Kelly Fisher

The Convent on Blackmoor Hill

I remember the first time I stood gazing up at the convent on Blackmoor Hill. I was barely seven years old and I was helping my mother take some tinned food to give to the nuns’ foodbank collection. I stared up at those towering stone walls so dense and macabre, it reminded me of a prison I’d seen on TV. We couldn’t even go all the way into the convent, just into a long corridor which led to a hatch in the wall where we could leave our donations. I tried to peek through the gap at the nuns, desperate to understand why they remained hidden behind that wall. I never saw them, just a slightly withered hand, sweeping the box of donations away and behind the hatch.