It began as a distraction. A presence in the pews, a new girl who sat beside her grandmother and never lifted her voice in song. Eleanor told herself she noticed only because she notices everything; order requires attention.

But the noticing persisted. The girl’s stillness drew Eleanor’s gaze in the same way a candle draws the eye in a darkened church — not because it burns bright, but because it exists in defiance of the dark. There was nothing flamboyant about her: no painted nails, no loudness, only the unsettling quiet of someone who feels nothing she ought to feel.

That quiet started to live in Eleanor’s mind. During the rosary, her thoughts would drift. In the mirror, she would wonder what the girl saw when she looked at her: a woman of composure, or a hollow figure of faith. Eleanor’s prayers became confused things — part confession, part interrogation. She would whisper deliver me from temptation, though she could not name what the temptation was.

Her fixation turned into ritual. She found herself arriving early, choosing a seat where she could see the girl’s profile, telling herself it was habit. She began to write notes for sermons she would never give, words about purity and discipline, all circling a single unnamed sin.

At night, she dreamt not of touch, but of recognition — the terror of being seen through. The girl’s quiet presence stripped away Eleanor’s practiced sanctity; it made her faith feel performative, her self-control a costume.

What frightened Eleanor most was not the girl’s youth or difference, but that she felt understood without ever having spoken. That kind of understanding was unbearable.

So Eleanor resolved to crush it. She fasted more. She added another hour to her prayers. She walked the cold streets after vespers until her shoes bled. Every act of devotion became a counterweight against a feeling she refused to name.

But repression has gravity. Each denial only deepened the orbit.