Chapter Eighteen
The convent stood atop a gentle rise, nearly devoured by the midday fog.
They had left Mokasset behind like a fading dream, its gilded towers distant in the pale horizon.
The tenebrous parks and quiet residential blocks of Brookheim melted into mist as Wapanoak unfurled before them.
Rostburg’s smokestacks bled into low-hanging haze, giving way at last to the derelict outskirts of Ebonridge, where cracked streets groaned beneath the weight of rot and ruin.
Here, the buildings hunched low to the ground, squat and anonymous, their humble facades scarred with age and grime.
Houses sagged toward each other like drunks clinging for balance.
Everything felt half-condemned, yet stubbornly alive.
A district forgotten by city planners, poor and festering, where shadows clung to your boots and the air reeked of mildew and wet wood.
The wrought-iron gates creaked open, hinges shrieking under decades of rust. Beyond them stretched an uneven cobblestone path, half-sunken and slick with moss, winding through a grove of cadaverous trees bowed inward by wind and time.
Tangled brambles clutched at the lane’s edge, and blackbirds scattered from the crooked fence posts like startled omens.
At its end loomed the convent—a grim, timeworn structure, its outline jagged against the colorless sky.
Ivy and lichen clawed up the walls, nearly swallowing scores of arched windows and jutting chimneys.
Rain-darkened granite bore the scars of weather and neglect, the once-sharp lines of its medieval architecture softened by erosion and decay.
The central bell tower was a blackened fang soaring up, its spire sharp and defiant, the bell within hanging dormant.
Rick parked the car beside a crumbling fountain choked with dead leaves. No one came to greet them. The only sounds were the wind rattling the branches and the soft tick of the cooling engine.
Frank glanced around. “Charming locale.”
Rick stepped out without comment. The place was creepy, all right, but he wasn’t in the business of flinching, and he didn’t come to feel things.
He came to find the truth. Shoes crunching damp shingle, he crossed to the heavy oak doors and hit the lion’s-head knocker three times, hard enough to wake the dead.
The crucifix above the vaulted portico had worn to near abstraction, Christ’s face smoothed away, arms pitted and flaking, more relic than redeemer.
Empty window panes stared out like blind eyes, and behind the mighty, bolted doors, silence pressed dense and unmoving, as if the building itself slumbered under some ancient spell.
At last, the door creaked open, revealing a lone nun, slight and still, her black habit stark against the fog. Her face lay mostly hidden beneath the veil, her eyes unreadable hollows in the washed-out light.
“Good day, Sister,” Rick said, holding up his badge. “Detectives Slade and Burton. We’d like a word with the Mother Superior.”
“What is this about?” she asked, her voice dry as old paper.
“We’re looking into something that happened a long time ago,” Frank said, vague but polite, standing beside Rick at the threshold.
The nun studied them for a breath, then stepped aside in silence and granted them entry. The heavy door thudded shut behind them, sealing off the world.
The entrance hall seemed colder than the air outside.
The slabs under Rick’s shoes felt clammy, as if they hoarded the chill of centuries.
A gloomier sort of afternoon waited here, caught in the Gothic vault and narrow slits of light that barely pierced the murk.
Countless columns lined the walls, their bases wrapped in shadow, their capitals spurting pointed arches that unfurled across the ceiling like the ribs of a fossilized dragon.
Rick noted the details without lingering.
He didn’t believe in ghosts, but the air had the stillness of a place used to them.
A brittle hush clung to everything, broken only by the soft tap of their soles on the flagstone floor and the occasional whimper of old doors somewhere in the distance.
Dusty sconces still bore slender wax stubs, a few flames shivering in the draft as they passed. Someone tended them. Someone cared.
They followed the nun down a long corridor.
Rick kept his pace steady, eyes alert, footsteps echoing loud enough to irritate his ears.
Every sound here felt magnified, as though the walls themselves were listening.
The scent of frankincense rode on top of something less pleasant: mold and decades-old dank, the breath of a tomb sealed too long.
The nun halted at a narrow door set into the stone. A brass plaque marked it, the letters too worn for Rick to read. She turned, her tone soft but firm: “Wait here.” She knocked once and slipped inside, vanishing in a rustle of black and white robes.
They waited outside the chamber, the cloister’s chill seeping under Rick’s coat and into his clothes. Across from them, a weathered niche held a statue of Saint Dymphna, her features softened by age, her eyes cast downward in eternal clemency. Someone had left a fresh white lily at her feet.
Frank let out a quiet breath, calm as ever. “It’s kind of peaceful, once you get past all the cold and judgment.”
Rick shifted his weight, scanning the shadowed corridor. “Yeah, peaceful like a graveyard. Only difference is the graves here still whisper.”
Frank gave a low chuckle. “And they say you’re an incurable grump.”
Rick’s mouth twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile. He checked his wristwatch—their breakfast was already a distant memory. “Can’t expect me to be pious on an empty stomach.”
The door creaked open before Frank could reply. The same nun stood in the frame, pale and unhurried. “Reverend Mother will see you now.”
The Mother Superior’s chamber smelled faintly of lavender and scorched dust, as if incense had long since burned down to its memory.
Shadows clung to the corners, thick where the pallid midday light couldn’t reach past the arched, iron-latticed window.
A wooden crucifix hung on the wall behind the desk, its Christ carved in raw, suffering detail, eyes rolled skyward, ribs like blades.
The Reverend Mother sat stiff-backed in a high chair that looked more throne than seat.
She was a tall, thin woman likely in her late seventies, her habit immaculate, her veil starched to a knife’s edge.
Age had not softened her, only chiseled her features sharper: hollow cheeks, a jutting chin, and eyes like frosted glass that watched them as if expecting to find fault.
Her hands, folded atop a large leather-bound Bible, were veined and liver-spotted, yet carried an undeniable authority.
As they stepped inside, the nun who had led them there bowed her head and withdrew, shutting the door behind her with a soft click.
Frank removed his hat with quiet respect and offered a courteous nod. “Reverend Mother.”
“Thank you for seeing us,” Rick said, mirroring Frank’s gesture under the old woman’s stare.
“Sit down, gentlemen,” she said, gesturing to two wooden chairs in front of her desk. Her voice was firm and precise, accustomed to command, not conversation. They sat. “Now. Tell me why you’ve come.”
Rick leaned forward. “We’re looking into a woman who lived here some time ago. Her name was Lily Costa. Otherwise known as Sister Mary.”
The Reverend Mother’s expression didn’t change, not exactly, but something tautened beneath it. A faint pull of the brow. A shadow in her sunken eyes. “I’ve seen many young women take the veil over the years, Detective,” she said. “I cannot say I remember them all by name.”
“This would’ve been around twenty-six years ago,” Frank added gently. “She died after giving birth to twins. A boy and a girl.”
The silence that followed had weight. Not awkwardness—remembrance. It settled like dust stirred from long-forgotten corners. The Reverend Mother lowered her gaze to her folded hands. When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. “I see.”
Rick reached into his coat, drew out a cigarette, and held it between his lips. There it was—the twitch of her mouth, the slight nudge of her Bible to the side. Not just an unpleasant memory. Guilt, maybe. Or something worse. He lit the match with a rasp. “So you do remember her.”
“I don’t recall giving you permission to smoke in here,” she snapped, stare sharp as flint. “This is consecrated ground.”
Rick froze, flame halfway to the cigarette. They held each other’s gaze for a beat before he shook the match out and tucked both items away. “Of course,” he said.
Beside him, Frank stifled a grin and glanced aside.
The Reverend Mother let the moment pass.
Then she stood, smoothing her veil with one careful hand before walking to the window, as if making room for something unwelcome.
The light hit her face at an angle, cutting one side into a silvered shadow.
“It was not a happy story,” she said at last, staring out at the courtyard.
“Most are not. The girl was very young, barely more than a child. She came to us from one of the poorer parishes near the docks, I believe. Father Donovan sent her here to… recover from an ordeal.”
“What kind of ordeal?” Rick asked.
“She’d been assaulted,” she went on, fingers tightening slightly on the window ledge.
“Raped. A horrific thing, of course. The trauma proved to be too much for the poor child. She was fragile to begin with—some girls are. Too gentle for this world. The pregnancy that followed was not something she was prepared for.” She paused, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the window glass.
“The mind has its limits. And hers had been pushed too far.”