Petit dragged a chair over to the smoke alarm, reached up to the ceiling and pulled off the cover. Yanked out the battery and tossed it down to Khoury.
Meanwhile, a pack of nuns had come up the stairs and crowded the hallway.
“Now what?” asked one.
“Should we call the fire department?” asked another.
“It’s nothing. We’ve had enough excitement today. Go back to your duties.” Mother Magdalen closed the bedroom door in their faces.
The little girls jumped up and resumed their dance, skipping while black smoke billowed from the wastebasket. “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies! Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!”
Again, they let go of each other and collapsed on the floor, giggling hysterically.
The abbess grabbed the girls one at a time by the wrist, yanking each to her feet and dragging her away from the metal can. “Get up...that’s enough...go sit down.”
The three adults hovered over the wastebasket, studying the smoldering contents. Because of the strong flesh odor, Khoury feared the girls had set fire to a small animal. A mouse or a bird. But all that was at the bottom of the container was blackened paper.
The abbess fell to her knees in front of the metal can, reached inside and withdrew an undamaged corner colored with pink scribbles.
“No, no, no,” Petit chanted.
“What did they burn?” Khoury asked.
The nun dropped the paper back in the basket. “Thank you for your help, Father. Please leave.”
Khoury wasn’t going anywhere.
Dressed in nightclothes, the children were lined up together on the lower bunk bed. The one on the left sat cross-legged and pensive, hugging a pillow in front of her while chewing her bottom lip. The girl on the right was motionless, her elbows propped atop her knees as she watched the adult drama in the middle of the room. The middle child – plumper than the other two - was swinging her legs over the side of the bed, rhythmically banging her heels against the mattress.
Khoury walked over to the girls and crouched in front of the bed. “Hello.”
The bookends ignored him, but the middle girl stopped bouncing.
“What was in the waste basket?” he asked evenly.
Icy silence.
“You can tell me,” he said gently. “I won’t get mad.”
The middle child leaned to the right and whispered something to that sister. The pair giggled.
“Make him go away,” said the one on the left, pulling up her knees and retreating to the other side of the mattress.
“He can’t do anything,” said the middle one.
The priest’s phone vibrated, and he took it out in the hall.
Rossi: “You’re not going to believe what happened at the hospital.”
He peered inside the room. Crouched in front of the girls lined up on the bed, the abbess was talking in a low voice. The middle child kept nodding and giggling. Petit was orbiting around the wastebasket, shaking his head and mumbling.
“Try me,” Khoury said.
“Sister Rose. Her corpse...”
His hand tightened over the phone. “Yes.”
“It caught fire and burned.”
“What do you mean? Did someone light a...”
“No one touched it. I was right there when it happened. No one touched her.”
“How?”
“The pathologist was getting ready to do the autopsy. The body was laid out on the table and it...it burst into flames.”
His eyes shot to the smoking wastebasket. That horrid smell. “I think I know what’s happening. It’s crazy, but...”
“Tell me.”
His attention returned to the trio on the bed and the woman crouched in front of them. The nun shot a look at him over her shoulder, and went back to whispering to the girls. “You and Patrick need to be here, at the convent.”
“We’re on our way. What’s going on?”
“Not over the phone.”
“Be careful.”
His hand went up and touched the crucifix hanging from his neck. “I’ll be safe,” he said, and closed his phone.
Petit peeled away from the trashcan and went into the hallway. Snagging the priest by the elbow, he towed Khoury away from the bedroom door. “I gotta tell you, Father.”
“What’s wrong?”
The young man shook out his left hand. “It’s going numb on me. What does that mean? What does that mean? Maybe they’re fixing to set fire to me.”
“Who, Trey?”
“Who do you think?” Petit asked hoarsely.
“The little girls?” Khoury couldn’t believe it.
“Little witches. Little saints, too. I mean...I don’t know anymore. Can saints be good and bad at the same time? Can miracles be wrong?”
“What have they done?”
Petit held his left hand in front of the priest’s face. “They fixed me and another guy.”
“Is that why the crowd came here?”
“Mister P...” called a young voice.
One of the girls – the plump one - stood in the hallway, arms folded in front of her. Dressed in a pink flannel nightgown with ruffles at the bottom. Mismatched socks on her feet. One pink and one yellow. A pink barrette hanging crookedly from one side of her brown mop. His daughter would have had dark curls.
“What is it, Babette?” asked Petit.
“There’s someone at the door.”
“I don’t hear...”
A loud knock from the bottom of the stairs.
“Bring the blind lady,” said Babette. “Send her mom home.”
“Mother Magdalen doesn’t want those people inside.”
“I told her this one was coming. She wants her. She said it’s okay.”
Another knock. Petit headed for the steps.
Babette marched up to the priest, her arms moving stiffly at her sides. A doll in a military parade. “Mother Superior says you’re the merchant man.”
“I’m a priest.”
“ ‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls,’ ” she said in a voice that was both childish and mechanical. A doll’s voice.
One of the most beautiful parts of Matthew 13, and a verse that contained the English translation of his dead daughter’s name. Coincidence? It had to be. Otherwise, who was this child? Who could have coached her? Was this the work of the nuns? He looked toward the bedroom, where the mother superior was still hiding. The work of one nun in particular.
“Tell me something Merchant Man.” Her tiny face turned up to him. “Are you sure it’s a real pearl and not a fake?”
“The kingdom of heaven is real, child.”
“What if it’s not?”
“But it is,” he said. “It’s where we go after we die.”
“I’m not going to die.” Her small face clouded over. “I don’t want to. What if I don’t want to?”
“Everyone dies, Daughter.”
She grabbed the hem of her nightgown and started twisting it between her small hands. “Why are you saying that? Stop saying that. You’re scaring me, Mister.”
He went down on one knee in front of her. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
She let go of her gown and reached for his hand. “Want to bet?”
When her fingers tightened over his, the linoleum floor and putty-colored walls of the convent shimmered, as if the corridor was a reflection trapped in the surface of a pond.
The pond rippled, and the hallway was gone. She was gone.
Khoury straightened and did one turn. White walls surrounded him, but they stood in ruins. Crumbling plaster exposed wiring and plumbing and wood slats. Through one gaping hole, he saw another room. Overhead, most of the ceiling was missing, revealing a slate-gray sky. From the wedge of ceiling that remained dangled a chandelier, its crystals swaying and tinkling. At his feet, broken bricks and chunks of concrete with weeds growing between the piles. He heard water dripping, constant and loud. Another sound. S
omewhere amid the debris, a cat was trapped.
He stepped over a mound of masonry and headed toward the noise. A column of wood was propped against a corner of the room, and the crying seemed to be coming from behind the fallen beam. He lifted the board away and dropped it behind him. A heap of cloth was curled in the corner, and from beneath it he heard the mewing. He bent over the rags and picked them off, one after the other. When he thought he’d reached the last one, another one took its place. A magician, pulling an endless string of scarves out of his sleeve. Finally, he reached the bottom. He knew it was the last rag. It was covered in blood, and it moved.
As his hand was poised over the cloth, the creature beneath it whimpered. This was no cat.
He yanked off the rag and tripped backwards.
Beneath the towel was a female fetus, the umbilical cord still attached to the pink body. The infant’s head didn’t go with the rest of her. The hair was long and gray and the face was charred. The eyes were burned out and there was a hole in place of a nose. The blackened lips stretched into a wide, leering grin, displaying long, yellow teeth. In a woman’s voice, the infant said, “You’re going to hell, Merchant Man.”
Khoury closed his eyes tight and backed up until he felt something solid behind him. He heard a child’s laughter, and muttered a word in Arabic.
“Shaitan.”
Satan.
The priest opened his eyes to the convent hallway, with Babette standing in front of him.
“See? That’s all there is, Merchant Man. There is no heaven. It’s a big fake.” She spun on her pink stocking heel and went back inside the bedroom.
Khoury rubbed his eyes and peeled his back off the wall. The abbess was manipulating the girls, working them like puppets. He had to save them.
As he started for the bedroom, Mother Magdalen came out into the hall, closing the door hard after her. When Khoury approached her, she waved him away. “Go! This is our private business.”
“The girls...”
“Leave them alone.”
Down the hallway came Petit, a teenager clinging to his elbow. The young woman’s long, blond hair was pulled back from her face. As she drew closer, Khoury could tell she was blind. Her blue eyes were unfocused, giving the impression she was searching for something in the distance. She was dressed in a plain white blouse, a plaid parochial skirt, knee-high socks and brown loafers. The single chink in the Catholic school uniformity was the diamond tennis bracelet around her slender wrist.
The abbess met the pair halfway down the hall, said something in the young woman’s ear and took over from Petit, leading the girl the rest of the way.
Khoury intercepted them before they got to the girls’ bedroom door. “What are you doing?”
“My girls are going to help this young lady,” the abbess said.
The way she’d said My girls. As if they were trained dogs. “What are they going to do?”
Mother Magdalen tried to move around the priest. “Out of our way.”
Khoury stepped in her path. “Who are those girls? Where did they come from? Who are their parents? I’m not letting them near her until you answer.”
The blind teen finally spoke up. “Please. Let them heal me the way they healed Uncle Jim. His leg. I’ll do anything. I’ll...I’ll join the convent. I can pay. My family can pay. I’ll...”
“Don’t worry, Daughter,” said Mother Magdalen. “We’ll work something out.”
Khoury wasn’t thrilled with the sound of that.
The bedroom door popped open again, and Babette padded into the hall. The child wove around the adults and took charge of the blind teen. Khoury found something predatory about the way Babette’s small fingers tightened possessively around the teen’s trusting hand. That’s how the child had taken hold of him. Taken hold of his mind.
“Who are you?” asked the young woman, tripping along with Babette as her guide.
Rather than answer, she asked her blind companion, “Do you like cartoons? I’ll make it so you can watch cartoons with us.”
Khoury stepped into the doorway to block their entrance. Babette looked up at him. “I’ll draw you next. I’ll draw a bad, bad picture of you.”
“Draw? What does that mean?” Khoury asked Petit.
“It means you’d better get the hell out of the way, Padre,” said Petit.
“Please,” repeated the blind teen.
Khoury hesitated, and then moved aside.
The teenager and her young guide went inside the bedroom. The nun tried to follow, but the door closed and locked in her face. She tapped on the door. “Babette. It’s me...”
Khoury put a hand on her shoulder: “Explain the drawing. The girls. Who are they?”
The abbess pivoted around. “We’ve had enough of strangers today. You have to leave this house, Father.”
He looked toward the closed bedroom door. “They need my help.”
“They have a house full of women who love them. They don’t need you. We don’t need you.”
“What if they harm that girl?”
“How could three babies hurt anyone? You’re not making any sense.”
“But...”
“We don’t want an outsider sticking his nose in our business. Meddling.”
“I’m not leaving.”
She put a hand on each side of the doorframe and smiled tightly. “If you don’t, I’ll pick up the phone and call the sheriff. I’ll tell him you touched them inappropriately.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Petit stood off to the side, studying his feet. “Trey,” said the abbess. “Show Father to the door. I’m late for chapel.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He motioned with a tip of his head. “Come on, Padre.”
Khoury gave one last look over the nun’s shoulder, to the closed bedroom door. On the other side, voices and music. They had turned on the television. He heard childish laughter, and it raised the hair on the back of his neck. He turned and went with Petit.
The nun waited until the two men were ahead of her before deserting her station at the bedroom door. While she followed them down the hall, she continued giving directions to Petit’s back.
“Give him a loaf of bread as a parting gift,” she said pleasantly.
“No thank you,” said Khoury.
“But don’t talk to him.”
“No, ma’am.”
“After he’s gone, come back up here and stand watch outside the girls’ room, in case they need something.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Once on the main floor, the abbess stood at the chapel door watching Petit walk the visitor to the front. Satisfied the visitor was all but gone, she went inside for prayers.
While standing in the foyer with Khoury, Petit opened and closed his left hand. “Damn thing.”
“Trey, tell me what’s going on; I can help you.”
“What’re you gonna do, Father? Reverse the miracle? Don’t want that either.”
“What did the girls do for you exactly? How did they heal you?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“This other man, the blind girl’s uncle. What did they do for him? For his leg?” Khoury eyed a hunk of cardboard that had been taped over the broken window. “That crowd gathered for some reason. What did they expect to see?”
“Sorry, Padre. Mother Superior says I ain’t suppose to talk to you.” Petit pulled open the front door. Outside, the weather had taken a turn and it was pouring. Through the rain, the young man surveyed the driveway and yard. “Where’re your wheels?”
“I don’t have a car.”
“How’d you get here?”
Khoury wanted to stall Petit until his team arrived. “The deputies dropped me off. If you could call me a cab...”
He laughed dryly. “A cab out here. You’ll be waiting until next spring.”
“I could stay until the rain slows, and then...”
“I’ll drive you to town. Wouldn’t mind getting out of here after all t
he crap that went down today. Wait here while I get the keys to one of the beaters.” As Petit went down the hall, he shook out his hand.
Khoury saw the Suburban pull down the driveway. His two partners dashed up the front steps and he stepped out on the porch to meet them. After giving them the highlights of what had happened – the riot, the girls dancing around a wastebasket fire, the hallucination with the fetus, the blind teen brought over for healing - he let Rossi and MacLeod inside. They all agreed that whatever was afoot, it had its genesis at the convent.
Keys in hand, Petit came down the hall and spotted the new arrivals. “Who’re you?”
“Investigators,” said Khoury.
Rossi whipped out her identification wallet, held it in front of the young man’s nose and snapped it closed.
Petit took a step back and threw up his palms. “I’d better get Mother Magdalen to deal with this.”
“So she doesn’t mind getting pulled out of prayers,” said Khoury.
“Well...I wouldn’t say that.”
Rossi: “We can wait in her office.”
“Guess that’d work.” He opened the office door and all three went inside. “Father, what about your ride to town?”
“We’re going that way when we’re through here,” said Rossi. “We’ll give him a lift.”
Petit stood with his hand on the doorknob. “I’d better stay with you.”
“I’m a cop,” said Rossi, taking a seat on the couch and crossing one knee over the other. “What am I going to do? Rip you off?”
Petit eyed the priest. “I’m supposed to get him out of here.”
“We’ll make sure he behaves until we go,” said Rossi.
“Didn’t the abbess want you to watch the girls?” added Khoury.
Petit finally left them, with the door wide open.
Rossi waited a minute, jumped up from the couch and scoped out the hallway. Petit was immersed in conversation with a pretty, young nun. She gently closed the door and turned around to quickly scout the office. No computer. Not even a typewriter. Her eyes landed on a blank legal pad sitting atop the desk. “Patrick...”
“I can read your wicked mind, lass.” MacLeod went over to the desk and ran the side of a pencil over the paper, the shading revealing words that had been pressed onto the pad during an earlier use. “Poison!” he said excitedly, and continued shading. “Ant poison. Yeast. Sugar. Flour...A bloody shopping list.” He ripped off the page and shoved it into his pants pocket.
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