Where the Sun Sets Read Online Free PDF Page B

been here?’ There was a clock directly over the
registration table. Just past nine p.m. Over three hours. ‘Why was
she still here?’ She remembered she was supposed to wait for
someone. Who, she couldn’t remember. Her head was starting to hurt
again. She saw a sign for the restrooms across the room and headed
over to it. After using the facilities she came back into the lobby
where she noticed a large cross hanging from the wall, directly
above where she had been sitting just minutes ago. The figure on
the cross seemed to be staring right at her. To her right was a
small sofa. She went to it and laid down. Pulling her legs up, so
that she was in almost a fetal position, Josephine looked back at
the cross again.
    Still the figure watched her, accusing her.
In her mind’s eye, Josephine saw flashes. Flashes of memories she
had long since forgotten. The flashes started with a large cross,
much like the one she was looking at in the lobby. Flash, a cane
pole. Flash, the cross. Flash, a broken statue. Back and forth,
these flashes kept coming, then from somewhere in the distance, a
voice, a stern, angry voice and the sound of a crack, the sound of
the cane pole hitting something. Josephine squeezed her eyes shut
as tightly as she could, trying to block all the intrusions. A
sharp searing pain shot across her temples, and once again she was
thrust into the fog.
     

Chapter 4
     
    Josephine found it difficult adjusting to the
strictness of St. Agnes. She was not used to rules and regulations.
The single fact that there was no television anywhere on the campus
baffled her. She spent weeks searching for one. Antonia, on the
other hand, was always reading, so having nothing else to do didn’t
bother her at all. Josephine was constantly bored and found the
fact that her friend did not share her boredom, aggravated her to
no end. So she started to entertain herself.
    She took things from the other girl’s rooms
and hid them throughout the buildings, just for fun. After about a
month the game got old, for Josephine as well as everyone involved.
Antonia, being the poor girl who never owned anything, was
repeatedly blamed and punished for the disappearances. She was
banned from interacting with anyone for a week. She had to eat
alone and study alone. She was not permitted to go to classes and
had to sit in the maintenance building while she did her school
work. She also had to sleep in the infirmary.
    When Josephine asked her why she didn’t deny
taking anything, Antonia would simply say that she knew she did not
do it and that was all that mattered to her. But Josephine didn’t
like being without Antonia. She grew angry and thought that Antonia
took the punishment, just to hurt her.
    Sister Katherine seemed to have a bitter
taste in her mouth for Antonia. She was harder on Antonia than she
was with any other child. Everyone saw the dislike. Everyone it
seemed, but Antonia. She never seemed to notice. She never seemed
to care.
    Sister Katherine would randomly pick a girl
and make her stand and recite passages from the bible. If the girl
did not know the passage, word for word, Sister Katherine would
make her write it one hundred times. Once she had Antonia in her
sights, she never asked anyone else. But Antonia never slipped up.
She had read the bible, front to back. It was what she did. She
read. She read everything. So on the day that Sister Katherine
requested she recite a specific passage, in Latin, Antonia stunned
the whole class by obeying perfectly. Sister Ursula sat off in the
corner of the room, smiling proudly to herself. Sister Katherine
was furious. She accused Antonia of trying to humiliate her in
front of the class. For punishment she was made to kneel on a cane
pole, in the front of the class, for the remainder of the school
day.
    Together, Josephine’s antics and Sister
Katherine’s hostility made daily life a puzzle for Antonia. She
never knew what each new day would hold for her. But by the time
the girls had