.
Mother Caridad knew she had to leave.
But then she noticed what her heel had struck.
A small metal key.
She picked it up.
A number had been engraved into it.
17.
She slipped it into her pocket and hurried upstairs.
The following morning, Esperanza remembered nothing about leaving her room.
Nothing about the staircase.
Nothing about Doctor Paloma.
Nothing.
“Mother, I slept beside Miguel all night,” she insisted.
Mother Caridad stared at her.
“You are certain?”
Esperanza smiled.
“Of course.”
Mother Caridad looked toward the baby’s crib.
Something inside her shattered.
Esperanza wasn’t lying.
She truly believed what she was saying.
Someone was doing something to her.
Someone had been doing it for years.
And Doctor Paloma was involved.
Mother Caridad decided not to confront the doctor.
Not yet.
Instead, she searched the convent.
For three days, whenever Esperanza was occupied, she examined old rooms, cabinets and storage chambers.
But she could find no lock that accepted the mysterious key marked 17.
Until Sister Beatriz mentioned something almost by accident.
“We used to number the crypt chambers.”
Mother Caridad stopped walking.
“The crypt?”
“Before they sealed the old cemetery beneath the convent.”
“When?”
“Long before you became Mother Superior.”
Mother Caridad’s fingers tightened around her rosary.
“How many chambers were there?”
Beatriz thought for a moment.
“Seventeen, I believe.”
That night, Mother Caridad went alone.
The entrance to the old crypt was behind the convent garden, concealed beneath vines.
The iron gate had supposedly been locked for more than twenty years.
The key marked 17 opened it immediately.
Mother Caridad descended with a lantern.
Rows of stone burial chambers stretched into darkness.
Names of deceased sisters were carved into the walls.
Some dated back more than a century.
She reached the final chamber.
Number 17.
Unlike the others, its door was made of newer steel.
Mother Caridad inserted the key.
Click.
Inside was not a tomb.
It was a room.
Shelves covered the walls.
Medical records.
Medication.
Syringes.
Photographs.
Mother Caridad lifted the first folder.
ESPERANZA — PREGNANCY I.
Her heart nearly stopped.
She opened another.
ESPERANZA — PREGNANCY II.
Then another.
ESPERANZA — PREGNANCY III.
Her hands shook so badly that papers slipped onto the floor.
There were ultrasound images.
Blood tests.
Medication schedules.
And photographs of Esperanza asleep on what appeared to be an operating table.
Mother Caridad felt sick.
But then she noticed another cabinet.
Inside were files bearing names she recognized.
Women who had lived in the convent decades earlier.
Several had died young.
Mother Caridad opened one.
The same procedures.
The same medication.
The same mysterious pregnancies.
This had not begun with Esperanza.
It had been happening for generations.
Then she found a photograph.
Mother Caridad stared at it for a long moment before realizing why the woman’s face looked familiar.
The photograph was dated thirty-six years earlier.
The woman lying unconscious on the medical table was young.
Beside her stood a doctor.
And written beneath the photograph were five words:
SUBJECT C — THIRD PREGNANCY SUCCESSFUL.
Mother Caridad brought the lantern closer.
Her knees nearly collapsed.
Because Subject C was her.
She dropped the photograph.
“No…”
She had never been pregnant.
She had never given birth.
At least, she had never remembered doing so.
Mother Caridad stumbled backward and struck the cabinet.
Something shifted behind it.
She heard a hollow sound.
She pushed the cabinet aside.
There was another door.
A tiny brass plaque was attached to it.
MATERNAL ARCHIVE.
Mother Caridad opened it.
Cold air poured out.
Inside were seventeen small wooden boxes.
Each bore a date and a woman’s name.
Then she saw hers.
CARIDAD.
Her trembling fingers opened the box.
Inside was a hospital bracelet.
Her name was printed on it.
Beside it lay an infant identification bracelet.
Mother Caridad lifted it toward the lantern.
The date was thirty-six years earlier.
Under “Mother” was her full name.
Under “Child” was one handwritten word.
PALOMA.
Mother Caridad stopped breathing.
Doctor Paloma.
She read it again.
And again.
The woman who had been secretly treating Esperanza…
The woman Mother Caridad had trusted for fifteen years…
was apparently the daughter Mother Caridad had never known she’d given birth to.
Then something moved behind her.
Mother Caridad spun around.
Doctor Paloma stood in the doorway.
She wasn’t alone.
Esperanza stood beside her, pale and confused.
Paloma looked at the infant bracelet in Mother Caridad’s hand.
For the first time, the doctor’s cold expression broke.
“Mother,” Paloma whispered.
Mother Caridad backed away.
“Don’t call me that.”
Paloma’s eyes filled with tears.
“You were never supposed to find this room.”
“Then tell me what you’ve done to Esperanza.”
Paloma said nothing.
“Tell me!”
Esperanza flinched.
Paloma slowly stepped inside.
“I didn’t begin this.”
“Then who did?”
Paloma looked toward the rows of files.
“The woman who raised me.”
Mother Caridad’s face went pale.
“Who?”
Paloma swallowed.
“Mother Superior Magdalena.”
Mother Caridad stared at her.
That was impossible.
Mother Magdalena had been dead for eighteen years.
“I buried Magdalena myself.”
“I know.”
“I watched them close her coffin.”
“I know that too.”
“Then how could she be responsible for what is happening now?”
Paloma looked toward the dark corridor behind them.
“Because the coffin you buried was empty.”
Mother Caridad felt every hair on her arms rise.
Then, somewhere deeper beneath the crypt, a bell rang once.
Paloma’s face changed instantly.
Fear.
Pure fear.
Esperanza grabbed Mother Caridad’s arm.
“What was that?”
Paloma didn’t answer.
The bell rang again.
Then came three slow knocks from somewhere behind the stone wall.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Mother Caridad stared into the darkness.
Paloma whispered the words that made Esperanza clutch her children closer when Mother Caridad repeated them years later.
“She’s awake.”
And from behind the sealed wall of the crypt came the unmistakable sound of a coffin lid beginning to open.
