As more townsfolk mistook Cheryl for Melvina, day after night, pressure stacked in her chest like stones sinking into a deep well.

One midnight, under Sister Bertha’s gaze, she let the storm loose, flinging trinkets one by one like hail pelting a tin roof.

Her control snapped like a frayed bowstring, and she slashed the bedding with a small knife, the fabric parting like reeds in a sudden wind.

She kicked the wastebasket hard, and it skittered like a startled crab, rattling against the floorboards like dry bones.

The drawer’s contents went next, each item hurled or smashed like falling tiles in an earthquake, until the room lay wrecked like a wind-torn field.

She paced in tight circles, arms wrapped around herself like a winter cloak, her steps quick and aimless like leaves chased by gusts.

Her throat felt roped and cinched like a noose over wet bark, so she clawed at her collar and ripped the ribbon on her bodice like tearing vines.

Cheryl crouched with her knees to the floor, a spike of pain stabbing her teeth like ice, her long white hair spilling like moonlit water.

She trembled from time to time like a leaf in late frost, eyes swollen and dulled like a dry, abandoned well.

“Haven’t you lately—” Sister Bertha waited out the storm like a quiet harbor, then chose her words like lifting stones, “been chatting with the townsfolk?”

“They’re all a bunch of... damned things...” she hissed, the words like smoke from a smoldering pit.

“That isn’t something we’re supposed to say,” Bertha murmured, her tone like a hand smoothing wrinkled linen.

Cheryl stared without blinking, her chest pumping air like bellows, then snatched a trinket and slammed it down, leaving a dent like a hoofprint in mud.

“I thought you were getting along,” Sister Bertha murmured, her voice drifting like rain, “What did they do to make you this angry?”

“Melvina,” Cheryl said, the name sharp as a shard of glass.

“Melvina?” Bertha echoed, the syllables light as a moth’s wing.

Cheryl shot to her feet, stomping as she roared, “Don’t repeat me!” Her foot came down on a metal shard like a hidden thorn.

Blood bloomed through her white sock like a red flower in snow, and the pain knocked her back down like a wave breaking a sandcastle.

Tears spilled down her cheeks like sudden rain, and her sobs hitched like a child’s when the rod finally falls.

“Tell me,” Sister Bertha said, turning to comfort her like a shawl over cold shoulders, “When your mood sours, you cut words short like clipped threads.”

“Even if I try to guess, I fear I’ll guess wrong and salt your wound like grit on raw skin.”

“Do I really look that much like Melvina?” Cheryl asked, her voice thin as reed-flute breath.

“You are Alina Cheryl,” she answered, her reply steady as a church bell.

“You said I’m less and less myself, more like someone else—did you mean Melvina?” Cheryl asked, the question hanging like mist over a marsh.

Sister Bertha kept silent, her silence heavy as snow on a roof.

“It’s your fault!” Cheryl snapped, the blame flying like a thrown stone, “You trained me until I was more and more like Melvina!”

“This is training required to become a Holy Maiden,” Bertha said, the words plain as bread, “It isn’t about Melvina.”

“It fits her like a dress cut to her measure,” Cheryl spat, the comparison tight as a glove.

“Cheryl,” Sister Bertha sighed, the sound soft as wind in reeds, “We chose Melvina because her nature fit a Holy Maiden.”

“It’s not that you’re lesser; it’s that choosing you would force your nature like bending a green branch, and Priest John warned me not to.”

“Then why agree to make me a Holy Maiden?” Cheryl asked, the question sharp as sleet, “Why train me so long?”

Sister Bertha’s eyes wavered like candle flames, and her words stumbled like feet on loose gravel, “You... you must know... after so long together...”

“I want to hear you say it!” Cheryl cried, the demand cracking like thunder over still water.

“I... I didn’t want to die alone,” Bertha said, each syllable falling like pebbles into a well, “I wanted someone beside me.”

“Cheryl... I watched you train and thought of the lie I told you, and I felt sorry like ash in my mouth.”

“You can be a Holy Maiden... you already—” she faltered, the sentence fading like smoke.

Cheryl’s head drooped like a storm-bent stalk, and her chest hitched with a low whimper like a wounded animal, “You keep the Sacred Canon like iron, yet for selfishness you gave me a promise you won’t keep.”

“I just... didn’t want to be alone,” Bertha whispered, the truth bare as winter branches.

“Too selfish,” Cheryl snapped, the verdict cold as sleet.

“If you hate me, you can keep increasing my dose,” Sister Bertha said, the risk laid out like an open palm, then hesitated like a paused pendulum.

“I know my body’s shifts better than anyone, the recent brightening and the earlier darkening like tides turning—I won’t blame you.”

“For a while, I did want to kill you,” Cheryl said, the confession rough as gravel.

“Cheryl,” Bertha breathed, her name a small lantern in fog.

“But I can’t,” Cheryl said, the restraint tight as a knotted cord, “Priest John said, ‘A person can, for their own reasons, wound feelings, wreck bodies, or make others unwell.’”

“I can’t become that person,” she finished, the resolve set like a stake in earth.

Sister Bertha closed her eyes, sinking into memory like a stone into deep water, recalling when Priest John mistook Cheryl for Melvina.

Back then, his heart was split like a cracked bell: he knew Melvina would leave Naghtown for her crime of Dark Magic, a road like exile under cold stars.

He knew that choice barred her from his last days like a locked gate, and from his funeral like a shuttered door.

His silence was meant as a shield like a raised arm, to keep her future from a stain, yet that silence cut her heart like a hidden blade.

In those final days, guilt gnawed him like rats in the walls, and taking Cheryl for another girl was a scrap of comfort like warm coals in frost.

“John,” Sister Bertha opened her eyes, the name soft as falling ash, “also hurt someone’s feelings.”

“Like you hurt mine?” Cheryl asked, the question straight as an arrow.

“Cheryl, you can become a Holy Maiden,” Bertha said, the certainty firm as a stepped stone.

“So you trained me into this,” Cheryl said, anger flaring like dry straw catching, “till everyone thinks I’m Melvina, making me her stand-in?”

“I’ve explained the cause,” Bertha said, the reason plain as daylight, “Melvina’s temperament best fits a Holy Maiden.”

Cheryl stood and limped toward her like a wounded wolf, step by step, “So you tailored my training to hers like stitching by a pattern?”

“I did so much and swallowed so much bitterness like bitter tea, only to end up not being myself?”

“You always hide in corners when you talk to the townsfolk,” Bertha said, the observation light as dust in sunbeams.

“Didn’t you say I’m the least fit to be a Holy Maiden?” Cheryl shot back, the fear sharp as frost, “I’m scared they’ll see my changes and speak ill.”

“No one will belittle you,” Bertha said, the comfort gentle as warm milk, “You’ve set yourself too low like a shadow at noon.”

“It’s because you all like Melvina,” Cheryl said, the grievance heavy as rain, “Even if she’s cold to the Sacred Cathedral, you’ll bend and paste on smiles.”

“You can tell the townsfolk you’re not Melvina,” Bertha said, the suggestion simple as a path through grass.

“Will they accept me?” Cheryl asked, the doubt dark as a storm bank.

“We’ve all seen your change,” Bertha said, the witness clear as footprints in snow.

“Won’t you say I’m faking it,” Cheryl asked, the fear thin as wire, “doing it just to be a Holy Maiden?”

“Why think that?” Bertha said, the question soft as moss, “Cheryl... do you... look down on yourself too much?”

Cheryl grabbed Sister Bertha’s collar and hauled her up like lifting a bundle, her voice vicious as a winter wind, “You hid this for so long.”

“You fed me damned training till I looked more and more like Melvina, so of course people assume I am Melvina!”

“That’s because Melvina—” Bertha began, the word fluttering like a startled bird.

“Got it!” Cheryl snapped, the words brittle as ice, “Alina Cheryl isn’t fit to be a Holy Maiden!”

The moment the words fell like a dropped mirror, a hollowness drained her like a gourd poured dry.

“I trained so long,” she said, the breath faltering like a dying ember, “just to prove I could be a Holy Maiden... and you still only choose Melvina.”

In the autumn of Cheryl’s nineteenth year, defeat hit her like a tornado flattening a wide prairie, fierce and all-consuming as wildfire.

Under that wind, she made a self-destructive choice like stepping off a cliff to spite the sky.

Everything began from that moment like a match to tinder, and almost ended there like a candle snuffed by its own smoke.