Chapter 1
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Only a few more days and Hannah Glouster would turn twenty-six. And after a quarter of a century, it seemed her future was finally set, and in a year she would be living full-time in the Poor Clares Monastery, training to be a nun. She would not be able to leave to see family and friends, run errands, jog to the beach or stop into the local grocery market. Looking at it from that perspective was alarming in every way, so Hannah took a deep breath and thought about her dreams. Since a young child she had always wanted to help others and live a pure and clean life. Church had always been one of her favorite places. Although her friends and family were very disappointed with her choice, she was sure this was her path in life. She would help those around her and spread God’s word.
Her wet hair wrapped tightly in a towel twist, she stared intently into the wide mirror on the wall of the small group bathroom. Nothing to write home about, she thought to herself. Her shoulder-length, tousled dark brown hair framed vivid hazel-green eyes, a pert nose and full round lips. She frowned as she scanned down her body. Her curvy body, full breasts and tiny waist had always embarrassed her. She pirouetted about and looked at her backside, annoyed with her rounded bottom. She jogged nearly every day in the hopes she would end up with a more boyish figure, but as of yet, she’d had no luck at all. She tightened her robe again and sighed. If only things could be easier.
Her parents had moved to Vancouver, British Columbia several months ago, and without a work visa, it was pointless for Hannah to move with them, although she felt lonely in their absence. So Hannah had recently entered the Poor Clares Monastery in Santa Barbara, California. Her father’s sister, Hannah’s Aunt Katherine, was the Mother Abbess at the monastery. Understanding Hannah’s life goal was always to be a nun, she had allowed her to move into the monastery, although it would be nearly a year before Hannah could prove her vocation and enter. She paid her room and board by working for Poor Clares and the mission, and on a moment’s notice, could be sent on any errand or job.
Aunt Katherine had always been Hannah’s favorite aunt. Only Katherine had ever really understood Hannah’s empathy for the poor and her need to help others and how it opened her heart and gave her joy. Countless times, Katherine had taken her to the Santa Barbara Rescue Mission, where they had volunteered serving dinners together while bonding. Spending family summers at their Lake Tahoe house as a child, she and Hannah had happily watched every single video of The Flying Nun, an ancient TV show her parents owned on DVD. They had laughed through Sister Act 1 and Sister Act 2, Whoopi Goldberg’s singing nun movies.
When Hannah turned thirteen, Katherine gave her The Assassini, a novel by Thomas Gifford, and she had fallen in love with it. A fictional novel, it took place in 1982 with Jesuit-trained lawyer Ben Driskill trying to solve the murder of his younger sibling, Sister Valentine, an outspoken activist in the church. The details about the strength, life and vitality of fictional Sister Valentine in Rome pushed Hannah even more into religion. Then just five years ago, Hannah had read an amazing story about the Italian actress, Olalla Oliveros. At the height of her career, this top Spanish model gave up everything, including her marriage, to enter the semi-cloistered Order of Saint Michael and become a nun. To Hannah, this final piece confirmed that she was meant to be a nun.
But nuns and sisters are not the same. Unlike active sisters in the church, nuns live tightly enclosed in monasteries and pray from dawn until after midnight. Not yet a cloistered nun, Hannah could work at the monastery or do errands outside and still live there. Right now Hannah could wear normal clothes instead of the standard habit and wimple seen on nuns. When eventually accepted into Poor Clares, Hannah would no longer have the freedom of leaving and working outside but would live and pray at the monastery full-time, only able to see outsiders through a grate or thin bars.
Hannah left the bathroom, went back to her small room and quickly dressed in her work clothes. Already done with early mass and a sparse breakfast, she checked her chore list. Sewing and ironing were next; neither of which she excelled at. Hannah had only the most rudimentary of household skills, and although she’d been studying in the order for nearly three months now, she’d barely improved any of them. Trying not to grumble, she headed downstairs and entered the workroom, then walked over to the workbench she had left in a mess last evening. There was a folded note on the bench addressed to her, and as she opened it her heart sank.
“Dearest Hannah,” it began. “Your work as I viewed it today was sloppy and unfocused. Please re-iron the entire pile of clothes on your bench. And please make sure it meets the community standards I have gone over with you multiple times. Yours in God, Sister Ann.”
Hannah’s face fell, and a tear trickled down her cheek. She would never finish her first year before becoming a candidate at this rate. (A candidate is someone who takes the first step in religious life before entering the novitiate and receiving the habit.) Exhaling, she turned on the industrial iron and put the first shirt in the pile on the ironing board.
Pay attention, Hannah, she told herself angrily. She set to the ironing with fervor; she’d make these clothes look brand new today.
