Plot Overview

Marie Lazarre walks up the hill to the Sacred Heart Convent Church with a black-robed woman. Marie goes to the Convent for the first time to pray and she describes how the sisters need to accept her. The sisters of the Convent ignores and despises Marie because she is a girl from the reservations, and she don't have much Indian blood in her. Also, she finds herself to look whiter than the rest of the women. Marie doesn't really acknowledge her own race and she wants to be someone else or better.

Later, Marie arrives at the old Sacred Heart Convent on the highest hill and she sees buildings that are painted white, broken windowpanes, and broken fruit trees. After she enters the poor building, Marie is introduced to Sister Leopolda. Sister Leopolda uses a long oak pole used for opening high windows and she will use it to punish the the kids. She will use the hook pole to hit them in the back or the head. Later, she hears stories of the "Dark One" in the closet. Marie feels so interested and she wants to take a peek at the back black closet. Sister Leopolda later realizes the situation and she invites Marie to the back door.

Marie told sister Leopolda that she will inherit the keys but sister gave her a strange look. They travel to the food storage that included dried fruit, orange peel, spices, flour, pigs, cheese, and etc. Sister Leopolda explains that the food is for the priests and she says several mean comments to Marie that she will never have the chance to eat the cheese until she is good, dead, or gone. They start to make bread and Marie accidentally drops the cup on the floor. After, she is told to pick the cup up Sister Leopolda stepped on Marie's neck with her feet and poured hot water on her.

 Feeling contempt, she wants to push Sister into the oven but she fails. Sister Leopolda hits Marie's head with a poker, stabs her hand with a fork, then Marie faints from a lost of consciousness. After Marie is awake, she sees the four sisters to be cornered around her praying. In the end, Sister Leopolda tells the other sisters that Marie fainted from poison and the other sisters eventually believed her. The sisters concludes that Marie's claim about Sister Leopolda was not true or reliable.