The Devil's Own Crayons

by Theresa Monsour

  “The other nuns...” said Khoury.

  “A bunch of sheep. They’ll fold without the boss there.” She opened her blazer and took out her Glock. Checked it.

  Khoury leaned away from her. “It’s a convent, not a crack house.”

  “Wish it were a crack house; I’d know what to expect.” She holstered her gun.

  “Should we be putting in a call to your mates in Chicago?” asked MacLeod.

  “I want a clearer picture of what’s going on,” said Rossi. “It’d be a tad embarrassing if we had them raid the house and come away with three little girls who just need to be put on Ritalin.”

  “I think it’s the nuns, not the wee little girls,” said MacLeod.

  “You didn’t see those wee little girls,” said Khoury.

  “Since you’re the only one of us who’s actually met the darlings, you can do their background check.” Rossi took out her cell and saw she still got a decent signal. Called up the photos. “You can read about the girls while Patrick and I take a hike and do a little spying.”

  Behind them, MacLeod clapped his hands. “Brilliant! Like on the telly.” He leaned between the two front seats. “Do I get my own gun?”

  “No!” Rossi and Khoury said in unison.

  “Just a wee one?”

  “No!”

  “Not a chance!”

  Rossi showed Khoury how to zoom in and enlarge the photos, to make viewing the files easier. As she handed him the phone, she came up with another chore. “Track down this miracle leg guy.”

  “Jim Schultz,” offered MacLeod.

  Rossi raised a brow. “Patrick, how did you...”

  “Told you. Overheard it, lass. Me and my big ears. We have a saying in the old country: Wide ears and short tongues are ...”

  “Whatever,” she said. “Call directory assistance, Ryan. Four-one-one. Get his number and give him a call. Tell him we’re...the newspaper. The Chicago paper. Tell him someone tipped us off about his leg. One of the rioters. Get as much as you can over the phone. If you think he’s legit, tell him we’ll come by later today and interview him.”

  “Got it.”

  “Call Nardini. Give him an update. Tell him about the note. They should check the bridge, in case something’s been left there again. Tell him...hell...I don’t know. Try to sound saner than I did over the phone.”

  “Right.”

  “If the abbess does leave, we’ll flag you. You’re gonna have to be the one following her. You’ll have to plow your way out of here and get back on the road. Drive like a maniac. You up for that?”

  “You should see me behind the wheel in Beirut,” he said with a grin.

  “Which way?” asked MacLeod, looking into the woods.

  “We’re about a mile northeast of the convent. I say we take a straight shot south into the woods and after about a mile, bang a hard right and head west.” She opened her door and dropped into a clump of bushes. “Lock the car after us.”

  “Maybe Ry Guy should get a wee gun,” said MacLeod, opening his door.

  “No one gets a damn wee gun except me,” said Rossi.

  “Be careful.”

  MacLeod extracted himself from the car. “Don’t worry about me, your holiness. I live by another wise saying from my ancestors: Better be a coward than a corpse.”

  The Scot slammed the door and the pair disappeared into the foliage.

  As the rain battered the windshield, Khoury pushed the lock button, and said a silent prayer for his partners.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  When she was positive they were gone, Mother Magdalen left her station on the porch. Before closing the door, she paused in the threshold to watch the rain and run through her worries.

  If the three interlopers weren’t who they claimed to be, who were they and what did they want with the girls? For that matter, who were the girls? If they cured the blind teen, that would make three miracles. For someone to be canonized, they had to perform two miracles – but after their death, when people prayed to them for cures. What would the Catholic Church make of three miracles credited to living children? Should the convent admit all the sick and maimed, and allow the girls to perform miracles for the entire world to see? Could she benefit from doing that? Would she still be the one in charge, or would the male hierarchy of the church step over her to take control? Would the church believe they were living saints, or would the groundwork that had been laid by Jehu’s group convince church leaders of the exact opposite? Perhaps it would be better to stay within the folds of Jehu’s group and go with their plan. But they hadn’t treated her well, either. And where was Jehu? Why hadn’t he contacted her?

  Her sense of mission and purpose had gotten lost in the tumult of the last few days. Too much had happened too quickly. Events should have unfolded gracefully, and with order.

  Grace and order. So necessary.

  “Mother?” asked a voice behind her.

  She closed the door and turned around. Armored in their black habits, her fearless little army remained at attention in the hallway. They were the epitome of grace and order, and the very sight of them energized her. “Thank you, Sisters. You did very well. I’m proud of all of you.”

  From the back of the pack, Sister Jane asked: “Who were they?”

  “I didn’t recognize the priest,” said another nun.

  “Don’t worry about them; they won’t be coming back.”

  “Was it about Sister Rose?” asked the tall nun who’d led the battalion. “Did they have news about how she died?”

  “They’ve determined she...fell asleep at the wheel, while driving to see her brother.” She looked out over the veiled heads. “Please return to your duties. We have bread to package.”

  After they shuffled away, she pivoted around and reached to turn the deadbolt.

  Instead of locking the door, she felt compelled to open it. Peering past the gray sheets of water, she saw a pale green sedan parked in the driveway. The driver’s door swung open and a man with long, white hair got out and headed for the house in strong, sure strides.

  As he set his feet on the porch, she opened the door wider. “I was just thinking about you.”

  “And I you,” he said as he walked inside.

  A gust of cold, damp air followed him into the house, and she shivered. The abbess closed the door to the rain and turned the deadbolt. She led him into her office and locked that door as well.

  He took the seat behind her desk and she found herself in the visitor’s chair, facing him. She didn’t know why, but she was terrified. Trembling violently, she knitted her hands together in her lap to try to calm herself. She longed to make a silent petition to God, but found her head a dark void; not a single word of prayer came to her. She wanted to reach up and clasp the crucifix dangling down the front of her habit, but couldn’t move her arms. For the longest time, they sat and stared across the desk at each other.

  “You’ve strayed,” he finally said.

  She opened her mouth to protest, and to barrage him with questions. Instead, she whispered two words: “Forgive me.”

  He sighed. “What am I to do with you, Mother?”

  Mother. When he said it, the title became an expletive. An obscenity. She tripped over an answer. “I’m not sure anymore. I don’t know what to do next. The girls...”

  They heard movement and voices out in the hall, and both sat still to listen. The front door slammed.

  “A young blind woman,” said the abbess. “That must have been her leaving with her ride. I wonder if the girls were able to help her.”

  “Did they want to help her, or was it your idea? You’ve had some bad ideas lately.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He propped his elbows on the desk. “Sister Rose.”

  How did he know? She brushed it off and defended herself. “I should have gotten rid of her a long time ago. She was a menace. A danger to our work and the girls. What if she’d made it to her brother’s house? What would the bi
shop have done?”

  “He would have removed you from your post and taken the girls from the convent. They would have been separated. Placed with different families.” He leaned forward. “So I don’t disagree she was a problem, but you waited too long to take action, and then you did it in such a high-profile, sloppy manner. Poor judgment.”

  “You didn’t give me a way to contact you. What was I suppose to do? Let the old woman turn us in?”

  “If you’d been doing your job, it wouldn’t have come to that.” He pointed at her. “It’s your fault. Her death is on your soul, Mother.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  He leaned back in the chair and looked across the room at the portrait of the Madonna with the Christ Child. “What good is a mother who can’t protect her young?”

  “I can protect them.”

  “How are you protecting them? They get rid of one problem, and your property fills with hundreds more.”

  “That mob didn’t get remotely close to them, and I handled it.”

  “To top it off, you welcome three enemies into the house. The worst of them makes it all the way to their room. Their bedside.” His upper lip curled with disgust. “That sickening man, so close to our daughters.”

  The so-called priest. How did Jehu know about him? “Who is feeding you this information? Did you enlist one of my sisters to spy on me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. They’d neuter anyone who tried to come within a mile of you.”

  She smiled. “That’s true.”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. Those people are a threat to the children, and you let them inside.”

  “They’re gone.”

  “They’ll be back. Let’s hear your plan, Mother. Are you going to hide in the chapel while the girls handle it again? Maybe you should retreat to the kitchen. Go bake some damn bread. Bake bread while Rome burns.”

  She spoke more to herself than to her visitor. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  He rambled angrily. “Christians love their bread, don’t they? ‘Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed them. Then he broke the loaves in pieces and kept giving them to his disciples to set before the people.’ How about that for a strategy, Mother?” He threw up a hand. “Break some of your precious bread and pass it all around.”

  “Tell me what to do,” she said numbly.

  “You wouldn’t wait for instructions before, and now you’re begging for them. I stuck my neck out for you. I told the others you were worthy...”

  “I am.”

  “After hearing about the public cremation of Sister Rose and seeing news coverage of the spectacle in your yard, they’re ready to get rid of the both of us.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Come up with your own plan. Get them somewhere safe and secluded so we can take them.” He brought the tips of his long, pale fingers together. “Whatever happens, Mother, don’t blame or credit me. I’ll tell the others it was all your doing. That’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it? Autonomy. Show us what you can do. Dazzle the hell out of us.”

  “God help me,” she whimpered to her lap.

  “God,” he sneered. He got up from the chair and went over to the window. Adjusted the blinds so the slats opened onto the outside. The rain. Coming down hard. Beyond the water, the woods. “I’ll wager they’re already back. Out there, watching this house. Waiting for you to try to leave with the girls.”

  “Those investigators? I watched them pull away. They’re gone, I told you.”

  “You’re a fool if you think that.”

  “The girls, they could do something.” She started to rise. “I could tell them to...”

  “Sit down,” he growled.

  She lowered herself back into the chair.

  “The girls know they’re there,” he said.

  “How do they know?”

  “They’re perfect. Their abilities are perfect.”

  “How can you possibly know what they can and cannot do?”

  “Past experience.”

  “You said that before. What are you talking about? What past experience? Who else did what they do?”

  Instead of answering her question, he turned his head from the window and glared with furrowed, angry white brows. “You’ve succeeded in doing something our own enemies couldn’t manage: You’ve robbed us of our prize. Three prizes.”

  Armed with white crayons, the three tiny fists moved in tight, robotic patterns. Small circles drawn clockwise. Inside of those, tiny circles counter-clockwise. The girls sat spaced apart on the round of Formica, each with a drawing tablet in front of her and box of crayons to her right. The television was blaring, a Disney cartoon shoved into the VCR. The trio paid no attention to the Dalmatians romping around the screen, and only a little more notice to the woman watching over their shoulders.

  “Good,” said the young nun. “But faster. You need to go faster.”

  Babette drew with her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth. Otherwise the girls’ faces and figures were the same. Glazed brown eyes. Damp, brown curls hanging over pale foreheads dotted with perspiration. Hunched postures. Under their arms, sweat stains the size of saucers darkened their pajamas.

  Every inch of the papers, covered with circles within circles. Clockwise. Counter-clockwise. Big circle. Little circle.

  Adeline paused to glance toward the window, shades open to the rain. The nun clapped her hands together. “Ada. Head down.”

  Babette used her sleeve to wipe a layer of sweat from her upper lip. “I’m tired.”

  Cecelia shook out her coloring hand: “I want to stop, Sister...”

  “No talking,” said the nun. “Work.”

  Beneath the circles, each of the girls had drawn a different figure: A tall, narrow man dressed in black and white, with a crucifix hanging from his neck. A red-haired woman in dark pants and top. A man in a plaid blazer, a yellow ponytail sticking out of his head.

  Khoury got a number for Jim Schultz and tried it. Busy. He’d try again later. Besides, he was more interested in the girls.

  Alone in the front passenger seat with the pounding rain providing the soundtrack, Khoury squinted into the small screen of Rossi’s cell and immersed himself in their life stories.

  Seemingly out of nowhere, the newborn triplets had turned up on the convent porch. There was no mention in the files of a note from their mother or of anyone stepping forward with an explanation for their abandonment. Nothing in the paperwork indicated that authorities had investigated the matter, either. They were soon split up, adopted by three different couples living in the Chicago area.

  Five years later, each child lost both parents in a series of accidents. First their fathers, and then their mothers. Stunning – and suspicious. Yet again, he saw nothing indicating authorities anywhere had questioned the bizarre coincidences. It was as if everyone who came near the triplets’ case was immediately fitted with a set of blinders. Most disturbing was the way in which their adoptive fathers had died. As he read their brief death narratives, one hand tightened over the cell phone while the other scribbled notes.

  Each tragedy took place at one of the wonders of the world. The Great Wall. The Colosseum. The Grand Canyon.

  He wrote a question to himself: Symbolic of the fall of man in the Far East, Europe and the United States?

  The first man – known to have health problems - died of a heart attack on the Great Wall, after claiming a woman in white had snatched his daughter.

  White. First horseman of the apocalypse.

  Before falling to his death from one of the windows of the Colosseum, the second father – a man known for his hot temper - challenged a foe in a red cape.

  Second rider. Red.

  The third victim – a photography buff filming at the Grand Canyon - had tumbled off a ledge while fighting off a black dog.

  Third horseman. Black.

  Those deaths weren’t accidents; the
y’d been carefully executed to follow Revelation. Missing was the fourth horseman. According to the book, he would be riding a pale green steed – and would be Death and Hades rolled into one. Nothing resembling such a figure was mentioned in the files.

  The girls were returned to the convent, where they turned six together. Khoury noted the date: The day after their birthday was when the ghost hands emerged. The day after that must have been when Trey Petit’s hand was healed, and when the other so-called miracles began.

  Their names:

  Babette. Adeline. Cecelia.

  Old-fashioned, but nothing ominous. He couldn’t tell if they’d been christened by the nuns, or by their adoptive parents. Regardless, he hadn’t given a thought to their diminutives until he spotted them at the very end of their files:

  Baab: A name made up of the second letter of the alphabet, the first letter, the first letter, and the second letter.

  2 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 6.

  To make sure he wasn’t making a mistake, he did the rudimentary math on the other two sisters.

  Ada: First letter of the alphabet. Fourth letter. First letter.

  1 + 4 + 1 = 6.

  C.C. The third letter, twice.

  3 + 3 = 6.

  6...6...6

  Revelation 13 did the rest of the math, for it explained the significance of 666: It is the mark of the devil.

  This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.

  Throughout history, lists had been drawn up. Possible identities of the Antichrist, based on numerical manipulations of their names. Hebrew characters have numerical value and it was believed that if you added up the Hebrew characters for Nero Caesar’s name, they totaled 666. Using the English alphabet, Hitler’s name added up to 666 if the letter A was assigned a value of 100, B was assigned 101 and so on.

  Computer programs were available on the Internet to match famous names to the devil’s number based on numerical manipulations. Hadrian and Caligula had made the list. So had a television evangelist and at least two American presidents.